My husband and I celebrated our 3-year wedding anniversary last month, with our first kid-free overnight trip! We stayed a night at the Wolf Creek Inn, an historic site in the Oregon State Parks system. More about that later, as well as the White Wolf Sanctuary trip that we and the kids took in August. But first, a big announcement.
If you’re friends with me in the real world or Facebook, you may know this already, but I thought I’d make it official on here, too. I went back to teaching! In my “Quick Update” post this spring, I talked about getting promoted to an account manager position at the insurance brokerage firm USI. There were some aspects of that position that I really liked, but it hit me all of a sudden that I really missed teaching after three years away from it, and I’d better get back into it before it was too late.
Fortunately, one of the schools I taught at before had a position come open for this school year. Now I’m teaching two classes each of 8th & 9th grade math, one high school math support class, and a credit-recovery World Geography class for 12th graders. I’m exhausted already from trying to get back into teaching and find my groove after three years out of it (and six years out of teaching regular ed classes). But also energized by getting to work with kids again! They are so fun! I’ve already gotten a drawing from one kid, and another kid and her mom donated a neat map-themed trunk to my classroom. There are tough days, but I feel more like myself now that I’m back in the career I trained for. Chris says I come home with more interesting stories. Certainly it’s more fun (and easier on my ADHD than sitting in a cubicle). I’m very grateful.
I’m also thankful to my husband for supporting my move back to teaching. It won’t be easy for me to balance work with family, but he will help. He is so great! We enjoyed taking time out of our busy lives for our little anniversary overnight trip to Southern Oregon a few weeks ago.
Wolf Creek Inn started out as a stagecoach stop on the Applegate Trail in the 1800s. Over the years, famous visitors have included Clark Gable and Jack London. The latter wrote a short story here, and they preserved his little room as a museum piece as well as named a the peak just south of town after him. We hiked it and enjoyed the views, although it looked like the Smoky Mountains due to the Moon Fire complex. The next day, we visited the nearby ghost town of Golden (also a State Heritage park in the Oregon State Parks system) on our way out. Speaking of ghosts, Wolf Creek Inn has embraced their alleged haunted status, so they have gone all out on Halloween decor. We even found Jack London, or at least a skeleton on the bed in his museum room! It was a little overwhelming. But the place kept its charm. The ballroom upstairs wasn’t decorated as Halloween-ish, and had big tables to spread out on, so we hung out up there to work on our writing and art.
Wolf Creek Inn is also an interpretive site along the Applegate Trail, complete with covered wagon and informational signs and a picnic table. A great spot to stop for a break on a road trip. We also visited a different Applegate Trail site in Myrtle Creek on the way down that was really neat. When I lived in Myrtle Creek many years ago, I didn’t know there was a hike you could do along the ruts of the trail! It goes up a bluff with great views of the valley and South Umpqua River below. In that area, we also stopped at Pizza Palace in Tri-City so Chris could see why his pizza restaurant reminds me of it, and ate lunch at Ken’s Sidewalk Café in Canyonville. I’ve shown Chris and the kids some of my old haunts in this area before, but it was fun to show him around a bit more without the kids. Wolf Creek Inn makes a great weekend getaway!
Speaking of wolves, on my birthday in August, we got to go to the White Wolf Sanctuary in Tidewater, Oregon. It’s up in the mountains near Waldport. The trip was thanks to the Summit Award I earned at USI. We made a loop of the trip, stopping to eat at a fisherman’s market in Newport and see the giant rock formations in the ocean at Seal Rock. We arrived at the meeting spot to get to the wolf sanctuary a little late, but fortunately they waited for us. It was a very educational and neat place. One of the wolves, Nukka , was the most friendly, letting us see her up close in her giant pen. She was beautiful. And she knew it. She would strut around and pose for us to admire her, reminding us of my cat Arwen. So cute! Thanks to USI for this experience!
This new (school!) year will be busy, so I may not get to write as much for a while. I’ve got a couple articles drafted and will get one of them out very soon (see below for preview). If you’re wanting some fall scenery ideas in the Eugene/Springfield area, be sure to check out my post of autumn photos from this past winter, a few posts ago.
Recently I’ve discovered a couple blogs that I think you’d enjoy. I’ll list them here along with websites and blogs from two very interesting local friends of mine.
http://www.walk-with-me.com – my friend Tyler’s website (with link to her blog on it). My next post is complete, and it’s about her fascinating life! She is an author and artist and led walking tours around the world for years. Stay tuned in a day or two for more about her, but if you can’t wait, check out her website.
jeromycilley.com – my former coworker at USI has had a very interesting life, too. He has some unique hobbies that he shares on his website/blog, including making music and hunting for animal skulls.
http://www.adventurouskate.com – Kate teaches women how to travel on their own.
http://www.thewanderingqueen.com – Michelle teaches women how to hike and backpack.
The Compass Rose Queen 