November 26, 2024
In Portland, Part 1
Mon, 11/27: Your wellness tip for the day
I haven’t really talked much about the symptoms of whatever I’m ailing from, but they match pretty well with those of a sinus infection and sinus headache. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a sinus infection or headache so it’s a new experience for me. Lucky guy that I am, headaches of any kind are a rarity with me; so it’s very unusual to have had one for most of the last four or five days. Most of the time it’s been pretty mild, something that sits there in the background that I can pretty much ignore; but there have been a few times when it’s been much worse, as painful as any headache I’ve had in my life. It’s caused me to think with great sympathy for folks that periodically suffer from migraines. I think I can imagine now just the least bit what that must be like.
Last night was the worst, a horrible dull pain across the width of my forehead and behind my eyes. Impossible to ignore or sleep through, and frightening really as I wondered if it would ever end. And it was startling how much worse it was than just a few hours earlier.
Lying in bed trying to not moan too loudly and disturb Rachael, it somehow occurred to me to wonder if there was any relationship between sinus headaches and alcohol consumption. I’d gone out to dinner at Justa Pasta a few hours earlier, enjoying a salad, lamb lasagna and a glass of barbera. it wasn’t long after I got home that the severity of my headache began, so I decided to research it.
Bingo. I found several references saying that alcohol consumption can aggravate sinus headaches, and that the additives in red wine specifically might even make it worse. So there’s your wellness tip for the day: based on my experience anyway, drinking and sinus headaches don’t mix.
Tues, 11/26: the big reveal
I can’t take it any more. I just have to tell someone what we’re doing in the coming months, so it might as well be you. I don’t think you’ll be surprised, because this year’s plan looks quite similar to last year’s plan, and like the one before that. We seem to be caught in a rut here, but it’s a rut that works well for us: take our time driving down to Tucson, hang out there for a spell, take our time driving back.
There’s a logic to our situation that causes one Winterlude to look like the rest. One is that we need to spend a certain minimal amount amount of time in Portland at both ends of this winter migration: time enough to pick up the car and a mountain of mail, catch up with a few folks, visit the dentist, shuffle through the storage unit, that sort of thing.
Another is that after being spoiled by hanging around in the Mediterranean for the last few months we aren’t all that keen to spend overly long in Portland during winter and the early spring. This year surprisingly is looking pretty good, with more dry days than we expected - but they all feel much colder than we’ve grown accustomed to and we’d just as soon head south and get warmed up.
Another is that at this time of year there’s really only one good driving corridor unless we want to buy snow tires or chains for the car and deal with winter weather: down the coast to Southern California somewhere before bending east toward Tucson.
And another is that we don’t really like driving more than five or six hours a day, so we chop up the long drive into roughly 300 mile chunks.
It’s always a puzzle trying to work out where we want to break the drive this time, who we want to check in and visit, and where we’d like to linger for a while for some activity. This year’s solution:
- Nov 22-Dec 5: Portland
- Dec 6-8: TBD, but probably Crescent City and Half Moon Bay.
- Dec 9-14: at an airbnb in San Luis Obispo
- Dec 15-17: Borrego Springs
- Dec 18-Jan 28: Tucson
- After Jan 29: TBD, but we’ll probably take about two weeks driving north through California again, and another two in Portland before heading back overseas.
So now you know. And if you think we’re likely to be in your neighborhood and would like to get together, drop us a line. We’re always up for a visit if we can arrange it.
Wed, 11/27: new camera!
We both slept poorly last night and woke up early this morning. My issue is with my continuing sinus infection and headache, the symptoms making it difficult to sleep. Rachael had multiple problems. One was that my restlessness disturbed her off and on, but the main thing is that both of her arms hurt and she has to lie on her back because of it. They hurt because the day before yesterday she had a doctor’s appointment and received Covid, influenza, pneumonia and shingles vaccinations. Four shots at the same time! It’s like being inducted into the military! Two days later, both arms still hurt.
And I have to get up early because I have a 7:00 AM date with the dentist. I was in for my annual exam yesterday and was sent home with a bad report card and two additional appointments: one this morning for deep cleaning on the right side of my mouth, and the other for the left sometime next week. It’s not an ideal start to the day, but at least the anesthetic wore off quickly and I was able to go out for coffee and a pastry soon after I got back to the apartment.
It’s cold but dry today - a high in the mid-40’s and a low near freezing - which is the same forecast as every day until we leave town. This isn’t biking weather for me, especially since I’m still dealing with my sinus infection; and it’s not really attractive walking weather for Rachael either, especially since we have a good workout room in our condo that she’ll make use of later today.
In spite of the cold I’m getting out on foot though, because I’m still trying to find that 300th bird of the year. More importantly though, I want to test out the new camera that just arrived last night that I hope will get me there and maybe to an even higher total next year. For quite a while now I’ve been considering getting a camera with a more powerful zoom than the 30X ones I’ve been using really ever since CycleBlaze sprang to life. I’ve finally done it, and yesterday the new camera arrived in the mail: a Canon SX70, with a 65X zoom. It’s a so called bridge camera, somewhere between pocketable point and shoots and high powered, heavy, expensive SLR’s with the sort of gigantic lenses that the serious birders lug around.
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I’m of course anxious to try out my new camera and its impressive 65X zoom, and to see what it feels like in use. It’s so much bigger than what I use now that it won’t play the same role - it won’t fit in my shirt pocket obviously, so it won’t work for the spontaneous shots that I take most of the time. It’s really just for the birds, something I envision throwing in my rucksack when I go out to Sauvie Island or to Sweetwater down in Tucson on a birding outing. I don’t really know yet if it will go to Europe or not next year, or if it will be winter equipment, much as my Rodriguez is.
So to give it an initial test I threw it in the rucksack along with the ZS-70 and drove a few miles to Oaks Bottom, maybe the best birding spot in the inner city. I had quite a nice outing, spending a few hours slowly walking through the refuge seeing what came up. It was cold and crisp, but I was well bundled up so that wasn’t an issue. A bigger one was that I forgot to eat anything other than an almond croissant this morning and I was really dragging by the time I made it back to the car at around three.
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That’s all fine and good but how was the new camera, I’m sure you’re eager to know. So am I! As it turns out, the experiment was a total bust because I forgot to load the battery into the camera after charging it for the first time. So we’ll have to wait for another bird run to test it out.
Fortunately I had brought the other camera though, and it was a good day for the birds. 23 species, including three new ones for the year - all of which came as I was walking back to the car and thinking I was pretty much done for the day. We’ve only got a photo of the fox sparrow to show though. There’s no photo of the ruby-crowned kinglet, one of our tiniest birds, because he didn’t stay put long enough. And there’s no photo of the barred owl, because I didn’t see it. I heard it though - one of a pair of them leaking back and forth a ways off in the trees somewhere. The barred owl’s cry is so distinctive that there’s really no chance of mistaking it, and that’s good enough for me.
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** American crow, Spotted towhee, Black-capped chickadee, Downy woodpecker, Northern flicker, Dark-eyed junco, Song sparrow, Great blue heron, Great egret, Mallard, Gadwall, Wood duck, Hooded merganser, Common merganser, Double-crested cormorant, American coot, Northern shoveler, Ruby-crowned kinglet, Yellow-rumpled warbler, Pied-billed grebe, Barred owl (heard, not seen), Fox sparrow, European starling
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3 weeks ago
3 weeks ago
And, about those headaches! I find I get sinus headaches IF the weather is foggier! ( especially in the early mornings) ..
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