Friday, October 19, 2007

Brookings, OR

This is Donald Christensen. He is 92 and we had a great talk today at McDonalds in Brookings, OR.
Fifty years old and flying a kite. I really enjoyed this. I've had the kite for 10 years and have only flown it about ten times. I hope to change that. It needs more use.
This is a stunt kite. I can do figure 8's and loop the loops and all kinds of neat tricks. I talked Kim into flying it but she said she didn't think she did very well. One of the neat things about it is that it is made of kite material - that's it. There are no spars to break. It is designed like my powered parachute and the wind keeps it open.
This is at the town of Port Orford. It is the only open water port on the Oregon coast and is one of six "dolly" ports in the world where recreational and commercial fishing boats are hoisted into and out of the water daily.
This is one of the beautiful Oregon shores we saw today. Hopefully we will go back and get pics tomorow if the weather clears.


Part of what we are doing is taking time – and that has its own rewards. Today we stopped at McDonalds in Brookings and met a very nice man. His name is Donald Christensen. He is 92 and we had a very nice conversation over lunch. He was born January 4th of 1915. We probably visited a half hour or so. Kim and I found him very interesting to talk to. It is a shame that people don’t take time to listen to people like this. He was a wealth of information – a walking history book. I really believe we enjoyed our visit as much as he did.

We saw some beautiful coast today but it was a bit rainy and foggy. We hope to take the car tomorrow and backtrack. There are 10 pull offs along the route and we plan to stop at them all. I had a good conversation with my mom and dad on the phone today and also with our son Ben, daughter Hannah and good friend Kevin Sommers. We haven’t had much phone service the last few days at our campground but today we moved to Brookings and we have service at the RV. Last night we were parked at the Winchester Bar RV Resort and the wind really rocked the coach! I awoke at 12:30 and Kim was in the kitchen making some tea. We looked over and our two neighbors were awake also. We went back to bed after about 20 minutes and fell asleep. I awoke at 2:30 and the wind was still. Last night a tornado touched down in Nappanee, IN. That is 20 minutes from where we lived. We got news today that our home church – Grace Community in Goshen called off church Sunday and encouraged all the people to show up in Nappanee and help with the storm damage. To us – THAT IS THE CHURCH! Jesus would rather have us out helping one another and showing our love than sitting comfortably when there is so much need. As our lead pastor Jim would say, “Great job Church!”

4 comments:

Mark Ayers said...

Mitch and Kim


If you two get to Sacramento stop by and fly with us here. I have a Para Ski PPC and there are a few more PPC's in the area. Enjoy your travels. We have a sod farm to fly from just a few miles from the KOA in west Sac.

I have some videos up on youtube.com look for "markinsacramento"

Mark
sacguy123@gmail.com

Mitch & Kim said...

Hello Mark, Sadly I sold my PPC before we left Indiana. I'm a private pilot and was BFI rated in PPC. I didn't get the sport pilot as I was selling my PPC. I guess that means my license has lapsed. If I get in the area, I would still like to meet you and see your PPC. Also, if you get a chance to see where we are at (from our blog), you might make some recomendations of what to see in the area. Thanks for writing.
Mitch

Anonymous said...

Hello, My name is John Beechy and I am a brother of Charlene Stoltzfus, wife of Lowell Stoltzfus in Goshen. My wife and I live in Salem, OR, and we are currently working at Port Orford during the week and comuting to Salem on weekends. We will be back in Port Orford Sunday evening, Oct. 21 and would love to hear from you if you are still around. Our cell phone will be with us as we drive out. # is 503-428-4794
Happy trails.

Mitch & Kim said...

Hello John, Thanks for writing! I used to own land that Lowell and Tim farmed and then I sold it to them. They are really nice guys. We will be moving to California today and if we could work something out, we'd love to. Let me know when you get home and if we're not too far apart, maybe we can get together.
Thanks, Mitch