7 September 2025

 

Helen and friends spent the long Labor Day weekend camping in Yellowstone. In the back row are Anne, Lily, Riley, Alex, and Whit . In the front are Gareth, AJ , Helen, and Rian.

One morning they woke up early to look for wildlife. They were rewarded with the spectacle of a grizzly bear fighting off a wolf pack that was trying to steal his bison carcass. They used binoculars to watch from a safe distance.

This is a photo of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

And a photo of a bison that is not part of a grizzly's meal.

Brandan made a decision earlier this year to step down as area medical director for Primary Care in Southern Oregon. He gave the organization several months notice to find a replacement director. His resignation was effective September 1. He will continue to see patients, working part time. We celebrated his half retirement by driving out to the coast on Sunday night. This is the view from our hotel room balcony.

We watched the sunset while we caught up with Helen, Abe, and Sofi.

We started Monday morning with a walk along the beach.

This was our first time staying overnight in Gold Beach. Like most of the Oregon Coast, the beach is amazing.

Our main event on Monday was taking a jet boat ride up the Rogue River.

Mornings at the coast are often foggy, but we enjoyed a warm day with clear skies.

We rode the mail route, which started 130 years ago to carry mail upriver 30 miles to Agness, Oregon. By the 1940s, people were catching a ride with the mail boat just for the scenery. Today the boats are a well loved coastal excursion, and they still carry the mail. We saw countless birds as we went, including a bald eagle, ospreys, great blue herons, egrets, cormorants, merganser ducks and Canada geese.

We got lunch at Cougar Lane in Agness, eating a table that overlooked the Rogue River. 

We skipped some rocks in the river while we waited for the return trip.

The ride back was a lot faster than the ride up. Our driver made sure everyone got splashed as he spun doughnuts in the river. The cool water felt good on a hot day and we dried quickly.

This is a view back up the river as we returned to the harbor in Gold Beach.

Our drive home went right past Stout Grove in the Redwood Forest so we took a short break to walk through the grove. Looking at the Redwoods never gets old.

This tree has an impressive girth.

Tuesday was Brandan's first day to experience his new half retired schedule. Prior to this week, Brandan worked on his administration tasks in the morning and had clinic in the afternoon. Now his mornings are free. Becky made Brandan gingerbread pancakes and caramelized pears to celebrate his first morning free from meetings (mostly free- it will take some time to fully hand off his job to the new director).

Tuesday was Becky's first day of school and Wednesday was the first day she had students in class. She forgot to take a photo of the first day of school, but her vice-principal stopped by her class and took some photos of the game students played on the first day of school. Abe taught us how to play a game called "That Escalated Quickly" this summer and helped Becky workshop a school version. The prompt on the screen says, "You're going back in time to give advice to your freshman self. What do you say?" Students suggested advice and ranked it worst to best. Some of the bad advice students thought of was very bad or just plain weird like "punch someone in the face every day" and "take a photo of your feet and send it to your counselor."

Our very best photo of the day came from a stranger who saw Gibson waiting for his flight in the Salt Lake City airport and texted Becky this photo. Gibson should have arrived in Kuala Lumpur about 45 hours after he left Salt Lake. We're looking forward to hearing from Gibson and learning whether his journey went as planned.

On Saturday we hiked to the headwaters of the Rogue River. We thought it would be a nice bookend to a week where we traveled the last 30 miles of the Rogue River on Monday. This is where the river begins, bubbling out of the hill in a few spots. This area is called Boundary Springs

The Middle Fork Fire, which burned from July of 2024 until late September, burned over Boundary Springs, killing all of the surrounding vegetation. It's a miracle of the cycle of life to see this location one year later and appreciate the green plants and wildflowers that have sprung up wherever the water reaches. 

Within a hundred yards the springs combine to form this beautiful waterfall. And from here the water continues to flow until it reaches the Pacific Ocean.

Abe helped at a service project clearing trees at a park on Saturday morning.

Then he went to the BYU/Stanford game Saturday night. BYU won.