Stumped

Some of you will recall the giant redwood tree that loomed over the old family house in Mehama and that hung like a Sword of Damocles over Lisa's trailer when it was parked in front of the old house. Today I got to see for the first time what it looks like a year later after having been mostly cut down by order of Lisa's brother.

( Before and After Photos )

Because we were there so late in the day before we started taking photos, I couldn't exactly match the spot where I took the photo a year ago because the sun would have blinded the camera. We expect to drive through Mehama on our way out on Tuesday and we will try to see if we can recreate close to the exact angle and distance relative to the building so we can do a true before and after of the Mehama Giant.

Four and Out

Lisa and I had a vast number of errands to complete on Monday. In retrospect, not only am I very relieved that we started in the Lake Oswego area rather than backtracking from Stayton/Sublimity, but I rather wish we might have stayed a little further north the night before, possibly at the HIX in the NW Industrial Area of Portland.

( Kevin & Lisa's Tax-Free Tour of Oregon )

Finally, around 4 PM, we got to Submlimity, where we checked in to the hotel. We didn't unpack, however, but simply confirmed that we had the hotel room, turned up the air conditioning because we knew we were going to need it later, and headed on to Mehama.

( Return to Mehama )

I took a whole lot of photos of Mehama, and will try to take more on Tuesday on our way out, but there isn't enough bandwidth on the wi-fi here for me to want to try to upload them all. Maybe if we have a better connection at Klamath Falls Tuesday night, I'll get the photos online at Flickr.

Due to roadwork over OR-58, we've decided to take the slightly longer-and-slower (nine miles according to Google Maps) route over OR-22/US-20 through Bend. This will, however, make it possible for Lisa to possibly have a better chat with her father if her sister will allow it.

The Fall of the Mehama Giant

I wrote yesterday about how Lisa's siblings had the giant redwood tree completely removed, rather than just topped and trimmed the way Lisa suggested they do. (Lisa says the family had been topping the tree every 20-25 years; it was originally planted by her great-grandfather.) That entry has one of the better photos I've taken, showing the tree a few days before it was removed. Today I tried to recreate the angle and shot. I don't have it quite right, and do get a really comparable shot I need to spend time cropping the photos, but I did get some that area close.

( Here's one of the decent comparison shots )

More photos in the Flickr set, which will get larger as I process more of the photos we took over the past couple of days, assuming I can get over the heartache some of these photos are causing us.