Springtime colours in Salem...

A few photos from our walk through Riverfront Park in Salem..

Back home..

I was last in Oregon six years ago and it has always been one of two places in America that I've actually missed and yearned to see again (Mount Rainier in WA is the other and we will be going there in the next few days). As I drove across the state line from California yesterday, I therefore expected to feel a little excited but I wasn't prepared for the over-whelming feeling that I'd actually come back where I belong. I have a really strong affinity with America as a whole but Oregon firmly wedged itself under my skin the first time I was here and just reached a place in my soul that makes me feel a little more relaxed and at peace..as though I've found something rather than am rushing round looking for something. I don't know what it is about Oregon but I guess it's a combination of lots of different factors that just make this feel like 'my place' on the earth. The mountains, the forests, the skyscapes, the raging rivers and the feeling that nothing could ever really be too wrong with the world when you're surrounded by such natural beauty. Two of the people I care most about in the world too are here and that surely helps. My friend Flip is here and he has been the main 'constant' in my life through all of the trauma and change of the past six years. Sometimes he has just listened to me talk and put his metaphorical arms round me from all the way across a continent and an ocean but at others he told me to get a grip and just begin to be happy again...aka stop feeling sorry for myself and do something to make my life better. Mostly though, he has never let me down,  not in the six years that we've been friends. Who would have thought that an emergency visit to a dentist in the Oregon Cascades would have led to one of the most special friendships I have ever had?  More recently of course, there is another very special man who also makes Oregon even more of a wonderful place for me. As most of you know, words are never enough for me to describe what he means to me and what a difference he makes to my life so I won't even try. All I'll say is that being here in his house surrounded by all of the things that are so special to him and being taken care of so wonderfully by him just makes me even more in awe of the amazing man he is. Things in Oregon are not too shabby for Diane at the moment :)

Here are some pice of Mount Shasta, taken on our drive up through Northern CA yesterday: