Adventures in Moving: Revisiting the First Leg of the Journey

November 12, 2015

After our first trip to Disney World together in 1999, we longed to move to Florida. Little did we know that our first interstate move, from San Francisco to Oregon, would be the first leg of the journey that would take us to Florida twice, Las Vegas twice, Oregon 3 times, and back to the SF Bay Area.

You leave a little piece of your heart in each place, so we can’t help but reminisce about some of the stops along the way, especially when we’ve owned a home.

Recently, we were remembering our first home in the NW Portland area on that first move. This is where we got our first 3 kittens (Skipper, Buddy, and Lovey) and, most recently, Shadow.

Looking up that home online, we discovered it had been sold about a year ago and the photos were still online. We saved the photos, of course, and wanted to post them here.

It was fun to see what they’d done with the townhouse since we owned it – some improvements we’d hoped to make: wood floors and grass in the backyard. They also put in bookshelves flanking the fireplace, but, unfortunately, that took away some of the living space, making for an odd layout (certainly with their furniture), combining 2 rooms into 1.

It was a great starter home for us, fresh up from the Bay Area where, like so many, we lived in a rental apartment. It was a thrill to move to a place where we could build and customize a new home, even if it was a townhouse. It was perfect for us back then.

Elvis, Tom Jones, and my BFFs

June 24, 2011

Happy birthday, Elvis! In honor of the day, I posted this short on YouTube from “Vegas Nights” on the Carnival Mardi Gras. I’m also going to highlight an excerpt from “Elvis, Tom Jones, and my BFFs.”

Carol’s parents drove their Buick Riviera through the desert from southern California to Las Vegas every August and would stay at the Tropicana. And when Carol reached a certain age – 13 or 14 – she was allowed to invite a friend along. The first friend to go was our friend, Beverly. And I still remember my excitement over the postcard they sent me with a picture of the Folies Bergere.

Carol invited me to go to Vegas with her the next year to see Elvis at the International, but I had to turn her down because my family moved to Oregon. But Beverly got to take my place and I eventually saw Elvis in Portland. And, later, as an adult, I stayed at the Tropicana several times and saw the Folies Bergere several times as well.

I also saw Tom Jones a couple of times, too. Anyway, here’s the Tom Jones story Beverly shared with me.

I think it was at the Desert Inn and we saw it two years in a row.  It was Pizazz.  It was like a Broadway review.  Lots of dancing and singing.  I don’t remember it being a story, more like different acts somehow put together.  Probably a typical Las Vegas show at that time, very flashy.  We always sat in a booth (Carol’s Dad tipped big) and of course those were in the back.  Tom Jones was in the booth next to us. Carol says she doesn’t remember much but she does remember putting a hole in her dress with her thumb trying to rearrange herself to get a better look at Tom.  She remembers her dress was the one she wore to the Willard graduation.

Oh, Carol, I can just see you doing that right now. I so remember us squealing over Tom Jones when he first came out. And how my mother, more of an Elvis fan, said, “He walks like a horse.” lol!

Her comment didn’t stop us from thinking he was pretty exciting.