Another golden link...

I know it's been a while since I blogged.  I would tell you why but it would be like living it over and I'm not up to it right now.  Okay, I will say this much:  After Thanksgiving here at my house, it took 3 days to get the dishes all done.  Then it was 1) my husbands birthday, 2) a baby shower for which I did the decorations and some food, 3)a women's tea for which I planned, transported a van of 12, made a salad, 4) my daughter's party at our house for which I cleaned and got the Christmas decorations up including 2 Christmas trees with her help, 5) attended a Christmas open house 6)organized and officiated a soup- potluck-and decorating party at our church. 

That was one week.  

During that time I also lost my school keys, lost the church Christmas banners, and one other thing but I've forgotten what it is!

So I'm not caught up on reading my blogs yet, let alone writing them. 

Even though I know everyone else is talking about the delights of Christmas stuff, I want to tell you what I hinted at long ago, about another link in my "golden chain" of small fulfillments.

When we went to Reno for a nephew's wedding in October, finding the covered bridge we'd seen from the train on an earlier trip was a delight and the satisfaction of a wish: I called it closing a link in my golden chain.  Well, on the way home from Reno, another one happened!

One summer --I think it was 2004--we took a driving trip down the coast of Oregon, through the Trinity Alps of northern California, down through Lassen National Park and Yosemite, camping in our tent along the way.  We were headed to Big Bear Lake in SE California to see one of our girls who was working at Pine Summit Camp for the summer.  Anyway, we dilly-dallied around until we had to hurry to arrive when she was expecting us, and in the process passed by an eye-catching little town with cute cabins and antique shops and quilts, the signs said.  Even though I cried out "Oh, Oh, Ohhhhh", we just had to drive right by.  But I never forgot the name of the town--well, I almost remembered it.

So having breakfast in Reno I asked my long-suffering husband if he knew exactly where that cute little town Gray Eagle was.  Ha ha!  He had already been thinking we might find it on the way back home.  He wondered if it was Green Eagle, or Grey Eagle, and we hunted on the California map with no luck.  But then by scrolling through his GPS he found Graeagle on a back road home.  So in the bitter cold we started out on another adventure!

 We had a few snow flurries and passed a grange hall with a big sign inviting "COWBOY POETRY READING TONIGHT" and then we were back in that cute little wide spot in the road, Graeagle.

We found out that Graeagle was formerly a mill town founded by lumber pioneers.  It was booming in the 1920's, 30's and 40's as a factory town making wooden fruit boxes for the fruit packing industry in a nearby town.  It employed thousands of workers in its prime.   Employees were forced to buy their food and clothing at the company store.  In 1956 the factory closed due to modernization and in 1958 a wealthy San Fransisco business man, West, bought the whole town.  The West family still owns it.

The homes in the above picture are nicer and bigger, and higher up than the ones on the main street.  My guess is that they were the managers' and foremen's homes.

The pictures above are the shops (alas, the quilt shop was gone) and the mill pond.  The white building was formerly the 2 room school house for the Graeagle mill children.  The last 2 pictures are heading North to Lassen and home to Portland, which we did in a hurry since we had to go to work the next morning.  But what fun to revisit that spot we had remembered.  Another charming gold link snaps shut.