Posted on September 25th, 2006 by admin
So we arrived in a mid-sized coastal California city around 2am Friday. We
stayed in a spacious cozy place that seemed very lived in and familiar. We
were greeted by 2 cats, and chickens and a rooster and several fish. I
think we are going to stay here for a long while.
We decided to drive about 500 miles from the Oregon border to get here
around 2pm on Thrusday. We were around Brookings, Oregon that morning and
afternoon and decided to go on the same hike that we went on when we passed
through Oregon the first time (about 2 weeks ago). We had found a few
chanterelles and we wanted to check the spots we found again. We came upon
those spots and found a bunch, then looked around and found more and more!
We had come upon a huge vein of chanterelles. We were picking and mushrooms
for over an hour straight. We tied up the sleeve of a flannel and filled up
the sleeve with chanterelles, as well as a paper bag. It was really really
amazing. A field of chanterelles is a mushroom picker's dream and we found
one!
I think we wanted to leave Oregon on a high note so we left and started
driving South. We ended up in Willits, Ca around sundown, and had really bad
pizza. We were going to stay in Willits so we checked out their RV park. It
was very frightening. It looked like everyone there was actually cooking
meth in their RVs and had been there a good long while. We saw lots of heaps
of garbage and such and decided that we didn't want to stay there. We
continued driving and then found ourselves halfway home, so we decided to
just drive all the way.
So we got home and we slept and unpacked and now we are back into real life
again. We now have to get rid of our rooster, because our neighbor (who was
really nice about it) asked us to.. So if anyone wants a rooster, let us
know! He's nice as far as roosters are and he is really beautiful but for
whatever reason, he likes to wake up at maybe 4ish..
But on a positive chicken note, we got our first egg today! I had a dream
that our chickens laid eggs, and so this morning we went out to check and
there was a beautiful little egg! And a cute little chicken named Sir
Galahad laid it! Go Chickens!
So, I guess that concludes our exciting trip! I think it's safe to say that
we love each other even more, although we were both confined in a small rv
for 3 weeks with breakdowns and towings and rental cars and seat belt
snacking and hikes and yummy dinners on the beach at sunset and long walks
on the spits and beaches and forests and finding lots of mushrooms and
seeing lots of beautiful things and SO much more!!
I put up a few of our pictures: Vote for your favorite pictures!
http://moldfarm.com/cgi/gallery/Honeymoon
http://moldfarm.com/cgi/gallery/Honeymoon2
=-Mr.and Mrs. Michael Lloyd Cohen-= (as we are sometimes referred to as)
No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized
Posted on September 20th, 2006 by admin
We are heading back to Californialand and are now stopped in Gold Coast
Oregon. We stayed the night at Bullard Beach State Park. This is close to a
beach but not quite at the beach. There is a 3/4 mile hike through dunes to
the beach. When we got there, we discovered that we were practically the
only people on the beach for miles and miles. This again proves my point
that you eliminate 90% of the people for every 1/4 miles from a road that
you travel. It's a slightly more complicated theory than that. We've figured
that it also depends on the elevation gain, weather, and country of origin
(Europeans seem to be more immune to the 90% rule) and a few other
factors.. Anyway, we eliminated about 99.99% of the people and had a nice
beach all to ourselves. It was really cool..
We came back and cleaned our lobster mushrooms and chantrelles and made
what we have deemed Cape Lookout Cream of mushroom soup. IT was yummy!!
We left Bullard beach and went to Bandon and went horse back riding on
the beach. IT was really cool. The horse back riding place is for sale, $1
million dollars and 1 block from the beach. Anyway it was fun and an
interesting fantasy to think about having a horse riding business on the
beach..
We stopped at an art gallery just outside of town and bought a really
beautiful painting from the artist. Tonite we are going to stay in
Brookings, and look for mushrooms at this place that we were at a few weeks
ago. We found some baby chantrelles, and now we think that may be big and
tasty so we need to check!
So far I think we have liked Bandon, Oregon area the best of all of our
coastal oregon spots.
Till next wireless internet spot (by the way this is the FIRST wireless
internet spot we have been to that actually costs us money, everything else
has been free. We are very surprised by the ubiquity of free internet all
over)
=-MmYiRkIeAyM Cohen-=
No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized
Posted on September 18th, 2006 by admin
So we are all repaired, and I think we can now no longer call our honeymoon
a “low budget” honeymoon, thanks to Vera's leaking head (or head gasket). We
got our motor home back on Friday around noon. We decided to leave the
Seattle area as soon as possible. We can't thank Dan, Patty and Wes enough
for being so great to us. I'm sure their neighbors were having a heck of a
time keeping track of the 4 automobiles we had parked in front of their
house for the week or so we were there. I can't wait to hear about us in
their neighborhood watch bulletin.
As far as our car with the seatbelts that Luna thought were so
scrumptious, we got Myriam's car insurance to pay for it. I think it should
just cost us the deductible of $100. The people at the Avis office who we
had become acquainted with from our prior car rentals from them, thought it
was hysterical that our seatbelts were eaten. They had never heard that one
before. In our embarrassment, and to save some money, we decided to rent
from yet another car place (Budget). The lady at the budget office tried to
get us to join her “internet company” and told us that she was gonna retire
in 2 years. Sounded like a scam to us. I've already been through the
internet boom, and Budget Rent-a-car people don't become millionaires in
their spare time on the internet..
Our last full day in Seattle, we pretty much did the tourist thing; We
tried for the 2nd time to go to the seattle art museum, but found out that
it is not only closed on Mondays, but closed until sometime in 2007! So we
went to the aquarium and looked at fish and fur seals and pet a sea urchin
and such. We then went on a late afternoon sailing tour. There was no wind
at all, so we floated in the sound for about an hour, and then they turned
on the motor and we motored back in to the port. Fairly uneventful, but it
was a cool view of the city.
We left as soon as we were full of our trip supplies and we headed for the
Oregon border Friday afternoon. We figured that Oregon has been good to us
and it's time that we start to head back. We stayed on Friday night at Fort
Stevens, which is on the upper left corner of Oregon. Lewis and Clark did
something there. Pretty much any place that Lewis and Clark did anything
here is noted. They spend a miserable night somewhere on the coast, thus
it's called Dismal something or other and Cape Disappointment, because they
were sad about something. They saw a whale, and now the place is called
whale in Chinook (Ecola) They also spelled everything wrong, like “butifull”
and “emence”. We couln't help but quote Lewis and Clark, though, when we saw
the coast for the first time, “Ocean in view, O the joy”.
On Saturday, which also happened to be Myriam's birthday we went on a long
hike along the coast at Ecola State Park. It was a great hike through sitka
spruce forests. Not surprisingly, Clark went along this same trail in 1806
and called stuff “butifull”. He was right, aside from spelling it wrong. It
was a great hike and we were exhausted when we were done. We found a few
chantrelles and a lobster mushroom, and a few large blooms of “chicken of
the woods”.
We had Myriam's birthday dinner on the cliffs of Ecola Point. We stayed the
night on Nehalem Bay State Park near Manzanita, Oregon.
Sunday, we took our time going down the coast. We walked along the beach
in the morning, and saw people riding their horses on the beach. We tried to
find the place to ride them, but were unable to find the “horse rental”
place. We drove south, and stopped near Rockaway beach and rented a motor
boat. They were surprised when we just wanted to rent a boat and not go
crabbing. So we rented the boat, and Luna came with us. She was a little
freaked out at first then accepted the fact that she could now float on
water. That is, until I grounded the boat in the shallow part of the bay. I
had to get out, roll up my pants and push the boat into deeper water. This
required me figuring out how to pull up the motor and then move the boat. I
still managed to get my pants all soaked, and Myriam took pictures to prove
that it happened.
We drove down to Cape Lookout, where we stayed before. We enjoyed it so
much that we decided to stay another time here. We walked along the beach
and found a dead giant mola mola (aka sun fish). It was pretty recently
dead, so we go to look at it up close. They are the weirdest fish I think,
and the cutest. They have a little mouth and 2 giant flippers that look like
shark fins. It was interesting to get a close up view.
We got rained on last night, and our rv leaks water, and right by my
head, so we got a little wet. We went on a nice hike this morning up cape
lookout and found a bunch more lobster mushrooms and some chantrelles. We
are now on the road, on a sort of schedule (which is kind of new for us) to
get back to Santa Cruz by Friday. We are currently in Newport, Oregon at an
internet cafe.
And that's the current state of the Cohens!!!!!!!
=-Mrs Myriam Hodge Cohen-=
=-Mr. Mikey Lloyd Cohen-=
No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized
Posted on September 13th, 2006 by admin
So we have been making the most of our being stuck in Washington, and
Washington seems to be still giving us difficulty. We returned our annoying
Ford 500, and exchanged it for a PT cruiser. Much smaller.. We drove off to
Sequim (pronounced “squim”) to check out the largest spit in the world. It's
called the Dungeness Spit. A spit is a big long strip of sand and logs and
rocks and it extends about 5 miles into the ocean. It's a wildlife refuge so
there are lots of shorebirds and such, although just outside of the
Dungeness spit, they allow hunting. Unfortunately, Luna dogs are not
allowed on the Dungeness Spit, so we took her on a walk through the hunting
area surrounding the spit, and then left her in the car, while we explored
the spit. It was a cold and foggy spit, but cool nonetheless.
When we got back to the car, we discovered that Luna was mad that she
wasn't allowed to go on the Dungeness Spit, and decided to eat through 3 of
the 5 seat belts (including the driver's side seat)!! This is very
uncharacteristic of her, but we also never leave luna in the car for a few
hours.
So we rigged up a temporary seatbelt from some straps I purchased at Rite
Aid. It seems pretty good and safe, but the car doesn't register that there
is a seatbelt, so it beeps for several minutes letting you know that your
seatbelt isn't on.
We stayed the night in Sequim at a hotel, and spent the morning calling
insurance, trying to figure out the best way to deal with the seatbelts;
should we fix them ourselves, should we have insurance cover it, etc. We
called both of our insurance companies, and Chrysler and it looks like the
best bet for us is to have myriam's car insurance cover it, since it will be
a lot of money to fix it.
Moral of the story:
Don't let your dog sit in the car,
By the Dungeness spit for an hour.
She may bite your strap,
Then you deal with insurance crap
Also, we visited vera, our RV today. She had all of her insides taken out,
and I was shown lots of car insides that I didn't understand, but it looks
like it's gonna be another day or so and a bunch more money due to exhaust
manifolds and bolts and machine shops and prior poor mechanical hacks.
stay tuned!!
=-m&m&l-=
No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized
Posted on September 13th, 2006 by admin
So it looks like we are stuck here in Seattle/Woodinville for several days while we are waiting for Vera to get her a new head gasket. Seems that's what we blew. Consequently, we are about to blow a lot of money to fix it. Weighing our options, we decided to go ahead and fix it. Fortunately we have a banjo and a cute dog, and a cute wife, so if need be we can busk on the street with a sign ("Just Married, Broke down, need $$ to continue honeymoon") while Luna does tricks, and I play banjo. If we do it right in front of Microsoft, maybe Mr. Gates will give us a new RV or something. So, meanwhile, we've rented us a really horrible Ford car which we are going to trade in tomorrow for a better and smaller car. This "high end" luxurious Ford is really annoying; it only goes fast and slow, doesn't handle too well, and it pretty big (and only gets less than 20 miles per gallon!) I am scared for the state of American cars even more now. So we have been hanging out in Seattle a lot, mostly we have been liking the gasworks park. It's a park that used to be a gas refinery, but it's now a nice park. The weather has been beautiful, and today we spend several hours on a grassy knoll overlooking Seattle and the lake/sound/body of water that surrounds the city and reading while Luna wished for a dog to play with. People were all around us flying kites and hanging out while sea planes are constantly taking off overhead and people are sailing and boating around; it's really nice. Dan and Patty have been really great by letting us stay at their house and feeding us well, etc. Their baby Wes is super cute and smiles and giggles a lot. The neighbors are also probably happy that our poor broken-headed Vera has left their 'hood and it wasn't a mobile meth lab after all! We spend last night watching old videos of our college bands Dump and Drill Tongue…. all I can say is that I'm surprised that we were never thrown off stage and even more surprised that we got paid! It was certainly fun to see all of the college folk with our interesting haircuts and hair colors and our wonderful noisy "instruments" that we found at the dump. I am still not sure if Dump was sheer brilliance or just an excuse to make a lot of noise and throw stuff at people in a gallageresque sort of way.. hmm.. I think I'm gonna go with brilliant and misunderstood.. 
=-M&MC-=
No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized
Posted on September 10th, 2006 by admin
We woke up early the next morning and called the tow truck. We figued it was
better to get towed to the Seattle area and be with friends than to be
stuck for the weekend in Yakima or wherever we ended up where there is
nothing to do.
It took them about 2.5 hours to get to the rest stop. Meanwhile, Myriam
cooked brownies with peanut butter in our oven. YUM! The tow truck driver
really liked brownies (especially peanut butter ones) and he was rather
entertaining and interesting; telling us about his life and the area, and
Alaska and cutting the nets of the Indian fishermen because they abuse their
privilege of fishing year round. Apparently, they will keep a giant net out
in the water for weeks and catch a bunch of fish and they are all gross and
rotten and they sell it for like cat food. Anyway, I think I need to
research that issue, but he would scuba dive down and cut up their nets good
so that the fish could escape.
Anyway, we landed here in Woodinville at Dan and Patty and their baby
Wes's house after about a 3 hour tow truck ride. We were here for about 1/2
an hour when the neighbor called asking about the rv parked in front of the
house. Dan had to make a few phone calls to let the neighborhood know that
we weren't a mobile meth lab or anything like that, and they we would be
getting it towed in a day or so (actually, cars aren't allowed overnight on
the road here). Apparently, the whole neighborhood already knew about the rv
already.
We took a nice walk down the Sammamish river near their house and saw a
lot of salmon swimming around there and the red hook brewery and a few
wineries and I tried to nibble on a few blueberries growing on the side of
the river, but they were still tart 
but now I want to find some good ones
to eat.
So we got our first nice long shower in a couple of weeks and it felt good
and slept on a bed. It was nice and luxurious!
We are going to go in to Seattle today and check it out.
So that's where we are at!
Still having fun despite the state of vera!!
=-the newcohens-=
No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized
Posted on September 10th, 2006 by admin
So we are in a town called Woodinville, which is pretty much Seattle. We
spent the night the night before last in our cozy rest stop, next to giant
tanker trucks, and other big semi trucks. The trucks here seem eot have many
more wheels than in California. I counted like 28 wheels on one of them. Our
broken down school bus full of religious students drove off. Apparenlty
their mechanical problem was minor (but not small!). Truckers really like to
sleep while keeping their engine on, for some reason and everytime Myriam
would close the window because a truck was idling for a long time, the truck
driver would turn off the engine. Then when she opened the window, the would
turn on their engine again.
The mostly full moon rose over the rest stop and it was really pretty, and
we got a few pictures of it.
We woke up early the next morning and called the tow truck. It took them
about 2.5 hours to get to the rest stop. Meanwhile, Myria
So we are in a town called Woodinville, which is pretty much Seattle. We spent the night the night before last in our cozy rest stop, next to giant tanker trucks, and other big semi trucks. The trucks here seem eot have many more wheels than in California. I counted like 28 wheels on one of them. Our broken down school bus full of religious students drove off.  Apparenlty their mechanical problem was minor (but not small!). Truckers really like to sleep while keeping their engine on, for some reason and everytime Myriam would close the window because a truck was idling for a long time, the truck driver would turn off the engine. Then when she opened the window, the would turn on their engine again.
The mostly full moon rose over the rest stop and it was really pretty, and we got a few pictures of it.
 We woke up early the next morning and called the tow truck. It took them about 2.5 hours to get to the rest stop. Meanwhile, Myria
No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized
Posted on September 10th, 2006 by admin
So it appear that our rv, “Vera” is having some trouble drinking the
kool-aid. She keeps spitting it up and getting hot. We overheated this
afternoon, off the 97, on the Yakima Indian Reservation about 20 miles south
of Toppenish, Washington. She blew a radiator hose. So we got towed to
Toppenish, and they put a new hose on and said that we were good to go. We
were skpetical, being that it cost us about $70 to fix her, but off we went
and about 1/2 hour later, Vera was overheated again.
So now I should say, Greetings from a rest stop in the middle of nowhere!!
We just watched the sunset which overlooked Mt Rainer and another giant
mountain to the south a bit. We aren't sure what we are going to do yet
since all of the repair shops around are closed for the weekend. We are
thinking of getting towed to Seattle (about 142 miles) or thereabouts.
Meanwhile we are parked here at a rest stop next to a broken down schoolbus
full of religious students who are wearing shirts that say “There are no
small things” on the back, and “faithful” on the front. I guess they forgot
about ants, mites, bacteria, molecules, and atoms, or maybe they don't
think bacteria exists!!
Anyway, we are going to have shabbat dinner with Wheat Thins(tm) for
bread and some peanut sauce leftover from the wedding with noodles and
Lobster mushroom soup (which is much better then lobster mushroom and eggs,
and wholly unrelated to lobster animals which are like giant bugs, not small
bugs (there are no small bugs)!)
So other than that, we are having fun. We hiked up a really beautiful
waterfall yesterday (the 2nd largest waterfall in the US, apparently), and
learned that a “Lewis and Clark Trail Site” is not, in fact a trail, but the
site that a trail used to be; a former trail and now parking lot site (and
boat launch).
ok we are going to eat dinner now!
=-the Cohens on honeymoon-=
–
______________________
(__) / Mike Cohen \
(oo) ( www.mikeycohen.org )
/——-\/ ( www.moldfarm.com )
/| | –'______________________/
* ||–||–||
^^ ^^ ^^
No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized
Posted on September 10th, 2006 by admin
ok this is being sent from my phone.. Turns out vera was just thirsty
and in need of that green gatorade she calls coolant! She appears to
be happy and well! Just ate bfast on the columbia river on the
lewis&clark trail. Lobster mushrooms i thought were not that good
(myriam liked them though).. Anyway we are off to go hike now that we
arent broken down!!
-=m&m cohen-=
On 9/6/06, Mikey Cohen wrote:
> Well, I think you all were thinking, “that crazy old rv they got's gonna
> break down somewhere”, and it appears you are all right! We overheated about
> an hour or so ago, and I'm not quite sure what's wrong, but even odder is
> that we have internet access! We are on a mountain road above the Columbia
> Gorge; we pulled over due to overheating and we are gonna stay here in this
> 2 space parking lot for the night and see what's going on with “vera”'s
> overheating problem. Other than this “cottage market” there are no
> businesses anywhere to be found within miles (aside from a closed rv park)
> Anyway, we spent the day in Portland and visited with my friend Carol. She
> showed us around town a bit. We also went to the rose gardens in Washington
> park, and ate a yummy inexpensive lunch of fresh fish from Oregon. We also
> went to Powell's bookstore which is way too big and I was overwhelmed, so i
> read magazines.
>
> So we are fine and safe, no worries! it's really pretty up here and there is
> a big fullish moon!
>
> ok the battery on the computer is gonna go.. We'll keep you posted!
>
> =-Mr and Mrs Cohen and Luna (who doesn't smell that bad anymore!)-=
>
>
>
> –
> ______________________
> (__) / Mike Cohen \
> (oo) ( www.mikeycohen.org )
> /——-\/ ( www.moldfarm.com )
> /| | –'______________________/
> ||–||–||
> ^^ ^^ ^^
>
>
–
______________________
(__) / Mike Cohen \
(oo) ( www.mikeycohen.org )
/——-\/ ( www.moldfarm.com )
/| | –'______________________/
||–||–||
^^ ^^ ^^
No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized
Posted on September 10th, 2006 by admin
Well, I think you all were thinking, “that crazy old rv they got's gonna
break down somewhere”, and it appears you are all right! We overheated about
an hour or so ago, and I'm not quite sure what's wrong, but even odder is
that we have internet access! We are on a mountain road above the Columbia
Gorge; we pulled over due to overheating and we are gonna stay here in this
2 space parking lot for the night and see what's going on with “vera”'s
overheating problem. Other than this “cottage market” there are no
businesses anywhere to be found within miles (aside from a closed rv park)
Anyway, we spent the day in Portland and visited with my friend Carol. She
showed us around town a bit. We also went to the rose gardens in Washington
park, and ate a yummy inexpensive lunch of fresh fish from Oregon. We also
went to Powell's bookstore which is way too big and I was overwhelmed, so i
read magazines.
So we are fine and safe, no worries! it's really pretty up here and there is
a big fullish moon!
ok the battery on the computer is gonna go.. We'll keep you posted!
=-Mr and Mrs Cohen and Luna (who doesn't smell that bad anymore!)-=
–
______________________
(__) / Mike Cohen \
(oo) ( www.mikeycohen.org )
/——-\/ ( www.moldfarm.com )
/| | –'______________________/
* ||–||–||
^^ ^^ ^^
No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized
