Kara's Blog

 Posts Tagged ‘Oregon’

Awww– Sarah from PCL, and her beautiful new daughter visited us

The Oregon conference continued today with another full day of sessions. There were a lot of interesting discussions, great feedback, and questions all day long. Tomorrow we have our Provider Administrator day, and then we wrap things up here. Allison will be continuing on for a couple more weeks both in Oregon and Washington doing trainings, and I’ll be heading back home on Friday morning.

Today we kicked off the regional conference here in Salem, OR. We have people from all over Oregon, some from California, Washington, Arkansas, Montana, and more… We started with a bit of a connectivity issue here, but thanks to the dynamic duo of Pete and Stephen, we got it workin’ again. After a day of sessions, and way too many cookies, we then had our fun game night. We were joined by the Awesome Sheena as well ! Here’s some pics of the day’s activities:

Tunin’ up the band

Nina and Char

-Kara

Today was yet another beautiful day here in Oregon, so I took the scenic Pacific byway to the beaches in Lincoln City.  It was great to finally make it to the other edge of the country.  It definitely is a whole different feel on the Pacific Coast.  Unlike any beach I’ve been to on the Atlantic, these were surrounded by evergreens, cliffs, and hills, and I even got to see over a hundred harbor seals basking in the sun on a sandbar right across from the beach.  It was amazing,- might have missed them, if I wasn’t looking closely and seeing them flip across the sand.  Another weird thing was all the drift wood on the beach from fallen trees that come right up to the sand, and these huge ants on the sand– never seen that in CT.

Those are all harbor seals on the water’s edge

After some time taking in the beach,  I was then off to Newport, to visit the Oregon Coast Aquarium.  Before even starting in the aquarium though, I had a nice lunch in the cafe, and was joined by a nice woman and her adorable 4 year old daughter, Addy.  What a brilliant little girl   Afterwards, it was time for jellyfish, sealions, more seals, and otters.  They also had a very cool tank that you walked through, surrounded by fish and sharks, which I was told by Addy’s mom, once housed the whale who starred in ‘Free Willy’.  Very neat.

These are some serious crabs– it’s like something out of the Alien/Predator movies

More later,

Kara

Today, I arrived here in Salem, OR, for our conference next week.  The weather is absolutely gorgeous, and the hottest I’ve felt it, even in CT– should have packed some shorts.  Anywho, no delays or cancellations, and after a drive from Portland, I visited the local mall, and tried to get to the Oregon Garden, but it was closed Still was a very worthwhile trip through the beautiful country side.  There’s always tomorrow…

-Kara

So, I’m back in Oregon, which was my first destination when I got hired Though this time I’m without Sazzad and am here for the Oregon Rehabilitation Association Conferenc