Day 5 - CCHS Coast 2 Coast II Plays and Gives Back

Day five–second day in Portland!  Saturday was the second day in the End of Trails Tourney...we're ready to play some b-ball.

Our first game was at 10:20 a.m. in Canby, Ore.–a little hotel breakfast and we are again on the road; have we mentioned how appreciative we are for our wonderful drivers (Jeff Rich, Carrie Filer and Coach Baker)? We know their job isn't as easy as they make it seem.

We arrived in Canby at a beautiful middle school with three gyms...they are blessed! This was by far our best game so far this trip.  Everyone played incredibly well and everyone played hard; lots of good stuff coming from our team....it's going to be a fun season!  We had some scouts there from George Fox University too–maybe one of our girls caught their eye; lots of writing going on in their notepads!

We didn't win this game, but played our hearts out on that one....Nothing to hang our heads about–we played together like the team we are. Go Cougar Pride!

After this game, we had a large gap in time before our next game (6:15 p.m.), so we headed out for the Multnomah Falls. This is a 611-foot waterfall with a meandering path to different levels and views of the falls. It was breathtaking and the surrounding scenery was incredible.  We were able to find some very patient tourists and asked them to wait for their bridge crossing so we could get a team picture (included in this blog)...our favorite tourist was the gentlemen wearing his "I love Jesus" hat!

After our visit to the falls, it was time for us to eat; after all we did have another game and needed our fuel. Coach Baker decided to treat us for lunch and we went to Otto's Sausage! What great food they have there–cooking links and dogs right out front and the sandwiches, oh the sandwiches were GREAT! Of course our order took up a lot of the staff's time and the people ordering behind us were very patient too.

After lunch we noticed a homeless couple had made camp (well napping under a tree) next to our RV, so we bought them both lunch (Otto's sandwiches) and got some of our game waters from the RV (well a lot of waters) to give to them. We unfortunately had to wake them up, but they were so appreciative for food...as they said they "were super hungry." We chatted with them for a bit and found out that they used to be a group of three; they called themselves the three musketeers.  Sadly, we found out that their third friend, Roger, had just recently passed away. They said that they missed their friend, but that he was in a better place.  This nice couple thanked us for the food and water and left us with a "God bless you all"....we are truly blessed.  It's the chance encounters like this that truly define the reason behind our trip.  Giving back and helping others who are less fortunate.  We certainly learned that meeting this couple and feel very grateful for our many blessings.

With our time limited, we had to leave and head to our last game of this tourney.  We arrived a bit earlier than expected–sometimes a GPS isn't always correct.  So we just decided to rest and reflect. We found a nice shady area under some trees and just hung out until our game was to start.

Game time! Our final game of this trip. We were ready and energized, not to mention really working as a team both on and off the court.  We again played our hearts out and left nothing on the court.  We ended with a victory–what a way to end our tourney.

We decided since we weren't going to have any games on Sunday, we would find some fun team activities. So it was decided that we would cut off some of our next day's drive time by going to Eugene to stay the night (that cut off three hours of our last day drive time).  Before we checked into our hotel, we stopped off at Red Robin for a late dinner.  Lots of giggling and practical jokes too, it was time for us.

After dinner we drove up to Eugene and checked into our hotel at about midnight. It had been a long but very fulfilling day.  Got to get some sleep and shower–we have an 8:30 a.m. departure time Sunday.

Again, we are truly blessed and appreciative for everyone and everything!