While we were out buying melons on Sauvie Island I asked Carol if we could stop at a grocery store for train food: I bought a sourdough baguette to make a sandwich with and a couple of yogurts.

Back at Carol’s farmhouse we got out the slow cooker and I proceeded to chop the leaf lard into small pieces. I usually buy lard already rendered, but a homesteading website said to chop it up and cook it slowly for two hours.

“Shall I read all of the instructions, or shall we wing it?”

“Let’s wing it,” said the genuine Washington-born farm girl.

She thought we should use a basket to hold the lard above the melted lard, so we did. This resulted in the project taking four hours instead of two and gratuitously greasing up her steamer basket. You want the pieces of lard cooking in the rendered fat, which causes them to render faster. We didn’t know. I pulled the pieces out and chopped them more finely.

We also didn’t know I should have trimmed off the few visible bits of meat before rendering. Oh well. I hoped the lard wouldn’t taste porky.

Hours later, Carol got out a large and a small mason jar for me and I poured the rendered lard into them to cool. While it cooled, I talked politics with Spike, Carol showed me some of her recent artwork and we watched a few episodes of a home-buying show because, you know, real estate.

“Look at how beautiful it is. It’s so white,” Carol said.

I read about how you could fry the unrendered bits for cracklings.

Meanwhile I had been in correspondence with one of my Zoom writing students who lived on the Oregon Coast a couple of hours from Carol’s house. We invited her to come to class in person the next morning. We would supply coffee and snacks if she would arrive by 8:45 for a 9:00 o’clock class.

On Monday morning I got up and packed my luggage. I dressed and poured a cup of coffee: Carol sets it up before she goes to bed so that all I had to do was push a button. I ate something — leftovers? fruit salad? — before making a salami and cheese sandwich for the train with lettuce, mustard and Carol’s homemade bread and butter pickles. The sandwich, the yogurts and two jars of lard fit perfectly into my frozen lunch box.

Mary Bess arrived early and she and Carol hit it off, immediately finding an acquaintance in common. Carol poured coffee and offered fruit and cookies before it was time to pop into my Zoom frame to show the rest of the class that we were actually in the same physical location. We then separated to avoid multi-device-induced feedback. Mary Bess took the back porch. Carol went upstairs to her office and I conducted class from the dining room table while Spike rested in the bedroom.

After class Carol shooed me out to talk with Mary Bess. We sat at the table on the back deck and discussed real estate, my reasons for my eventual move, M.B.’s life in Seaside running a health clinic. Mary Bess invited me to stay in Seaside if I came through Oregon again and asked if she could take my picture

Then it was time to say goodbye. Spike carried my bags to the car. Carol drove to Portland. I checked in at the historic Portland train depot, all high ceilings, marble and wooden benches with high backs.

I spent another 22 hours on the train, eating my sandwich for dinner, my yogurts for breakfast and trying to sleep in the uncomfortable chairs. When I got back to the Bay Area we had WiFi so I spent the last leg of my train journey chatting with a writing buddy about my adventures before catching a bus from Emeryville to Kensington and resuming my regular life, which is not so regular anymore, but that is another story.