Hello everyone,
Well, I'm finally getting around to writing down what we've been up to. I've no idea what has kept me too busy to do so before now. But I'll get started at least.
We left our cruise ship on a beautiful warm Seattle day in mid May. That didn't last long.
It was raining a couple days later and we were in Krysten's backyard in our camper. She was still feeling pretty poorly after surgery less than two weeks before. I was still feeling rotten and coughing a ton after catching the ship's crud. Oh well. My daughter and I got to spend a lot of time together watching TV and just hanging out. It wasn't all bad though we'd have preferred to have been more lively.
The first photo is of an old grade school chum of mine that I hadn't seen for a zillion years. She swears she came to see me in Hawaii once but now she's not so sure. Anyway, it had been nigh on forty years or so since we last saw one another. Her name was Carol Hickerson, now Tanner. She drove out to Krysten's and took me to lunch. We had the BEST time talking. So many memories and I don't think either of us has changed all that much....on the inside at least. She lives in California now and we hope to see her again when we're down that way.
The Sunday after we arrived my sister Barbara had a family get together at her house and all four of us girls were there. That doesn’t happen very often. It was a nice day and we all had fun watching little Hudson, who is the latest addition to the family and Barbara’s first grandchild. Both Bryce and my Mom had birthdays in late May. I didn't get a photo of my Mom in but here's Bryce at fourteen. He's really growing up. And getting quite tall....very fast. I asked him if it hurt and he admitted that it did at times.
My sweet Momma had her 89th birthday and we took her out for dinner at Vince’s. She’s doing well. Rachel left for Los Angeles soon after we arrived. She's working down there and doing well. We saw more of her later on. We finally got our acts together and Krysten was feeling better so we left for a bit.
We first went up to see Dave and Janet for a couple days and then headed to Eastern Washington where we hoped the weather would treat us well. The North Cascades Highway still had snow by the side of the road but was very beautiful. We stopped at Newhalem and walked to Ladder Falls, quite beautiful. I never knew it was there. It's hard to photograph because it literally is ladder-like and descends through various rock ledges and pools a long way. I guess at night they light it up and it must be especially lovely.
Our first camping spot was on the East side of the pass but still in the mountains. I think it was called Lone Fir....lone some kind of tree. There was a deer that would not leave us alone. Kept coming back to visit time and time again. We tried to give her part of an apple but I think she wanted donuts or something. We then made our way to Winthrop and up to Lake Perrigin. Mike had purchased a Washington fishing license and wanted to try his luck. After a couple days we decided to go to Lake Conconully as it's a "fisherman's paradise" supposedly.
Well, he did alright there. The two trout he caught were quite big. The one pulled him around for a while in his kayak and proved to be quite a challenge. We couldn't eat them both at one sitting. So far they are each a $40 fish. And that's not counting gear, etc. Such is the life of a fisherperson.
We headed East to Vagabond Lake. Pretty and fairly warm....no fish caught but the camp hosts gave us four little trout which we enjoyed for dinner one night. We took a long hike up the mountain on the other side of the lake. When we got up there we found that there is a road to the very spot. Figures.
We saw this great ‘36 Ford Pickup while getting diesel and Mike said he’d had one just like it years ago. Isn’t it cute? I think this one was in better condition than Mike’s from the description he gave! More East toward Republic where we bought groceries and had internet briefly and could handle a few things. Then we headed South through an Indian Reservation that was all through a beautiful valley with a river. Gorgeous area.
The reason we decided to go this way was the lure of a free ferry that crossed the Columbia at the part they call Lake Roosevelt because of the Grand Coulee Dam. The little ferry showed right up and we were one of three vehicles aboard. Interesting.....hadn't known about this and also learned that there is another free ferry to the East that does the same thing.
We actually camped at Keller Landing and watched the ferry go back and forth all evening...sometimes empty though the camp host told us that every school day there is a school bus that takes the ride.
We then drove to Wenatchee and bought a new car radio for our camper as we had a failure. After staying the night near Cashmere we drove over Stevens Pass since that's the only pass we'd not been over together. Leavenworth and a German sausage lunch was a must, of course. We headed up the Icicle River for a couple more nights of camping then headed towards Krysten's.
On the Western side of the pass there is a hike we took part in, called the Iron Goat trail. The Great Northern RR had tracks with miles of snow sheds and tunnels that you can now walk. It's been replaced with a very long tunnel as there was a terrible slide that killed a great number of folks years ago. The footings for the show sheds are quite evident. We also came across a tree right on the trail that had fresh bear paw marks. Kinda scary....they looked very fresh and went a very long way up that tree.
Back at Krysten's we had more time for visiting. Rachel came back from Los Angeles to pack up and move her car and stuff down there on a more permanent basis. We had a fun bar-b-que with Dan (Krysten's boyfriend) and his three sons. Dan's a great cook. And a good guy too. Bryce was getting ready to go to Alaska for a month with his Dad. Krysten was going to have an empty nest!
She was feeling much better and one night we had fun as she put on several of my old dresses from the 70's. The handkerchief dress is our favorite but the checkered one was cool and very Loretta Lynnish. Very funny. Can't believe I was that small....did my ribcage expand? LOL.
We left for another Washington side trip. The same day Rachel took off down I-5 in her little Jetta with a friend to become a California Girl. We were headed to the Olympic Peninsula where we were planning on meeting up with Bruce, our old pal from KoOlina Marina on Oahu, and his girlfriend, Jocelyn, at Fort Worden in Port Townsend. We hit a couple spots on the way. Both State Parks that I'd never seen.
The weather was a little iffy and we decided that we'd like to not camp in the thick forest of trees and were relieved to find that Fort Worden was wide open and right on the Straits of Juan de Fuca. We got a great spot right next to Bruce and, at the last minute, someone cancelled so we could be there all three nights. We enjoyed dinners and sightseeing and beach walks. Since it was solstice we had very long days. The night of the solstice the sunset was very pretty and with a lovely sky....plus the biggest full moon in years was rising the other direction. Really had fun photographing all that.
And had a blast with Bruce and Jocelyn. OK - that's all the photos that will fit on this email so I'm off to write another.
Aloha for the moment, Gayle and Mike
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