Washington! The Great Northwest!

We arrived in the little town of Lafayette, OR, on Friday to find a small RV park which had many permanent residents living in little rusty travel trailers. It certainly wasn't my ideal park. I noticed a railroad track about 30 feet from our MH, and just figured it wasn't used any more. Was I ever wrong! A freight train came through and vibrated the whole RV. However, this was the only train that came through the whole weekend. Actually, the park was quiet at night, despite being located on a main road through the town.

We visited with my cousin Gary and his wife Mary, who live about 10 miles away in Newberg, and had a great time with them. He was just like I remembered him in 1961, except now he's bald and about 6'2". We shared many memories of good times we had when their family would come to Oklahoma to visit my family. (His mom and my mom were sisters). Somehow I find it comforting to talk to others who knew my family, because most of them are deceased now.

We left the next day, partially because we didn't like the looks of the RV park, and we also knew that Gary and Mary had lots of things to do that weekend. None of these pictures are from that area.

We headed for Gary's brother, Terry's, and his wife Amanda's home, in Cinebar, WA. Or near Cinebar, I should say. Amanda had to fly back east to take care of an ailing relative and we missed her so much. The house you see is Terry and Amanda's. It is made of concrete siding, and I think that's a great idea! Now, the view out the back of the house, which you see in the last picture, is looking toward Mt Rainier. It remained shrouded in clouds and fog as long as we were there. If you look to the left of the tall tree, I believe that's where it is. Now, if you look to the right of the back of the house, which you see in the 4th picture, you see Mt. St. Helens. Of course, we could never see it. We were there for four days. The weather was uncooperative, to say the least. The road you see is their driveway. It was steaming because the sun came out one day briefly and I snapped the picture.

We took a walk down the road with Terry one day, and walked about 1.5 miles. During the walk, we had sunshine, rain, and hail pellets. It started raining hard so we took shelter underneath some tall pines and then it started with the hail pellets. We stayed there until it let up a little, then walked back to the house. Talk about COLD!!! It was usually in the 40's, although some nights the temperature got down to 38. It was a WET cold, too. We stayed in the house with Terry because he only had 20 amp power for our MH, and no sewer. Not enough power to keep our MH warm.

Terry is quite the hunter and fisherman. We had elk sausage (absolutely delicious!), elk steaks, mmmm, smoked salmon, and steelhead trout. Now those of you who know me, know I DON'T like fish, but this fish was different. It was all so good. We had so much good food there! Terry's a pretty darn good cook, and he caught or killed almost everything we ate. He and I had a ball playing cribbage. He looks so much like his mother.

We drove up to Spanaway, WA, to visit another of my cousin Ann, daughter of another of my mother's sisters. Unfortunately, her mother just passed away about a month ago. Her two daughters came over to visit, and I had only seen one of them when she was very small. We had a wonderful time talking about the old days, too, and I really hated it when it came time to leave. I don't know when we'll ever get back to the west coast again.

We saw such beautiful sights on the way back and skirted Mt. Rainier, but again...no mountain in sight. It remained shrouded in clouds and fog. The steam engine you see in the picture was taken on the way back from Spanaway, in a little town called Elbe.

This morning, we left Terry's and headed for Hermiston, OR. We are spending the night here and will take off tomorrow for Idaho! I've never been to Idaho before. Should be interesting.

Well, more later...thanks for reading my blog!