It's a good excuse to visit my mom also. One of the reservations I had about quiting my job at The Shipyard was knowing that I was going to be taking the grand kids further away from my mom and dad. Actual road time was going go from about 2 hours to just over 4 hours...not horrible by any sense, but, the fact that the Cascades were going to be in the middle made the trip a little riskier/snowier in the fall and winter. Add into this that my mom is dealing with some vertigo based anxiety, and it means we end up coming here whenever we can come up with a valid excuse.
The drive over was good. The roads of the passes were totally clear of snow, with a little snow still remaining at the 3500 foot level, so we made good time. The cheapest gas we saw was at the Thorp Fruit Stand Antique Mall outside of Ellensburg($3.92), with Richland being $4.05, and the Kirkland area being about $4.15. That kind of surprises me since Thorp is the most isolated of three data points, so it must have something to do with county tax rates.
Anyway, drive went smooth, and we got to have dinner with my moms new boyfriend. He is a sales manager for a car dealership, which could be convenient at some point, since the wife's Subaru is aging rapidly. It's a 2004 with about 160K on it. We just had to have transmission replaced(we went with a used one), so if this car makes it until next spring, I will be pretty ecstatic.
He lives on a little lake up in Snohomish County called Lake Serene, and it seems a good name for it. It's a cute little 45 acre lake, with plenty of houses, but lots of tall trees too. He invited us back over the summer, and said that our girls should have no problem catching a trout or two of his little dock. For now, they had a blast chasing the ducks and geese along the shoreline.
I told my wife that if we were living on that lake, we would have duck/geese once a week for dinner. Hypothetically speaking...I mean, as much bird poop as there is along the shores and docks of that lake, I refuse to believe that ANYONE would complain about little ol' me defending my crops from the ravages of some Canadian Geese with my Gamo Whisper. Heck...they crossed the border illegally...they could be terrorists.
I'd be doing the nation a favor...
It sounds like a good day! A trip well worth it. I lived on a houseboat in the Pacific Northwest in grad school, a sublease from someone I knew flying overseas. First night I got there, there was a little "tap tap tap" on the glass to the little 3 foot decking that went out over the water. there was no way a person could have walked around there? ???
ReplyDeleteI hear it again, tap tap tap, and turn on the light. It was a duck, one that had likely been fed reguarly. I opened the sliding glass door and he just walked in, looking for his nightly handout.
Enjoy it!