On the Road

We traveled some new roads this week and found some spots we want to explore more along highway 17 in Washington State between Coulee City and Soap Lake. Along highway 17 there are several lakes and deep gorges that look a little Grand Canyon-isk.

It was fun to see the pops of yellow from these wildflowers

We stopped at the entrance to this park at Sun Lakes. We are interested in seeing the Dry Lakes area and Lake Lenore Caves in the future.

The state of Washington has such an amazing variety of landscapes to enjoy.

We are enjoying a little break from our everyday routines. Hope all is well in your corner.

Happy Friday!

Road Tripping

Be back soon to visiting your blogs. Enjoying quality time with our family on the west side of the Cascade Mountain Range. This side of the mountains is still in Stage Two of the COVID-19 re-entry guidelines. Our town in the northeastern corner of Washington State is in Stage 3. Uploading photos has been so wonderful here in broadband dream land. See you soon!

Photo taken somewhere along highway two in Central Washington heading east towards the Cascade Mountain Range.

Directional Hodgepodge

1. On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your sense of direction? 1=can’t find my way out of a paper bag and 10=if I’ve been somewhere once I can find it blindfolded ten years later.

When I drive somewhere I’ll never forget how to get there again. When I’m in the middle of a large city I need help knowing which way is what when looking at a map. I always depend on Dear or our daughter Katie to point me in the right direction. I’m not afraid to ask directions. So I’ll say 5!

I would be lost in the London Underground without these two getting me on the correct train!

When was the last time you looked at/used a map you could hold in your hand? (phones don’t count!) 

I love maps and look at them frequently, especially when planning a road trip. I looked at a map last week.

back east, down south, out west, up north

Choose one of these directional expressions and tell us why you chose it.

I’ll choose “Go West Young Man” even though it’s not on the list because I wrote a paper about Horace Greeley when I was in junior high school and he was credited with popularizing this phrase. He was a newspaper editor and author. Greeley favored westward expansion. (1811-1872)

2. Did you do more talking or listening yesterday? Is that typical?

Hmmm…I think it was 50-50. When I wake up in the morning Dear has been up for a few hours already and he is ready to have a listening ear and then I have to remind him I really can’t listen to a technical description of how the gears work in a starter and why the car didn’t start up this morning before I’ve had my morning coffee. When I’ve been up for a while I might take over on the talking.

Describe your yesterday in one word.

Staging: We have a realtor coming over Wednesday morning to check out our property and give us an assessment and suggestions on selling our home.

3. Time, money, water-power-resources, opportunity…which one on the list are you most guilty of wasting? What might you do to change that?

Oh boy, you are hitting us hard this week. I’ll say water-power-resources. I have a long way to go to be a conservationist.

4. Did  your family take regular vacations when you were a kid?

The simple answer is no. I was in college before I took my first plane trip with a friend.

Tell us something you remember about a family road trip from your own childhood.

We did take a few road trips and those were always north from Los Angeles to Central California, San Francisco and Oregon. The black and white above is from Crater Lake. We always visited friends or family and stayed in their homes when we traveled unless we were camping. We had a few camping trips to Big Bear and a camping trip to San Clemente State beach.

I remember getting up in the “rear package shelf” of the car to look up at the sky as we drove along. When in 6th grade my teacher noticed I had trouble seeing the black board and suggested to my parents to get my eyes checked. I was nearsighted. When I got my first pair of glasses I was amazed at how clear things were when driving in the car.

5. If you could grow anything you wanted, what would you grow? Why?

I would love to grow avocados (tree). I enjoy a variety of dishes that are great with avocado and a favorite treat is avocado on toast.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Speaking of road trips, we are tripping over to this little girls house soon.

Looking forward to some cuddle time and seeing all she’s learned since our last visit together.

Linking up with Joyce From This Side of the Pond for Wednesday Hodgepodge.

Thank you for visiting here today and for your comments. I do appreciate each one.

A Little Diversion…

Yesterday Dear and I decided to take a short road trip to the cities of Duvall and Carnation. We enjoyed beautiful fall colors in the mist, a few fun shops and some good eats. I’ll show more of what we saw soon and I’m happy to say I finally have some more barns to share along with fences and signs.

Here’s Dear, outstanding in his field. Sorry couldn’t resist that one! We had a full day yesterday and I hope to be able to visit more of you today.

Have you been to a pumpkin patch yet?

Olympic Peninsula Barns

For the Barn Collective with Tom the Backroads Traveller I’m showing barns from the back roads of the Northern Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.

On Dear and my road trip to the westernmost tip of the contiguous United States on July 15th & 16th we drove by these barns.

How about a barn converted into a winery?

On a personal kind of farming note of the orchard variety…on Saturday I had to pick apples off our apple tree because they had started falling off the tree on their own in huge numbers. Since I had given my pricey fruit picker to our son for a Christmas stocking gift, no it didn’t fit into his stocking technically but it did fit in the back of his pick-up, I was without an implement that would make reaching the apples on the upper branches easily. I stepped into our newly cleaned out and re-organized garage, the product of my husband’s extra time on his hands since being without a job right now. I looked around and spotted the two 4 paks of bamboo tiki torches that have been waiting for an occasion for many years now. I thought to myself…that could work for picking apples off my tree. I took the lighter out of the top and proceeded to the tree. This new farm implement worked like a charm! I could even snatch two apples with one going down into the reservoir before having to empty them into my apple basket! I was quite proud of myself and my easy apple picking venture!

Have a great last week of July!

Biltmore Bass Pond and Waterfall

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When we were done at the Bass Ponds we found our way back to the Biltmore House and took the bus back to the parking lot where we parked our car. We then drove to Antler Hill Village. After all our walking about the grounds and trekking through some warm trails we were really ready for some nice refreshment.

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We had a great lunch at Cedric’s Tavern named after the family dog. “Named for George Vanderbilt’s beloved Saint Bernard, Cedric, this warm, relaxing tavern overlooks the village green at Antler Hill Village. The décor, ambience, and menu pay tribute to the neighborhood pubs of Britain and Ireland. Enjoy satisfying pub fare alongside robustly flavored American and global cuisine presented with Biltmore flair.”

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We weren’t disappointed by the food or drink at Cedric’s.

So I’m still catching up on our Road Trip posts. I only have a couple more. I was so busy over the weekend I really didn’t have time to come up with something more current. Here we are in the last week of May. Soon the wedding month will be here and this year we actually have a wedding to attend in June. We also are getting some visitors in June. This week we will make some decisions on our main floor bathroom. We were so gung ho to have it gutted by now but here we are dragging our feet. It’s hard to decide how much to let someone else do and charge you an arm and a leg for…

What’s happening this week in your world?

Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree

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“Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree”

Don’t sit under the apple tree
With anyone else but me
Anyone else but me
Anyone else but me
No no no

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Don’t sit under the apple tree
With anyone else but me
’til I come marching home
Don’t go walking down lovers lane
With anyone else but me
Anyone else but me
Anyone else but me
No no no

Its lyrics are the words of two young lovers who pledge their fidelity while one of them is away serving in the war. Made popular by Glen Miller and the Andrew’s Sisters during World War II. Just yesterday as I walked under our apple tree and commented on the beauty of the blossoms, Dear called out “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me”.

Seems somewhat appropriate that I post this song and my apple blossom photos as our daughter Katie and I think about packing the car to head to Camp Lejeune for her to be reunited with her beloved who has been serving with the Marines in Afghanistan since September.

No, don’t go walking down lovers’ lane
No, walking down lovers’ lane till you see
When you see me marching home
Then we’ll go arm in arm and
Sit down under the apple tree
Baby, just you and me
When I come marching home

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Happy Friday to you all. Today Katie and I have hair appointments and Dear and I have eye appointments. Am I packed? No. I do have some piles going. Katie has made some good progress. We both have 1 P.M. events tomorrow and then tomorrow evening we’ll pack up the car.

What’s going on in your part of the world?

More From the Road…

Although the eagles and mountains we saw on our roadtrip were the most majestic of our views we saw other lovely sights. This robin sat still long enough for me to capture with my lens.

The sun played nicely on and through the moss on the trees we passed along the road.

The last photos I took on this trip were of this Orthodox church in Arlington where we returned to Interstate 5 to head home. Love the design of the crosses.

What’s up for you today? We are having a meal tonight with 3 of our 5 kiddos. I’m thinking I’ll set the table with pink, red, and white…

O Beautiful…

for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain;

For purple mountains majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood,

From sea to shining sea.

We did not see any seas but the mighty Columbia River that begins in the Canadian Rockies and flows through the state of Washington empties into the Pacific Ocean between Oregon and Washington…

These are some of the views we saw on our road trip to Eastern Washington to visit our son, Dan. We are home now and I wanted to post something from our trip. Our company survived nicely without us. Don’t know what the plans are for today except for what we are having for dinner. Summer has arrived on this side of the mountains, too, so our guests are finally warming up. Hope all is well with you and yours today…

ht: Words to O Beautiful for Spacious Skies: Katharine L. Bates, 1904.

Random Captures…

I’m getting a few posts ready filled with random shots I haven’t shared. Dear’s on vacation and we are doing random things. I’m going to schedule posts through Wednesday. When we get back from a little road trip East to visit our second born I hope to share some new shots…

While we are gone and when we get back we have a house full of guests from Southern California. My niece’s family along with my sister Kathy are road tripping up for the week.

I’m happy to have a house full of people to use as guinea goats guinea pigs for some recipes I wanted to try. That way Dear and I don’t have to eat the whole enchilada ourselves.

Hope your week is starting off well…