Days 15, 16, 17: Spokane, WA--Pacific City, OR--Eureka, CA

Well, for anyone who is following my blog closely (all three of you!) Don't worry, I didn't drive off the end of the earth, join a weird Pacific Northwest New Age Cult, or land in the hospital from over-eating. (Although I think I came close on a couple of those) The trip has continued to chug along wonderfully, praise the Lord, knock on wood, etc.! I didn't write on Saturday as we stayed at my cousin Steve's house until late that night, then had to quickly deposit the kids back at Aunt Kay's house and she and I left for the airport to get Olga. We got home LATE and had to leave EARLY, so I didn't blog that night. Then last night we stayed at a beach cabin with no internet. So even though it is late tonight too, I'm going to try to give a quick summary of the past three days to get caught up.

Saturday: was a nice relaxing day to hang around Uncle Dick and Aunt Kay's house and rest up for the next leg of the trip. I took the Urban Assault Minivan to Wal-Mart for fresh oil for the second half of the trip and stopped for an unhelpful visit to Verizon (Thanks for nothing!) because Anthony's phone fell in one of Spokane's most beautiful fountains. Aunt Kay fixed veggies burgers for lunch and then in the afternoon we worked on laundry, packing, postcard writing and the kids helped Uncle Dick pick berries and played "Go to the head of the class" with Grandma. (Anthony won, even defeating Grandma in her favorite game which she has been playing for 70 years!) Then we got ready and headed over to Steve and Ruth's house. What a GREAT place they have. A 100+ year old farmhouse which they are gradually restoring and which sits up in the hills overlooking Spokane. Even nicer than Steve's house are his wife and kids. We had so much fun with them. We enjoyed both Steve and Dan's families so much, it sure makes us wish we lived closer. Steve grilled wild salmon that he'd caught and we ate outside. It was a wonderful meal! (baked potatoes and sour cream, Grandma B. salad, rolls, jello salad, green beans, and chocolate and coconut creme pies from Aunt Kay) And also some incredible tartar sauce which is a delicacy from some Spokane restaurant. We sat around talking and visiting and touring Steve's place until late. His wife Ruth is so funny and we had a great time together. Steve has a trampoline buried in his yard so that it is flush with ground level. Isn't that clever?! No risk of falling off! So the kids played on that with their second cousins. All this time Olga was making her way from Buffalo to Washington DC to Denver to Washington State. She got in about 11pm safe and sound.

Sunday: We got up EARLY yesterday morning and Uncle Dick and Aunt Kay and Mom got up and fixed us breakfast and got us on our way. We were attempting to drive from Spokane to the Oregon coast with stops to visit two friends along the way. Along the way (at the Erbs suggestion) we stopped at the incredible Multnomah Falls - unbelievable and beautiful! While there JD found us a SECOND Hawaii license plate! Another interesting experience on the way there was a gas station stop which felt like a step back in time - first of all had a display of CASSETTES for sale! Has anyone bought a recorded cassette in the past twenty years?!) and then in the cooler they had ice cold Coca-Cola in BOTTLES! And also made with actual sugar, not high fructose corn syrup! What a treat. Our first visit was with Lee and Sara Hall near Portland. With no offense intended to any of my other RDs who might see this...Sara was one of my all-time favorite RDs during all of my residence life years and it was so wonderful to see where she and Lee have made their new home. They visited us in New York last fall and their beautiful little Elaina has grown up so much and charmed us all with her smiles and she also let me hold her for a long time! Sara and I used to have our weekly meetings over ice cream when she was at Houghton, and so she thoughtfully had the fixings for blizzards! The kids (and I!) were thrilled. Also, Sara didn't even know this, but the kids had proposed that everytime the car rolled over another 1000 mile mark that I owed them ice cream, so don't you know that it rolled over 4000 almost exactly at Sara's house. We had an all-too brief visit with them and then headed on over to Newberg to see another of my favorite RDs - Laura Goodfellow and her Goodhusband, Scotty. I've always enjoyed the two of them so much (Scotty interned with me in Career Services) This time we also got to spend time with the Rathkeys, Laura's parents, in their beautiful home. They had vegetarian pizza for us and four kinds of local Tillamook ice cream -- of which I tried three of them! As if dinner wasn't enough, they also loaned us their charming beach cabin over on the Oregon coast, so after dinner, we said good bye and headed into the setting sun. We got over to "Pacific City" and by the time we found the cabin and got settled in, it was already dark. But the kids and I were so excited to have finally made it the WHOLE way west, that they couldn't wait till morning to go stick their feet into the ocean. So they talked me into a late night beach romp! It was DARK and freezing COLD so Olga stayed home, but even though I felt like I was walking barefoot through the snow, I enjoyed watching the kids romp and play so much that it was worth a late July case of frostbite!

Today (Monday) This morning Anthony slept in and Olga and I took the younger two over to the beach. Olga is engrossed in Harry Potter so she sat on a piece of drift log and read and I walked up the beach with JD and Samantha. It was BEAUTIFUL and we practically had the whole place to ourselves. A WIDE white beach and so pristine and quiet. Each of them found an intact sand dollar! After they got soaked and sandy again, we headed home to pack up and get on the road. We took the slow, scenic route right down the Oregon coast highway - I don't even know how to begin to describe how beautiful it was. I hope I don't embarrass any of my conservative readers, but my friend Juan, the writing professor who moved to Oregon back in the 80s wrote to me in Arkansas that Oregon was so beautiful that it gave her "visual orgasms." Perhaps that says it best! I'd been feeling bad that Olga had missed out on so much great scenery, but today sure helped to make up for it. We made painfully slow progress because we kept talking to jump out, take pictures, exclaim, and ooh and ahh! The kids wanted to go down to the beach so we made a mid morning stop at what I thought was an access road to the beach but turned out to be a collapse in the highway and so we practically had to jump off a cliff to get down there! But it was worth the treacherous descent because once again we had it entirely to ourselves AND the kids each found a starfish.

We finally had to FORCE ourselves to quit stopping so that we could get to California in time to see the giant redwoods before it got too late. Rte. 101 which we had been following ever since Pacific City took us right through the Redwood National Forest and what an awesome experience! I don't think I have it in me to upload pictures tonight as we have an early morning LONG drive tomorrow (we need to get clear to southern California to our next reservation and for Samantha to visit her friend Katie. But maybe tomorrow night I'll be able to. Both tonight and tomorrow night we are staying at Red Lion Inns where my cousin Dan works. He looked at my itinerary and recognized that his chain has inns at two of our stops and so he got us a great rate to stay at a hotel which on a scale of four stars has four more stars than the Sleep Cheap reservations I had made. Thanks Danny!!! We never got around to stopping for a meal today so tonight when we got into Eureka we went over and plowed through a Sizzler like a herd of locusts! The Azzaritos introduced me to Sizzler many years ago and then I often went to one with Dan and Sally when we lived in Nyack. Then we came back to this beautiful hotel and the boys and I sat in the outdoor jacuzzi for awhile. Very nice end to long day of sightseeing.

Well, I am probably leaving some things out, if I think of more I will add them tomorrow. It is a weird feeling because for first two weeks of this trip the electronic compass on our car only said WEST. Now we have finally started SOUTH. Tomorrow night we will be at the furthest point away from Fillmore and we will then begin our return East, which once again gives me mixed feelings. I hate to think of the trip being over - I have enjoyed it all so much.

Yikes, I did all the driving again today and I am exhausted. I think I will close for tonight before I drop into a coma! I'm not even going to proofread this, so sorry for any errors!