America 2015 - part 12

OK this will wrap up our trip finally. If you've never been to the PNW I hope you have a little better idea of what it's like now.


The heat did not relent the entire trip and I think we put 2000 miles on our Hyundai.




I'd taken J to Roslyn Washington when we first met, on our way to go horse camping together in Salmon le Sac. I mentioned that the town was the filming location of the cult TV series Northern Exposure, but since he'd never heard of it, it meant nothing to him at the time. The show is awesome, and we watched the entire series together since that first visit. The show is set in Alaska, but filmed in Washington, which I suppose must pass well for Alaska, minus the Caribou.

J was thrilled to finally get a chance to see the town, which attracts tourists from around the world who love the show. They've left some of the town as it was during filming, and there is a gift shop where I bought a Northern Exposure travel mug (below).

J was not thrilled to have found out that *during our trip* there was the annual Northern Exposure block party with actors from the show. He won't make that mistake again.




The main character's office turned gift shop for fans.




On the way back to Leavenworth for our family reunion at a cabin, we geocached Teanaway and it was such a perfect town - check out this cattle farm, the house way back from the road - I'll take it.




This valley was amazingly peaceful.  No car passed us the entire time we were there.




I'm sad to say I only have two photos from our family reunion at a cabin in the woods near Leavenworth. This is a huge Ponderosa that was moving its branches in the "dryer vent" breeze, and the shadows from the long needles made fascinating patterns on the ground.




This river wraps around the cabin and from the deck the sound of the water would be incredibly soothing if it wasn't so hot out. *In* the river was refreshing, but you had to really get down into it to cool down, and any part of you that stuck out of the water was in a burning oven. I sat down in it but there were those creepy rock bugs, ew. My mom shared her wine with me and splashed me thoroughly because she could see I was suffering.

The cabin had 3 air conditioners and it was not enough, so sleeping was difficult. It would be a wonderful place to stay in less hot weather.

We all went on a horseback ride in the morning, and I was the only rider not in shorts. They gave me the worst horse, the laziest, they admitted, but I had a great time because I worked out an understanding with him, and kept him in line as he became very light off my leg. When I dismounted, I just did my typical "drop both stirrups and leap to the ground" dismount and found the ground very slow at arriving. The wrangler reached out his arm to steady me because I landed on some tree roots. He said, "Careful! The ground is uneven, and this horse is 17HH." True enough, when I looked up, his back was over my head. At the end I was thrilled when a wrangler said, "Wow, you really kept that horse up with the group, that never happens." It was just great, after so long, to be on a horse and have no worry at all about what the horse is gonna do next. Trust is a great thing. The next day we brought the horses a bucket of apples as a thank you.




Going through Leavenworth again, I need to show how all the businesses are required to have a Bavarian theme, even the Starbucks and McDonalds. We ate at a famous German restaurant and although they didn't have my favorite dish from the Rheinland (that would have been inauthentic!), we had good food. My husband even enjoyed it, and after reading an info board on the history of the town, he was telling me all about it. Could it be that after all these years of scoffing, he's a fan?




On the way home our highway was blocked due to a wildfire and we had to take another way, which took us past these German electricity makers.




Ah, finally, Snoqualmie pass, almost home!


We had one day of rest, which wasn't really rest, before we had to get on a plane for home, and endure another 21 hour travel time. It's not that I hate flying, it's that I hate the 21 freaking hours door to door. OK I also hate being stuck in a tube shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of strangers, and the soreness that comes from not moving for 10 hours. With the travel time, and the expense, we may not be back for a while, so it was really wonderful to experience so much, and so much new-to-us stuff this year.

So please come visit us for a change, people: )




Our first moment home, I was struck with how thick the air was, and how deep green everything is. This is my rose bush in the morning, dripping water from condensation.

I'm sitting here with a bottle of water (finally good sparkling water again!) and it's standing in a puddle of its own condensation.



Our car in the morning was soaking wet and not from rain. (Oh, that's a red car, did you notice? We got a RED one!)




We'd asked our fish guy to mow our lawn, but he failed to the entire month. I was completely overwhelmed with how much mowing I had to do in this heat and humidity. The grass came up to my knees in places, and it's soaking wet all day long. My lawn mower begged for mercy, which I could not provide.




What my lawn looks like after a month of no care. Almost a month later, I'm finally caught up on the mowing and weeding.

The donkey looked at us with such an expression, "I never thought I'd see you again!" and the cat punished us by avoiding us for 2 weeks. The horse seemed nonchalant. I was happy to see my animals healthy.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far.