Finally, News from the Vacation, Ch. 1

I finally have a minuet to sit down and do a thourough job reporting on our vacation! I got back, worked a long week, then had an IICRC class for work. I learned how to do repairs that I have already been doing for 5 years, but at least I'm certified now!
Well, Karen and I left home for Washington Saturday, July 22. We left late because I had to work Friday night until 10:30pm. We drove a rental because our Outback was going in for a face-lift and hip surgery (new front bumper and fixing a dent on the rear quarter panel). It turned out the vehicle we has reserved was unavailable, so they had to give us a luxury car! It was a brand-new Mercury Montego. A nice cat indeed. I chronicled our time at my parent's house already, so I won't dwell on it much, other than to post a few pics.
This is my dad. I am up in his bucket truck, about 40ft. off the ground.

Notice in this corner the hay bales and hay bunk. There are currently about 12 lambs occupying the pasture around my parents' house.

This is the dog. His name is Sam. He's old.

There were the typical beautiful sunsets while we were there. The mountain at center is Mt. Rainier

We had a lot of fun...













From there we went to Karen's parents' cabin near Deer Lake, Washington. It is a great "cabin" tucked back in the woods, but still close to the lake.
We went boating a lot


This is Karen being dragged along by her papa. He tied a rope with a buoy on the end so swimmers wouldn't float way. The wind would push the boat across the lake, so he had to move it. He'd just putt along and pull us through the water.

There was an osprey nest near thier cabin. I went up to take some pics of them. They are a beautiful bird, and smart. This one is the female. She would fly off and grab a stick and dive-bomb me with them. She got within about 10ft. of me at one point. I decided it was time to leave them alone for a while.

We (Frank and I) also did some projects around the place and went shooting. It was nice doing some manly stuff with him.
Just down the road from thier cabin there are hundreds of acres of dry-land wheat fields. They have been growing wheat in the Spokane area for over 100 years. If anyone is interested, there is a large farm for sale along Hywy 395 for sale. The fields with the mountains in the distance are breathtaking. Spokane was at one time the biggest city in Washington, largely because of wheat production. We noticed also that the area is relatively clean. There wasn't very much garbage along the road, and where Frank and I went shooting there wasn't the piles of garbage there are in some of the areas of Oregon. There is also much more small areas of private property. Here in Western Oregon, the land is either Weyerhauser or State Forest. Eastern Oregon has either huge ranches or BLM land. Near Spokane there were lots of medium-size farms and little 20 acre areas of forest.
Well, it seems I've uploaded the max ammount, so I'll post a "Vacation II" post later. It will loosten regulations for readers and all posts will now be in the native language, rather than in Latin. Also, the phrase, "anoiting the sick" shall replace "extreme unction." Further, all things destined for use in divine worship should have simple dignity; lavish display does not accord with the worship of God (I guess they haven't gotten around to taking down all the "lavish displays" at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre). Each blog should have its own Commission of Sacred Art; ecclesiastical laws, relating to the building of posts, are to be revised wherever necessary. ;-) I am of course, jesting.