Labor Day Trip Report (with photos too!)
Hey, it's only a month late, but I finally got the photo selection narrowed down to something manageable on this blog. Blogger may give me lots of room, but 800+ photos would still put me over quota. :-)
First, I had an excellent long weekend visiting Twitchh in eastern Washington. Travel out and back was uneventful (well, except for the announcement by the pilot that there was a warning to not take off so we did a loop around the taxiway after they made the warning light go away. I hope they didn't "fix" it by banging on the dashboard, but the plane took off and landed just fine so I'm happy regardless.) I chatted with my two seatmates on the flights out. One was completely amazed that I could knit while reading. The other thought it was really cool that I knit socks and completely understood the concept of paying $20 for long-lasting, custom-fit socks instead of going to WalMart for cheaper socks that wear out in a year.
Once out in Washington, I found myself wide awake at 5:30am on the first day, so I started cleaning up Twitchh's kitchen (He'd already told me that I was welcome to tear it all apart and re-arrange things so as to facilitate his newfound interest in cooking.) I didn't really mean to do as much as I did, but once I got started, it was easy to keep going. We had already started to organize the canned goods in the cabinets and pantry the night before. I ruthlessly threw out food that was more than a year out of date. The in-date food that Twittch decided he didn't like got stacked up to for the food bank. Other kitchen stuff he said he didn't want or need was stacked up for the GoodWill store. While cleaning out/re-arranging the cabinet under the kitchen sink, I noticed some dark stuff (perhaps old, dried spaghetti sauce) splashed onto the front of the cabinet door and the baseboards. I worked my way around the kitchen, sitting on the floor, cleaning the goo off the cabinets and baseboards. At the fridge, I removed all the food, scrubbed the shelves and put it all back. Fortunately by this time Twitchh was up and in the shower because it's IMPOSSIBLE to get crisper drawers in/out of a refrigerator without making fairly loud banging noises. For me, this procedure is rarely accomplished without actually dropping at least one of them. When Twitchh came out of his room, he found me sitting on the kitchen floor in my pajamas. I gave him the most apologetic/contrite expression I could muster and said, a la lolcatz, "I maeded a clean." He laughed and told me to go take a shower.
Later that day we found the first of two yarn stores, the library, the food bank and we picked up a bunch of new kitchen gear at Bed, Bath and Beyond. That afternoon he showed me where he worked (security issues require visits to be done after regular working hours) and we had dinner with some of his co-workers. I got to meet Twitchh's "girlfriend" Violet too. Violet is the 2-3 year old daughter of one of his co-workers who occasionally refuses to go to bed until she talks to Twitchh. She was quite shy until her parents explained that I'm a friend of Twitchh's and slowly she warmed up to me. By the end of the evening she was making faces with me and snagging bean sprouts off my plate.
Saturday we headed to Walla Walla to visit their farmer's market and the Fort Walla Walla museum. By utter coincidence, it happened to also be Frontier Days, so we got to see a parade too. We purchased some peaches which were the size of softballs(!!), blueberries, apples, green beans and tomatoes. The museum was quite interesting and primarily featured historical agricultural implements and a re-created village. The signs/text that went with the displays was interesting though and we both learned quite a bit about the the early days of the area. Saturday night we cooked dinner (meatless loaf, mashed potatoes/gravy and green beans) and hung out watching TV.
Sunday morning we took a boat ride up the Columbia River.
The guide was great!! Ray has lived in the area most of his life and had plenty of information to share about the geography, geology and history of the area. We saw all of the Hanford reactor sites from the river, lots of wildlife, and also a small landslide.
Ray is friends with several of the fishermen/women on the river so we saw some pretty amazing catches being held up for view, including a teenaged girl's 31 pound first salmon.
(Her dad didn't want to be outdone so he caught a 35 pounder!!)
The weather was a bit chilly, but the whole trip was fun. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant, briefly stopped at the 2nd yarn store in town, then headed back to the apartment to just hang out and relax. We were both pretty tired by that point and it felt really good to just sit.
Monday morning we had breakfast and did a quick driving tour of Kennewick before having lunch and heading off to the airport. The trip back was even less eventful than the trip out though I got less knitting done on the planes. I kept taking pictures out the window on the last leg. The setting sun really highlighted the terrain of Utah and Colorado. The drive to my house from the airport was brightly lit by a nearly full moon. I even managed to get into bed at a fairly reasonable hour so was well-rested by the time I got up for work the next morning.
Twitchh and I did figure out during this trip that we really want to live in the same town again. We just have too much fun hanging out together. One or both of us will end up moving, but we're ok with that and we figure we can accomplish co-location within the next two years.
First, I had an excellent long weekend visiting Twitchh in eastern Washington. Travel out and back was uneventful (well, except for the announcement by the pilot that there was a warning to not take off so we did a loop around the taxiway after they made the warning light go away. I hope they didn't "fix" it by banging on the dashboard, but the plane took off and landed just fine so I'm happy regardless.) I chatted with my two seatmates on the flights out. One was completely amazed that I could knit while reading. The other thought it was really cool that I knit socks and completely understood the concept of paying $20 for long-lasting, custom-fit socks instead of going to WalMart for cheaper socks that wear out in a year.
Once out in Washington, I found myself wide awake at 5:30am on the first day, so I started cleaning up Twitchh's kitchen (He'd already told me that I was welcome to tear it all apart and re-arrange things so as to facilitate his newfound interest in cooking.) I didn't really mean to do as much as I did, but once I got started, it was easy to keep going. We had already started to organize the canned goods in the cabinets and pantry the night before. I ruthlessly threw out food that was more than a year out of date. The in-date food that Twittch decided he didn't like got stacked up to for the food bank. Other kitchen stuff he said he didn't want or need was stacked up for the GoodWill store. While cleaning out/re-arranging the cabinet under the kitchen sink, I noticed some dark stuff (perhaps old, dried spaghetti sauce) splashed onto the front of the cabinet door and the baseboards. I worked my way around the kitchen, sitting on the floor, cleaning the goo off the cabinets and baseboards. At the fridge, I removed all the food, scrubbed the shelves and put it all back. Fortunately by this time Twitchh was up and in the shower because it's IMPOSSIBLE to get crisper drawers in/out of a refrigerator without making fairly loud banging noises. For me, this procedure is rarely accomplished without actually dropping at least one of them. When Twitchh came out of his room, he found me sitting on the kitchen floor in my pajamas. I gave him the most apologetic/contrite expression I could muster and said, a la lolcatz, "I maeded a clean." He laughed and told me to go take a shower.
Later that day we found the first of two yarn stores, the library, the food bank and we picked up a bunch of new kitchen gear at Bed, Bath and Beyond. That afternoon he showed me where he worked (security issues require visits to be done after regular working hours) and we had dinner with some of his co-workers. I got to meet Twitchh's "girlfriend" Violet too. Violet is the 2-3 year old daughter of one of his co-workers who occasionally refuses to go to bed until she talks to Twitchh. She was quite shy until her parents explained that I'm a friend of Twitchh's and slowly she warmed up to me. By the end of the evening she was making faces with me and snagging bean sprouts off my plate.
Sunday morning we took a boat ride up the Columbia River.
Ray is friends with several of the fishermen/women on the river so we saw some pretty amazing catches being held up for view, including a teenaged girl's 31 pound first salmon.
The weather was a bit chilly, but the whole trip was fun. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant, briefly stopped at the 2nd yarn store in town, then headed back to the apartment to just hang out and relax. We were both pretty tired by that point and it felt really good to just sit.
Monday morning we had breakfast and did a quick driving tour of Kennewick before having lunch and heading off to the airport. The trip back was even less eventful than the trip out though I got less knitting done on the planes. I kept taking pictures out the window on the last leg. The setting sun really highlighted the terrain of Utah and Colorado. The drive to my house from the airport was brightly lit by a nearly full moon. I even managed to get into bed at a fairly reasonable hour so was well-rested by the time I got up for work the next morning.
Twitchh and I did figure out during this trip that we really want to live in the same town again. We just have too much fun hanging out together. One or both of us will end up moving, but we're ok with that and we figure we can accomplish co-location within the next two years.
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