Golden Spur Motor Inn Newport

My friend Diane just reminded me that I hadn't finished the story with the jade earrings. Here is a photo of the finished product. I love them. The jade is actually a very pale green color (all jade starts out white and is affected by other minerals as to the colors). The settings are silver and I am very happy with them indeed.

... br> Leaving Saturday for L.A. where I'll meet up with Terry Chamorro and stay at her place Saturday night. Sunday morning we have a 7:45am flight out of LAX which means going to the airport at 5:45am. Ungodly time. We are flying on Mexicana Airlines via Mexico City to Guatemala City.
Not exactly sure yet where we'll meet up with Rose and Jim....probably at LAX before the flight.

Finally got the truck back, all fixed and running beautifully. Decided to get on the road, though it was already 2 pm. Headed south along Flathead Lake through green forests and valleys to I-90, then west, west, west. All uphill, what a climb, to Coeur d'Alene in Idaho, then downhill into Washington State. Spent almost two hours trying to find Riverside State Park in the city of Spokane, finally set up the camper and tried to settle down for the night.

... gmacht sond**n händ eifach kilomet**wiis em b**g nah däruf baut.

Churz vorem idunkle hämm** hööch üb**eme see en bär entdeckt wo det go fische isch. Er hät sini büüti as uf** bracht und gnüsslich v**schlunge. Eus hät ** üb**haupt nöd beachtet, sind v**muetlich zwiit weg gsi und drum hämm** eus mittel steiwurf (kei angscht, nöd diräkt uf ihn) für äs foti vo vorne bem**kbar gmacht. Nachh** isch ** abzottlet ...

... as I wanted. There aren't many campgrounds east of Seattle and one appears by its website to be near the interstate and is all pavement and I am waiting for a call back from another one. Some people we met from TN at the Yellowstone campground told us about a campground near the Olympic National Park so they have a site for us when we leave Seattle. After that Oregon and then heading for home.

We're here visiting with Misty's mom, Malee, for the next 5 days or so.

If you are wondering about posts for the visit to the Olympics, don't worry, we will be working on it over the next few days and have Stories, Photos, and Videos. The mountains were spectacular, the weather couldn't have been more mild and calm, and it seemed we were almost alone out there. What a great way to start the adventure in our own backyard.

In the ...

... a problem. Jen seemed to be getting some sort of bad eye infection and thus we had to go to a local doctor for 3 hrs. Thankfully she's fine.

BTW! Spokane....is beautiful! This is an unsung gem of Washington State. The city is clean, there are waterfalls and riverfront parks, fountains you can run through! It's great!

Tomorrow we are off to Seattle! I can sum up what we are most excited for in Seattle: Coffee.

Goodnight all!

... first 30 miles were steadily uphill and we had a 10 mile descent down into a river valley afterwards. although this descent wasn't the zippiest, it was still a lot of fun because it had a series of wide, sweeping turns that we were taking at 30-35 miles per hour. there were even a couple of instances where we had to slow down to reach the recommended speeds on the signs for autos! at the base of the hill, we met up with the early risers and started in on the ...

... environment than Ashland. (Yes, ultimately I would have rather seen it up at Ashland!) After leaving the ski area we decided to take a look around at the town of Chewelah, and the local lakes and resorts. It turned out to be a bit of a frustrating afternoon... Chewelah is a neat, healthy looking town with an economy that seems to center around timber, sand quarrying, and tourism (Spokane is less than 50 miles down the road). After looking ...

... wrestling on the trail. One cub looked up and saw me and took off, but the other was clueless, looking around as if to ask, "hey where'd everybody go?". Not wishing to have the mama return, I made myself visible and made enough noise that the cub saw me and took off. As I passed by the point where the bears were, I looked up into the woods and locked eyes with mama, who stared back for a moment before she went on her way. We ended up ...