Days 33, 34 & 35: The Trip Home

I know it can be done in two days, but the trip from Seattle to Joplin, if broken into three days, makes it less grueling. Ten to twelve hours a day in the van are plenty!

The first day's drive took us from Seattle, back across the Snoqualmie Pass one more time, passing the places where we stayed in Ellensburg and Zillah (Toppenish) a few nights before en route. It was raining on the west side of the mountains, snowing in the pass, but dried out pretty well on the east side. We had good weather all this first day, traversing Washington state first on I-90, then down to the Columbia River on I-82, then picking up I-84 diagonal down through the NE corner of Oregon and SW Idaho. We returned our tire chains at a Les Schwab's in Baker City, OR, unused and they were very nice about giving us our money back. As we passed through Boise, we remembered our time with Gary & Joyce Anderson and wished them well as we zoomed through their part of town. We spent this first night at a motel in Rupert, Idaho, where many years ago, Susan remembered visiting her Uncle "T" who was a medical doctor there.

To tell you the truth, I wasn't much looking forward to the second day's drive, thinking the scenery would be monotonous. Was I ever wrong! As we drove that part of southern Idaho, that little piece of northern Utah, and across the high plains of Wyoming, we found ourselves praising our Creator for magnificent new vistas at every turn of the highway. I was saying, "Look at that!" so often that Susan was hard-pressed to take her nap, and often interrupted in her reading. I'm talking about beautiful mountains, snow-covered plateaus, high-tech wind farms, geological formations, and even a literal sky-blue hole in the gray clouds right where we were driving on the highway! From watching the snowfall in Denver on the Weather Channel the night before, we had decided to take I-80 all the way through Nebraska to avoid the white stuff. As it was, we only had a few places where the lighted signs read, "Turn off cruise-control: icy patches on roadway ahead" or something to that effect. When we finally pulled into our motel in Sidney, Nebraska, around 10 pm, we were ready to hit the sack.

The third day was the boring one. Beautiful sunny day for driving, though. When we crossed the Missouri River into Iowa on Highway 2, and picked up I-29, we were back in VERY familiar territory. (I wish I had a dollar for every time I've driven the I-29/US 71 stretch through Kansas City & home to Joplin!) Susan drove for a couple of stretches to let me catch up recording expenses for our trip report and to nap. We stopped at Hy-Vee south of Kansas City (Belton) to buy some groceries. They have a gas station associated with the store that gives 5 cents per gallon discount off the price, if you take your grocery receipt, so we paid the least for gas there in KC on the whole trip: $1.459--quite a welcome relief from the up to $3.259 we'd been paying in the NW. By the way, did you know that Oregon is one of the last hold-out states that will not permit you to pump your own gas? That was hard to get used to.

These three days were spent listening to music from my new iPod Touch the whole way. Thanks again, Suz, for the super birthday present! As we turned off US 71 at the last Carthage exit, to traverse the last few miles to the Casey Cabin, Susan found the Hallelujah Chorus. We truly did praise the Lord for a great trip, His protection through every one of the 8,600 miles! Driving into our Indian Springs subdivision, I woke Emilee so she could enjoy the arrival with us. At the entrance to our circle driveway, I stopped the van. We sat there looking at the house the Lord has allowed us have, and were SO glad to be home. Thanks for coming along with us. It was a great trip!

Day 32: Final Engagements

WE MADE IT! This (Oct. 19th) is the last day before we start our journey home. We spent the morning in the motel doing one last sorting and packing for the trip home. Rain was heavy off and on all day and evening. We drove to the church in Tacoma where we met with the other 4 missionary families and the NWSOM Committee for lunch. We spent a couple of hours after that debriefing. We shared ideas, suggestions, etc. It was fun to be able to share stories with the others who had traveled a similar route as we had. "Did you drive the Oregon coast? Did you see Crater Lake? Wasn't the preacher at that church an encourager?"

Soon it was time for the closing prayer circle. We were the first ones out the door, since we were the odd ones out with still one more speaking engagement. We drove for over an hour in pouring rain and Seattle rush hour traffic! As soon as we arrived at Mountlake Terrace Christian Church, we were warmly received by a family on the missions team. We set up the display and headed for a Chinese restaurant where we met another team member. As soon as we had shared our fortune cookie messages, we returned to the church for the evening service.

One bright spot in this particular evening was the presence of Phil's Uncle John and Aunt Helen Casey. Also attending the presentation was their son Allen and his wife Lauree and daughter Stephanie. John and Helen are known widely on the West coast, so it was a nice visit around the snack table at church. We were blessed to stay the evening with Allen and his family. He is a pharmaceutical research scientist and she is a pharmaceutical rep supervisor for Bayer. Emilee enjoyed the "slumber party" with her cousin. After a WONDERFUL breakfast, we were sent on our way by 9:00 to drive the 3 day trip home!
What a trip! So many memories made, blessings shared, friends made and nature enjoyed. But we are READY TO BE HOME!

Signing off for now for the Caseys,

Susan

PS - First picture above is of Brad & Lisa (Woolsey) Box (see yesterday's blog)
Second picture is part of the NWSOM committee at the evaluation closing meeting
Third picture is Uncle John & Aunt Helen
Fourth picture is us with John, Helen, Allen, Lauree & Stephanie Casey

Days 28, 29, 30 & 31: Back and Forth across the Cascades

Leaving Toppenish after the fellowship dinner, we headed west, across the Snoqualmie Pass toward Seattle on I-90. Our next engagement was on Monday night, so we had Sunday night and all Monday until 4:00 pm to ourselves. We decided to go all the way up I-5 to Bellingham to spend Sunday night in a motel, so we could hang out in Chris & Aubri's one-time home for six months. We drove around town Monday morning, taking a few pictures and remembering our time with C & A a few years ago when they invited us to spend a week there with them when Chris was a traveling Surg Tech.

We arrived in the tiny town of Bow at 4:00 and quickly found the church building--very reminiscent of the bucolic pueblos of Southern Chile. Our host for the evening, Sam, was there, tending to the fire in the wood-burning stove. We set up our display and shortly 30+ people started arriving for a soup supper--so good on a rainy Washington evening! They showed us a huge painting of Friday and his wife Thursday: indigenous inhabitants of these parts back a generation or so. That night we stayed with Sam and his Austrian wife, Margie, who had watched Hitler's troops march into her country when she was a 10-year-old girl. We talked about Austria and cedar trees and family--such a delghtful couple, in an immaculate home in the country.

Next morning we headed for Seattle. We had Tuesday free, so we decided we'd do some sight-seeing around the Seattle area. My Uncle John and Aunt Helen had taken me, years ago, to eat at a restaurant located right on Fisherman's Terminal--Chinook's. They said I just HAD to try the alder planked salmon--fresh salmon cooked on a plank of alder wood. It was delicious! So naturally, I insisted Susan try it. It was great! Emilee had fun with the onion rings. We then took a leisurely drive around West Seattle, snapping pictures of the Seattle skyline and hiking through lush Lincoln park.

That evening, we took up an offer for a free night in Steve Moreland's motor home. Steve is on the NWSOM committee, and has 4 RVs, about 10 cars and 2 motorcycles in his yard in rural Kent (a suburb of Seattle). Steve and his wife Lila love to take in missionaries, go on mission trips, and do all kinds of adventurous things. Thanks, Steve and Lila!

Wednesday, we headed back over the Cascades, this time to Ellensburg, where we spoke at a Church of Christ and spent the night with a delightful couple. He was a airline mechanic inspector. His father had flown a bi-plane in WWI. He had lots of stories and artifacts--even some pieces of a German zepellin his father had watched get blown out of the sky, and a "biscuit bucket" made out of the wooden hub of his father's plane's propeller.

We decided to take a different route back to Seattle, so went north to Leavenworth, a faux-Bavarian village where we visited some interesting shops and bought some apples and bakery goods to take to our next hosts. We had to cross Stephen's Pass this time, which had snow and slush on the highway, but we made it OK, without having to use our chains. Beautiful mountain rivers, surrounded by golden and crimson foliage among lush evergreens. Pictures just don't do it justice.

Thursday night, we ate a delicious taco soup supper in the one-bedroom apartment of Brad and Lisa (Woolsey) Box. We had watched Lisa grow up on the mission field in Chile, as her parents, Craig and Shirley, were co-missionaries with us during our Chile years. It was good to catch up with her and see her now as a married adult. We loved Brad, and fell immediately into coversations without missing a beat. It's great to be in the family of God! Brad recently became a CPA and loves doing audits. Lisa is teaching Spanish (naturally!) and social studies at a Middle School or Junior High. We had fun looking at pictures and talking a mile a minute.

Phil

Days 26 & 27: Corvallis, OR to Toppenish, WA

On the road again--la la la. Off we went from Corvallis. I had my morning nap on the way to Portland. We arrived about 11:00 and scooted across the river into Vancouver, WA to follow directions to a restaurant where we would meet Delores Freeman. She has been a faithful Book of the Month member for many years, and we had never even met her! A friend told her about the club and she loved the idea, even without knowing us. We had about an hour to eat, visit and get to know each other. Great fun!

Back on the road and one last look from the highway at Multnomah Falls. Soon we turned north to cross the Columbia River on one of the few bridges there are in the Gorge. The terrain changed immediately as we climbed a steep grade up onto the High Plain of south central Washington. Even though there isn't a lot of vegetation, it has a certain beauty to it. We soon arrived at Toppenish, which is located in an Indian Reservation.

Due to some mis-communication, what happened next was what we called in Spanish, a "fracaso." The person in charge of our visit thought we were to be there the week before! So on that Sunday the preacher had to throw together a sermon and the fellowship dinner was for naught. The contact person left on vacation. So when three of the five missionaries arrived at 4:00 the next Saturday, the preacher didn't know we were coming! He is in transition, his wife still living in the Seattle area, and he lives in an old house that was used as a family unit when there was a children's home there. When we asked about housing, (which is supposed to be provided, along with meals), the young man said, "Well, there are some mattresses--I'm not sure about bedding." (The house was virtually empty of even all but the bare essentials, including most of the furniture. There were, however, 4 turtles, 8 frogs, one spider, but no partridge and no pear tree. We asked about a shower and found out the one in the bathroom didn't function but there was a shower house if he could find the key. But he had no towels but his own. We asked if there were dinner plans, and he said he had something for himself in the fridge! Oh, boy! So after a quick pow-wow, we all piled into 2 vehicles and took off searching for motel rooms. Two towns later, we found some. We then went to a KFC and treated the poor preacher to supper. We made plans on how to share the next morning of church activities with all three missionaries. It all worked out really well. Life on an Indian Reservation, this one being the Yakima Indians, is definitely a cross-cultural experience. Time is not important. When it feels right, you go from S.S. to Church activities. And the whole time there was a ton of activities in the kitchen and church yard. I watched as one man carved up two 3 foot long pieces of fresh salmon. This was seasoned and wrapped in foil and placed in the smoker outside all during the morning activities. Next there was a young fella carving what looked like half a cow. I said, "Big cow!" He said, "Elk." I said "Oh!" So we had a HUGE fellowship dinner with salmon that we would have had to pay a fortune to eat in a restaurant, elk steaks, elk stew, fry bread and bitter root. (These were hand dug and peeled--a rare delicacy--no one liked the taste, but ate them for good luck!) There was so much food, that they just provide styrafoam containers for families to take the leftovers home! Great idea.

Well, what could have been a super unpleasant visit, turned out to be very interesting and fun. Hope we were able to be a blessing, as well.

Susan

Days 24 & 25: Redwoods and Oregon coast

Thursday morning, we left Dunsmuir, CA heading SOUTH on I-5 because we wanted to see the famous coastal redwoods, and the best crossing point was from Redding, which is south of Dunsmuir 50 or so miles. Several people had advised us not to go that route, because it was so full of twists and turns, but we decided we had plenty of time, so we'd give it a try. Are we ever glad we did! The twists and turns were because of the mountainous terrain--BEAUTIFUL mountains, with gorgeous scenes of mountain streams running through lush evergreens and golden deciduous trees in all their autumn grandeur. We stopped several times to gawk and take pictures, but the camera just can't do justice to what God allows the human eye/brain to experience.

Shortly after we turned north on Highway 101, we were in redwood country. These giants have always enthralled me. According to one sign, there are three types of redwoods: the Giant Sequoia, which "cling to life in the California's towering Sierra Nevadas;" the Dawn Redwoods, which are native to China (if any reading this have been to my house, no doubt you have seen the three specimens of this type in my back yard in Joplin); and these Coastal Redwoods, according to the sign, reach heights over 350 feet and "live for 2000 years and thrive in the region's mild climate, standing as ever-living examples of the tallest trees in the world." We hiked some short fern-lined trails through these majestic pillars, imagining ourselves as Frodo and his companions in Lothlorien.

When you leave Redwood Country another kind of beauty awaits you: The Oregon Coast. If you've been there, you know what I mean. The highway winds its way along the coast, rising and falling with the foothills of the coastal mountains that sometimes jut into the sea, leaving huge boulders in the surf, sometimes hugging the beach, sometimes several hundred yards out in the water. Lighthouses, pelicans, elk, sea lions, and the white foam of the breakers on the rocks make this an enchanted place. We stopped for the night in the same town where I stopped when I came on this same route in 1996: Brookings, OR. In fact, we stayed in the same motel and ate in the same restaurant overlooking the ocean that I had such fond memories of.

Friday we wended our way up the Oregon coast, enjoying all the beauty, and then crossed the coastal range on Highway 20 (the same highway that runs through my home town of Correctionville, Iowa!), arriving at Bernard and Audrey Plumb's house in Corvallis just in time for them to take us out to a very nice dinner at McGrath's Fish House. What a blessing this dear couple has been to us and to LATM over the years. I met them on my first trip out here 11 years ago, and they have been such encouragers ever since. They even asked for (and apparently enjoyed) a late-night Power-Point presentation of our work. Audrey's comment that they read every word of everything they receive from LATM was encouraging to hear. God bless the Plumbs! They saved us a motel bill that night and sent us off refreshed the blessed the next morning.

Phil

Days 21, 22 & 23: Southern OR & Northern CA

Monday evening: Hope Christian Church, Central Point, OR
Tuesday noon: Rogue Valley Christian Church Seniors' Lunch, Medford, OR
Wednesday morning: games and lunch with the 39+ group at Christian Church of Ashland, OR
Wednesday evening: Dunsmuir, CA Church of Christ

Monday the 8th, we stayed in our Hotel room until noon, taking advantage of the free wi-fi and organizing suitcases. Then we drove downtown to find a post office and discovered it was Columbus Day! We only had a couple of hours to drive and got to the Central Point church, set up our display, and were met by our hostess for the next 2 days. We had a nice roast beef dinner and went back to the church for the evening session. That evening we watched our first episode of "Dancing With the Stars!" Wayne Newton bit the dust!

Louise was a lady who had every kind of collection you can imagine, all artfully displayed around her home. She had dolls, clowns, Barbies, Elvis, Green Bay Packers, US quarters, and many, many more!

Twenty-three years ago, after Phil taught as Missionary-on-Campus at Ozark, we took three young people to Chile to spend the summer there as interns. Tuesday we finally got to meet the parents of one of those interns, Tony Ketchum. We had a good visit. That's them in the second picture.

Eleven years ago while Phil was doing this same schools of mission, he was taken to eat at a beautiful restaurant by a retired preacher and his wife, Bernard & Audrey Plumb. It was called Bel Di's, and is a lovely wood place nestled among trees and evergreens beside the Rogue River. Since we spoke during the day for a Seniors' Lunch, we had the evening free. So Phil took Emilee and me out for a date. Before we headed out to eat, we visited Harry and David's Country Store! WOW! What yummy samples. Medford is H and D's home office and much of their fruit is grown in this area.

On Wednesday we headed to Ashland where we met with the 39+ group and had a blast playing Skip-Bo. This will be on my Christmas list. Fun game. The minister, Jim Larsen, was a real encourager. After Phil's presentation (third picture), we shared lunch with these great people and then headed south for our only church in California. Dunsmuir is a quaint little town nestled under Mount Shasta (fourth picture). WOW! Impressive views everywhere we looked (first picture). We were met by the preacher and taken to his son's volleyball games. We won!!! After a very quick piece of pizza, we did the presentation and headed home with a wonderful couple. He was a retired preacher with a house FULL of books. They joined the Book of the Month club!

Next morning we headed for the CA coast, going South to Redding and there began one of the prettiest days drive yet! But we will save that for our next blog. Don't want to miss that one!

Susan

Days 19 & 20: Crater Lake, Klamath Falls & Keno, OR

After leaving the O'Casey cabin by the river, we headed south for Crater Lake. I remembered it as one of the highlights of my last trip. This time, it had snowed up at the crest, so it added another beautiful dimension. We helped Emilee traverse the snow and ice and got some great pictures.

If you're ever in Southern Oregon, take the time to go see this nearly 2,000 ft.-deep lake in the crater of an extinct volcano. There's nothing like it.

After Crater Lake, we made our way to Klamath Falls to a motel that the preacher in Keno (Steve Snyder) had arranged for us to stay in, not just tonight (Saturday), but also on Sunday night. It even had a hot tub which we enjoyed. It's good to meet people and stay in their homes--we've had some great hosts--but it's also nice once in a while to retreat to a motel to sort out clothes and have some private time. The preacher and his wife and granddaughter took us to eat at Sizzler. They were great encouragers.

The next morning we drove the 17 miles to Keno, where I preached at the 9:30 service and then did the LATM presentation at the 11:00 Sunday School hour. The people were super.

Phil