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