Day 3 on Anacortes

 Only one picture to share today. 

Seems fitting as I don't think this beloved boy would appreciate sharing the stage. Michael Angelo is quite a character.  He talks. He meows, then says, "Meow, oh, meow, oh, oh, oh, oh no, oh no, oh no, meow, meow. " He was particularly in love with my bed and spent the afternoon there today. 

Mary took us to downtown Anacortes for some shopping. Lots of beautiful local artisan fair, along with souvenir stuff you would come to expect, and some fun thrift stores.  

We will go back to church with them again this evening to hear a special speaker. This is as far north as we will go. Tomorrow we will take a ferry to somewhere, then scoot on around the mountain to the rainforest. I guess sometimes being a bad sleeper is a good thing, because it isn't hard for me to get up at 4 am.  We'll pack all we can tonight and be ready to roll out of here.  After this, all roads will take us south for a few days. 

We do have one last stop here. Apparently the Safe Way has some especially fabulous cranberry mustard.  We'll see if we can find it. 

This is such a lovely place, lovely company, but laws ya, it is far. 

Day 2 on Anacortes

 A slow day today. I've stirred up cinnamon rolls for our hosts for breakfast tomorow. We went to Washington Park to take the two mile loop.

So some pictures from our walk.

There is a bald eagle on that branch in the middle. They have a really neat sounding call. 

I was on the look out for Tree Beard as we strolled along.  The path could also be driven on, so when a car was coming, in our best Frodo voice we shouted, "Get off the road."

TET looking bolls growing on a tree.

I think this must surely be a fairy ring.

My truck driving side kick becomes a four year old at the sight of an ice cream parlor. 

T

We did supper at a local seafood place that has locally harvested mussels. Are hosts weren't quite sure about mussels and asked the sweet waitress to describe them.  Oh my word, she was completely flustered. You would have  thought we were asking her to explain the periodic table of elements. She said, " Um, well they taste like sea water and sometimes they are gritty and umm, mushy."  We were cracking up and commented that she wasn't making a very good case for us ordering them. She replied, "Oh, I like them, cause I grew up eating them I guess."  We ordered them and they weren't gritty or mushy, but pretty tasty. 

Tonight I gave a lesson on cinnamon roll making.  One more day on this enchanting island with new friends and we're off to the rain forest- be still my heart.   It does require a ferry ride, so I'll be applying my patch and praying hard for an uneventful ride. 

Sweet

 From the beginning, I really didn't have any idea if making it to Anacortes in four days was very realistic. If we had had to figure in any number of typical things that can and do happen, it probably wasn't. It wasn't the easiest of days but make it we did it.  Pushing hard was worth it when we walked into the church of Andrea's dear friends. Such a sweet reunion. Andrea told me so very many things about this couple from her teen age years, I felt I already knew them and thoroughly enjoyed being a part of  a wonderful service where we enjoyed their beautiful music and sermon and then the meal and activities honoring them . 

An island look out. Wow

Such a neat tree.

Whoa, a big ferry. 

So very lovely to be able to  spend three nights in the same place, along with  being some place besides a truck all day.  The weather is in the seventies. Perfect. Thank the Lord!

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

Well, these mountains are perhaps high enough.

 Another tourist attraction that in fact does have silver dollars all over the wall. It had a lot of fun mountain stuff and tons of weapons and Native American type things.

They have huckleberry favored everything in these parts, which looks really pretty and all, but I grew huckleberries last year and didn't love them, so it wasn't a temptation to purchase some huckleberry cotton candy.

About the only thing to see in Idaho is mountains, like your looking at them right outside your truck window on both sides. It is beautiful, as is Washington.  This is the Columbia river. 

I have to say I am just so disappointed that these gargantuan mountains just don't come through in my photos. The perspective is off somehow.

We stopped at our first roadside stand as we careened down the mountain. 

These apricots were huge.

It wasn't fancy, but they had cute things for kids.

The wind was quite expressive .

This right here, just about ten miles from our stop for  today in Seattle, was the only time we sat in traffic through these 2500 miles. I say, thank you Lord. What a miracle.  Traffic was heavier all down the mountain, and the road was rough, so the last hundred miles was tense today.

I don't have a great phone and I try to take some pics so to send to the Handy Man. They don't make the transfer to the laptop, but this mountain, oh my. So huge. 

 We've sang, talked, listened to good books and tried to laugh and laugh, and be in awe of God's creation, and grateful for His provision. Tomorrow we head to Anacortes and we're so excited to have a few days of not dragging suitcases in and out.  Continue to keep us in your prayers please.

A Lot of Miles on the Old Ladies, and the Truck

 If I didn't explain before, and I'm too tired to read the last post, I am making this trek for Andrea to see old friends and for me to see some of God's amazing creation in areas I've never been.  We knew the trip out would potentially be exhausting because we only had four days to get to the coast.  

We left and drove through Illinois and across and then up the state of Missouri, to Iowa and then South Dakota. We stayed somewhere in Missouri, then Deadwood  (in case you don't know it is barely a valley squeezed between the mountains) and now we're in Butte Montana. Who knew there were still motels with two floors but no elevator. We do now, twice over- slow learners. We've gone about 1800 miles. 

It has been fascinating for one scene to go on nearly forever in some places, but after our stop at Wall Drug, the Gatlinburg of South Dakota, the scenery and the weather change around every corner.  Mounds covered with pines, mounds with no pines, black mountains. Rocks that look just like the mines of Moria that the nine entered on the way to Mordor, mountains that look like they are made of stone pillows, one stacked on the other, mounds that are sandy colored and mounds that are red.  Pine trees stacked up the side of the mountain like toothpicks. 

I don't have a way to crop pictures on this laptop, and they just don't seem to do the size of these mountains justice. But I will share some here. 

Yellowstone was beautiful and in these pictures are bears, sheep and moose, I think. 

Lots of bubbling brews in Yellowstone.

The wildflowers are beautiful. Lupine growing everywhere.

Two bears.

The above pictures were at the Corn Palace. 

That lake in the middle of Yellowstone was some lake now. The mountains were still covered in snow where we were driving past at above 8000 ft elevation.

A long way up those stairs for two tired travelers. 

Tomorrow is another heavy travel day with nothing particular to see. So grateful for safe travels and answered prayers.