(And unemployed*)
Moving from the “big city” (Seattle is only relatively big, I guess) to a small town has necessitated some changes in my calendar of events. We enjoy our time in the Snoopy Museum, for certain, but every now and again we want to switch it up a bit. Also complicating our schedule is that we are both broke and unemployed. That means “out” are the…I have no idea. I sat here trying to think of something really expensive to do in town and I drew a blank. Cow-tipping rare organic cows?
(I kid. There is a nice restaurant in town.)
Suffice to say that we don’t have extra money to DRINK our way (entirely) through this transition, so we’ve had to be creative.
Well first off I must admit that we have relied heavily on a rather banal way of passing the time: ice cream. There is no Dairy Queen in the city of Seattle, if you can believe it. One fateful night when Longball was recovering from his first surgery we were seduced by a Dairy Queen commercial and had to drive all the way out to Kirkland, a few blocks from where I grew up, to try to hit the Dairy Queen. They had just closed and if I recall I may have screamed some obscenities that may have been audible through the drive through speaker. NOW we live close (within town) to a Dairy Queen, a as well as a Baskin Robbins, a drive-in, an ice cream parlor and a genuine dairy. The dairy on campus serves by far the best ice cream.
In town we have a cool old theater that plays movies for only $3.50! $2 on Tuesdays! The movies seem to be a few weeks behind when things are shown nationally, but it’s still fun. Longball and I went to see Be Kind, Rewind last week. Ahem - after we got ice cream at the ice cream parlor.
What I’ve liked so far are our adventures outside. The only thing I own that isn’t packed up is my car and we’ve put Blue Thunder to work. A few weeks ago we drove out to Palouse Falls. It’s a piece southeast from Washtucna. So if you are heading east on I-90, you drive over the Columbia River and take the first right - you end up on Highway 26. You’ll drive through central Washington (wineries and rolling hills) until you reach an area that looks straight out of a western movie.
You will know you are in Washtucna by the grain elevators.
Head south and you’ll be in the wild west.
We finally got to the falls and I had to be coaxed out of the car.
I grew up in Western Washington where the most dangerous creature you will encounter is a Banana Slug. By “dangerous” I mean not dangerous at all unless you lick them (which my friend did once on a dare. Actually I don’t even think it was dangerous - it just made her tongue numb). Sure there are black bears and out there but no one ever sees them u less you leave your picnic basket out in plain view. Rattlesnakes definitely qualify in my book as both “dangerous” and “creepy.” Snakes terrify me, even the “harmless” ones, because they way they move - that slithering - is unnatural evil.
Shane convinced me that we would not be seeing any Rattlesnakes unless we walked in the rocks. I was unconvinced so I climbed out of the car and started yelling at the snakes. The way to scare of the black bears of western Washington forests is to announce your presence by ringing bells and being generally loud and obnoxious. My sister and I always took care of that part on family hikes by singing the entire score to Fiddler on the Roof or The Sound of Music.
While singing might work for bears because they seem charming themselves and open to musical theater, I knew Rogers and Hammerstein would not deter the likes of serpents. So I yelled, “I’m loud, I’m proud and I’m stompy,” after which I stomped by hiking boots around. Longball rolled his eyes and walked down to the falls. After a year of record snowfall, the falls were amazing:
I was intrigued by this guy as he was furry and not a snake. Anyone knows what this is? I took to calling him a “gopher-dog” since I imagined he was a gopher or a prairie dog or something similar. Please note I have never seen a gopher or a prairie dog so I could be way off. For all I know, this guy is a Leprechaun since is posing under a rainbow.
A few weeks after visiting Palouse Falls, we headed north of Pullman to visit a ghost town called Elberton. For those of you who don’t follow the link, Elberton had its heyday at 500 people in the early part of the 1900’s. It had a sawmill, a railroad and the world’s largest prune dryer. It was disincorporated in the 60’s. It is nestled in a pretty little valley, and has this cute church:
We visited the cemetery and an old homestead.
Eventually it gets dark, not to mention gas is expensive, so we have also found some things to do around the house. We bought some ice cream (because nothing fun is done without dairy), wine and raided the game closet. We found this:
I don’t know about you, but nothing spells fun like an epic disaster, so we cracked open the game. It’s pretty much as you’d expect: you move around the game board and try to get yourself to a life raft before 1,571 of your cabin mates freeze to death in Arctic waters. Wholesome Friday night fun courtesy of the un-PC 70’s.
Gladys says, “I am offended on behalf of all people who perished in seafaring accidents that you are experiencing merriment from this game.”
So as you can see, if you come to visit we will keep you plenty busy. Hint, hint: come visit!
*As of publish 50% of us are now employed.
