Denouement

Friday morning, a week after we had boarded, we had our last lovely breakfast together onboard and said goodbye to our beautiful boat. We caught a crazy taxi ride (nothing like wrong way up a one way street to get your blood pumping) to our rental car agency, then Cathy drove us out of Seattle, headed for Yakima. (Once again, Cathy was the travel agent extraordinaire.) It was a scenic drive through a part of the US I've never seen. For that matter, once our plane left Houston a week before, it was all part of the US I'd never seen. Anyway, we arrived in Yakima and spent a little time with my nephew Joel and his family.



Joel is one of our American heroes. We are so thankful for his service. He has a beautiful wife and two sweet kiddoes. I didn't check with them about putting names and details on the world wide web, so I'll just leave it at that. It was a treat to visit with them.





After we visited with Joel and family for a bit, Loren and Carrie arrived to take Mom and me on the next leg of our journey. We hit the road and headed for Loren's new place. Here's the sweetest part: Loren had Carrie drive and me ride shotgun, so that he could sit in the back with his mama. He was ever the attentive son for the whole visit. Unfortunately, there were no cameras associated with this part of our trip, so you will just have to take my word for it that we were there, and it was beautiful. Actually, we all have to take Loren's word for it because most of the sights were masked in cloud cover or mist for most of our visit. I guess that's life in the temperate rainforest, right?

While at Loren's place, we visited Zane at his job and sampled a huckleberry shake, drove through the wildlife refuge up a mountain, and saw geese, turkey, a fox, a badger (and a great closeup of the mountain while Loren looked at the badger while driving), and deer. No moose. No bear. Sorry Mom! We saw the lake we only knew from pictures and lots of pretty countryside.

And we got to visit Mary Jane Butter's Farmgirl Store! It was very inspirational and a little covet-inducing. Carrie, Leah, and I, and even Mom really enjoyed looking at each little thing. I do have to say though that the Farmgirls might be a little over the top in MJB worship. When I pointed out the cute buttons in mason jars around a high shelf, the shop girl oozed, "Those are Mary Jane's own buttons!" Uh, okay. Being at Carrie's very nicely decorated farm house and then at the farmgirl store made me want to come home and, well, punch things up a notch.

And as if a visit to Farmgirl Mecca wasn't enough, I then got to see my brother order at the Pita Pit. Sort of like Subway, but it is pitas, with options like hummus and baba ganoush and guacamole. So we all went through the line, pointing and saying exactly what we wanted on our pitas. Loren came last and ordered a tuna on wheat. "What would you like on that, sir?" "Everything." Mom always did say he was a happy eater. I'm laughing just thinking about it.

All weekend, Carrie stuffed us full of good food, Zane and Leah shared a room to accomodate us, Loren burned into his store of winter wood to keep our southern bones warm, and I guess everybody pretty much catered to our every whim. Mom loved spending time with her youngest boy and seeing his place. She said over and over, "It is so good that we came. It's the perfect end to our trip."

Finally, Monday morning we boarded our plane for the long trip home. The travel went well and some dear friends picked us up at the airport in Houston. It was good to be home. Our minds and hearts are full of shared, once-in-a-lifetime memories.