Mark's Notebook

Fireworks

Sunday, July 2

Today we had another good long drive. Mary woke up with a fever, and she was not up to going to church. This is the first time this trip we have missed going to church on Sunday.

Our day basically consisted of driving US Highway 2 from Missoula, Montana straight across the narrow part of Idaho to Walla Walla, Washington. We did visit a nice health food store in Missoula before we left town. We think our health problems are due to poor nutrition, so we picked up a few healthy things to eat.

We also stopped at the visitor center at Lolo Pass, at the border between Montana and Idaho, where I bought a nice cap with a moose figure on it. Mary stayed in the car. She slept most of the day.

We stopped at an old-time burger place in Clarkston, Washington, just over the border from Idaho. By dinner time, Mary was starting to feel a lot better.

Monday, July 3

This morning we ate a nice breakfast at Elmer's in Walla Walla. After breakfast, Mary decided she is feeling well enough today that we can visit her father, who lives near Portland.

We headed down toward the Columbia River scenic area. We stopped at the Bonneville Dam, but since we had got a late start and the speed limits in Oregon are painfully slow, we got to the dam just after they closed up the last tours. The fish hatchery was also closed, but there are some ponds outside we could still see, including lots of trout and a few large sturgeon.

Somehow we managed to buy lots of stuff at the Bonneville Dam gift shop, even though everything else was closed. How do we always manage to do that?

Getting closer to Portland, we turned onto the side road that goes down to several waterfalls including Multnomah Falls. Mary had never seen these before, and I had not been there since I was a child. Mary took lots of photos. We also took photos of others, and they in turn took photos of us, so we have some neat photos with the two of us and huge waterfalls in the background.

To finish off the day, we visited Mary's dad and his wife in Vancouver, Washington, just across the river from Portland. It was a beautiful night as we sat in the swing on their porch, visiting with them for a couple of hours. The kids next door were setting off fireworks, but this was no match for the lightning storm taking place simultaneously over the Columbia River. We got to watch man's fireworks and God's fireworks at the same time. We all agreed that God's fireworks won out.

OK, I lied, we're not finished yet. After leaving Vancouver, we went through Portland to find a road to the coast. We ended up very late, around 1:00 am, in the little town of Tillamook on the Oregon coast.

Tuesday, July 4

If the town of Tillamook sounds familiar, think cheese. Yes, this is where they make our favorite cheese. (You can get a great price on it at Costco.) Somehow we both thought Tillamook was made in Wisconsin. Not so.

But I get ahead of myself. After a very late morning breakfast at the hotel, we sat in the hotel lobby and fired up Yahoo Messenger. At about 1:30 pm, we were able to connect with Matthew. Our son is serving with the Marines in Iraq, and his unit just recently got access to this chat software. We have not really "talked" with him in this way for several months; he has been in Iraq since March, but our only communication with him has been the infrequent email message. We're really jazzed that we'll be able to "talk" to him a couple of times a week, just as we were able to during his first deployment.

After they put Matthew back to work and we had to sign off, we were able to visit the Tillamook Creamery "factory" just north of town. I did not know that they make butter, milk, and ice cream in addition to cheese. The factory was mostly not working because their production was ahead of schedule and today was a holiday. But there were short videos that showed the normal daily activities of all the inactive equipment we could see below us. The "factory" is mostly really a gift shop, where you can buy ice cream, cheese, and fudge. I tried the wonderful huckleberry ice cream, and we bought a little fudge for the road, but we haven't tried it yet because Mary is starting to feel lousy again.

We headed down the Oregon coast, which we've never travelled before. In the past, we've driven the length of Highway 5 through the Willamette Valley, the length of Highway 97 through the edge of the desert, and some of the eastern area around Lakeview. But the coast is by far the loveliest drive we've ever experienced here. Lincoln City is the cutest town, and some of the larger towns have a bit of a rough edge to them. But the road is relatively straight and fun to drive, and the road crosses up and down from mountain forests to the beach and back up again. There are several "historic" bridges and at least one lighthouse that we've seen so far.

We made it only as far as Coos Bay by nightfall; we had hoped to make it all the way down to Crescent City in California, but at a fruit stand I heard about a fireworks show to be held over the water in Coos Bay at 10 pm, so we decided to stay here tonight, see the fireworks, and let Mary get a good night's sleep, since her cold seems to be coming back again.

We are a good ten to twelve hours from home, and while we hope to make it home by tomorrow night (exactly three months on the road), we also want to take it easy. Today was very relaxing and we want to arrive home in that condition, not frazzled. So I'm hoping we might make it as far as Mendocino, where we spent part of our honeymoon seven years ago. Then we would arrive home on Thursday.

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Last updated Tuesday 13 May 2008