Flight to Chicago

Although it was a long day yesterday, it was a great trip and the flight was uneventful. We left on time at 6:35 AM and it was raining - again, or still - but I captured this shot of Mt Rainier as we lifted off from SeaTac:

We have been in WA almost a month and this is the first time we were able to see the top of this Seattle landmark.

The flight was excellent and we even arrived in Chicago a few minutes early. Patty was there to pick us up outside the baggage claim area and we made it to the kids school by 2 PM to pick them up. It has been a couple years since we last saw them and they have grown a lot in that time. I didn't get any shots of them yesterday, but you can be sure there will be plenty of pictures taken this week. I did get one shot of Josie and Patty "toasting" to her scheduled trip to Hawaii:

which begins for them at around 8:30 this morning when they take a limo to the airport. We had grilled salmon for dinner last night and we will try to stay as close to our diet as possible this week although yesterday was a real challenge. It actually has been a challenge all month but we have maintained our weight loss and will get back on our eating schedule when we can.

Patty has documented each day's schedule for us so that the kids get to where they need to be for their activities. Austin looks great and has his Senior Prom this Friday and we found out he is nominated for Prom King which is a nice honor. We will be at the picture taking session which is scheduled before the Prom so look for those at the end of this week. It should be a fun week, starting with a ballgame this evening for the twins. In the meantime, Patty and Mark are off to their wonderful week in Hawaii...

Staying at Airport

We were glad we made the arrangements to stay at an airport hotel the day before our trip to Chicago. It made for a leisurely morning yesterday and a pleasant stay at our hotel last night. The La Quinta Hotel was a very pleasant surprise for us. It sounded good and the price was right, but when you haven’t stayed at a place before, you get a little suspicious. The room was fantastic, the location was fantastic and we couldn’t ask for more from any hotel at twice the price. It is next to another high end hotel – the Hilton Doubletree – and next to a 24 hour Denny’s restaurant which made it real convenient. We had dinner there and hit the sack early to be ready to catch the shuttle at 4 AM. We will again go next door at 3 AM to eat some breakfast since we know we get nothing on the plane.

We’re traveling light – small suitcase, a gym bag and two carry-on bags. I have my computer in one and Josie has her book, some snacks and other stuff (?) in the other. We’re ready to go so we hope the flight is a smooth one. The Air Controllers issue has been resolved but probably not in time for our flight today. Our flight home on the 7^th of May should be with the full complement of Controllers.

It will be an exciting day and we look forward to having a nice visit in Naperville…

Ready for Flight

We made one last visit to Kristine's before we started our final prep for our trip to Chicago tomorrow. Kristine was working on a report for school that required her to acquire a book about an individual who has made a difference in this world. We went to Barnes and Noble in Lakewood to check out options. The books were very expensive and there were so many choices that the decision was made that she would try a used book store today to get a book that would satisfy the requirements. She has a 99% grade average for her classes this quarter and we are very proud that she is serious about the program and doing well. It was an enjoyable visit and we were home by 6 PM to begin our final preparations for our trip to Chicago.

The travel requirements, coupled with the Controller Furlough issues, has us wishing that we were already there. We don't anticipate any problems, but it is getting tougher and tougher to travel on planes today. Our boarding passes were printed this morning - you have to wait until 24 hours before scheduled departure before performing online check-in and obtaining the boarding passes. I did that exactly 24 hours prior to the scheduled flight - 6:35 AM - and we are still in boarding positions 59 and 60 for the flight. I don't know how many total passengers are scheduled for the flight, but those positions still have us in Group A (out of 3 groups) for boarding. I purchased an Early Boarding capability for our return flights for $25. If I had known about this early boarding fee on our flights tomorrow, I would have probably purchased the same capability on those tickets. We had to purchase those at least 36 hours before our flight and it was too late when I realized that requirement could not be met. The Early Boarding means we are guaranteed an early position for boarding the flight and don't have to check-in 24 hours prior to scheduled departure. I'm sure there are many other fees that can make our flights more enjoyable, but I don't even want to think about those. The Airlines are already bilking travelers for every cent they can get.

Our plan is to leave our rig at around noon today to travel to Seattle for our hotel stay this evening. We figure that we must get up about 3:30- 4 AM tomorrow morning in order to catch the hotel shuttle and get us to the airport by 5 AM. At this point, I'm not too sure how or when I will do the blog tomorrow AM but I'll try to get it done before we leave for the airport. We are really looking forward to seeing Patty, Mark and the kids, so it will be a fun trip...

North Bend Outlets

There were a couple items we wanted to get for our trip next week to IL, so we went to North Bend where there is a very nice Outlet Mall. We had been there several times in the years we lived in the Redmond/Woodinville area and thought it would be nice to see the changes there. It looked pretty much the same as we remembered with a few store changes, but we picked up the items we wanted and then sat and enjoyed the sun while drinking a latte outside of the coffee shop at the Mall.

A very good friend of mine - Paul Schooling - used to live in North Bend. He had passed away before we moved to AZ but I kind of remembered where his home was so we wanted to drive by that to see his old neighborhood. Like everything else, it has changed in that all the young trees are now grown into large trees and the neighborhood looks great. Once again, it was a short walk down memory lane. Josie did some laundry when we returned home and we then started pulling together our things to take on our trip.

We keep hearing about a bill that has passed in Congress regarding the furloughed Air Traffic Controllers, and hope that all is resolved before we travel on Monday to Chicago. The delays resulting from these missing Controllers are substantial, so we hope they get back to work quickly.

Our plan today is to visit with Kristine and the kids one time before our trip. She can do Josie's hair the way she likes it and then we should be ready to pack up, ready the rig for our time away, and do the early check-in online for our flight which we can accomplish 24 hours before the flight...

Woodinville WA

The one remaining area that we had to check out was downtown Woodinville. We hadn't seen the Woodinville Florist shop yet and Josie wanted to try to chase down the former owner, Dolores, who was a good friend and was the person who hired her for her second floral job about 25 years ago. Dolores had sold the shop, which we knew, about 7 years ago and retired to Montana for the summers and to spend winters in her home in Duvall. We discovered that the shop had moved - like Redmond Floral - to a new location on the edge of town. We again were surprised at all the changes in town and we finally located the shop. I took this shot after we drove up to the new location:

while Josie was taking this shot:

We talked to the new owner for a while to try to get a number for Dolores but the new owner lost track of her about 2 years ago.

We drove to Duvall to try to locate her house as we thought we remembered where it was located. We didn't, so we stopped at an Espresso and Ice Creamery in town to get a cone and we asked the store clerk if she knew about her. We did get some info - that she was still in town - and we went next door to the City Hall to get a phone book and try to find her telephone number. We found it and Josie connected with her and had a nice long conversation. They are selling their property in Montana to spend full time in Duvall since they are getting too old to travel back and forth. She and Josie vowed to stay in touch and it was a nice ending to the day.

I will try to get an appointment scheduled today or tomorrow at the Jeep dealer in Puyallup who did not fix our overheating problem two weeks ago. It started doing it again yesterday so I'm almost certain it is a sticking thermostat that needs to be replaced. We'll find out soon, I hope.

Other than that, we are about ready for the start of our trip to IL which will begin Sunday when we travel to Seattle to check into our hotel for the night...

Snoqualmie Falls

A major attraction in this area and only 15 minutes from our campground is Snoqualmie Falls in Snoqualmie, WA. The towns of Fall City, Snoqualmie and North Bend are all within a few miles of each other and we wanted to see those towns along with the Falls. It was a beautiful day for our visit.

Our arrival at the Falls was around 10 AM:

and we immediately noticed that the sun was not in the proper position to capture the rainbow in front of the Falls. There are several different viewpoints for the Falls, but the most popular and best one is this:

The mist was rising all around from the bottom and tended to cloud the picture. The river was beautiful, and we captured the rainbow in this shot because the sun was behind us:

We walked around the beautiful park and stopped in the gift/snack shop to pick up a latte before heading out to the towns of Snoqualmie and North Bend. We also decided that, because the Falls were so close to where we are staying, we would return in the afternoon to try to get a better shot.

After a couple of hours driving around and picking up flyer's from homes on the market, we headed back to home. Prices of homes in these areas don't seem to have been impacted at all with the economy as they were out of sight for what we thought were good values.

We returned to the Falls at 4 PM and took another shot which is definitely better than the AM shots:

The sun was in a better position and there was not as much mist to cloud the picture. The Salish Lodge, seen next to the Falls, is a high priced but classy place for visitors to spend some quality overnight time in the area. We remember having dinner at this lodge years ago and it was pricey back then - we can only imagine what they charge today.

All of our arrangements are made for our trip to Patty's next week. We made reservations at the La Quinta Inn near the Seattle Airport for Sunday night and will leave our Jeep there at the hotel and take their shuttle on Monday morning to catch our flight at 6:30 AM. The charges for that are less than driving it to the airport and using off site parking and a parking shuttle. We also made arrangements to have our fifth wheel in storage while we are gone. Instead of moving it into the storage area here at the campground, they are allowing us to leave it on the existing site - for the same small storage fee of $25 for the week - until we return the following week. That is a huge advantage since now we are able to leave all our food in the refrigerator while we are gone as we will still be connected to the power at our site. We will stay another 5 days or so when we return from IL on the 7th of May before heading to Wyoming for the summer...

Bringing Back Memories

It was our day to revisit Issaquah yesterday. That was the very first location in WA where we lived on our move from the CA Bay area in 1980. We purchased a home in Mirrormont, a hillside development of custom homes, for $190K, which was pretty high for homes in 1980.

We drove into Mirrormont and were surprised to see some newer homes built on such steep hills. Some of the driveways looked like 45 degrees, and it must be a real challenge on cold, winter mornings to drive up and down these slopes. We were also shocked when we reached our old home to see that it was on the market:

The home has been painted and some nice modifications - including a conversion of our workshop into a media room - have been made, but the home is still as we remembered with the separate shed/carport that we used to keep our toys - boat and RV - that also had a workshop. The home is now available for an asking price of $619K which is now typical for homes in this development. Here are a couple more shots:

This was our home for our first 5 years in WA state.

We then drove through Issaquah and saw the many changes in town and went on to Redmond to locate Bear Creek Floral where Josie started her floral career:

It not only was in the same location but also had the same manager that hired Josie for her first job as a Designer. It was a happy reunion for both she and Linda who talked for quite awhile about changes  (she asked Josie if she were looking for a job) and also about Redmond Floral that had relocated and had new ownership. That was the biggest shock for us. We discovered that the owners we sold to have been gone for nearly 5 years, and the new owner was a Designer from Bear Creek Floral. We left Bear Creek Floral to see the "new" Redmond Floral:

Although still a player in the floral business in Redmond, the people we sold to did not work the business like we did and as a result has fallen out of the FTD Top 500 list to the Top 1000. Those folks did not know the business and were absentee owners. It is a good thing they sold to the current owner who is trying to bring the business back to where it was. The new facility is also not as convenient for walk-in customers, and is a home - of a former Mayor of Redmond - converted to the flower shop. We talked for some time about the business and the changes and it was a pleasant visit for us.

What a day of rekindling old memories. We hardly recognize the towns today as the growth has been substantial. New roads and buildings have confused us somewhat, but the area is pretty much as we remember - and still pretty. We have been fortunate to have beautiful weather the last two days to visit these places of mostly fond memories...

Memory Lane

Our first activity yesterday was a walk around the campground. We hadn't been to the clubhouse yet and we also wanted to check out the campground with the sun shining - for once. This was following a repair to the electric system where we had no power for a couple hours in the morning. The old wiring in the campground had a fault that was several spaces from ours that was causing the problem. The staff electrician discovered and fixed the problem within minutes.

The campground is very nice and is sprawling throughout a hilly area just outside Fall City. We took these shots of the clubhouse and pool area:

followed by a photo of the cascades view from the campground:

There was quite a bit of snow on those mountains, as you can see.

Our highlight of the day was a drive to Redmond to see Redmond Floral - our business for 5 years - and our old homes in Woodinville and at Lake Tuck, and a final stop at one of our favorite restaurants in Duvall.

The first stop was where our shop - Redmond Floral - was located in downtown Redmond. We were shocked to see a different store at that location and thought that maybe the poor economy had taken down the business and they were no longer in town. We discovered later, at home and online, that they had only moved the location a few blocks to a different building, so we will have to revisit that location sometime later in the week.

Our small house in Woodinville, and our last in WA, where we spent only a couple years looked pretty much the same except for a new paint job and some fencing. We didn't take any photos of that home since there weren't that many changes and we only lived there for a short time even though Josie loved the house.

The home where we lived for almost 12 years on Lake Tuck in Woodinville was a real trip down memory lane. The home has been painted and it looked like it was being well cared for:



 Our dock was still there, but the gazebo was gone. The owners have constructed what looks like a fenced and terraced garden as can be seen on the left side of the house in the picture above. The lake itself hasn't changed at all:

It brought back many memories of the years we spent at that location.

The day was capped with a visit to a restaurant in Duvall that was one of Nan's favorites, and also one of ours - The Ixtapa Mexican restaurant:

 We were surprised to see that it had expanded into the entire width of the small strip mall where it is located. They slowly expanded into each space as businesses left over the 21 years that they have been located in this town. We talked to the management about those years and had a nice visit following our great meal. The enchiladas are still our favorite of any Mexican restaurant where we have ever eaten. The biggest change is in the prices - we had two margaritas and an enchilada dinner and the bill came to $42. The last time we ate here it cost us less than $20 for the same meal. Our diets were ignored for the one day yesterday.

The entire area of Redmond, Woodinville and Duvall has changed to the extent that we don't recognize much of the towns. We do know that it is still a pretty area and the day will be remembered for a long time.

We have some more exploring to do of old haunts which we will continue today. We plan to go to Issaquah and check out our first home that we purchased when we first moved to WA in 1980. We already know that the town has changed dramatically and can remember the town when there were no traffic lights whatsoever. It should be another interesting and fun day...

Settled in Fall City

We used the family lodge for the last time at La Conner yesterday to read emails and complete the blog. I was sure happy to pull up stakes at 9:30 and head for the Encore park in Fall City. It is the Tall Chief Preserve, and is very close to Redmond were we had our business years ago. We drove through heavy rain most of the way and arrived here at exactly 12 noon. We drove around the entire campground looking for a suitable site for our rooftop satellite to insure that we would get a signal and found one that is a wonderful, corner site, that gives us clear access to the southern sky for our satellite:

The sun break came just in time to take that shot and then it started raining once again for the rest of the day.

We still have to use the "honey wagon" service to have our tanks emptied once a week, but we have a great, 4G signal for our WI-FI and are very happy with the new location. We are much closer to Seattle where we have to catch the flight to Patty's next week, and are also much closer to Kristine's so that we can visit them again before we head out. There are places that we want to explore that were very familiar to us and it should be fun seeing the old haunts once again.

There was a power outage this morning that delayed our start to the day, but the electrician was here and discovered the problem and fixed it in a short time. These parks are getting old and the electrical systems need an overhaul, but none of these parks can justify the expense to do it right for today's rigs that require 50 amp service. The parks, for the most part, can only handle 30 amp service so we have to be careful to watch our use of power grabbing appliances. Everything else is good, so we are glad we made the change...

Justin Visit

The plan was to meet Justin at the Ihop restaurant in Marysville yesterday at 10 AM. Kristine and Harmony were driving up from Lakewood with Kristine’s friend, Fewcher. Justin didn’t live far from the restaurant so he had Kristine text him when she arrived at the restaurant which was about 10:15. Justin has grown so much since we last saw him and we took this shot of him with Harmony:

 

Following breakfast, we all went for a ride north to the tulip fields and to our fifth wheel. None of them – Fewcher, Kristine, Justin or Harmony – have ever seen the tulip fields before so it was a real treat for them. It was a very cool and windy morning but at least it wasn’t raining. There were mobs of people at the fields as the weekend - plus winding down the Tulip Festival - attracted many last minute visitors to the area. Of course, we took lots of pictures, some of which are below. Starting with this one of Kristine, Harmony and Justin:

 

This great shot of Kristine:

 

And this one with the whole group:

 

Here is one of Grandma with Justin:

 

And we took some of the tulip fields, of course:

 

Finally, we had a very nice visit at the fifth wheel in La Conner and we took a stroll along the Skagit Bay that the campground borders:

 

The visit with Justin was a great day for us and we’re sure it was also a treat for Kristine and Harmony. Justin has grown into a wonderful young man as he completes his sophomore year in high school. They all left our rig at 3 PM to drop Justin back at the restaurant and to head home.

Today is moving day for us as we pack up to move to Fall City, WA to the Tall Chief Campground and, hopefully, a much more complete site as far as the amenities. I will post this entry at the family lodge here before we leave which is targeted for 10 AM…

 

Researching Options

The inconvenience of not having Wi-Fi, 50 amp service and no sewer hookup has caused us to lose patience with this campground. We cannot even get a cell signal to use our phones without going to the family lodge. Now that we have seen everything that we came to this area to see, we are looking for other options for our remainder of the WA time. We spent several hours at the lodge with our computers and Josie did laundry there while we researched other options and used our phones to make calls.

There aren’t many options for Thousand Trails campgrounds in the area so we checked out many other public campgrounds. We settled on moving to an Encore campground (Tall Chief) in Fall City, WA. Encore is affiliated with Thousand Trails and we get a big discount at those campgrounds. It costs us money, but none of the inconveniences are there. It also brings us closer to Kristine’s home and has storage capability for when we go to Patty’s for a week at the end of the month. We will make the move tomorrow (Sunday) and, hopefully, it will be our last move while in WA.

We finalized our planned visit with Justin yesterday. Kristine has arranged for all of us to meet at the Ihop restaurant in Marysville at 10 AM this morning. Marysville is where Justin lives and is about 45 minutes from our present location. It is between Kristine’s home and us so it means that she doesn’t have to travel so far to meet all of us.

The location of our new campground is very close to the area we lived in Woodinville, WA. So we may get the opportunity to visit our old neighborhood while there next week. It would be interesting to see all the changes in Lake Tuck which was one of our favorite homes that we had over the years…

Burlington, WA

There are two towns that are just about 12 or so miles north and east of La Conner – Burlington and Mt Vernon. We were told that Burlington has all the big box stores so we wanted to check out the town and see how it compared to other towns in the area. We were also told that the nearest Costco was there so that was our initial destination. That was easy to locate – right off of I-5 in Burlington. The main thing we were after at Costco was some fresh strawberries and we found those. Burlington also has an Outlet Mall so we drove around that to check out the stores in that Mall. There is also another Mall with all the stores you would expect – Macy’s, JC Penney, Sears, etc. – not more than a half mile from the Outlets so Burlington is definitely the place to go if you want to shop in this area.

Since it was raining almost the entire day, there wasn’t much else to do except go back to the rig and hang out. We spent time at the Family Lodge where the Wi-Fi is located and Josie did some exercises in the fitness room while I did my usual computer stuff. We took a drive across the street to check out the storage area where we have a reservation to keep our fifth wheel for the week we will be back east to visit Patty and the kids the first week in May. That is a very inexpensive solution for our fifth wheel while we are gone – it will only cost $12.95 for the week. The fact that we will also have to store the truck with the rig results in another charge, but it is still the best deal in town. Even though it is the best deal around, we are considering other options since the inconveniences at this place are beginning to wear us down. There must be a better solution  than this one for the rest of our time in WA. We'll see.

We’ll take our usual morning trip to the Family lodge so I can post this entry and Josie will do some laundry. Maybe we both will get to exercise today in the fitness room. It makes a difference for us when we exercise so we like to try and get that done whenever we can. No trips are planned except we will select our site for storing the fifth wheel today and have all that paperwork completed for our transfer into storage - if we decide to go that route. We are also trying to finalize our plans for the weekend which include a visit with our other grandson, Justin, on Saturday. He is living in Marysville which is only a short trip down I-5. We are looking forward to that visit…

 

Downtown La Conner

The activity for yesterday was to walk around the town of La Conner. It is a quaint little town filled with antique shops, restaurants and curio shops. Once again, it brought back the memories we had of the last time we walked through town about 17 years ago. The town is noted – aside from its proximity to the Tulip fields – for being a popular tourist destination during the Tulip Festival and all summer long. The main landmark is the Rainbow Bridge on the south end of town and the route we take from the Thousand Trails preserve to town:

 

We parked at the edge of town and took this shot of the popular downtown area:

 

The shops along one side of the street all back up to the Swinomish Channel. Here, you can see the Rainbow Bridge and the small harbor from the small alcoves between the shops along 1^st St:

 

Most of the town was just as we remembered except for the normal changes in businesses along the street. One of the stops we had to make was at the La Conner Post Office on this street to pick up our mail which we had sent to General Delivery. Our mail was there as we had hoped and our final paychecks from Spring Training were inside which made us happy.

We then went to Anacortes which is about 12 miles from La Conner to stop at the Safeway store and drive around the area to see the homes and get information on that town. Anacortes is where you catch the Ferries to the San Juan Islands and to Victoria, B.C. We have also taken those trips on a few occasions and is another reason we like this area so much.

Between Anacortes and La Conner there is an Indian Reservation- Swinomish Tribe – that contains…. a Casino! Of course we had to stop and check that out. We picked up club cards there to add to our massive collection of club cards from casinos all over the country and played for a short time before heading back to our rig. We only played a small stake since we didn’t care much for the slots in this casino. We didn’t win, but we also didn’t play that much.

We had our “honey wagon” visit yesterday morning so our holding tanks are on empty once again for the next week. Our schedule today will probably include a visit to the other nearby towns of Mt Vernon and Burlington which are about 15 miles from La Conner. Those towns contain all the big name stores like Costco and the Malls. The rain has returned so we are glad that we did our outside activities the last two days. I believe the forecast is for this rain to stay around for at least the next couple days…

 

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

The sun was shining brightly and there were just a few clouds in the sky. With the temperature in the low 50’s, it was a perfect day to tour the tulip fields for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival held here each year in the month of April.

There is a route throughout the Skagit Valley, marked with signs, that takes you by all the tulip fields. The main attraction is the nearly 1000 acres that is owned by the Roozen family that owns the majority of the bulb producing acreage in the valley. The company – Washington Bulb Co. – was formed by the father six decades ago and is now run by his sons, the five Roozen brothers. It is a fascinating story and the family has done a wonderful job presenting the bulb producing capabilities of their properties.

We took over 75 pictures and it was difficult selecting the ones to place in this entry. I decided to break it down into three sections – the fields, the harvesting and the gardens.

 Starting with these shots of the tulip fields that we passed along the route and that were part of the Roozen farms:

 

 

And this one of Josie standing at the edge of one of the fields to show how high these tulips grow:

 

 

There were employees working in this field that were picking and packaging “tight” tulips in bundles of 10 for sale in the gift shop and the various flower kiosks on the grounds of the company:

 

And this shot that shows how they clip off the tulip tops before harvesting the bulbs:

 

After touring the fields we went into the Roozen Gaarde Gardens, where there were tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, muscari and a few other flower types. These gardens are planted from scratch each year:

 

Finally, here are a couple shots of the daffodils that were also still growing in some of the fields:

 

We grabbed a bite to eat at the garden snack bar and then spent some time walking through the onsite gift shop. It has been (probably) 17 years or so since we last came to this Festival. There have been many changes and we can see where the gardens and the whole Roozen operation has expanded over the years. This area was selected because the topsoil and climate closely resemble the environment in Holland where it all started with this family.

Today we will make a visit to downtown La Conner which is a great compliment to the Festival and the area. We hope to have some pictures from our day in town today…

 

Settled in La Conner

Our relocation from Puyallup to La Conner went off without a problem. We left on time at 9:30 and arrived right at noon to register and select a site at the Thousand Trails preserve. It was a very nostalgic drive while passing through Bellevue on I-405 as I recalled nearly 20 years of working in that particular area of WA. It has changed dramatically as I watched the very first high rise being constructed in that town back in 1980. It now has at least 10-12 high rise buildings – at least, that I could see from the freeway. I still noticed the two story building where my corner office was located is still standing.

 The entire drive was a pretty one and we only passed through a couple occasional showers and the skies were starting to clear for the first time since we arrived on April 5. As we got closer to La Conner, we could see the tulip fields in all their glory:

 

It will be exciting to take the tulip fields tour that we have missed for over 15 years now.

We selected our site from among the 10 or so that would allow satellite reception from a rooftop dish. There are a couple hundred sites here, but they are mostly in the woods with lots and lots of trees. It isn’t the nicest site by any means, but is convenient to the lodge and the beaches along the Skagit Bay:

 

 There are some problems with our site. First of all, it is has only 30 amps of electricity which will limit our concurrent use of some appliances. Secondly, it has no sewer hookup so we will have to utilize their “honey wagon” service for emptying our holding tanks while we are here. The last problem, and perhaps the most important one, is that there is no Wi-Fi capability as a result of the low lying campground and the distance from us of the nearest Verizon tower. We drove into Anacortes (about 10 miles) which has the nearest Radio Shack to look for a booster antenna for the data card we use for Internet. They had a solution, but it cost $100 for the device which we would only have occasional use for, so we passed on that and will just go to the family lodge to use the Internet. It is a real inconvenience and has soured us somewhat on the Thousand Trails preserves which have let us down on the last two stays – Chehalis and here. I went to the lodge last night to try out the reception and couldn’t get a signal until I tried while parked in our car outside the lodge. I’m not sure if we will be able to stick it out for the two weeks we have scheduled here so don’t be surprised if we move to another campground in the area where the services are more convenient.

 All was well until 8:30 PM last night when our power went out at the pedestal where we plug in our power cord. I was unable to reset the breaker and had to connect our power to the adjacent site until I can get some service done on ours this morning. We’ll do the best we can with what we’ve got though, and look forward to visiting this nice area of WA…

 

Harmony Visit

We had Harmony for the night on Saturday and we had plans to take her shopping for shoes and to see the daffodils in Sumner yesterday. It was a very happy time for all of us while visiting and we went shopping for new tennis shoes for her in the morning. Kristine wanted her to have white tennis shoes for school and we never realized how difficult it is to find white tennis shoes. It seems like the wild and psychedelic colors have taken over the tennis shoe market as we had to go to several different stores to find them. We ended up at the South Hill Mall in Puyallup before we located a store that had the right pair for her.

There has been lots of talk and many comments made about the daffodil fields in Sumner. We had an address for them and took a drive to the location and found this area, of about 20 acres (maybe) of daffodils that were either almost done blooming, or not ready to bloom. It was hard to tell:

 



 The only access to these flowers was down a muddy side road and the only good part about it was that it was not raining while we were there. It was not anything like the Skagit Valley area where the tulips and daffodils are so plentiful and beautiful that we are going to visit this week while in La Conner.

We spent some more time back at the rig before packing Harmony's things up and heading to Kristine's for the rest of the afternoon. We spent time with her and her family and even had a short birthday party to celebrate her birthday which is Wednesday the 17th. We called it a day and headed back to our fifth wheel at around 6 PM.

What a surprise we had when we arrived back at the fifth wheel. It had obviously stormed while we were gone and there was either hail or snow - or both - that created a winter scene when we returned:



It didn't do anything but rain up until now and we are wondering if maybe the weather isn't done treating us to more of this white stuff. We can remember many April's when we lived here where there were snow storms that came through to remind us that winter is not yet over in this part of the country. We're keeping our fingers crossed for La Conner.

Our departure today is planned for around 9:30 AM which will get us to La Conner around noon after traveling the approximately 110 miles to the preserve. We will again get together with Kristine and Harmony next weekend when we have a planned visit with Justin in Marysville. The details for that visit still need to be finalized but we are looking forward to seeing him again...