Two Weeks in the Pacific Northwest

Our most recent vacation has been a long time in the making -- a weeklong cruise to Alaska bookended by a few days in Seattle and Portland. I booked the cruise way back in June 2019 to take place a year later. It was one of my first Covid casualties.

Here we are, three years after that original booking and two years after it was scheduled to happen, and the pandemic still made an impact. Masks, while largely not mandated, where sometimes recommended. Negative Covid tests were required before we boarded. The days leading up to vacation are always a bit stressful, but this one took the cake.

We flew to Seattle on Wednesday, June 15, drove to the Portland area and spent two days there before driving back to Seattle and boarding the ship on that Sunday. We spent one week on board, followed by two days exploring Seattle. Our return flight is scheduled to land in Columbus later today.

The trip marked states #48 (Oregon) and #49 (Alaska) for me, with only Hawaii to go. (Paul needs Hawaii, along with South Dakota and Arkansas. Both kids are in the 30s.) I'll be posting highlights and photos of the trip over the coming weeks!

Scooting Along

The kids are getting older and with it comes more responsibility. Edith has gotten to stay home alone for short periods of time and now has her own house key. We haven't quite graduated to bicycle rides further than the distance that I can see from our driveway, but we recently got out their scooters and took a trip to the library.

It's a short, pleasant walk to the library, but that doesn't stop the kids from complaining! Scooters eased their pain. It's a nice change of pace, now that I can trust them both to stay at the side of the street and not veer toward the middle.

While they haven't yet experimented with riding both scooters at the same time, this picture may prove that it's not far off.

Goodbye, Grandpa

My grandpa died at the end of May, and I've put off this post long enough. I haven't been sure exactly what to write.

This was my mom's dad, and growing up we saw him and my grandma all of the time. Like, at least every week if not more. They lived only a few miles away -- close enough that I once rode my bike there -- and there was a standing engagement to play euchre more Saturdays than not. When we were lucky (and we usually were), Grandma would make popcorn, too.

Grandpa was a bricklayer and farmer, two professions that take a toll on a body. But he loved to tell stories and seemed to know everyone in town. And he easily spoke to anyone he came across. Growing up we took two long road trips with them -- one from Ohio to Texas, and the other to South Dakota -- and he never met a stranger.

No surprise that when I moved away from home I saw them much less, and Covid meant I had barely seen them at all during the last few years. When Grandpa's health worsened in May, we decided the risk was worth it and visited. I'm glad we did so, if only to give him one more chance to mention how I used to call him Bunkle when I was little. (Still no idea why!)

His funeral was a few days before Memorial Day, and it was a family reunion like we hadn't had in quite some time. Aunts and uncles, cousins and extended family -- many of whom I hadn't seen in years. I probably laughed too much since that's my usual response to anything uncomfortable. But despite the sad occasion, it was nice to see everyone. I think Grandpa would have liked that.

Fire!

Will keep this short since we’re six hours into a power outage that’s supposed to last another seven and I need to conserve my phone battery. We had some excitement today that resulted in a call to 911. (Everyone’s fine!)

Edith was upstairs reading when she called down about 3 p.m. that she saw flames out her window. About that time I smelled smoke and heard some weird noises. I yelled at the kids to get outside, grabbed my phone and ran out too. By that time I could see that the fire was in our neighbors’ backyard, not too far from our garage.

I called 911 while Edith banged on the neighbor’s door. (Neighbor had already seen it.) Meanwhile it is absolutely pouring rain, which ended up being a good thing because the fire was out in about three minutes, while the fire truck didn’t arrive for another 5 or 10 minutes.

Turns out a tree I few doors down and catty-corner fell on a wire during the storm, taking down a wire and causing an electrical fire. No lasting damage there, but the felled tree damaged the garages of two neighbors — one garage is decidedly leaning forward.

I write this at 9:30 p.m. Monday, and the ETA for electricity is 4:30 a.m. We’ve been watching the utility workers hard at it all evening. Hopefully we’ll have power by the morning!