Trip to Washington

Monday, August 2, 2010
Utah and Idaho

Rebecca, Hyrum, and Mimi came and picked me up here in Bountiful about 10:30 in the morning. We were traveling in her car. I dropped her off at Costco to pick up a few items for our travels, and I filled the car there with gas. About 11:00 we actually hit the road and headed north on I-15 and then I-84 into Idaho. As we crossed the border, we honked the horn and of course sang "Here We Have Idaho" or my best rendition of it.

It was a pleasant day for traveling and, though we hit some stretches of road construction, none of them were onerous or impeded our travel much. We stopped at the first rest stop into Idaho to stretch our legs and use the bathrooms. A few hours later we exited the freeway and drove into Twin Falls to see the impressive Snake River Canyon, the Twin Falls Idaho Temple, and to eat lunch at a Wendy's. Becca and I both had salads, although I did splurge with a chocolate milkshake for dessert.

We continued on to Boise and then to Nampa, where we found Dale and LeAnn's house and where we spent the night. Dale called other family members, and eventually Lyle; Gene, Cheryl, and Ronnie; and Rex, Jackie, and Jared joined us for the evening. When Dale first called Gene, Cheryl answered the phone and said she was on her way to see him in the hospital in Boise. There had been a combine fire, and he inhaled smoke or fumes or something and had to be hauled off in an ambulance. After a few hours they determined he was going to be okay and released him. And then they came to Dale's house to visit.

We followed Dale and LeAnn around in their car as we went to visit places from my childhood, such as Nampa High School, the final home my parents lived in just off Greenhurst Road, the first home we had south of Nampa off of Missouri Avenue, and the Scism School, where I attended parts of the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades.

Except for Lyle, everyone else arrived after our little tour of the historic sites of Nampa. It was a late night by the time everyone arrived, visited, and finally went home, but it was good to see them all.

Tuesday, August 3
Idaho, Oregon, and Washington

We woke up (not too awfully early), ate breakfast, visited a bit more with Dale, gassed up the car at the Nampa Costco, and hit the road again sometime between 10:30 and 11:00 in the morning. We had contemplated driving out through where we used to live in eastern Oregon but decided not to due to the late hour of our starting. We thought maybe we could catch it on our return trip.

We continued west on I-84, honked as we crossed into Oregon, where I pointed out that Ontario was the town I was born in, and continued, with one rest stop, across eastern Oregon, up and over the Blue Mountains, and stopped in Pendleton for gas and lunch at a Subway. We then continued west until we intersected with I-82 and followed it across the Colombia River into Washington. We stayed on I-82 until we hit I-90 and then west from there. We stopped at another rest stop just before climbing into the Cascade Mountains. As we reached the western slope of the Cascades and into the Seattle area, we took I-405 (where we endured massive traffic backups) and I-5 north to Everett. Mimi decided she really liked all the trees in this part of Washington and thinks she would like to live here.

We went first to our motel, the Best Western Navigator Inn, and then drove back to greet Camilla and Sam in their Great Harvest bakery. Our motel is about a mile from their bakery and apartment. We arrived in Everett about 6:00 Sam time (aka Pacific Daylight Time), or 7:00 Mountain time, some eight or so hours after leaving Nampa. A long but pleasant day of driving. This was Becca's first trip to Washington since Chris and Camilla had moved here, and she thought their little bakery was absolutely darling.

After Camilla closed their store at 7:00, we walked across the parking lot to a carnival/fair at the far end of the parking lot by the grocery store to meet Chris and wandered around and got some free food (Chris had a booth there giving away free bread) and watched Hyrum and Sam play on a big inflatable slide. We then went to Chris and Camilla's apartment to visit before returning to our motel.

Wednesday, August 4
Washington

Camilla and Sam came to our motel to pick us up, and Hyrum and I went with her to the free kids movie at the theaters in Everett Mall across the street from where their bakery is located on Everett Mall Way. We saw Doogie, I think the name of it was, and then returned to the Taylors' apartment.

In the afternoon, armed with a lunch from the bakery, we all went for a picnic on a beach on the Puget Sound for a couple of hours. We drove by the Boeing plant to show Becca, Mimi, and Hyrum where they make the big airplanes. The weather was absolutely delightful for a day at the beach.

In the evening Chris and Camilla and Sam came over to visit at our motel suite, and the two four-year-olds had a great time playing in the whirlpool hot tub in the room that Becca, Mimi, and Hyrum are sleeping in. I sleep on the couch in the part of the suite that is the living room and kitchen. (We are in suite 400 on the top floor of the hotel.)

Thursday, August 5
Washington

Every morning I get up earlier than everyone else and go down to the exercise room on the main floor and walk on the treadmill for half an hour. Then I come back to the room and take Hyrum down for breakfast. He is a pretty picky eater, but I have been able to get him to eat some waffle and drink some milk, and we take some fruit (apples and oranges) and some yogurt back to the room for later snacking.

Camilla and Sam came to our motel again to pick us up, and the four of us followed in Becca's car to a park next to a little lake, where we sat on wet grass and watched a puppet musical show about pirates. We returned to the bakery for lunch. We hung out at the apartment in the afternoon until it was time to go out to a farmer's market at Lake Stephens, where Chris has a booth every Thursday evening. We wandered around the little farmer's market, ate some Mexican food for our supper, sampled bread and such, and sat on the grass by the lake and listened to the musical concert. A delightful evening.

After we returned to Everett, Camilla and Sam joined us at our motel room, and Hyrum and Sam played in the hot tub some more. They did not even need to know the place had a regular swimming pool. This was just their size anyway.

Friday, August 6
Washington

Although the weather has been lovely all week since we arrived, today was overcast and cooler and threatened rain much of the day. I tended Mimi, Hyrum, and Sam in the motel while Rebecca and Camilla went to the Seattle Washington Temple to do initiatory work. The two of them had a nice visit on the drive to and from the temple.

We decided to go down to Seattle this afternoon, so we stopped at the Everett Costco for lunch, and then all drove in one car (Becca's Mazda) to downtown to go to Pike Street Market. It was exceedingly crowded, packed with wall-to-wall people, which made it fun trying to keep track of two busy, inquisitive four-year-olds, but we enjoyed the outing. Getting to Pike Place, we drove through parts of downtown Seattle, including by the base of the famed Space Needle.

Saturday, August 7
Washington, Oregon, and Idaho

It had been a fun week, which went by all too fast. Fortunately, we did not pack it too tight with too many activities. We had nice visits with Chris, Camilla, and Sam, and it was particularly fun for the two four-year-old cousins, Hyrum and Sam, to play together. And Chris and Camilla and Sam live in a spectacularly beautiful part of the country.

We packed, checked out of the motel, and stopped by the bakery to say good-bye to Chris, Camilla, and Sam. By about 9:00 Sam time (10:00 Mountain time) we were leaving, retracing our route along I-5, I-405, I-90, I-82, and I-84 back across Washington, Oregon, and Idaho to Nampa. We stopped for gas in Yakama and ate lunch at an Arctic Circle. At a town called Prosser in south central Washington, we got off I-82 and took a little detour south and then east before rejoining I-82 just before it crosses the Colombia River back into Oregon. We also stopped at a rest stop in the Blue Mountains just east of Pendleton. Somewhere in eastern Oregon, both going and coming, we passed a sign that said, "45th Parallel, Half Way Between the Equator and the North Pole."

At Ontario we stopped to get gas again and drove by the Holy Rosary Hospital, where I was born in the summer of 1949. The hospital looks a lot different and is a lot larger than it was then. We contemplated driving to Nyssa, the Owyhee Ward chapel, Adrian, and by the old homestead where I first lived on the Oregon-Idaho state line, but we had been in the car enough today, so we passed on that little side trip.

We reached Dale and LeAnn's house in Nampa about 7:00 in the evening, where we ate, visited, and played games. He was going to try to gather more of the family together again, like he did Monday evening, but none of the rest of them could make it.

Sunday, August 8
Idaho and Utah

We left Nampa this morning and spent approximately five hours driving home to Layton. Mimi and Hyrum slept much of the first half of the trip until we stopped at a rest stop near Malta. It seemed to me that both yesterday's and today's return legs of the trip went by much quicker than when we were driving on our way to Everett earlier in the week.

And now our trip was over.