Home Again, Home Again

I did take a few pictures Sunday at Infinity Mennonite Church in Harlem.
 

This is one I took early in the worship service. Later they brought in so many folding chairs to accommodate the people that kept arriving that there was hardly a path to the front. The women in front are their Worship Team.

Infinity is on a corner storefront. This mural is painted on the one side. All of their materials talk about being a peace church.

This is looking down the street from the church. You can see the watermelon stand on the left corner.

I was fascinated by the blocks and blocks of double-parked cars. The white van was our transportation into the city and again to the airport today --

 

Evidently a card with the church name on it in the windshield is sufficient to save you from being ticketed. The van was parked there from about 9:30 in the morning until after seven at night. I don't know what the inside cars do if they want to get out...

Today was another long day. We met all morning, then took the van for the two hour drive to the Newark airport. It was a four and a half hour flight from Newark to Salt Lake City, then another hour and a half from Salt Lake City to Spokane. At least I gained three hours in the process and we were actually back to Ponderosa Falls by a little after ten tonight. It's good to be home.

My "Must-Do" List

There are a few things I really want to do while we are in Spokane. One of them is to go to Gordy's Sichuan Café to eat. We been talking about it and finally this afternoon when I went to get meat out of the freezer for supper, I decided I didn't want to cook. I wanted to go to Gordy's!

Gordy's is basically a hole-in-the-wall little place up on the South Hill on 30th. It only has maybe fifteen tables and it's always full -- even on a weeknight. The tables are rather bare. They set them with a napkin, a bowl and a pair of chopsticks. The food is incredible. They've been voted the best Asian food in Spokane several years in a row.

One of the specials tonight was one of our favorites, Smokey Bacon and Cabbage. We had an order of Sesame Prawns for an appetizer, then the Smokey Bacon with a side order of green beans. Of course you can't eat at Gordy's without sharing a dish of ice cream with their signature candied orange chocolate sauce for dessert!

Errand Day

We spent a good share of today traipsing around Spokane and getting a few errands done. Forry has been wanting to replace the screw-on safety clasps on our towing set-up with some snap-on clamps, making it easier to hook-up. We had thought perhaps Camping World might have some, but when we checked there a couple of weeks ago, the only ones they had were the ones that were already on towing rigs. Forry thought maybe a place that handled logging equipment or something like that might have them. I used Safari on my iPhone and finally narrowed my search for chains enough to come up with Spokane Chain and Cable out on West Broadway. He needed clamps that were rated for at least 6000 pounds and sure enough they had them.

I should have gone looking for a Sketchers shoe store when we were over on the west side of the state. There are several there including a couple of outlet stores. I have been wearing nothing but sandals almost all of the time. The one pair of sneakers I own has Velcro clasps which are worn through. I'm not sure what kind of weather we'll be having in rural New York this weekend, but I don't think my sandals will be the right kind of footwear for Camp Deerpark. We went out to the Valley Mall and found a Famous Footwear store. They only had a couple of pairs of Sketchers in my size and with a wide width. Hopefully, I did find a pair of sneakers that will work. It's not often we are anywhere where socks and shoes are necessary, but at least now I am prepared.

The last stop we made was at Costco. After walking around the Valley Mall looking for a shoe store and then around the Costco warehouse, I think I have gotten my exercise for the day. Forry waited in the Food Court at the Mall for me, then rode one of the motorized carts at Costco, so he actually enjoyed shopping with me. Unfortunately, it was too early in the afternoon for him to have his favorite meal. He'll have to wait and have his Costco Dog another day.

Coyote and Dinner With Sean

We went into Spokane this evening to take Son Sean out to dinner. In the several years we have been coming to Ponderosa Falls RV Park, the housing out on this portion of Spokane's West Plains has grown significantly. There have been several hundred homes built out here in the last few years. As we drove by on our way to town, we spotted this large coyote meandering across the field on the edge of one of the developments --

We stopped an watched him for a bit. He seemed totally unfazed by our scrutiny and even watched us for a bit before he continued his walk.

We've not seen deer this trip, although we saw them quite regularly last fall when we were here. We've also not seen the large flock of quail we used to see. The farmer at the end of Ponderosa Falls entrance used to feed the quail up by his house. The property is now for sale and the house is empty. I guess the quail are looking elsewhere for their lunches.

Sean and his friend Carma have been eating occasionally at a Mexican restaurant on the corner of Cedar and 2nd. He thought it was pretty good, so wanted to take us there. The food was not bad at all. I had some very good Carne Asada while Forry stuck to one of the burritos he's been eating lately.

It was nice to see that some work has been done on Sean's apartment complex. It had been for sale, but I understand it is now off the market. The overgrown shrubs along the sides have been torn out and lots of flowers planted. There seems to be work being done on the apartments in the portion next door to Sean's building. I'd really like to see them replace the very worn linoleum in his kitchen. He's said that they've told him it is going to happen...

A VERY Nice Day!

We had lunch today with a very special, very dear friend! Our friend Mary had come into Spokane this morning from her home on Tiger Mountain for a consult and we met at Maggie's South Hill Grill up on 29th. Maggie's was one of the places we enjoyed for lunches when we lived here in Spokane. We weren't sure it was still here and still open since restaurants sometime have short lives. But we drove up that way and sure enough it was still here and it was open!

Mary arrived a few minutes after we did and we had a chance to catch up just a little bit while we ate. She had a Reuben that looked delicious and I had a bowl of wonderful butternut squash soup that was absolutely scrumptious. Forry wasn't hungry, so just had ice tea.

He had an appointment early this afternoon to have an MRI done of his back at Columbia Imaging which was just around the block from the restaurant. Forry and I headed over that way while Mary went to pick up a few things at Trader Joes. She joined me while I was waiting for Forry to have his imaging done and we had a chance to visit a little bit more. The doctor is running a bunch of tests on Forry to try to find out why his back and legs are hurting when he walks very far.

But, we decided that we just had too much to catch up on, so made plans to drive up to her home in the woods near Colville early next week. Mary is one of those dear souls that we cannot have seen for over a year, but can pick up the conversation as if we had just talked yesterday. Now that she is retired, we'll have to see if we can get together more often.

We did have another thunderstorm last night, but it blew through pretty fast. We could hear thunder in the distance this morning, but only had a few drops of rain. But, the storm did  drop the temperature considerably. I put on long pants and a long-sleeved shirt this morning and we actually plugged in the little heater this evening in the living room.

First, Frustration and Then Good Folks and Good Customer Service

Today was one of those very frustrating days. It didn't start out that way as we went into Spokane to the Group Health lab and had our blood and urine tests done. The techs were good and got both Forry and me with their first stick. That's always nice, especially since my veins often aren't very cooperative. Since we had to be fasting for the lab work, we stopped for breakfast and then for a few groceries on our way home.

Then we went to the office to try to make arrangements to stay here an additional two weeks. The lady in the office informed us that they could find no record of the upgrade we bought last fall and that we would need to pay the thirty plus dollars due for electricity for our first two week stay. She suggested we call the K/M office and talk to Adrian Barnes who had sold the two thousand dollar plus upgrade to us. So we went back to the RV and I called him. He answered and said he would call me right back.

I waited an hour, then called the K/M office again and asked for Adrian. The lady said he wasn't available. So I asked if he had a supervisor I could talk to. She said he did and she would connect us. After about a minute and a half, she came back and said neither one of them was available and could she be of assistance.

At that point, I was annoyed enough that I just about blew her off, but she was sort of insistent. So I told her the story about how we had bought this upgrade that Adrian told us would enable us to stay at any of the K/M Parks without paying extra for utilities. After all, we had already paid over two thousand dollars for the K/M, RPI and ROD+ memberships back in 2008. And how, in spite of calling several times, we had never gotten new cards reflecting our new status.

At that point, the lady (who turned out to be named Theresa) said she'd get to the bottom of this and said she'd call us back shortly. And she did! Theresa actually went to talk to Kevin McCloud, one of the K/M owners. He authorized a note be put on our record in their computer system saying that we were not to be charged at any of their RV resorts for electricity! And she said she had called Ponderosa Falls to personally let them know. Then, she apologized for all of the confusion and said that Mr. McCloud wanted to express his apologies as well!!!

We went back down to the office and they verified that the head office had been in contact with them and everything was taken care of -- and commented that we would only be charged $200 for the third and fourth week stay instead of the whole $400 monthly charge she had quoted us earlier!

An hour or so later, we did get a call back from Adrian saying we needed to get in contact with Neskowin Creek (our "home" resort) and ask them to send us new cards reflecting our "Legacy" status! I called them immediately and got nothing but recorded messages. I left a message on three different places on their system asking them to call me. We'll see if they do. I'll try again tomorrow. Maybe they'll surprise me and be as good at customer service as Theresa was!

Playin' With the Jello

We can stay at Ponderosa Falls RV Park for fourteen nights without charge due to our membership at Neskowin Creek, part of the K/M Resort chain. However, that means we would have to move when our time is up. We wanted to stay somewhere close to Spokane as I need to fly from the Spokane airport to New York for a Board meeting on September 12th.

We looked at a couple of lake spots nearby, but the only one that looked like a good choice turned out to be for military only. We thought about Peaceful Pines in Cheney where we have stayed before. We could also stay where we are by paying their monthly rate of $400 (plus electricity!). The more we discussed it, the more we figured we really didn't want to have to move.

We went down the hill to the office today (they were closed over the weekend) to tell them what we had decided. There were three rigs lined up outside waiting to get into the park. And wouldn't you know that all of them were workers who were looking for that monthly rate. And there is only one woman in the office that deals with the monthly rentals. So we waited.

When it was finally our turn, she told us we would most likely have to move to another site as they probably had our site rented after our initial two weeks. We reminded her that when we came, she had checked and said that the site we were going to (Site 100) would be available for a month. If we had to move, we might as well move to another park... But she double-checked and said that was right and we would not have to move if we stayed.

Then she said that she didn't have time to do the paperwork! And would we come back down tomorrow to take care of it? We have to run into Spokane in the morning to get some lab work done, so we told her we'd stop by when we came back. We walked back up the hill to Auntie Violet and I took the broom to all of the pine needles that dropped during last night's storm on our patio rug.

Laundry Day

It's hard to do laundry when you are traveling every other day and when you often don't have a sewer hookup. That meant that now that we are settled in here at Ponderosa Falls for two weeks, the laundry basket was overflowing.

We have a Splendide combination washer/dryer in Auntie Violet. It does a great job of washing clothes, but I don't like the way it dries as it seems to take forever. So I just run the clothing through the wash cycle then hang it up to dry either on hangers or on the folding clothes dryer that lives behind our living room couch. I no longer like to iron, so I finger-smooth the clothes as I hang them and they come out pretty good. Of course, part of it is that we really don't buy any fussy clothing that needs to be ironed.

Our wardrobe essentially consists of jeans, shorts and knit shirts. We do have some dressier clothes, but I am looking forward to two years from now when I will no longer have to attend board meetings where I need to dress up a bit. Even in all of the different churches we attend, a nice pair of slacks or jeans and a shirt with maybe a jacket is just fine. It's seldom, if ever, that we go somewhere that requires a suit, let alone a tie!

I did several loads of laundry this morning and early afternoon, then we took a break and drove into the Group Health pharmacy in Spokane to pick up the prescriptions that I had ordered over the internet. I was a bit surprised to see how grubby Spokane looked when we drove in. It looks like it's been a while since a highway crew picked up trash along the road. The entrance to the city didn't appear very inviting at all.

Another Not-So-Calm Day

It started out as another quiet day at home. The only plans I had were to take a shower and then drive down to the nearby Haggens grocery store to drop the bills I had written checks for in their mailbox. I also needed to pick up some Half and Half for when I get inspired to make an onion pie out of the Walla Walla sweet onions sitting on the floor in my kitchen.

I got the first part done without a problem. We've been showering over at Daughter Mary Mae's as we don't have a sewer hook-up here and are conserving the amount of water we use. MM and the GKs were on their way to the library when I came over, so I had the house to myself. Forry came over after I did and got his shower as well.

Then it was time to go to the store. But when I got to Toad II, the clicker key thing didn't open the door. It didn't even make a noise of the locks unlocking... Thinking the battery in the thing might be dead, I opened it up (there is an actual spare key inside) and used -- for the first time ever -- the key to open the driver's side front door.

Got in and tried to start the car. Nothing! Put the key in the ignition and turned it, still nothing! (Normally if you have the key in your pocket, that is close enough to turn on the ignition...) At that point, I went to get Forry, who proceeded to try everything I had done all over before deciding that Toad II had a dead battery.

Now there is only one keyhole on the entire vehicle -- the one on the driver's door! You cannot open any of the other doors when the battery is dead as they all operate electrically. Fortunately MM had a pair of jumper cables in her van because there was no way we could get into the back of Toad II to get at ours (just a matter of lawn chairs and my trike in the way...).

I went back to Auntie Violet and let Forry and MM deal with jump-starting the rig. They got the job done; Forry drove it down the road and back; then let it idle for a while to charge the battery. It seemed to start fine at that point, but a light came on that said "status check." I looked all through the manual and couldn't find anything that said what that might mean!

I did make my trip to the grocery, feeling a bit nervous about turning Toad II off while I went inside. But I had no further trouble. Maybe tomorrow I should call the former Suzuki dealer in Spokane and find out what that persistent light means...?

What We Didn't Want to See...

When we arrived at Jone's High Country RV Camp yesterday afternoon, we were unable to extend the slide in the bedroom. When Forry went out to take a look, he saw a puddle of oil...

When we are traveling, we pile all of the loose stuff and furniture in the RV onto the bed. Without the slide extended there is no way to really get at the bed. It really isn't too much of a problem, as we have gotten in the habit of sleeping in the living room when we are on the road. I get the couch and Forry loves sleeping in the Lazy Boy chair he got for Christmas. It just seems a lot easier to empty the things off of the couch and chair then to unpack the bed...

This afternoon we went out to take a look and see what had happened this time (we have experienced problems with the hydraulic hoses to this slide at least twice before).

We had taken over the radiator shield in the above picture (it's upside down) and set it aside --

This rather blurry picture is the coupling of the hydraulic line. The hose should be connected there on the left side...

And here is the end of the hose which Forry fished out, It looks like it pulled entirely loose from the coupling.

It looks like we may be changing our plans for heading from here to Spokane. We may just go down the Columbia Gorge instead and go directly Uhlmann RV in Chehalis. I emailed the above picture to Jim Jusilla, the shop foreman. He responded that they would be able to fix it, but the time frame will depend upon rather or not they are able to obtain a hose locally...

At least this time, the slide is all the way in. Last time we had a problem with it, it kept creeping out about 2-3 inches when we traveled. We'd have to stop occasionally and get it back in.

Minimalist?

When we were in town yesterday, both in Spokane and Cheney, I couldn't help but notice all of the Halloween decorations. There are some pretty elaborately decorated houses -- with lots of colored lights and carved pumpkins. When our kids were little, we carved faces in pumpkins and I made lots of costumes for them and later for the grandkids. But, I don't recall ever really doing a great deal of decorating.

Now that we live in a motorhome, I still do very little decorating. Over the years, Granddaughter Claire has sent us a few funky decorations that just stick on the windows. There's this one with several bats for Halloween.

And this year she sent this set of harvest pumpkins --

But those five pumpkins are the extent of our Halloween decorations. When the day passes, they'll go back between their sheets of plastic and into the file folder for another year. I guess I enjoy enjoying other peoples decorating efforts, but am perfectly content to be a minimalist in my own home.

It rained pretty hard again last night. There are a few small puddles on the ground, nothing major.

What a day today for sports. San Francisco won the World Series in a four game sweep and the Bull Riding National Finals event title was won for a third year in a row by the Brazilian Robson Palermo. Asteroid won the World Champion Bull title and Brazilian Silvano Alves became the first back-to-back World Champion in the history of the PBR (Professional Bull Riders).

Off to Spokane Again

We got ourselves organized this morning, getting ready to head for Spokane -- hopefully for the last time this year! The tow bar package from RoadMaster that was back-ordered for the new Suzuki finally arrived at Camping World and we made an appointment to have it installed tomorrow morning.

Since we have no way to tow Toad II, I followed Auntie Violet. I really like driving the new rig. Maybe because I have had a chance to drive it so much lately...?

After I opened the gate for Forry, I parked across the road to watch him come through --

I shut the gate behind him, then watched him head up the hill, out of the coulee --

We stopped on the way and got some VERY expensive diesel -- $4.32 per gallon! And that's with the Flying J discount! We've seen it for around $4.16 in Spokane. Looks like we should have waited!

We came on out to the new Camping World in Liberty Lake. We had made arrangements with Larry, the service manager, to park overnight in their lot so that they can get started on the rig when they open at 8 AM. They are also going to install the Air Force brake system we got a couple of years ago at the Gypsy Rally. This is a new store with a new crew, so we'll see how it goes... We do have a 50 amp hook-up, so should be able to spend a comfortable night.

Since we will most likely be heading south once we are finished here (though we'll go back to the ranch to load up), we thought we'd take Son Sean out to dinner one more time before we left. He wanted Mexican food, so we went out to Casa de Oro, one of his favorites.

Now we're back at the Camping World  parking lot, watching the first go-around of the National Finals Bull Riding from Las Vegas.

Journey to Spokane

As we were getting ready to head for Spokane this morning to check in with the bank and to pick up the carrier bars for Toad II's  roof, I got a call from the lady at Hallmark Suzuki saying that our license plates had come in. She was wondering where she should mail them and was quite pleased to hear that we were actually going to be in Spokane today.

We stopped at the Suzuki Parts Dept. to pick up the bars and discovered that the lady at the sales office had brought the plates over there as well, so it ended being a quick trip. From there we went to the bank with the paperwork I had gathered together for them. We evidently had everything they wanted, so that was a quick stop as well.

Next was a stop at Costco. Forry was out of cereal and we needed blueberries and calcium citrate tablets. It was too early in the day to have supper, so Forry didn't even get a Polish dog. We gassed the Suzuki and then instead of staying in town for several more hours then going out to dinner, we decided to just come on home.

We got back to the ranch and Auntie Violet in time to watch the Vice Presidential Debate. I must admit I can hardly wait for the election to be over -- it seems like the campaign and the ads have been going on for years!

Finally, the Mail!

Daughter Mary Mae checked with the Post Office in Mount Vernon where Son-in-law Scott had dropped off the box of smail mail last week. They said the package had been picked up by the USPS truck and hadn't come back. They thought perhaps it might have made it to Ritzville and put in a "Postage Due" bin instead of with the General Delivery mail.

I called the Post Office in Ritzville. The lady who answered the phone sounded pretty skeptical, but said she would go look. Several minutes later she came back on the line and said that indeed it was there! Since I had made trips to Ritzville the last two days, we decided that it was Forry's turn. He came back with a nice fat box of mail.

I spent a good share of today putting together the packet of materials that the bank needs for the renewal of our ranch loan. We'll make a trip to Spokane tomorrow to take them the paperwork and to pick up the cross bars for roof-top of the new Suzuki (got to have a place to carry the ladder, you know.).

Once Again, Home Again

We worked through lunch today finishing up the Executive Board agenda, so that we could get done early. We were scheduled to adjourn at 3 PM, but managed to do all of our work by 1:30. Several of us had flights that didn't leave until four or five, so we had time to sit and have a late  lunch at the airport together.

Going through security at the Kansas City airport went fairly easily even though the pat-downs due to my knees seem to get more invasive every time I fly. The KC to Denver flight passengers had all checked in far enough ahead of time that the pilots decided to go ahead and take off fifteen minutes early! Their home base evidently was Denver and the crew was anxious to get home for the weekend.

Though the Denver to Spokane flight left right on time, but managed to land in Spokane twenty minutes early! I called Forry, who had planned to wait in the cell phone parking lot for me, when we landed and he was just leaving Auntie Violet. Fortunately Ponderosa Falls RV Park is fairly close to the airport, so by the time I walked out the of the concourse and out the door, I only had to wait a few minutes for him.

We made a spot at the truck stop near the RV park and ate a quick supper at the Iron Skillet. My, it is nice to be back home -- I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.

Errands

Today was a day for running errands. We had quite a few of them.

Two weeks ago we had taken my Chinese rug into Kirishian's in Spokane to have it washed. It usually takes about a week for them to wash it and then get it dry again. The day before we were supposed to pick it up last week, they called and said that they were going to wash it a second time -- it was that dirty! I tried to get it cleaned before we left last year, but they had been so busy at Kirishian's I couldn't get an appointment. The rug covers the main area of Auntie Violet's living area, so it does get ALL the traffic in and out.

From Kirishian's we went to the pharmacy at Group Health to pick up the prescriptions I had ordered on-line a couple of days ago. While we were there, I took my wrist blood pressure machine upstairs to our doctor's office to compare the readings I was getting with it to the ones the Medical Assistant was getting.

Next it was Bed, Bath and Beyond out on North Division. I wanted to get a new throw rug to put down in front of the refrigerator. The ceramic tile floors are deadly to anything dropped out of the refrigerator. I also like having a rug there to catch the drips from getting ice.

BB&B is a fun place to just browse. Besides bedding and linens and kitchenware, they have a lot of "as seen on TV" stuff. They also carry larger boxes with more varieties of coffees that fit our Keurig coffee machine then you find in the grocery stores. Forry found the water filters for the Keurig he had been looking for as while as a new pillow.

Next stop was over to Spokane Wireless on N Foothills drive. Our Communications Guru Scott Ross  has put together all of the wi-fi router, boosters and antennas for Auntie Violet over the years. The antenna and pole we had up at the ranch had blown down and broken while we were gone (which is why I had no internet service there!). We bought a new antenna -- a new improved, and hopefully sturdier model (Wilson Electronics, Inc Multi-Band Omni-Directional Antenna). Forry also got a bluetooth headphone for using his iPhone that should work well with his hearing aides. Besides which, I got a couple of very nice big hugs from Scott!

Our last stop was at Yoke's Fresh Foods to pick up a few groceries. By the time we got back to Ponderosa Falls we were both tired. I was glad I had picked up a baked chicken for supper while we were at Yokes!

Good Food and Good Company

One of the restaurants we really like in Spokane is Wild Sage. It's a bit pricey, but the food is wonderful. We try to make at least one trip there everytime we return to the Spokane area.

When I was making appointments for massages this week with Cherie, bless her heart, even though she was booked up, she decided she would stay late on Monday afternoon to take care of us both. I agreed on the condition that she join us for dinner afterwards.

I wasn't sure they were open on Monday, but took a chance and called Wild Sage. I was able to get a reservation at 6 PM. Cherie finished up with Forry's massage about 5:40 which worked out perfectly for us to get there. We had wonderful meals, but I must admit I enjoyed the conversation as much as the food.

When we got back home to Auntie Violet, I was pleased to find that the throw rugs I had washed this afternoon were dry and I could put them back down on the bathroom and kitchen tile that I had scrubbed this morning. I'm not the world's fussiest housekeeper, but when it reaches a point that it is making me cranky, I need to do something about it. I really dislike the ceramic tile in that part of the motor home. I know it's considered an upgrade, but I think it's easier to look at then to live with. One of these days, I'm hoping we can replace the tile with wood...

Family!

What a delightful evening we've had! We met my Nephew Jared and his family for pizza at the Flying Goat near Audubon Park in Spokane. It's been over a year since we have seen them -- and it was the first time we had met our new great-nephew Ryan. This is Jared with our great-niece Ellie --

 Jared's beautiful wife Becky --

They both look pretty serious in this picture, but little Ryan was full of smiles. And is he ever wiggly!

Ellie is very much a Daddy's girl, but she did sit on my lap long enough to get a picture!

My brother Patrick is the youngest in our family. The nicest thing about it is that he's now having grandbabies while the rest of us have grands that are quite a bit older (our youngest two are now eleven!). It's always a joy to get back to the area to spend time with the newest additions!

Not only did we have a delightful visit, but we had some VERY good pizza. One was a pulled pork pizza with coleslaw in the middle and the other was one that had mild Italian sausage and arugula with a medium egg right in the center! Both had extremely good flavor.

Time Alone!

We've been married for almost 54 years. And for the last five of them we have been pretty much together 24/7. I occasionally fly away for a few days to go to a Board meeting, but that only happens three to four times a year.

I usually get up an hour or so before Forry does and I enjoy that quiet hour alone with my cup of coffee, reading the paper on my Kindle.

This morning Forry had an appointment with his dermatologist at 11:30, then I had made him an appointment for a massage with Cherie at 2:30 this afternoon. I chose not to go along and encouraged him to just stay in Spokane until it was time for his massage instead of returning the 7 or so miles to Ponderosa Falls RV Park.

So what did I do with those almost six hours by myself? Not a whole lot!I spent most of it enjoying the quiet -- no TV! -- and working on genealogy records. Ancestor.com has been a big help in trying to document some of the information that we have about family. Today I discovered a picture of Forry's maternal great-grandparents, Edward Martin Steffen and Friedricka Grechau Steffen that had been posted by a distant relative:

We had a family picture of them with his grandmother, also Friedricka, when she was about fifteen or sixteen, but it was a delight to find a picture of them at an older age.

I could hardly wait for Forry to get home so that I could show him what I had found! So much for being alone...

Dinner With Sean...

This afternoon we emptied enough stuff (the lounge chairs and my trike) out of the back of Toad to enable us to put one of the back seats up so that we could take Son Sean out to dinner with us. We wanted to visit the HuHot Mongolian Grill out on East Sprague that our friend had told us about.

But first, we wanted to visit the new Camping World that we had noticed near Liberty Lake when we drove into Spokane from Idaho. You could see it from the freeway, but we could not find a frontage road or a way to get to it. I tried the Yellow Page app on my iPhone, but found nothing. We tried using our GPS, but found nothing there either. The 411 phone number service had no listing.

Finally, I thought to look on the Internet with Safari on my iPhone. The Camping World website used our location and found the nearest store. Viola, we had an address! The location on Cataldo is on a frontage road that takes off from the front of a service station -- it's hard to spot and really doesn't look like the entrance to anything...

Turns out the store has only been open for a week and will actually have their official Open House on the 29th. We were able to restock my supply of laundry detergent for the Splendide washer as well as the stuff for the holding tanks. Forry finally broke down and bought the new Thetford SmartDrain sewer hose system he has been eyeing for some time.

From the Camping World store we drove back to the HuHot Mongolian Grill. We had eaten at one in Altoona, Iowa with our friends and really enjoyed it. Bill discovered that there was a franchise in the Spokane Valley and sent me the address. Unlike the restaurant in Iowa that asked that you use just one bowl for your raw ingredients, this one had no limits. The guy in line in front of us filled FOUR bowls, two with just meat. A while later I saw him go through the line with two more!

Sean really enjoyed eating at HuHot. He went through the line three times!