29 August 2006 by ben.

On Friday the 18th of August, we had a chance to visit and lunch with Robbie and Nathan on our way to our rental house in Manzanita, Oregon. We hadn’t been down to Montesano in ages, and as it turned out, it was the most memorable portion of our week of vacation. Their property looked terrific, flowers everywhere, a couple of giant wind chimes made from old fire extinguishers, lots of trees and green everywhere, birds chirping all around. Robbie had spruced up the old work shed with a bold and bright paint job. They’d taken out the wooden deck around the hot tub and poured a concrete deck with inlaid flat river rocks and added easy chairs, tables, an old TV for outdoor summer theater, plus a scattering of solar lamps that Nathan said bathed the deck in a moonglow at night.

We chatted up a storm outside trying to get caught up on recent happenings while the dogs, Pier and Rio, rested nearby.

Inside, Robbie and Nathan showed off their entries in the Grays Harbor County Fair earlier in the month. Robbie won a Blue Ribbon (and nearly Best-of-Show) with a fabulous quilt of race car teams and also a Blue Ribbon for a photo of a flower garden. . Nathan won a Blue Ribbon for his brilliant sunset photo of the Peter Iredale shipwreck off Fort Stevens near Astoria, Oregon.

Nathan showed us some of the finds they’d made geocaching and also the weatherproof cannisters he’d been making so that he and Robbie could create and stash their own geocaches — they’d hidden three in the Fort Stevens area already.  And while Scott, Kim and I looked over the geocaching finds, Robbie enthusiastically listened to a long series of knitting, school, and vacation stories as told by Sandy and Bonnie.
After Nathan BBQ’d some hamburgers patties, we fixed up our burgers and piled on Robbie’s terrific potato salad and bean dish and enjoyed a leisurely lunch out on the deck.

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29 August 2006 by ben.

To kick off our final vacation of the year, we headed to Vantage on 18 August to visit with Chris and Susan and their kids & Venus, too. I was especially looking forward to the day since I hadn’t had a chance to spend much time with Chris in over a year, and he had the full day off. After some initial yakking, we had lunch and then got our stuff together to go play on the Columbia River, which would be refreshing considering the high temps. Chris launched their boat and then shuttled us in two groups to a sandy beach about 3 miles/5 km south on the river, on the far side. Just ashore, a huge, burning hot sand dune loomed large. While a few stayed ashore with Venus, others went out in the boat to try their luck and thrill at being towed on a sea-biscuit. I passed, but just about everybody else gave it a go. I think Nick was the champ, being towed for miles it seemed! I stayed ashore one time with Venus, who mostly just eyed me suspiciously, and climbed the dune which rose for about 100′ / 30m from the river’s edge to the basalt cliffs above.

On the return near suppertime, Chris let me run the first boat shuttle back to Vantage, which was fun. On the return, it was just me and the boat controls, something I’d never experienced before. Nothing unexpected happened, and I did find the right beach on the return where Chris and Wesley waited. Or maybe it was Chris and Nick. And Venus.

After securing the boat back on the trailer at the launch in Vantage, we began the several block drive back and watched this humorous spectacle unfold. Venus, partly pictured below, absolutely rocketed up the road trying to get home before we did. At one point, she ran parallel to our truck and raced through a gas station by a couple of guys pumping gas. As Venus streaked past, I saw them smiling incredulously as their heads whipped around to follow her progress. After taking a shortcut across some vacant lots, she easily won the hands down. Er… paws down.

Below, L to R: Nick, Caralyn, Jael, Sandy, Wes, and Bonnie. Venus pokes in from the left.

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