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| Smokey View from Zoe's Front Door |
With mixed feelings we pull into Pullman's Town Campground; very excited to see Zoe; very disappointed that we are socked in with smoke here too. In addition to smoke, winds blowing across the plains produce a dust storm which feels apocalyptic. Smoke here is more acrid as not only forests are burning but so are houses, buildings, and livestock. Very sad that three firefighters died last week fighting the huge fire in Twisp where Zoe worked in the field last summer when not otherwise evacuated herself due to fires. Unhealthy air quality warnings say to stay inside :(
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| Beautiful, Smokey View Of Palouse From Kamiak Butte |
That said, we have 10 wonderful fun filled days with Zoe while John finishes the final draft of his SSG project, Deb catches up on our blog, and we make plans for where to lay our heads for the next few months. We have a couple of cookouts at the RV with Zoe's
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| Zoe's WSU Friends |
friends including a couple evenings with boyfriend Gabe and his two darling little girls. We attend Pullman's National Lentil Festival (yes, I said Lentil Festival) which started in 1989 when this area grew 98% of all lentils in the US. We voted in the Lentil Cookoff and had the best lentil chili ever. The lentil ice cream was also great!
On another clear-ish day Zoe takes us on a fabulous hike up Kamiak Butte, an isolated, steep sided, heavily forested hill. A rare site on the Palouse, among it's vast miles of yellow rolling hills of wheat. Peculiar silt dunes characterize this Palouse Prairie which was formed during the ice ages from silt blown out from glacial outwash. Zoe takes Deb to a "hot yoga" class which she survives only by surreptitiously (sort of) putting an ice pack in her yoga pants. An ice pack which she just happened to have in her bag to return to Zoe!!!!!
We visited the now 9 month old grizzly cubs (seen at 3 months old with Zoe in 7/27/15 blog),
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| Zoe Communing With Mountain Goats |
and had a private feeding session with the WSU big horned sheep project where Zoe's friend has care and feeding responsibility. And ....we enjoyed our favorite Cougar Gold cheddar cheese made fresh at the university from their own cows. Zoe uses her juicer to make us a green juice and a carrot- ginger juice and we are soooo hooked!
Deb pulls our very big truck into a car wash (w/o RV) with 2 inches over the roof to spare and had to fold the mirrors in. All was going well until the dryer went over.
First pass, the 25 pound piece of modular kayak in the bed lifted up. Second pass, it lifted way up blowing the huge bike cover out of the back of the truck and when it came down it was on top of
the hitch. She skidaddled out of there
before the third pass blew it entirely out of the truck. Lesson learned.
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| Brown Pool Of Rain Water |
Wake up to leave on Saturday morning to warnings for high profile vehicles to stay off the road due to 70+ mile an hour winds, rain, dust storms and of course fire and smoke in our path. Aw jeez, we get another day with Zoe :) From brown soot filled clouds, it rains brown rain today for the first time in a month which clears the air a bit and helps with the fires, YAHOO!
Jack Update -
Jack has been in Division Officer school in San Diego for two weeks now and loves it. He is working real hard but also having fun learning to surf with Kyle, an old family friend from Hawaii and Virginia, hanging out with ECU friends in Los Angeles, and with other newly commissioned Ensigns in his class, some of whom will be serving on his ship in Pearl Harbor.
Condo Update -
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| Club House |
First building is almost complete and the Club House is well under way. Framing has begun on our building!!! Thank you Richard (developer) for the "extended opportunity" to explore this beautiful country and visit loved ones!
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