Idaho, 1st (and last) Day

Last Monday (November 13) we left Oregon and headed for Idaho, which entailed a lot of driving across central/easetern Oregon and Washington.  There is a lot of nothing out there!  In some places, if your farm was out of sight of the highway, you could plow hundreds of acres in a day and never seen another soul.

The day after we arrived in Couer d'Alene we took time to look around.  This is Lake Couer d'Alene, which is clearly a major tourist attraction in the summer but when we were there it was cold and windy.  Still pretty, but we walked fast!

Off the docks was a walk-through shopping area, of the sort where I warned the kids not to touch because anything they accidentally broke would be too expensive for us to buy!

The toy store reminded me very much of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.  But we just bought a carousel ride.

They were beginning to do the Christmas decoration, so of course we needed a photo with Santa.

At Grandma's house, the kids thought the stair-climbing chair was perfectly awesome!

My mom made this walking stick for my grandmother, almost 30 years ago.  

Grandma and Burt have visited many exotic places, including the Ukraine, where they bought some stackable dolls.

Grandma, Burt, and my whole crew.

Me and my grandma.

That concludes this year's big trip; the day after this we spent all day long driving, flying, waiting, and driving home.  Long trip, but it was fun.

Oregon, Day Seven

Last day in Oregon: tomorrow we head for Idaho to visit my mom's mom and then on Wednesday we head back home. 

We took time for one last visit with great-grandma.  And for an all-cousins picture.  Except for Eli, who was too little (at 11 months) to sit with them.

We managed to include him anyway!

The cousins (sans Eli) with great-grandma.

And me with Grandma.  I am glad we got to visit, and I think she enjoyed it too.  But I am sad that this is almost certainly the last time I will see her.

Afterwards we took the kids to a playground for some long-overdue playtime.

There is no playground equipment that an active boy cannot make yet more challenging!

The cousins got along really well and had great fun playing together.  This trip was the first time they had met each other.

We even remembered to get a group photo!

Oregon, Day Six

Today we drove out to the ghost town of Richmond, which was founded about 1899 and mostly abandoned by 1960.  My great-great grandfather John Kent Trent built this house, and his descendants lived in it until the early 1980s.

The house and most of the remaining buildings (all four of them) are on private property now, so we couldn't get any closer.  A very friendly horse was guarding the gate.

Richmond is in Wheeler County, where population density measures less than one person per square mile.  Why the Trents wanted to move out there is a mystery.

We stopped in Mitchell, the last real town before Richmond, for lunch.  Its population in 2010 was 130.

For such a little town, it had a pretty nice park a very short walk from the cafe.  The poor kids spent so much of this day in the car, driving up and down hills, so we were glad they had some time to play.

Bridge Creek is usually 12 inches deep or less in the summer, but three times in the town's history a flash flood along the creek has destroyed the lower town.

Oregon, Day 5

Howard Payton and Stella Baird were Abbey, Ethan, and Isaac's great-great-grandparents.

And John Lawrence Williams was their great-grandfather.

Lunch was frequently the high point of the day for the kids.  They've eaten out more this week than they normally do in an entire year!

But spotting a bald eagle in flight was the high point (high point, geddit?) for me.

Oregon, Day Three

Yesterday we explored the Deschutes River on a cold November day.  But that meant I didn't have to worry about rattlesnakes as they were climbing around on the rocks!

Oregon, Day Two

The kids have been playing very well together.

Abbey is as tall as her great-grandmother!

Playing with the bears is not usually advised, but these bears were okay with it.

There may have been a game of freeze tag, too.

Home stomping grounds

The big kids and I are off to the Northwest to visit my two remaining grandparents and to see various family sites.  Yesterday was a very long travel day: up at 4:30am to get to the airport.  But we had plenty of time once we were there.

This morning we got up to snow on the ground (meanwhile, it has yet to even threaten to freeze, back home)!

Breakfast with the bears!

Skipping rocks at Haystack Lake

Some ordinary things still have to be done, like haircuts.