You have no idea how long I've been waiting for a vacation to where I got to do my events (that have been rescheduled twice) and my trip to Peru. I could not wait to be done with work so Ben and I could start our long weekend and my long vacation I have been patiently waiting for since March 2020. I was super stoked! I was really tired of waiting and it was starting to wear on me because I would have to re-plan everything every time it was changed.
Ben and I both worked our normal day and when he got home we had a goal to leave by 5:30 at the latest. I made sure to have all of my stuff packed up and ready to go and I had Ben do his packing the night before so he was ready to leave by the time he got home. Since this was my last day of work for a while, I had a vaccination verification with my HRC, got all of my reviews done, did my voicemail and email out of office message done, made sure everything was taken care of and caught up before logging off. Dad came over to take my garbage cans since I would not have any time to do it while I was gone. I thanked him for taking care of that for us. I told him I would pay him for doing it when I got back.
When I logged off it felt good to not have to do this for half of a month. I got different clothes on and headed to the store really quickly to pick up a few things and some ice. I spent some time loading up our stuff into the Escape, did the dishes, packed up the food, fed the kitties and cleaned the cat box. I made tuna fish sandwich to go bags. Ben came home shortly after and he got ready and put his stuff into the Escape. We petted the kitties, gave them hugs and some treats and told them to guard the house. Erika was going to watch them while we were gone.
We left just before 5:30 and headed towards Yelm. I wanted to get gas at the station on Nisqually because it was cheaper than the rest of the gas in Western Washington. It was almost $4.00 a gallon! I pulled in and it was insanely busy. I didn't want to wait so we said screw it and left. We drove into Yelm and got gas at the Arco. We ate our tuna fish sandwiches as we made our way through McKenna and out towards Eatonville. It took us literally an hour to get from our house to Morton. We had to follow a lot of slow people almost to Randle but I was able to finally find a place to pass them.
I don't get a lot of cell service on my phone after Morton so I never check my phone. We listened to one of my podcasts for a while so I went to change it and checked my phone to see that I had a text message from Willmarth. It read, "do not go over White Pass!" Ben called him on his phone near Packwood to find out. Willmarth said it was closed earlier from fires but could be open now. We checked WSDOT and didn't see any closures...if it was closed we would have to drive up 123 to 410 to go to Yakima. Luckily, we didn't have to adjust because White Pass was indeed open.
It was also flea market weekend in Packwood but because we drove through on a Thursday night we weren't affected but we might be on our way home on Sunday. We flew up the pass because there was hardly anyone on the road but we did have to pass a couple of semi trucks and campers along the way but overall it wasn't too bad. You could smell the smoke from the fires as we were coming down the pass on the Naches side of the mountains.
We got into Naches and we were able to have our cell service back. We called Trish to let her know that we made it over the pass safely but she didn't answer so we called my Mom and she answered so we chatted with her a bit. Trish didn't want to talk so she just texted us that she was glad we made it over there safely. We gave her a bad time.
Just before 9 p.m. we made it to Willmarth's house in Selah. We parked out of the way and got out and the dogs welcomed us. We spent the next few hours chatting and catching up. They had just got done eating pizza about two hours before we arrived and offered us some. We told them we had tuna about three hours ago so I was good. Ben took them up on their offer though. I did end up having some popcorn around 11. We saw them back in May when we were there last. Not a whole lot has happened since then but it was nice to catch up with them. They said they took Kevin to Disneyland and that was pretty much all they did this summer besides basketball and gardening.
We stayed up until about 1 a.m. talking in the living room. I took Kevin's room, Ben and Willmarth slept in the living room in the chairs and Kevin slept in the master bedroom with Shannon. I told them it was okay if Kevin slept in his own room but they insisted. It was nice to sleep though. I set my alarm for 9:30 and as soon as I laid down I was out.
Next Adventure: TriCities Geocoin Challenge: Heading to Kennewick, Power Trails, Event, Hotel and Dinner
No comments:
Post a Comment