Yakima and Port Townsend, WA
Sunday, July 15, we drove from Thompson Falls to Yakima, to visit Bob, who Jay has known since fourth grade, and his wife Sandy, who Jay has only known since high school. As in Thompson Falls, there are grandchildren in and out of the house, for a snack, for a soda, for a swim in the pool, to sit and listen to the conversation and tell a little about their lives. Bob and Sandy’s son and his family have recently moved in across the street. The two families don’t live in the isolation of Nancy and her family, but there is a similarity in the lovely casual connection between the generations. Having moved so far away from our grandkids, it’s something I think about a lot – what we have all lost. But life has its compromises.
Bob and Jay spent an hour or better going through old photographs and year books. Jay’s memory for names and faces is nothing short of spectacular. Bob has some pretty serious health challenges right now, and seemed to get a lot of pleasure from the lively reminiscences. Jay had a chance to tell Bob’s oldest grandson a sweet story about his grandfather’s boyhood that demonstrated his character and strong moral compass.
Monday morning, we would have taken the main highway that Google recommends going north from Yakima to 90. But Bob had urged us to take a smaller road that follows the Yakima River through its canyon, and we did. It was a beautiful drive. Parts of the canyon are narrow, with barely room for the railroad, the river, and the winding two lane road. In several of these narrow places there are steep rock cliffs, with the rocks sometimes appearing to lean out over the roadway. I don’t know what the stone is, but the cliffs are often a mosaic of flat rectangular faces, each one catching the light slightly differently. A road sign warns “Rocks”. Thanks.
Where the canyon widens out, there are treed parks along the river, most with a scattering of campers. It looks like a beautiful place to stay. It’s not easy to pull over in the trailer on a winding road, so I just got some pictures through the windshield. Further upriver, there are places where the canyon is wide enough to accommodate small farms. It was only a half hour’s drive, but one of the prettiest half hours we spent on the road.
The route west along 90 is familiar from when I lived in North Bend in 1988 – 89. I turned 40 there, and Liz turned 10. We had a beautiful house on the Snoqualmie River, but it was not a happy time in our lives. It was in North Bend that I finally decided to end my first marriage of 20 years. Jay and I stopped in North Bend for gas, in a part of town that didn’t exist 30 years ago. A lot changes in 30 years.
There was more traffic than we’ve been used to going through Tacoma, but then we cross the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and are on the beautiful Olympic Peninsula. This is a drive I made several times, going to work in Bremerton when I lived in North Bend and years later going to visit Shayne. We are here in Port Townsend now, in the house she bought on Discovery Bay close to the end of her life. I’m sitting on the couch she and I bought together when we were first furnishing her place, and under the spectacular long living room window which looks out on the bay there is the church pew we found together in an antique store. The house is full of memories, happy and sad. But now it is full of Bill and Lynn, and it’s lovely to see them happy here. Bill has done amazing work on the house in 13 years, some of it boring but vital infrastructure, but also some dramatic improvements, especially the new deck that now extends across both the living room and the renovated master bedroom. We spent a lot of the visit out there in perfect weather.
My childhood sweetheart and friend, Roland Swirsky, had us over for a visit on the sailboat he has moored at Port Townsend which he lives on for half the year. When I heard Roland was docked in Port Townsend, I put him and Bill in touch. They knew each other slightly in the old days in Amenia, and have developed a new friendship now in their seventies. It was good to see Roland happy on his boat and happy in his retirement.
We had planned to stay just one night in Port Townsend, but our pal, Mike Dunlap, with whom we had planned to spend the day on Wednesday, had to go back to California. So we had a leisurely extra day in Port Townsend. Nice to get the extra time with Bill and Lynn, and nice to be off the road. We’ve spent all our nights in the Casita, even visiting friends and family. But Bill and Lynn have a nice guest room and a dog friendly house, so we had two nights in a full size bed – a luxury. We went into Port Townsend for lunch and errands. I got some nice note cards at the Native American store where I’ve shopped with Shayne, and a couple of new tops as mementos of the visit. The last errands were buying pellets for the smoker and chicken to smoke. Jay hauled the smoker out onto Bill’s deck and we had a great dinner overlooking Discovery Bay and the Olympics beyond. This was the view Shayne fell in love with when she found the house and enjoyed intensely but all too briefly. I’m so grateful that Bill has stayed here, and that I can still visit the place she loved. When I first came here in 2003, Shayne was still in reasonable health, and Joe was still alive. We have lost and gained so much in the years since.