Our visit to Seattle this year was different than those in the past. Our son and daughter-in-law are in the process of doing some renovations to their home so Art and I helped the best we were able. Laying tile, painting walls, watching children and just offering moral support to the effort absorbed our month here. We left Seattle not having visited downtown, not seeing Mt. Rainier, not ferrying across the Sound, and not beachcombing for driftwood. No visits to Pike Place Market, no harbor cruises, and no trips to the Space Needle either! Of course, we have been coming here for a while (Jason has lived here 18 years) so we have done all those things many times over. Instead, we leave satisfied that we helped in ways that we can’t every day since we live 3,000 miles away. An added bonus, was that since we were at their house so often we got to see the grandkids a bit more than we normally do. So in the listing of my favorite things to do, would I rather find the perfect piece of driftwood on the beach or push my grandson on the swing at the park? Or, would I rather be ferrying across to an island for lunch or picking my granddaughter up from school on her first day of 4^th grade? I think the answers go without saying…

In the etymology of words, I don’t know how “good” ever became a component of “bye”. Byes, in general, don’t seem good to me and ones that mean you are leaving your son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren for another year surely have no association with good. In fact, they are just plain sad and as we leave Seattle once again, we do so with the usual sense of melancholy. The rain that greets the day of our departure and the traffic that inches us along at an average of 25 mph don’t help to elevate our mood!

Fortunately, our day’s drive is short, the rain is hit and miss, the forecast high winds last only briefly and the campground in Salem, OR is lovely. As the day ends, a rainbow appears and I am reminded that though goodbyes are hard, I have hello’s ahead of me as we return home to family and friends that we have missed these last several weeks.

Our return trip this year follows much of the same route as our outbound itinerary but with different stops along the way. We plan on visiting 2 national parks, old west towns, red rock vistas, river walks and Gulf beaches! We expect that our need for a space heater at night will give way to the need to run the AC 24/7. And as usual with these road trips, we expect to be surprised by what we learn along the way!  Below you will find a few pics from our soggy first two days on the road home…

In Art’s words: Said goodbye to Seattle today after 4 weeks visiting the West Coast family. Had a great time but, of course, it went by too quickly. A month per year of “in person” and the rest by FaceTime, grandma makes it work. My grandson is three already…had forgotten how much fun it is interacting with a three year old. You can tell them anything! After sleep overs in the RV, slug hunting, and lots of hugs and kisses, I think I made a new friend! We choose to visit in the summertime, in part, to escape the heat and humidity back home and Seattle never disappoints. Never, that is, until September rolls around. It’s a bit uncanny actually how summer ends there. On or about Labor Day, you can expect the first weather front to sweep in off the Pacific. Then another and another and so away go the golf shirts and flip flops and out come the rain slickers and hiking boots. And that’s when we fair-weathered Southerners put the rig in gear again!