Back To Anacortes

Back to Anacortes, WA                              October 26 – November 14, 2015

Monday, October 26, right after our 50th class reunion weekend we hit the road to begin our journey back to our home base in Anacortes, WA.  Never choosing the direct route, we decided to make a stop in Texas along the way.  Longtime friends Lewis and Bonnie Smith bought their retirement property (33 acres of unimproved land) west of Houston last summer and invited us to come take a look. 

It took us four days to travel just over 1,000 miles to get to Cat Spring, Texas and, of course, we were always on the lookout for interesting things to explore along the way.

Our second night on the road found us in Texarkana, Arkansas (not to be confused with Texarkana, Texas, just across the Red River!).  We arrived in the early afternoon and decided Texarkana was worth a good look. 

The first place that caught our eye in the downtown area was this elegant old theater.  Luckily the box office was open and we were soon taken on a private tour.  Originally known as the Saenger Theater, like many other elegant old theaters it had undergone many changes.  It had seen vaudeville performers, shown black and white movies of the 30’s and 40’s, been divided to accommodate 3 movie screens in the 80’s and eventually fell into disrepair when the multiplex was built on the edge of town.  Fully restored by the City of Texarkana in 1979-80, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Texarkana natives, H. Ross Perot and his sister Bette, through the Perot Foundation, contributed much of the restoration costs.  It was currently a widely used performing theater, drawing crowds from as far away as Dallas.  Of course it has been renamed the Perot Theater.

Right across the street a huge mural caught our eye.  Another of Texarkana’s famous sons, Scott Joplin, was memorialized on this huge wall.  In the brochure we picked up we learned that Joplin was a master composer of classic ragtime music, considered to be an original American art form.  One of his most famous compositions, Maple Leaf Rag, composed in 1899, sold over a million copies.

Not all of downtown Texarkana had enjoyed redevelopment and resurgence.  Just over the rooftops we could see the sad state of the “Hotel Grim”.  Apparently it was a local landmark until a fire ended its usefulness.  The prominent rooftop name was perfect!

I don’t want you to think we were totally into culture and learning as we explored downtown.  We also managed to find a delightful local microbrewery, too.  We thoroughly enjoyed delicious locally brewed beer, good conversation, and even a local delicacy, crawfish dip with cayenne dusted tortilla chips.  Yum!

We had a rather unsettling experience as we drove around Tyler, Texas.  We chose to take the Loop 49 bypass, not wanting to toodle Abe right through downtown.  As we approached the on ramp to Rte. 49 we were warned that this was a toll road.  No big deal!  We’d been on them before and it was easy enough to stop at the tollbooth to pay the toll.  This time there was no tollbooth and the signs along the route told us to pay our toll online or be severely fined.  We saw the cameras and knew Abe's picture had been taken.  Uh-Oh! A couple of days later, after a few phone calls, we learned that Texas was not equipped to bill out-of-state vehicles!  Whew!

We arrived at the Smith acreage about lunchtime on Thursday, October 29, right behind Lewis and Bonnie.  Their property was about 40 miles west of Houston, just outside the cute little town of Cat Spring.  Since their purchase they had added a shop with a small apartment, a machine shed, power and water.  Sweet!  They had even installed an RV power hookup for us.  Abe was very happy!

While we were there we helped clear the weeds under some of their many live oak trees, imagined how this lovely property would look in about a year when the house is built, and generally relaxed and caught up with these old friends.  Lewis, a faithful deer hunter, was also a great cook and we ate very well while we were there.  He was most creative in setting up a kitchen in his shop, using a big barbecue and portable propane burner.  Jerry, Bonnie, and I were quite happy to be the cleanup crew.

Lewis had ordered a tractor to be delivered while we were there.  Both he and Bonnie had test driven it and were ready to put it to good use.  Their son Kenneth and his family came to visit on Sunday and the little grandsons decided that the tractor’s name was Otis.  “Otis Kubota”…it has a nice ring, don’t you think?

While Kenneth was there he helped Lewis set up two wood duck boxes in the pond.  Lewis planned to keep the land in its natural state and develop habitat areas for wildlife.  Bonnie said they were told that their land was known as a pocket prairie, covered with native grasses.

While we were there Lewis and Bonnie helped me celebrate my birthday.  We found a cute little restaurant in New Ulm, about 15 miles down the road.  We had grilled ahi and it was delicious!  Bonnie and I liked the name!

Sunday morning came and it was time to head for church in Cat Spring.  This little town was settled in the 1830’s by German immigrants, so it wasn’t hard to find a Lutheran Church.  Lewis and Bonnie joined us and we once again found a warm, welcoming congregation.  As we walked out the door at the end of the service, we saw something we hadn’t seen after a Sunday service before.  The young couple, which had sat just ahead of us, was walking home with their dog trotting along beside them.  Apparently he had waited outside the church for them.  It was a warm morning so the young lady had kicked off her pretty heels and was walking barefoot.  Ahhhh, such a life in a little town!

Monday morning, November 2, it was time to pull up the jacks and head to Rio Guadalupe RV Park near Canyon Lake, Texas.  This park, on the bank of the Guadalupe River was pretty and quiet.  The weekend before we arrived, the area had had lot of rain and the river had flooded the lowlands.  In the photo you can see it was still running high and full of mud.  It had flooded over the fence along the bank and had deposited lot of trash in the wire. 

We needed to get our Aqua-Hot heating system pumps replaced, and, according to an RV discussion site, Rick at this RV park was the go to guy.  Rick wintered here and he was purported to be an excellent serviceman.  (We did get our system repaired, but it wasn’t as painless as we had hoped.  You’ll have to get the blow by blow from Jerry.  It’s sufficed to say that this shade tree mechanic left a little to be desired.)

The RV park was 10 miles north of the city of New Braunfels, another old German settlement.  We wandered through the quaint shops downtown including an old hardware store that carried absolutely everything and even had an old tube system.  In the olden days the clerks on the floor didn’t have any money so the client’s payment was put in a tube and sent to a central cashier who processed the transaction and return the client’s change by way of the return tube.  Ingenious for the time.

We spent one day in San Antonio, visiting the Alamo and enjoying the River Walk.  Although Jerry had worked quite a bit in the area during the 90’s, he had not seen either of these.  We were rather disappointed in the Alamo…rather touristy.  I don’t remember John Wayne battling the Mexican army in the middle of a big city!  There was an amazing live oak tree in the plaza, just in front of the mission.  It was transplanted to this location in the 1920’s as a 40-year-old tree.  This tree was 39 feet tall, had a circumference of 12 feet 9 inches and a canopy of 88 feet.

The boat ride through the old part of San Antonio was delightful and we had a guide that gave us lots of history and current information.  Of course this was a very touristy thing to do but a lovely way to see a unique part of San Antonio.  I don’t know if this Christmas tree remained up all year, but it was certainly striking as we rode along.

Sunday, November 8, found us at First Lutheran Church in San Marcos.  Lewis and Bonnie Smith lived in San Marcos for many years in the 80’s and 90’s and Jerry did a lot of consulting work for Butler Mfg. here.  He was very familiar with the area and was a great tour guide.  He even remembered going to church here.

A trip to this area would not have been complete without eating at two special restaurants:  Clear Springs Restaurant.  Their sign said “Catfish, seafood, and steaks” but they were famous for their onion rings.  You can Jerry was quite pleased to share a plateful!

Sunday evening we drove to Gruene (pronounced “green”) to the Gristmill Restaurant.  Another old German settlement from the 1800’s, almost the entire town is on the National Register of Historic Places.  In the 1970’s an architecture student from the University of Texas at Austin kayaked through the area and realized the treasure of the old buildings in the dying town of Gruene.  The gristmill was on the short list of buildings to be torn down to make way for condominiums on the bank of the Guadalupe River. The architecture

student prevailed and Gruene’s history was changed to become a major Texas Hill Country attraction.  Gruene was also home to one of the oldest dance halls in Texas.  Think Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, and Greg Allman, among many others.  It was a fascinating place to have a delicious dinner and (as my friend Bonnie would say) a little bourbon and branch water!

We left Rio Guadalupe RV park on Monday, November 9, to continue our way west on I-10.  We had a couple of unremarkable nights at RV parks as we travelled across Texas.  We saw drying little towns with not much to offer and certainly no interesting places to explore.

Wednesday November 11, found us in Wickenburg, Arizona at Desert Cypress RV Park.  Although we had a comfortable site, we figured this stop would be just as bleak and boring as the last two.  Not so!  This little western town was truly unique and, as we later learned from Anacortes friends, a great place to retire to!  We wandered the shops, investigated the bars, and found a lovely dinner at the Bar 7 Restaurant.  We learned at one of our main street stops that Wickenburg was famous for team calf roping…truly the Wild West!  On the edge of the Sonora Desert, we saw lots of saguaro cactus, even in the restaurant parking lot.

That evening we took a good hard look at the weather pattern through northern California and Oregon and decided we had better “put the pedal to the metal” in Abe.  We had to get across the Siskyous before the rain and snow trapped us!  Yikes!  So, on Thursday, November 12, we drove 452 miles…an all time record…and made it all the way to Bakersfield, CA. 

It was "deja vu all over again" crossing the Tehachapis and driving down into the San Joaquin Valley east of Bakersfield.  How many times had we travelled this route over the 30+ years we lived in Visalia?  It was disheartening to see that the air quality was still deplorable…smoggy. 

We stayed on the east side of Bakersfield in Orange Grove RV Park, and found ourselves parked in the middle of mature orange trees, as you might expect.  What a clever thing to do with an old orange grove!

Friday, November 13, was day 12 of our frantic push north.  This day we drove 453 miles…pretty good navigating, huh?  We stopped at JGW Resort on the Sacramento River, between Red Bluff and Redding.  We visited with a retired CHP officer who lived in Mount Shasta City but kept his Tiffin Phaeton motor home here, to “get out of the snow and cold” during the winter.  Good idea!  This was another park worth visiting again.

Saturday, November 14, was our final big push.  We cross through the Siskyous in northern California and climbed and descended all those passes through Oregon to reach the Willamette Valley.  The air quality was incredible and we had amazing views of Mount Shasta and Lake Shasta.  Although the lake was still very low, the water level had risen since we had last seen it.

Saturday night we parked at a dismal RV park in Woodburn, OR, just south of Portland.  The RV park was on the back side of a big outlet mall, and, yes, I should have known better!  We did get a good walk through the outlet stores and had a nice dinner at Red Robin…our first dinner out in many days, but still.  Outlets!  Yikes!

Sunday, November 15, was our last day of travel and, true to form, it was rainy in Oregon.  We arrived in Anacortes at 1:15 PM and were delighted to be home.  We settled in to Fidalgo Bay RV Park.  The photo is a shot of our view, across the bay, of Mount Baker.  It’s a great place to be!

So, that’s the end of our first motor home adventure in Abe.  We were on the road, more or less, for 286 days, 9 months and change, and travelled about 12,500 miles in Abe.  We stayed in 42 RV parks, saw zillions of amazing sights, found delightful people in every state in which we travelled and cannot wait to do it all again! 

Until next time…..

Jan, Jerry Smokey, and Abe

Our Last Illinois Flings

Our Last Flings in Illinois                                     September and October 2015

Once we returned from our upper Midwest Tour, our focus was centered on two things:  a Woodall family reunion the second weekend of October and our class reunion the fourth weekend of October.  I’ll regale you with those stories in a couple of pages. 

While we were working on the plans for those two big events, we always found time for more visiting and Sundays at a new church.  September 20^th found us at “The Oaks Community Church” at Oak Run, near the town of Victoria where my aunt and uncle live.  Charlie, Suzanne, Jerry and I met Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Lowell there for a Sunday service.  The pastor there was an old friend of Lowell and Marilyn and we were excited to attend service with this growing congregation.

Look who we saw leaving first service as we came for the second service…our high school Latin teacher Mary Kennelly!!!!  She taught all four us and all of us held her in very high regard.  She was a wonderful teacher and a very dear lady.  You know she had to be good since all four of us praised her Latin classes!

Jerry was really good about lending his skills and expertise to help friends and family with projects while we were in Illinois.  He did everything from mow yards and barnyards to rip down lath and plaster.  He did lots of stuff for his folks, too, but one of the best things he did was finish a project at sister Becky’s house in Canton.  She had re-sided her house and added new porch railings and a ceiling on the back porch.  The young man she hired left the project about 90% done and disappeared!  (Fortunately she hadn’t paid him for the whole job).  Jerry finished it for her, including priming and painting the support beams and finding someone to “break” aluminum for the trim.  It looked great!  Becky and granddaughter Shyla were quite pleased, but Sheldon was not ready to commit to a smile.

Yep, another Lutheran Church!  This is Trinity Lutheran in Canton, IL, and we attended services here on four consecutive Sundays.  I know you must be thinking that we are church-going fools, but our motives were quite selfish.  We met great folks, had yummy treats following the service at the coffee hour (Lutherans do like their coffee), and learned lots about the local community.  This was one of those churches and con-gregations where we felt very much at home and will return to again when we are next in Illinois.  

Like Trinity in Galesburg, this congregation was in the process of calling a new pastor.  The interim pastor was a retired man who had previously served here.  He was a warm, welcoming guy who preached a fabulous sermon each Sunday we were there.  Rosie, his wife, was equally engaging.  What fun!

Harvest began in the middle of September and the fields of corn and soybeans were soon picked.  We were parked on the edge of a bean field and loved watching the progress around Fairview as the crops were brought in.  Having lunch at the Fairview Café became an even bigger event, as farmers came there for the noon day meal (dinner, in Illinois!).  We heard stories of the progress of harvest, the frustrations of breakdowns, and the modest (not quite bragging) about good yields.  (You never ask a farmer how many acres he has or how his corn did this year!)

Yippee!!  Hooray!!  Wahoo!! The second weekend in October arrived and our sweet family arrived…our older daughter, Jill, her husband Bob, and our granddaughter, Lauren, and our younger daughter Joy.  We had all kinds of things planned and I’m just gonna have to bore you with some pictures!

The kids all arrived on Thursday evening so, of course, on Friday we hauled them to farmer friend Alfie Morey’s farm to see corn being harvested.  My photo wasn’t very good, but Bob is in the cab of the combine with Alfie. 

Lauren wasn’t very happy with the combine’s noise and size (it really did look like some sort of dinosaur in the field) but she was quite taken with the ears of corn.  In fact, hand shelling the corn became quite a pass time! 

Friday night, we were at Becky’s house and Lauren and her two second cousins, Shyla and Sheldon, found a video to watch while they munched graham crackers.  It just didn’t get any cuter than this!

The Spoon River Scenic Drive is always held on the first and second weekends in October.  This event was started in 1968 and had become bigger and bigger every year.  (Go here:  http://www.spoonriverdrive.org  if you want to know more about it).  On Saturday, we had to check it out and headed for London Mills.  We saw lots of vendors selling everything from garage sale items to trinkets made in China.  Our goal was to find something delicious for lunch…butterly porkchop sandwiches…yum!

Saturday’s big event was a wiener roast at Jim and Maxine’s farm.  After naps for the little ones, we gathered there and included Charlie and Suzanne and their daughter and son-in-law, Kelly and Matt Bradley, and their two daughters, Lily and Lauren. 

Everyone was still focused on getting that corn shelled…even Joy and Jill!

Such a great picture of Maxine, Jerry’s mom!

Lauren, Lily and Little Lauren were delighted to pose for me…even though that wierner roast fire was pretty engaging.

The highlight of the evening (s’mores excepted!) was a hayrack ride to the back pasture.  Bob had brought his drone and got some great shots during the entire weekend.  If you are interested, you could see a really classy video of this event on YouTube (look for Illinois Hayride). 

Jim and Maxine, at 88 and 87½ were right in the thick of things and made this a very special evening for everyone.

Sunday morning we met at Lakeland Park in Canton to feed the ducks, enjoy the sunshine and let the kids run around.  It was a beautiful morning!

Jerry and I and our two lovely daughters.

Lauren with her Yurkovich cousins, Shyla and Sheldon.

Monday morning, before the kids flew out of Peoria, we gathered at Mom and Dads for a final round of photos.  What a good looking bunch of people!

Great Grandma Maxine had some funny-looking pumpkins on her front porch which Lauren and I needed to check out.  Do you see the little toy at Lauren’s feet?  It was a little toy dog on a string that belonged to Jerry at one point…and she was absolutely intrigued with it!  Yep, the simple toys are the best.

One more trip to the little Fairview Park with the drone.  Bob caught a fun shot of Joy!

It was a wonderful four days with our family!  We don’t get to be together often and it was very heart-warming to be reminded how much we enjoy each other’s company.

On to the next big event…our class reunion!  Have you celebrated the 50^th anniversary of your graduation from high school?  On that day wayyyyyy back in 1965 I could not even imagine the year 2015 let alone what I would be doing 50 years hence.  Well, let me tell you, life has been amazing on so many levels!

My very best friend all through school was Ardith (Owens Platt), sitting on my left in the photo.  We lived about 3 miles from each other, north of London Mills.  Ardith and I had lunch with a K-12 friend who couldn’t make it to our weekend festivities, Kathleen Stiarwalt.  Why had we waited so long to get together?  We told stories and laughed until the tears rolled down our faces.  Doesn’t get any better.

Ardith, Jerry, another good buddy from high school, Bill Parli, and I made up the 50^th reunion planning committee.  We could not have had a better, more enjoyable bunch to work with!  The “protocol” for a Valley High School 50^th class reunion was to host a gathering on Friday night for anyone who graduated from VHS…1947 to 2015!  We spread the word far and wide…well, at least in Fulton County…and had a great turnout!  I wish I could share photos of that evening with you, but I was too busy talking to so many people. 

You see the three people in the photo above?  I went to school for 12 years with these 3…Aura Ulm, Dottie Hahn Trainor, and Andy Foshay.  Oh, the stories I could tell!  Andy reminded me about a Volkswagen going through the Spoon River floodwaters one night after Robed Choir practice….

The two people at left were our Valedictorian and Salutatorian…the tallest and possibly the shortest people in our class!  John was probably only hundredths of a grade point behind Susan when the tally was made.  I spent 12 years chasing John, grade point wise!  Jerry and I had visited Susan and her family in Tacoma, WA, in 2013, when we cruised Puget Sound.

Saturday night, our class gathered at Big Racks (referring to deer horns, of course) to have a more formal celebration.  There were 70 of us in our senior yearbook and 68 of us listed in the commencement program.  Seven of our classmates were deceased, leaving 61 potential attendees.  We had 38, plus spouses, about 60 in all. 

We had a great photographer who took formal and random shots which certainly added to the fun.  We attempted to re-create senior yearbook photos, such as Latin club (remember the shot of us with our Latin teacher, Mary Kennelly, earlier?).  What a hoot!!!

Some of the folks in attendance I had not seen in 50 years, and yet picked up the conversation as comfortably as if I had just stepped off the school bus with them.  The five of us at the right spent a lot of time together in high school.  In fact, Jonie Hartstirn Anderson, sitting to my right was very instrumental in my meeting Jerry.  These are very special women to me and it was fabulous to be with them all together again.

Well, there you have it.  We spent Sunday evening, October 25, with Jim, Maxine, Charlie, Suzanne and Don, having a yummy supper and playing pitch.  The next morning we pulled up the jacks and left Fairview.  Our next destination was Cat Spring, Texas, where our longtime friends Lewis and Bonnie Smith had bought their reitirement (coming in 2016) property.

More stories to come!!