Pike Road Hay Art 2014

The town of Pike Road, Alabama, has a hay art contest every year.  Here are some of this year's offerings:

Trip South 2014 - Iowa

Somewhere in Nebraska, we always pass this arch.  One day we may even stop to see what it's all about.  Part of the scenery in our Disney World type ride across the U.S.A.

 

 

Ron's brothers live in Iowa, and his sister in Missouri, so we all met in Oelwein for a mini-family reunion. 

A Crawford tradition - gathering around a table to play poker or dice. 

 

 Sheryl and Jim came up from Missouri to visit.

Gary and Evie - We usually stay with them and enjoy the oasis they provide us in the middle of our trip!

Ron's brother, Dale, and wife, Katreena, live a few miles south in Hazelton.

Ron's niece, Debbie, stopped by to say hello.

Dale, Gary, Ron, Sheryl - It's been a while since these four have been together, so we all enjoyed a great visit!
 

 

 

 



Trip South October 2014 - Salt Lake City

We began our trip south in a mad rush this year which left me feeling a bit disorganized.  So far, we haven't missed anything vital, but it's always a bit troubling to leave in a hurry. Even though we had been planning the trip for a month, we waited until we had word that our Washington building permit was approved before we left.  Since we had been waiting since July for that day, we didn't want to leave if we had some minor detail that still needed us to hand carry some paper to the County.  On our last trip to the County Jennifer assured us that our application was complete, approved, and ready for "copying" - which takes another 24 hours.  We took it on faith that we could leave and ended up leaving after 1 p.m.  (We usually leave around 5 or 6 a.m. when we travel.)

My camera quit working before we even got to Stevens Pass, so the first pictures of the trip were done with my tablet and I can't figure out how to transfer them to the computer. But we had a really nice although short visit with Tony, Tina, Sara, and Jesse in Eastern Washington where we stopped for the first night. 

So the pictures on our trip log start after we left Tonasket and stopped in Wenatchee at Costco for a new camera.  First picture - the mighty Columbia River at Vantage.

Second stop:  Salt Lake City to see Cameron, Anne, Gavin and Marcus.

Anne's uncle, Robert, grows an interesting variety of pumpkins every year and then hosts a party for the grandkids to decorate and take home.

 

The kids got lots of adult help decorating their pumpkins. 

Siblings debating the BBQ of bratwurst. 

 

Mom helped - or was she just trying to keep warm around the campfire?

Marcus found a truck to play with while the bigger kids decorated pumpkins.



On to Iowa - where we saw miles of windmills as the sun rose to blind us for several hours as we traveled due East.

 

Eastern Snohomish County Motorcycle Ride and Oso Update

As we get to the middle of September, we are grateful for every day we can still go for a motorcycle ride in the sunshine and return home in time for a swim in the lake.  Today we left Granite Falls around 10:30 a.m.  The temperature had already gotten to 70 degrees as we traveled Jordan Road toward Arlington.  We met about 200 motorcycles coming into Granite as we headed out.

I love barns and mountains and bodies of water - so this ride through Arlington, Oso, Darrington, Rockport, Lyman, Hamilton, Sedro Woolley, Clear Lake, Big Lake, Lake McMurray, and Bryant is one of my favorites.

We still had to follow a pilot car on a single lane through the slide area just beyond Oso, but they are making good progress on repairing Hwy 530, and we were on the main highway instead of the powerline road. 

Debris from the cars and structures destroyed by the slide has been removed.  The landscape has forever changed though.  Instead of undulating hills and valleys down to the river, it is pretty flat. 

It's interesting to look at the strata in the hillside that collapsed.  Sand levels are clearly visible in several places, which probably contributed to the instability of the hillside.

Just before Darrington, we had stunning views of the glaciers on Whitehorse Mountain.

Where the Sauk and Suattle Rivers come together, we could see the different colors of the water where the glacier water from the Suattle joins the bluer water of the Sauk.

We stopped in Sedro Woolley for a late lunch and then headed home on Highway 9, where we watched waterskiers on Big Lake and fishermen on Lake McMurray.  Yes, it's still summer in the Pacific Northwest!

Children, Motorcycle Rides, and Christmas Cards

Oh, I know, I've been terrible about updating the blog for the past couple of months.  I probably did have time - after all, it's hard to stay busy for 24 (or even 6 or 8) hours every day.  However, it has been summer, and that is our busy time of year.  We've enjoyed visiting the south sound family:

Where the lucky grandchildren who live here not only have a pool, but the pool has a spectacular view of Mt Rainier!

The good weather has kept us out on the bike several days each week.  This trip took us all the way up to the Blue Mountain Grill in Whatcom County. 

This ride takes us through several pretty towns - like Clear Lake,

 

where my third cousin who has researched the family says one branch of our family once settled.

 

And where we have mountain views all the way from Big Lake to the Blue Mountain Grill.

Lots of blue showing on Mt. Baker after a warm summer!

oh, and I've been making birthday and Christmas cards in my spare time.

My sister, Mona, introduced me to collage several years ago, and I have never looked at anything flat the same since.  A simple pretty leaf is fun to work into a card.

As I deadhead my flower beds, I collect some to dry and use later in the collage cards.

Tissue wrapping paper that I used to discard now becomes the base for cards. 

Today I finally cleaned up my mess and finished making cards for a while, but I actually hated to do that.  I'll still remember all this fun labor as I clean up glitter for the next month or so.

 



A Busy Month

July and August are always the busy months for us.  This year we started July with a trip to Alaska, which set up back on our usual July tasks.  On top of that, we're getting ready to build a new house, so that has occupied a lot of our time.  Finally last week, we got our completed blueprints from the designer and set off to the County to apply for a building permit.  That's when we found that we need an appointment to make our application! Yesterday, we got the call with an appointment date:  September 2.  So we are hopelessly behind schedule on the building and reconciled to breaking ground next year. 

In the meantime, our son, Cam, and his family came to visit and we had a family gathering with most of the children and grandchildren.

 

A fun time for same age cousins to bond.

 

On to Omak, for a visit to our kids in Tonasket and to watch the Omak Stampede.  (My first selfie)

We had a good time - and held our breath as we watched the famous suicide run down this hill:

in the dark - and no one was hurt!

Home and back to work repainting all the docks, decks, benches and picnic tables.

And, of course, it's jam season:

We're starting to look forward to fall!