Visiting the Pollocks in eastern Washington
News ·Sunday August 9, 2009 @ 23:37 EDT (link)
We left here around 1600 Friday (I worked from home and started early), and got to their place around 2200. They go to sleep early, so we talked to Uncle Dave for a while and then read a little and went to sleep ourselves.
On Saturday we got up at 0630 and went to a garage sale, and then after we got back showered etc. and had breakfast, heading out again at 0930 to their land (40 acres) in Idaho, about an hour away, meeting up with some other families. A neighbor had had some free gravel dumped on the entry road, so it was impassable except by truck (they have a Ford F350). The plan was to pick huckleberries, but after an extensive hike through the woods we found the huckleberries that had been so plentiful the week before were all but gone. So, we turned around and headed back on a U.S. Forestry Service road near their property (their land backs onto National Forest land). There are two gates (wire fence and wood poles) and a narrow bridge (made of an old railroad car; it's narrow enough that someone has to get out to direct the truck over it, although they have plans to eventually widen it).
The other people with us had planned to go on and hike nearby, but we headed home, where cousin Will was waiting for us: he hadn't been able to come due to a sprained ankle from playing ultimate Frisbee.
We played a lot of Euchre: Will and I won a best of three against Honey and Sarah 2-1; Sarah and I won against Uncle Dave and Will; then I sat out for one; then Will and I came back and beat Sarah and Uncle Dave… IIRC.
Terrible driver; 2105-2115, I-90W near mile 50; WA 890 SVX, powder blue Toyota Sienna minivan. We watched him recklessly change lanes almost right into another vehicle, traveling at over 70 mph, and he was driving dangerously and unpredictably in general, and not really getting ahead by doing it.
On Sunday we went to their church, the Pullman Evangelical Free Church, for a show and a sermon. After lunch we played some more games, and left at 1650. We got home just before 2200, due to wretchedly horrible I-90 traffic. In future I'll know to go in the right lane: it seems that all the fools that can't drive automatically get into the left lane when traffic slows, no matter how ill-equipped they are for driving anything but a go-kart.
Books finished: The Anti-Federalist, Big Enough To Be Inconsistent.DVDs finished: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
