High School Reunion In Poulsbo, WA

Our work completed, for now, we departed Missoula October 3rd, heading west on I-90, to Spokane, where we had new house batteries waiting for us at Camping World (Deka AGM 105aH) as well as an appointment with a Dodge dealer there to look into two recalls on our rig. Those things attended to, we carried on under darkening skies and then rain and then more rain until we rounded Seattle and Tacoma and headed up the peninsula to Poulsbo.

Waiting for us in charming Poulsbo were Patti B. and her husband Ed, residents of the area for many years. Vicki and Patti were good friends at Nova high school in the 60s, and had not seen each other since 1970 in Chicago. We spent a couple days, the girls reminiscing and catching up, Ed and I comparing notes on mutual favorites of our generation, old flicks, the Pythons, SNL, the Coen Bros, and much more. Sympaticos. We visited a variety of sites on the peninsula on driving tours and learned a good bit about the area...which we had visited briefly years ago, but never fully appreciated. A beautiful place, within sight of Seattle, but quite rural and coastal.

Patti and Vicki

At Poulsbo, a place we had never heard of before, but which we will not forget;
a setting and culture that reminded us more of BC and Alaska than anywhere
else

Main street, Poulsbo

Vicki and Patti on a hike in the rain forest on Bainbridge
Island

Rain forest scene

In the Bainbridge local museum, an entire room devoted to book arts

Missoulandia, 2018

Scenes from our favorite place...

On N. Higgins, en route to the Farmer's Market

They sell anything too

Knapweed honey; never knew knapweed had any useful purpose

Side of disused RR station

One of Missoula's enduring institutions, apparently migrating
downstream

Back on Higgins

Mushroom season in the inland NW

Garlic pizza oven

Nearby on the banks of the Clark Fork of the Columbia

Deer everywhere...here in the Rotts' backyard II

Weekends bring out the interesting cars

Or maybe they're just in the neighbor's driveway, driven daily

Sunday afternoon parapente practice at the Sentinel HS athletic fields

This young woman was really good

You haven't been to Missoula if you haven't been to Rockin'
Rudy's

In its Trump department

Welcome to Missoula, Mr. President

At Work In Missoula

Our time in Missoula, nearly a month, was spent mostly at our storage unit, going through stuff, documenting, repacking, taking stuff to Goodwill, etc., but mostly moving what remained from our 12 x 30 unit of eleven years to a new cozy 10 x 20 unit.

Main Street of Hellgate Canyon Storage, where our stuff continues to reside; on
a side street now, however

Our former giant unit

Our new cozy unit, crammed; after 2 weeks' work, we were tempted to just
close the door and put the lock on and take off...

But we didn't

Vicki's careful planning got us organized

More stuff was tossed...including my prized Indiana Jones hat (which they
still sell at D-Land)

More books went to the library...

All our t-shirts got inventoried and photographed for future projects

Thus

All boxes and bins were carefully labeled and protected

We found some time to spend with friends...here, Vicki with Kim Rott

I even attended a couple sessions of the book festival...here, Kim and Sam
from Humanities Montana

All in all, it was one of our better Missoula visits, certainly our most productive.

Earthquake Lake

So we left the Tetons for Yellowstone NP, expecting to catch a campsite somewhere in the park. It seemed reasonable. Grand Teton has gone to a first-come/first-served system, and late morning or early afternoon arrivals had good luck. Not so Yellowstone. YNP is still on the accursed reservation system, and, after searching three different campgrounds, we gave up and drove on to West Yellowstone,  another town we have visited often. At this point, satisfied with our "vacation," we had decided to head on to Missoula and get on with things there. Considerable wildfire smoke appeared in the direction of Bozeman, down the Gallatin River, so we decided to do the Madison River instead. En route, we came upon Hebgen Lake, an old friend from snowmobiling days, and then Earthquake Lake, which we'd driven by several times but really never stopped to appreciate. A beautiful Forest Service visitor center explains what happened there in August of 1959.

Long story short: the big 1959 quake caused a giant landslide which dammed
the Madison; a number of people died and many more were displaced; the lake
remains, but Mother Nature is having her way, and it is slowly draining

The slide

Helpful model