There and Back

Home again.



It's always bittersweet.



Especially in the summertime...when there is no real schedule to keep.




This time we decided with interstate traffic so crazy, and just plain dangerous, when we left last Thursday, that we would try the other way across WA, the old US Hwy. Boy, did we have a great time discovering little cities! Next time i am insisting on overnights to properly see everything!



At the interstate, we headed north ending up with our first stop in E. Wenatchee. There is nothing really in E. Wenatchee, except for the Wenatchee River, orchards that are just getting their seasonal start, and the Apple Convention Center. Ri was big on visiting that last one, and do you blame her? Why stop there when you are on your way to Grandma and Grandpa's?


Just after E.W., we were in Orando, WA. Lot's of hispanic family farms there on Lake Entiat. A place were you gain elevation from 785 to 2820 in 7 miles. Pretty, rocky, and deserty.

Like this:

Soon, we pulled into a little town called

also known as:

And we saw one of the most beautiful little farming towns ever. Still just a community...not looking for tourists to descend like mad on the place.

This is their Catholic church, St. Joseph's.

It's conveniently located at the end of town, where to precede on the HWY, you have to make a right. Just behind it are wheat and alfalfa fields.

Here's the county courthouse for the area. Seated up by the elementary/high school campus.

This is the town's theatre, The Nifty.

What a cool name for a theatre, eh? Of course, there wasn't anything new playing on the screen. It looks Casablanca's playbill is in the window.

This is part their little downtown with all the useful things you'd need:

movie theatre, restaurants, Blue Rooster bakery, Mom and Pop department store, and

this neat old bank

on the way out of town, we discovered this in a field

there was a matching one for Kidney Anuric that i couldn't get a picture of, as was the case with the cool old home that ownes these and the property (sun was in the wrong place to get a good picture.)

On to the next little town...all we saw were signs like these in the wheat fields

wouldn't this make a great graduation card?

next {blog}stop tomorrow: Wilbur, WA

Today, we are getting as much yard work as we can done (planting corn and digging weeds), so we have a 3 day Father's Day celebration with Hubbie. Tomorrow we have an appointment with a real estate agent to look at another house--possible modern-homestead for Mactutis Family Farms? Maybe. The house is already sinfully toying with being out of our wallet's comfy zone. Like any other greedy shysters, the owners (who've had it since 1947) have sold off all the flat, developable surrounding land (read farm land) around the house and the developers have been trying to build 70 new homes on 5+ acres in what is now a flood plain. Since there hasn't been any contact between the developer and the city in 6 months, we are hoping the list of "Honey Do's" the city gave them is just too much for them to see profitable and maybe we could buy some of the property back.

I hate checking out houses with a list of maybe *if* this, maybe *if* that. If nothing else, it will be a treat for the eyes--1926 English Tudor style home with most of it's original character.