June 5, 2005

After five days of fantastic weather, Tuesday awoke to the notorious Seattle drizzle.  The plan was to drive Longview, Washington.  From Camano to just north of Everett, the rain mixed with the water thrown up by the other cars making visibility really bad.  Then the traffic jammed to a crawl.  Interstate 5 through Seattle is the pits, but with two of us in the car we were able to use the "commuter lane" and missed the most of it.  By the time we reached the south of Seattle, the rain was reduced to drips.

The last official act, well one of the last, for Nancy's chairmanship of the shindig at Asilomar was to have a wrap up meeting.  The Meeting was set for Sunday, June 5th and since our house isn't available it was held at one of the board members in South San Jose.  Obviously, this required that Nancy go back to Mountain View.  Nancy would never think of doing anything the easy way.  So, the plan was: she would drive down with her friend Joy.  Joy wanted to visit her daughter and twin grandsons in Sacramento and had to deliver her weaving loom to its manufacturer for updating in Stockton.  From Sacramento, Nancy was planning to barrow Joy's minivan and drive to San Carlos and spend the night with the new manager of the knitting shop that Nancy worked for.  Friday, She planned to work in the knit shop, leaving a little early to get her hair done, and then drive to Kathy's house in south San Jose (where the Sunday meeting will be).  Saturday, Kathy and Nancy are going to Pleasanton for some sort of fiber gathering and then she would meet with Adam at the our house to pick up a few things that we missed and then had dinner in San Jose with Adam, Evan and Family. Sunday was the meeting that this trip is all about and then Nancy would drive back to Stockton. Monday she would pick up Joy's loom and then to Sacramento.  The two of them plan to drive to Longview on Tuesday.  Wednesday Bruce and Pam Thompson will pick Nancy and bring her home (Camano Island).

The trip to Longview was to put this whole plan into motion.  Nancy had originally planned to take the train to Longview.  We had collected all the information to make this happen.  But, by the time we had assembled everything she had to take with her, it was clear that she would need the whole train.  So, I ended up driving her there.

Just before Nancy and I left for Longview, Joy called to tell us that her car was broken.  The original plan was for them to leave shortly after we got there, they would drive to McMinnville to spend the night with Joy?s stepmother and then drive to Sacramento the next day.  The car wasn?t ready until noon on Wednesday.  If Nancy?s schedule was going to work, she had to be in Sacramento that night?  they made it!  Nancy did most of the driving and she did something I wouldn't believe - she broke the law - she traveled 75 miles/hour in a 70-miles/hour zone.  She may never live down the guilt.  At last report everything else worked as planned except she had a cold catch up with her.

On the way home I stopped at my Brother's, Randy, house.  It was a good thing because by the time I got to Seattle it was 5:30 PM and besides Seattle's horrific traffic, there was a tremendous thunderstorm.  Seattle doesn?t get many thunderstorms, but this one was a good one.  One thunderbolt went off right over the car - that was fun.  Linda had just gotten home from Desert Aire, but still managed to pull together a dinner by the time I got there.  By the time we had dinner and all, the storm was over and the traffic clear.  It's just over an hour in ideal conditions to our house on Camano.

With Nancy gone I have the house to myself.  Things are pretty much the same - just quieter.

We still haven't decided whether we want a kayak, a canoe, or none of the above.  Our neighbor has a canoe.  So, I asked to barrow it.  They, or at least Jacqueline, were reluctant; but as they were leaving to return to their town home they let me know that the boat had been unlocked and I could use it.  They didn?t leave the paddles.

Wednesday I went shopping in Mount Vernon.  Mount Vernon is about 25 miles from here and has all the "big" stores you could ever want.  Among others it has Costco, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Lowe's. I couldn't believe it; Wal-Mart has canoe paddles -cheap.  As long as I was in town I also bought a bicycle.  And, I had to buy a rack to get it home.

When I got home, I tried the canoe.  Well not right away.  Turns out the boat had three different hornet's nests in it.  Two of the nests were old and dead.  Once decontaminated, I took the canoe out.  My first reaction was positive.  We'll see what Nancy's response will be.

Tried the bike. It's been several years since I last rode and I'm going to have to toughen up certain parts of my anatomy before I can do any serious riding.

Picture of Katie, Sheila's daughter, dancing on our deck Memorial Day.

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