The beauty of our present lifestyle is that we can be spontaneous. So, spontaneously Thursday at noon we decided to go to Eastern Washington. We wanted to do both Tri-Cities and the desert. The last time we saw my sister, Ricki, she had asked for driftwood to decorate her yard. We have been collecting pieces that we thought she might like for a couple of weeks. We loaded up the trunk with her treasures. But, we decided to do the Tri-Cities first.
We gassed up in Stanwood and from there to Cindy and Terry's was 275 miles. The whole trip was freeways and we did the trip in four hours. The Mattson's have been in their new house for one month (we helped them move) and they are all settled in. The only modification to the house so far was to remove a corner tile from the roof so Terry could park the RV closer to the house.
Friday, Terry and I golfed. I have to tell you that I played by best game in a long time. I finished with the same ball that I started with and my score was a close to a personal best. Terry hasn't been doing so good lately and seemed to get past his problems for the back nine and played well. While Terry and I golfed - Nancy and Cindy did marathon shopping.
Saturday the four of us did the "Parade of Homes". Twenty-eight new houses had an open house. The housing market in the Tri-Cities is incredible. The most expensive house in the showcase was about $825,000. This was a three-story house on the side of a mountain with a view from all the floors of the entire valley. This place was at least 8000 square feet with a three-car garage on the main floor and a large one-car garage on the bottom floor.
The amount of high-end homes in the Tri-Cities is a little puzzling. There are simply not enough high-end jobs to cover the number of homes available. The question is where the buyers are coming from. If you are the type of person whose life is confined to within your property and aren?t involved with community, you can get a lot of house for your money. Our problem with Tri-Cities is that the summers are too hot and the winters are too long and cold. They don?t get all that much snow, but it does get cold. Last year it got down to the "teens" or weeks at a time.
On Sunday we left Tri-Cities and moved to Desert Aire. The temperature peaked in the high seventies, the air was crystal clear and the desert was as nice as it gets (see the banner at the top of this letter). My mother is not doing any better, but the Hospice people are starting to show up and help my stepdad, Don, on a regular basis. I think Don finds the "Helpers" a little invasive, but he'll need to get used to that.
Nancy has been very busy preparing for her upcoming classes. She has produced two full-size vest sweaters, as samples, for her mixed yarn classes and two teddy-bear sweaters for her ?Sweaters 101?. The samples not only provide models for her students but get both Nancy and her students cranked up for the classes.
Every culture has something similar to the "Adam and Eve" legend. The local Indian version of the creation legend of the first man suggests that mankind was created inside the shell of a clam. The raven was the hero that freed man from the confines of the shell. This theme shows up in various art forms.
The local library has some public artwork based on the creation legend. I have
