Autumn has come to central Washington . . .

It's beautiful here. The leaves are turning and falling and the very green grass is littered with a carpet of gold. (aahh) We are in a cozy little RV park next to the river and except for the trains that run all night, and the loud traffic, it's quite nice. :) The park has bikes to use and so the children have been riding around, and there is a bright yellow tandem bike from the 50's that they have had a blast on. There is a rec room with a couple of exercise machines, one of which is one of those vibrating machines - you know - where you put a strap around your waist, turn it on and it jiggles the fat off and rattles your teeth in the process. Hysterical. And there are a ton of books and videos to use for free - you just take what you want and bring it back when you're done. You do that with the game/sports equipment as well. It's the old honor system. Gee, that still exists? Amazing. And refreshing. Great owners - they are wonderful.

Ezra turned 12 yesterday and of course, he had his favorite meal of tacos. That's one day out of the year I never have to wonder about what to fix. I do believe he'd eat tacos every meal, every day for the rest of his life and be perfectly content!
And it's now 2 weeks and counting for the cast to come off. That is, if he doesn't break it again jumping off the RV or trying to climb trees! (worried mother rolls eyes in frustration)

Here's a little piece of advice - when you're in the state of Washington - always wear shoes, and take a couple extra bike tires with you when you go for a ride. Why? Well, because of the goat heads. Yes, the goat heads. Does anyone remember 'stickers' growing up? You know, those little round size-of-a-pea kind of weed things that had sticky pricks all over it, and you were always worried going barefoot that you'd hit a patch or even just one stray one and it would stick into your skin and, well, OUCH! Anyway, multiply that by 10 and you got yourself a goat head. It's a - thing - with about 2 to 3 sharp points on it - kind of like the points on a tack and about that long. And they penetrate into - well - everything - like a knife. Just ask Gary, as his feet can testify to it. Or Judah, as his hands can atest to it. You find they really stick well to your shoes and to vehicle tires. And you also find they stick really well to bike tires - that is - bike tires on borrowed bikes. And you know what - it's not all that fun sheepishly walking that borrowed bike back to the office because BOTH tires are completely flat - on every single bike!! Rascally things, those goat heads.

So - have you ever heard of a library that has only 8 parking spots and 2 of those are handicap? And have you ever heard of an interstate being closed because of a dust storm so bad it hinders visibility? And have you ever driven around on roads that don't exist and probably haven't been driven on since the time of the Oregon trail and you wonder if you'll ever see civilization again or just end up covered in sand next to a broken wagon wheel? And then you rejoice when you finally find the real road you were supposed to be on and discover it was just a little ways down from where you started when you took the wrong turn and ended up driving in the barren hills for hours?

And have you ever had a woman in a blue jeep follow you all over town just because you pulled into her drive way to turn around because you were lost? No? Well, you just haven't lived!!
To explain: First of all, the map did show that the road continued on through her land - (which she admited to when I finally stopped to talk to her) - and she did have a gate that was open, that she could have closed if she didn't want people driving in her driveway. Right? That's what we thought. But, see we were a little concerned that someone called the FBI on us, because they saw us driving around and around in circles in the golf course parking lot the other night. See, we got one of those compass/thermometer/tacometer devices you plug in to the cigarette lighter and it displays all this wonderful information you just can't live without - as long as you can actually figure out what all the numbers mean, that is. Well, in order to calibrate the silly thing, you have to push the reset button and then drive around in a complete circle a couple times so it can get the directional thing set properly. Well, we tried it - let's just say - a couple - um, few -times that night and we kind of thought how strange it must look - this vehicle driving round and round in circles in the golf course parking lot - at night like that. You'd call NCIS or CSI or the CIA or some other crime solving cop agency thing - right?! So when blue jeep lady starts following us street after street - talking on her cell phone - we thought for sure it was the Feds and she was calling her backups. Turns out she's just sick and tired of people driving in her yard and decided to find out what we were doing. I was waiting for the AK-47 to pop out at any given moment, I gotta tell you. But, thankfully, all was explained and all was well. Except for the fact that we never did get the goofy compass device thing to work. We sent it back. Guess we'll just have to look to the stars to find out what direction we're going and guess how cold it is out. Hey, isn't that how they did it on the Oregon Trail??

Have a great week, everyone!

Blessings,
jill and all