Tacoma to Elbe


It’s interesting to see how fast a new place can become your comfort zone, even when it’s not entirely comfortable.

Our inner-city Tacoma house was hard to leave. We’d been there a month, and it still felt we were leaving too soon. Knowing we would be back in a month, albeit to the other side of town, did make it easier.

On our last day we finally made it to the W.W. Seymore Conservatory in Wright Park (www.parkstacoma.gov/place/w-w-seymour-conservatory), which is dog-friendly, or at least it was before we visited. Mary really wants to shove her face into the bushes and see what’s in there. I kept her on a very short leash, but the place is so compact




that you really couldn’t keep her short enough. Then we went over to Corina Bakery www.corinabakery.com  and got a strada for breakfast and a cannoli for later.

On the way out to the new digs we stopped at the Fred Meyer in Spanaway, a mere 45-minute drive from our new home, quite different from the one we were leaving where the store was only a few minutes’ walk away.

The new house is as described. If you want to see pics of it there are many on the Airbnb listing at https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/921876084317987162.


People have asked us if we’ve settled in since getting to Washington. We haven’t even tried. In fact, we spent the first month living out of our two carry-on suitcases and didn’t unpack anything from the back of the truck. But our new place in Elbe had ample room (four bedrooms) and we had time, so we fully unpacked the truck, and I could see out the back with my review mirror for the first time since leaving Missouri.

On Sunday, we attempted to go up to the main visitor center at Paradise in Mt. Rainier National Park, but the road to Paradise was closed at Longmire due to snow. It was mid-40s and raining where we were, but apparently they got a pretty good snow on Sunday morning at Paradise, and they have a limited work crew with the Federal Government shutdown, so they just closed the road. Ann and I did a very short walk in the rain near Longmire on the


Twin Firs trail, a little half-mile loop.

We were accustomed to taking lunch-hour runs in Tacoma in the nice residential neighborhoods of Stadium, Old Town and Proctor. Now we needed to find somewhere new for the mid-day break. On Monday, we went to the Mineral Rock Trail (www.alltrails.com/trail/us/washington/mineral-rock) about 10 minutes away. The run was like running up stairs the entire time, but fortunately this was scheduled to be a shorter run.

On Tuesday, we did a short run around the town of Mineral in the same area. (https://visitrainier.com/mineral/). The town is cute and wraps around a beautiful lake with a picturesque view of Mt. Rainier from a few key spots. Tuesday before dinner we took a little walk with Mary around the county park in Ashford, which has a paved trail of about a mile long around the


perimeter of the park. 

Wednesday, Ann had some in-person meetings back in Tacoma, so I was going to work at the library, but she fell ill suddenly Tuesday night, which never happens, so that all got scrapped. She took a sick day Wednesday, and I just worked from home as usual, skipping the mid-day run. She feels much better today, and we had a fairly normal dinner, so she’s nearly fully recovered.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Big Drive

Image
Planning this road trip involved big, beautiful round numbers. COMO to TACOMA is right at 2,000 miles, or 30 hours of drive time, according to Google maps. You can take I-70 until it runs out, or go a little more north and take I-80, or even more and take I-90. We opted for the northern route, taking advantage of the late-season heat wave. Directions were easy. I-70 to KC, then 29 north to I-90 and I-90 west all the way to and through Washington. I was able to work on the drive. Our truck is a hybrid and generates power, so the laptop stayed fully charged and surprisingly well connected to the internet via the hotspot on my phone, usually not losing signal for more than a few minutes, mostly in the mountains. Aside from the working part, it felt like we were leaving for a vacation, although not nearly as well planned. I usually do the trip planning, mapping out routes, booking accommodations, and even scouting restaurants online. With this adventure, I didn’t know when we would b...
Read more

The Loadout

Image
I may have to give up my man card, but I didn’t really want to tow a trailer across the country. I can tow a trailer. I was hauling trailers full of cattle from the age of 16 on. I’ve towed a too-heavy boat from Missouri to Lake Powell and back. I can drive towing a trailer. But a couple of years back when I bought our little camper, even though it’s a mere 21 feet long, I watched my fuel economy go from around 23 mpg to 7 mpg on the tow home. I was impressed that the fuel pump on my truck was capable of evacuating the gas from my tank that quickly.  It’s a tall camper, and it doesn’t exactly glide through the air. But perhaps even more than the horrible mileage, I wanted to be able to stop for the night at a motel, then go out for dinner somewhere, without worrying about parking something as long as a school bus, or going through a big ritual of unhooking and hooking up every day. We bought a camper shell specifically for the move, and I was really hoping everything fit. It ...
Read more

Intro

A lot of people have been asking about our move and how things are going, so I'm starting this blog to fill in our friends and maybe make some new ones. Don't worry that I'm doing this blog while I should be working. I'm still working full-time through the day. I'm doing this blog while I should be going to the gym. And this kind of drivel comes out of me like a firehouse, so there's really no effort on my part. I don't expect this to be as entertaining as my son Oliver's two blogs from the past two summers working at Yellowstone NP and Everglades NP  ( https://asummerinyellowstone.blogspot.com and  https://asummerintheeverglades.blogspot.com/ ),  but it will at least let you know that Ann and I made it here and are still kicking. 
Read more