After a little over two weeks on the road, we needed to take an intermission. Jennifer’s Dad was celebrating his 85th Birthday this year and Jennifer and her sister would not miss it. So we headed up to McChord Air Force Base and their on-base Famcamp. Craig stayed with the motorhome and Maggie, while Jennifer flew down to south Texas for the celebration. We even managed to catch up with old friends.
It was a wonderful birthday celebration. Otis, her Dad, said it was his best birthday ever. Guess when you are 85, birthdays are good to keep having :). Highlights of the event included; charades, cake and a return guest appearance by Marilyn Monroe. It was a big party at Alamo Country Club and a good time was had by all.
Pictures of Otis Birthday.
Craig, on the other hand, stayed at McChord and did all those things RVer’s do when they are stationary: work, laundry, clean and grocery shop. Not all that exciting, but I got a lot done, and the RV park was very nice.
We did manage one big outing while we were there. Staying in the area afforded us the opportunity to catch-up with Craig’s Flight School roommate from back in Sacramento, not saying how long ago that was, but we graduated in late 1984! We had not seen Scott since we ran into each other at a conference back in the early 90’s and had not seen Lisa since Sacramento.
We met about half-way to Mt St Helen’s. Yes, the volcano that erupted in Washington back in 1980. We were excited to see how the area had recovered and what the mountain really looked like. The closer we got, the more we realized that our excitement to see Mt St Helen’s would need to be subdued some. The mist and drizzle started as we continued to get closer to the mountain. Then we got to the fog. Not really fog, more like we were driving into the clouds. Needless to say, we did not see much of Mt St Helen’s.
But the real reason for the trip was to catch up with Scott and Lisa. All the picnic tables and benches were outside, and thus wet. So, we found an overlook next to a large trestle bridge-like the third tallest bridge in the NW-and basically had our own tailgate. We just literally opened the tailgates, put our food out, stood around with our raincoats on and visited for about 2 hours. It was so much fun seeing them and catching up on our lives and families. Funny how you can not see a friend for a long time, and you seem to pick-up just where you left off. Yes, there were a few old stories told, but that is what old friends are for.
It ended up being the perfect place for our “pause” in our Northwest adventure and it was great to see old friends again like it was just yesterday.
Nest up: Visiting more old friends and going Navy.