Seattle

By Uncle Hans

We got bit by the "wanderbug" again and got out the Love Shack for a weekend trip to Seattle. The first stop was an unsuspecting motel. If you look closely, I am stealing water from their outside spigot because I forgot to top off the water tank before we left...........

............we drove straight through, leaving at 0500 Thursday morning and arriving 0830 in Seattle at Renee's sister's. The only stop (other than gas and stealing water) was in Melrose to have breakfast with Dick and Rosie. If you add together all the time travelling to the airport, parking, security, waiting for the plane, flight, flight delay, waiting for a rental car, driving to the sister's, etc, just plain driving there does not take much longer. You can figure a day lost either way, and the sights are more interesting on the ground than at 35,000 feet.......

.....we took the kids, they live on the shelf above the refrigerator. They are very entertaining and make the miles go by quicker. A little un-nerving, though, to have something land on your shoulder at 70 mph.........

...........Renee likes to crochet to make the time go by, she makes dish cloths...........

.........we found a part of North Dakota that was pretty. We also crossed over the northern part of the new Frac oil fields. Lots of activity there and new roads everywhere.......

.......we were headed into the Rockies by the first sundown..........

......waiting in Seattle (actually Puywallup) were sister Laura and her daughter Brooke. Tinker liked them both.

Brooke offered Renee a manicure while they visited..............

...............after two fun-filled days we set out for home. The mountains made the Love Shack work really hard. Our pass on interstate 90 is 6300 ft high. We noticed a burning smell, more and more, but assumed it was the brakes or the transmission. Then Renee was looking through some things on the floor for her boots, when she found a patch of melting carpeting! Turns out there was a hole in the muffler, right below the floor, and the hot exhaust was melting the carpet through the floor!. We had no fire, but the acrid smell got pretty bad. Renee trimmed away all the melted stuff and the smell went away. A new muffler is scheduled for next week.....

...............The 1750 mile trip took two days on the way home, we camped out in a rest area in Montana somewhere. One sign we were happy to see..........

..............next trip? Who knows. Talking about Texas in March. The kids love Texas!.........

By Uncle Hans