To clarify things early in today’s blog, the site of our next adventure, Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho, requires that I use an abbreviation (CDA) for this city. Otherwise, every time I refer to it, I’ll have to stop and do those mental gymnastics that will finally allow me to correctly spell (most of the time) Coeur d’ Alene. So, “CDA” it is.
Back in the late 1970’s, an acquaintance of mine raved on and on about the beauty that is CDA. And ever since, I’ve had it on my mind to one day visit said exotically beautiful locale. And so it was on this 7th day of June that we achieved a destination that had been on my mind for some 35-40 years. I’m surprised there was enough room for it in there, what with all the baseball and television clutter in there.
CDA, WE ARE HERE!
We landed at Blackwell Island RV Resort and scored a campsite right on the river. You can’t believe how rare that is for us RV‘ers; usually, our campgrounds face prisons, toxic waste sites, or Denny’s restaurants, but never such a setting as this.
Idaho now becomes the 33rd state in which AB1 has weighed anchor, so to speak. CDA was first explored in 1805, but it got its big-time attention when gold was discovered here in 1883. I’ve got to think that nowadays, tourism carries the day in this most-beautiful of lakeside cities.
Being the theatre mavens that we are, we hurried our drive that day in order to be all set up in time for the television broadcast of “The American Theatre Wing's Tony Awards” saluting excellence on Broadway. I suppose that, once again, many of you either attended or hosted Tony award parties and had your prediction sheets all filled out. Hope you had success with that.
Two more Tony references from that night’s show and then we’ll move on: 1) Tommy Tune received a Tony “Lifetime Achievement Award.” You may remember the picture of legendary hoofer Tommy with Diedre last year on-stage in Houston (4/17/14 blog). At the time, the quote was, “This has got to be the thrill of a lifetime for me!” That was so nice of Tommy to say. And 2) the marvelous 82-year old Chita Rivera, Diedre’s hero since she (DK) was a little girl, not only was again nominated for a Tony, but she also performed at the ceremony as well. What a star!
Here are some tips for you novice or future “RV’ers” out there that I, a wizened RV-veteran of 2.5 years, have picked up from my time on the road: 1) On Mondays, do NOT use the camp laundry, especially in the A.M. Everybody tries to get their duds clean for the week, so the camp laundry room is a madhouse; then the place sits empty for the next six days. I learned the hard way here on CDA-Monday; and 2) don’t plan to get to bed early on Friday nights; all the young people (you know, the 40-50 year-olds), after a hard week at work, have tossed their camping gear along with a lot of beer into their jeeps and Range Rovers and will inevitably set up their tents right next to you where they’ll then proceed to party late into the evening blowing off steam and exercising their vocal cords, the camp quiet hours (10 P.M. to 7 A.M.) be damned. So make sure to put those in your “Alexx’s Handy RV Tips” notebook.
You’re welcome.
We checked out the CDA downtown area on Tuesday, June 9, and it was absolutely charming. It had a real north woods feel, but with enough breweries to keep DK happy. We walked the town’s famous “floating boardwalk” at the CDA Resort’s marina. At 12’ wide and 3,300 feet long, it’s the world’s longest wet walkway. And after walking it, a little more than 1/6th of our daily 3-mile walk had been accomplished.
We then did a great scenic hike (of course, where in CDA is not scenic?), all mountains and hills and forests, right in the downtown area. “Tubbs Hill,” named after an 1882 German immigrant to CDA, is on the shores of Lake CDA. The city founding fathers wisely made it into a 120-acre preserve for future RV’ers to enjoy. A two-mile loop trail takes you completely around the belt of the hill. Since Tubbs is surrounded by Lake CDA on 3 sides and is thickly forested, you’re never at a loss for even more amazing scenery. Diedre was even able to do some “Tubbs Hill Yoga” on our hike, never being one to pass up world-class-scenic yoga locations.
We then continued our hike, more urbanely now, by checking out the downtown environs. CDA’s town mascot must be the moose since they had all kinds of salutes to Bullwinkle’s relatives all over town, e.g. statues, paintings, moose-chip carvings .
We stopped for lunch at the very fun Crafted Tap House where Diedre had the “best fish tacos ever” *.
(*=To clarify, that would be “THIS WEEK’s best fish tacos ever.”)
Today was a day of “firsts” for us. The first first was DK, now craftily using her newly won “Silver Sneakers Card” courtesy of Medicare, enjoying her first work-out visit to the nationally known lady-sweatshop, Curves. She will be using these facilities FOR FREE all over the country for the next 25 years or so.
And our second first (2nd 1st? … um, yeah, that’s right) was due to a gift from our good Arizona friend, The English Tea Room ’s Jo Gemmill. Totally aghast when she had heard that we had never seen the drug-infused, weekly murder-fest comedy called “Breaking Bad,” television show, Jo gave us the entire six-year run of shows in a DVD set. So that evening, we watched the first of what would be 75-80 “Breaking Bad” episodes. Skeptical at first, I eventually grew to like it. But not so my blushing bride.
She was hooked!
Thus begins our late-night run of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll.
The TV show will be fun, too.
BA-DUM-BUMP!
The next day, we thought we’d view the CDA scenery from the other side, so we were off on a 90-minute cruise on Lake CDA. “National Geographic” has called it one of the five most beautiful lakes in the world, right up there, I suppose, with Loch Ness, Lake Woebegone, Lake Bell, and Veronica Lake. It was a lovely day on the water, sunny and cloudless, and not too crowded on the boat.
We cruised around Tubb’s Hill as well as several islands, and we even got to see the world’s only “floating green” from the lake. More on that in Friday’s blog entry.
Completing our lazy day, we had cocktails at the Whispers Bar at the CDA Resort, THE resort in town, then wandered down to the Main Street weekly Farmers’ Market where Diedre had her way with basil, goat cheese, and huckleberries.
Okay, on Thursday we were back to being outgoing and vigorous. Driving west, we stopped first at “Cat Tales,” an animal rescue that was pretty much for tigers (white and regular Bengal and Siberian), bobcats, leopards, a black panther, and one very confused black bear. Now, although we love that there are people out there looking out for these magnificent, yet abused, animals, we’re starting to have trouble with the sanctuaries that have enclosures too small for these big cats. I suppose we’re used to the wonderful rescue facility north of Phoenix, “Out of Africa,” where all the great felines have habitats of at least an acre each. The cages here were too old-time zoo-like for our tastes, so although the animals were being treated well, the limited-sized enclosures made us a little too uncomfortable.
Shortly, we moved on.
We then headed back into Washington to Spokane and the basketball-centric Gonzaga University founded in 1883. After a nice walk through the charmingly small campus, we spent quite a bit of time there at “The Bing Crosby House.” What fun!
Der Bingle’s boyhood home is right on campus. The “Bing Crosby Collection House” was built by his father and uncles in 1913. Now the main level is a Bing museum and the upper level is the Gonzaga Alumni Center.
We saw and learned a lot of interesting things about Bing:
-his given name was “Harry Lillis Crosby,” but he got his nickname “Bing” (shortened from “Bingo”) at age 7 from a neighborhood chum after a character in a comic strip;
-Bing played semi-professional baseball with the Spokane Ideal Laundry team;
-he graduated from Gonzaga High School in 1920;
-in 1940, he appeared in the first of seven “Road” moving-pictures with Bob Hope;
-Bing appeared in 104 films and won an Academy Award in 1944 for his performance in the movie “Going My
Way” (that’s Diedre with Bing’s Oscar);
-as a singer, he had 23 gold and platinum records and made the highest number of studio recordings;
-he recorded the most popular record ever (“White Christmas” has sold 100-million copies and counting); it’s the only single to make the American pop charts 20 times;
-Bing recorded over 2,000 songs, scored 368 charted records compared to Elvis’s 149 and the Beatles 68, had the most number one hits with 38 (Beatles 24, Elvis 18), and was nominated for 3 Academy Awards.
Bing died of a heart attack in 1977 doing what he loved: golfing in Spain. He was dedicated to the Bulldogs of Gonzaga University. There’s a statue of him on campus.
We didn’t know much about the city of Spokane, but once again proving our old RV adage, “You can always find something interesting about any town you’re in … even Lusk, Wyoming (population 1,617).” And the downtown of Spokane was very interesting. I mean, how often do you get waterfalls and rapids rushing through the heart of a city? Well, Spokane’s “Riverfront Park” had all that and more. We walked alongside Spokane Falls as the water thundered through the downtown area. The park was great. In addition to its water features, there was a clock tower, an ice skating rink, an antique carousel, and a summer carnival site. Diedre was able to get her exercise in that day by joining this rather stiff running group. Having time for just the afternoon there, we both decided Spokane is a place we need to come back to and spend more time.
On Friday, our last day in CDA, we decided to do our 3-miles on the North Idaho Centennial Trail, a paved hiking path that goes west for 24 miles and then connects with Spokane’s Centennial Trail. The whole thing is 60 miles long. It’s built along the Spokane River, so the scenery is just … well, GET-OUT! The trail also had a French par course, so in addition to walking, Diedre was able to get in her “yoga-hanging-and-standing-on-her-head” total workout. I enjoyed the park benches.
Now we come to the infamous golf hole number 14 on the Coeur d’ Alene Resort Golf Course as mentioned previously.
“Whaaa?” you might ask.
Well, old number 14 has the world’s only FLOATING green!
Yes, you hit your drive out into the lake hoping the wind helps you land on the green, then you hop in a pontoon boat and cruise the 174 yards out to do your putting. The resort gives you three golf balls, a pack of tees, a logoed ball marker, and a package of Dramamine. We hung out in the clubhouse and then had lunch in the grill that overlooks number 14. Scenic much?!
Continuing the water theme, we dined that night at “The Cedars Floating Restaurant,” Idaho's premier floating restaurant (Are there more than one?) Founded in 1965, The Cedars was within easy walking distance of our RV park; the restaurant floats at the confluence of Lake Coeur d' Alene and the Spokane River. Fortunately, I still had some of the resort’s Dramamine left over.
When we got back to AB1 that night, we found a text from Nancy, our sturdy house-checker, which stated that our Scottsdale refrigerator had somehow clanked off this month and that we now had the world’s largest penicillin experiment. Yes, a fine crop of mold is growing where I used to keep my frozen Twinkies.
I’m so proud!
Now that we’ve hit all the MLB ballparks, we’ve decided our next quest is, through the inspiration of our good pal R.J., to make it to all the national parks. With that in mind, get set to welcome us tomorrow to GLACIER NATIONAL PARK and the 11th annual Diederich family reunion!
Stay tuned.
Before we left Oregon on Sunday, May 31, DK received a call from our nephew Nate in Phoenix. Earlier in the week, Nate and fiancee Ali’s house had been broken into. Besides the usual theft of electronics, the thieves stole some heirloom jewelry and rings that had belonged to Nate’s grandmother (DK’s mom). Boy, it’s one thing to steal money, a stereo, and televisions which insurance can readily replace. But it is just so damn thoughtless when low-lifes make off with totally irreplaceable items that so affect the victim emotionally. Disappointing … very, very disappointing.
Okay, back to the blog stuff. State #32 for AB1 was Washington. We camped in Poulsbo, a beautiful little seaside town overlooking Liberty Bay. On our R&B day, we leisurely walked the eight-block downtown area, then topped off the night with the entirely forgettable “Aloha” movie. The female lead was Emma Stone, our cute girl who got her theatrical start right in Scottsdale at Valley Youth Theatre. Unfortunately, even her substantial acting chops couldn’t save this one. To get the bad cinematic taste out of our mouths, we went back to the camp and watched this months installment of the “Star Wars” series: “Star Wars 2: The Attack of the Clones.” I think DK stayed awake.
In addition to watching a segment of my favorite movie series, Diedre also rolled up her sleeves and made it a doubly great night by making my all-time favorite chocolate treat, toffee. I’m telling you, this stuff is REALLY good!
I pretty much thought my days of toffee-decadence had been lost to the ravages of the diabetic-diet-restrictions, but NOOOOOO! I was wrong yet once again. My clever wife somehow figured out how to make toffee with appropriate substitutes. She claims it’s “sugar-free,” so who am I, an avowed chocoholic, to disagree? Of course, if it is true what she’s saying about a “healthy toffee,” well, I can only surmise one thing:
SHE’S A WITCH!!
J’cuse!
Tuesday was our big day in town as it was to be the grand finale of our quest to see major league baseball games in all 30 stadiums. Our plan to avoid the big-city traffic and parking woes was based upon our taking a 30-minute ferry ride from Bainbridge Island to Seattle. Unfortunately, we misjudged the traffic on this smallish island and in a mad scramble, managed to be the last two people to board the massive ferry. We raced on with no tickets, convinced by a poorly thought-out web site that today was a free day.
It was not.
Oh, the ferry IS free to get to downtown Seattle. But if you’re one of those weirdos who wants to go home at the end of the day, and apparently many people do, well, that’s when they hit you up for the big bucks. Medicare card holders go for half-price, so that’s one thing good about growing old (although I’m still half a year away from such happiness). Still, it’s nice not having to worry about paying to park, and the ferry guys don’t do full-body searches unless you want them to.
As we were sitting on the ferry looking at the Seattle Mariners’ baseball stadium off in the distance, who of all people should spot us but none other than our good friend from Scottsdale, Glen Scott. I mean, this was a humongous ferry that handles 100 or more cars and a couple of hundred walk-ons, so what were the odds that Glen would not only be on the same ferry as we were, but would also spot us on this brief, 30-minute boat ride?
Glen filled us in on the tricks of the ferry trade, then we parted ways when we landed as we would be seeing Glen and wife Susan later in the week.
DK and I immediately headed off walking into a bit of Seattle history. Oh, I know you’re saying, “What wonderful place will these two zanies stumble upon next? They’ve already been to the site of the Wright Brothers first flight, they touched the oldest house in the country in St. Augustine, FL, and they’ve even stood on the spot where in 1861, the first shells flew at the start of the Civil War. Oh what, oh what do they have up their historical sleeves now?”
Well, I’ll tell you … it’s really BIG! … Yes, we made our way down to the famous Pike Place Market to see … oh, I’m so excited … the first ever … wait for it! …
STARBUCKS!!
Yay.
Okay, so although the Pike Place Market opened in 1907, the 1st Starbucks goes back even further, I think. (Uh-oh! Be careful whenever Alexx adds “I think” to a sentence. It usually means you’re off for a merry ride!—DK) Back in England during the 11th century, William the Sleepy was waging war against the Roman Legions of Julius Caesar. William, looking for a respite after a particularly tough battle, sought an area which might be free of dinosaurs. In the exact spot where we stood at that moment eating artificially made Krispy Kreme donuts was where WTS came upon a ramshackle hovel owned by a small man named “Starius Buckius” (Latin for “Expensive-brown-water-maker”). Starius offered William some of his strange brew which he called “kaffee.” William tried it, immediately woke up, and raced back into battle were he was promptly beheaded by one of his own men who did recognize the man with such fire in his eyes. The time was MCMLXXI (in the year of our Lord, 1971 A.D.).
Wow!
We had a joyful afternoon seeing the sites at the Market: Diedre found a wall made of nothing but chewed bubble-gum; I found a genealogy shop where I was able to make contact with an ancient relative and learn why I’m just so darned going at “Trivial Pursuits”; we were able to scare the heck out of all our loyal softball Facebook friends when I feigned (sort of) a heart attack walking up the incredibly steep hills of the area; and then a bonus for DK occurred when I dragged her into the Seattle Antiques Market. Normally, she hates going into these kind of places, but here, she happily stumbled upon the January 14, 1957, issue of “Life” magazine. It’s the one that has our Cave Creek, AZ, friend, Dee Dee Wood, on the cover dancing in the original Broadway production of “Li’l Abner.” Note that Dee Dee is the subject of one of my plays, “DDDancer,” a dancer’s musical, which is still waiting for some big-shot producer to snap it up (just in case any of you big-shot producers are reading this). We’ll get Dee Dee to autograph it when we get back to AZ in October.
Okay, I know you have all been waiting along with us for the last three years in anticipation of this day. Well, it’s finally here! We attended a baseball game that night in our FINAL major league stadium!
HUZZAH!
There I am with a giant baseball glove statue with a hole in it … please don’t read anything into it as acommentary on my fielding ability. Note the Ken Griffey shirt I’m wearing. It’ll go great with my St. Louis Cardinals Stan Musial T-shirt as well as my Pittsburgh Pirates Roberto Clemente one. Note that I only get sports shirts of players who have retired so that they can’t do anything on or off the field that will prove embarrassing to me (See Diedre’s “Sammy Sosa” jersey for an object lesson here). It didn’t hurt that Griffey Junior wore number 24, since that’s the number I wore on my high school and college basketball teams and on every softball jersey I’ve worn in the past 47 years or so.
In seeing the Seattle Mariners game at Safeco Field, that meant we have been to games at all 30 major league stadiums, plus eight other ones that no longer exist (No, we haven’t seen a game at the Roman Coliseum … we’re not THAT old!). And in all those games, not once were we rained out. And we knew we were good here in Seattle, because even though the city is known for its rain, its newish stadium (first game in 1999) has a retractable roof. So that guaranteed us our 30th and final major league baseball stadium.
Next up … all 450 or so minor league ballparks.
At that night’s game, they gave out bobblehead dolls of Mariners’ third-baseman Kyle Seager. This gift, which now proudly takes its place on AB1’s dashboard along with the bobbleheads of Cincinnati’s Pete Rose and the Colorado Rockies’ star Dante Bichette as well as a statue of Diedre favorite cartoon actress, Betty Boop.
It was yet another wonderful stadium (Actually, the Tampa Rays ballpark was the only one of the 30 to disappoint). It boasted the major leagues’ largest video scoreboard at a whopping 11,425 square feet. That almost assuaged the pain of a Mariner 5-3 loss to the always hated New York Yankees in 11 innings. The Mariners center-fielder Austin Jackson was an island of efficiency in a Mariner sea of ineptitude. He reached base all five times while getting 40% of his team’s hits. It was not good enough.
A baseball aside here: we’ve noticed in the last few ballparks that the concessionaires selling product in the stands are often not yelling out what they’re selling, but are instead holding up pictures of what they have to eat. It makes for a much quieter, gentler ball game.
The next day after recovering from our “30-stadium baseball tour” hangover, we headed to the lovely seaside town of Port Townsend to meet up with longtime friends, Dyanne Sheldon and Jean (yes, another Jean-see Portland, OR, blog for this reference). I initially met Dyanne at our first parks and recreation jobs in the early 1970’s in St. Louis Park, MN. I was the knot-head city athletic director and she was Park’s first ever naturalist. The city had taken an old abandoned golf course, one where I used to play as a youngster for 50-cents per nine holes, and with Dyanne’s capable administration, had turned it into a class A nature center.
It has always seemed to me that Dyanne knows absolutely everything about nature and the wilderness. She even memorably identifies all birds by their calls; I can’t remember the name of one certain bird, but Dyanne taught me to recognize it by noting that its call sounds as if it’s saying, “Quick! Three beers!”
Port Townsend is mainly a fishing town, but we were there for the camaraderie. We lunched at the intimate Ichikawa Sushi Bar where the pleasant but somewhat pushy waitress wormed her way into our team picture. The last we saw of Dy and Jean, they were off and running to catch their soon-to-depart ferry, the last one of the day.
Okay, we have now arrived at Thursday, June 4, day #42 of our trip. This year’s journey is officially ¼ over sometime today after lunch. To celebrate, we took a 3-mile walk that reminded us (Okay, “me”) of the Ewoks’ forest planet in “Star Wars 6: Return of the Jedi.” If you want to run out and rent it to watch, I can wait … NO? All righty then. Your loss … moving on.
Glen Scott, whom you met earlier on the ferry in this tome laughingly called a “blog,” would be celebrating his 68th birthday tomorrow, so we were meeting Glen and wife Susan for dinner that night. I first met Glen in 1997 at his 50th birthday party; DK had become friends with Susan Scott at their mutual jobs in Scottsdale (they were both either high-powered executive educational software sales vice-presidents or they worked at Denny’s … I forget which) and had wangled an invite to the massive soiree at Pinnacle Peak Patio (That’s the famous western restaurant where if you wear a tie in, it promptly gets cut off. They’ve got about 10,000 severed ties hanging from the beams). Along with my St. Louis Park pal Randy “R.J.” Johnson, we had just driven 1,750 miles in two days in a rented truck transporting DK and my life-goods to our new home in Scottsdale. So of course, the first thing we did when we got to town back in ’97 was to write a birthday song for a man we had never met. A groggy RJ and I quickly penned “Sweet Neat Glen” to the tune of “Big John.” The gist of the song was that Glen is a bit of a neat freak … he even has his canned vegetables alphabetized in the cupboard.
Susan is the “energizer-bunny” who accompanied Diedre on her bucket-list conquest of hiking up and down the Grand Canyon this Easter while Glen has become my best Arizona pal during these past 17 years. The Scotts recently bought a 2nd home on Bainbridge Island in the Seattle area, keeping a small place in Scottsdale to come back winters and visit the grand kids. Glen is currently the president of his homeowners’ association, a position he was offered just minutes after moving in. I’m pretty sure that’s the same way the Czars took power in Russia in the 1600’s.
Glen is more or less a benevolent despot, although he does refer to his HOA neighbors as “my loyal minions.” Once a month, the HOA has a clean-up day where they pick up bottles, cans, and old copies of “Popular Mechanics” polluting their area. Reportedly, Glen stands high above the workers on a stand as he paces with his shotgun while wearing mirrored sunglasses and munching on hard-boiled eggs. Occasionally, he can be heard to announce, “What we have here is a failure to communicate!”
We enjoyed a wine-infused walking tour of their home and neighborhood by the water. Then it was off to dinner at a lovely seaside restaurant where the waiters actually wore shoes. Pretty classy!
Friday saw DK and me split up … only temporarily, I’m pretty sure. While she was off hiking with the Scotts, I opted for one more ferry trip back to downtown Seattle. I walked over to the city’s fanciful Olympic Sculpture Park, then made my way up hill to the Seattle Center where the World’s Fair was held in 1962. I managed to make contact with the Space Needle, the city’s instantly identifiable symbol. I learned that the idea for the Space Needle began as a sketch on a coffee shop placemat. So that’s a reminder – save all your doodles!
In the evening, trying to keep the balance between baseball parks and theatres close, we made our way to the Jewel Box Theatre in Poulsbo. Now in their 14th season, the company presented “The Red Velvet Cake War,” promoted as a “southern baked comedy.” It was just one step up from the murder-mystery drivel I write. Still, fun was had by all.
Okay, it’s Saturday, June 6, our last day in the greater Poulsbo, WA, area. Being very excited about yet another horse making a run for the Triple Crown of Horse Racing (Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes), Diedre Kaye dragged me off to “The Plate and Pint Bar” to watch the Triple Crown finale; I, as you might surmise, had wanted to stay home and watch “Downton Abbey,” but sometimes you just go along to get along. At least they had the world’s best jalapeno poppers.
We excitedly watched the favorite, “American Pharoah” as he won the 147th running of the Belmont Stakes in New York to take the hard sought after Triple Crown of Horse Racing and end a 37-year drought. AP was the first horse to win it all since Affirmed last did it in 1978. Of course, that’s just the blink of an eye when compared to the Chicago Cubs and their last World Series title: 1908.
Yeah, you just knew I had to get baseball in there somewhere.
After the race, we ended our Washington stay by spending some time with Glen and Susan at Glen’s place of employment, “The Rolling Bay Winery” where we met the owner. Glen’s actually retired from his first career in textbook sales. Here on Bainbridge Island, for his work at the winery he is compensated not by a paycheck, but by bottles of wine. And that’s the way he likes it.
My wife, who has an “ery” thing going on (you know, winERY, distillERY, brewERY), wanted an equivalent to my baseball stadium pictures, so here she is with her idea of great art. I call it: “Lady and Kegs.”
Next up on our globe-trotting menu: Coeur, d’ Alene, Idaho.
Keep your spuds up!
Inigo Montoya, a brave, Dark Ages swordsman, was heard to utter on more than one occasion:
“Hallo!
My name is Inigo Montoya!
You killed my father!
Prepare to die!”
He was, of course, one of the main characters in the wonderful children’s movie (with enough sophisticated humor to keep adults involved), “The Princess Bride.”
I bring this up to let you know what we’re up to when we’re not living our fabulous RV lives seeing great sites, meeting important people, and washing dirty clothes by pounding them with a rock in nearby polluted streams. No, when we’re not doing all that good stuff, we’re driving AB1 from one campground to the next, 300 miles and five hours at a time. And while I’m driving, Diedre keeps me from nodding off at the wheel by having me help her answer crossword puzzles, quizzing me on baseball trivia, reading select “Sports Illustrated” magazine articles, and reading aloud or listening to books or books-on-tape.
For this year’s literary challenge, we started by having Diedre read As You Wish by Carey Elwes or as we like to refer to it: “The Making of ‘The Princess Bride’ Movie.” It’s one of our favorite cinematic works. If you get a chance, rent it, especially if your kids/grand kids are visiting. We especially love Mandy Patinkin as “Inigo Montoya,” Andre the Giant as “Fezzick,” and Billy Crystal as “Miracle Max.” As soon as Diedre’s done reading it to me (hopefully by the time we get to Minneapolis), we’ll crank up the old gas-powered VCR and re-watch the movie with the knowledge of the inside stories the actors talked about in the book. I can’t wait.
Anyway … we got back on the road Sunday, May 24. The day’s travel contained the best scenery we’d seen so far starting north of Redding, California. And it was what we planned for this year. In 2013, we were mainly RV’ing to see friends and family in the upper Midwest; in 2014, touring the south and the east coast became one big history lesson as practically every place we stopped had some significance to either the Revolutionary or Civil wars. But this year, 2015, is going to be all about the scenery, the beauty of nature in and around the seven to eight national parks we’ll visit. And it’ll start with Oregon, the 31st state we’ve visited and camped in (overnight stay needed to qualify) during our two-and-a-half years of RV’ing. We’re shooting for all 48 lower states (Delaware is going to be the tough one) plus quite a few Canadian provinces. Have fun with us as we go our merry way. You can even keep score at home. It’s so easy, even St. Olaf Junior College grads can do it.
Loyal blogophiles may recall two years ago our visit with softball friends Jim and Carol Ericksons in Mount Pleasant, MI. Unbelievably, there was actually no “mount” in “Mount Pleasant,” although there was a lot of “pleasant” in the good folks of Mount Pleasant. So it really shouldn’t have surprised us when we landed in Klamath Falls, OR, and found out that … yes, you guessed it, there were no “falls” in Klamath Falls. What next, no pyramids in Cairo, Illinois?
Monday was “Memorial Day,” so we put out our limited red, white, and blue décor and celebrated the day accordingly. In the RV-park-mentality, what more could say “Memorial Day” than doing two weeks worth of laundry and then trimming one’s beard (mine, not Diedre’s)? Seriously, they have an incredible laundry room here: 10 washers and 10 dryers. I did my four wash loads in the time it normally takes me to do one at home. Other RV life tasks included replenishing our meds/vitamins trays and then some amateur grocery shopping. The festive day ended with a night out at the movies. We viewed the George Clooney non-epic “Tomorrowland,” and then in keeping with the tone of the movie, we had a late-night romantic dinner at Denny’s.
The next morning, we left on a day-trip away from the friendly confines of Klamath Falls and journeyed an hour away to the marvelous Crater Lake National Park created in 1902. The place was so darn scenic that Diedre determined it HAS to be the site of her annual family reunion when it’s her turn to host in 2018. The iconic Crater Lake Lodge, built in 1915, will be her projected site-of-operations. We’ll see how long that lasts.
CLNP is an incredible combination of mountains, trees, water, and, of all things, snow … in late May! Wherever you look, there’s a combination of at least two and often three of the aforementioned. The marvelous Crater Lake surrounds a scenic small island that we determined we must visit next time.
CL is the deepest lake in the U.S. at 1,943’; it’s actually the belly of an erupted volcano. No streams run into the lake, so there’s little sediment to cloud its waters. It makes for a wonderful photograph when the clearness of the lake perfectly reflects a wonderful mirror-image of the snow-capped mountains above. Speaking of snow, you can see that Diedre couldn’t resist the temptation to pelt our nature photographer with snowballs.
We finished our wonderful day at the park with a hike to Discovery Point. It was a lovely walk atop the rim surrounding the lake.
On Wednesday, May 27, before our drive to Oregon City in the Portland, OR, area, we walked over to the aptly named “Starvin' Marvin’s” cafe for breakfast. The food was good and there was lots of it. While eating, I noticed three old guys stumble in, John Deere hats and all, but they didn’t seem to know what to do. One guy pointed, the others shrugged, and slowly they wandered around aimlessly. Diedre confidently nodded to me and said, “See! They don’t know where to sit without their wives here to tell them!”
Here’s an interesting (at least to us) bit of nomenclature trivia. You may remember back in the L.A. blog when I mentioned my Uncle John’s funeral. At the time, I had found out about the ceremony’s particulars from my cousin “Jean” (Mona). I had gone to the funeral with my mother “Jean” (Mom) while Diedre called her sister “Jean” (Goldie) on her Smart-Phone “Jean” (Genie). Are you noticing a trend here? And then on our second night in Oregon City, we went to have dinner at the home of Diedre’s cousin who, of course, is named “Jean” (Gee Gee). Note: all the “Jeans” nicknames are in parentheses; these are imperative, or we’d never know of whom we were discussing.
On Friday, Gee Gee graciously took us on a tour of yet another scenic area, the Columbia River Gorge. We first hiked to Latourell Falls, then made it to the wonderful double-decker Bridle Veil Falls. Everywhere we went, there was more new natural beauty to behold. And it wasn’t all waterfalls either. On our way home, we drove on three sides of the very recognizable Mt. Hood.
Warning: another one of “Alexx’s Asides” is imminent. Take shelter immediately.
One of my habits is to always carry pennies to cover sales taxes. In Oregon, I didn’t notice it at first, but it eventually occurred to me that every time I paid for something, the amount was never an odd, penny-requiring amount. When I mentioned it to Gee Gee, she nodded and then with the wisdom of Yoda, explained this phenomenon with a story about the person from Washington state who came to Portland and bragged about all his state had to offer. When he was done spouting off, Gee Gee smiled and then offered just three little words in defense of her home state of Oregon: “NO … SALES … TAX!”
On our last day in Oregon, we decided to see Portland, again under the kind auspices of Gee Gee the Guide. We started healthily by visiting the spiffy Lake Oswego Farmers Market. The gals kept me from getting too bored by having me get my picture taken with the world’s largest (my guess) pair of Groucho glasses. Honestly, it’s as if they had a five-year old child with them.
From there it was on to downtown Portland for a walking tour. We crossed several bridges and made our way to the Portland Saturday Market, the largest continuously operated open air market in the U.S. It was a lot of arts and crafts. Nearby there was a carnival running, so we ambled by to take a look. But it was only when we came across this sadly misguided, pro-diabetes Pepsi sign that we knew it was time to move on.
To Washington … with dispatch!
We landed at Blackwell Island RV Resort and scored a campsite right on the river. You can’t believe how rare that is for us RV‘ers; usually, our campgrounds face prisons, toxic waste sites, or Denny’s restaurants, but never such a setting as this.
Two more Tony references from that night’s show and then we’ll move on: 1) Tommy Tune received a Tony “Lifetime Achievement Award.” You may remember the picture of legendary hoofer Tommy with Diedre last year on-stage in Houston (4/17/14 blog). At the time, the quote was, “This has got to be the thrill of a lifetime for me!” That was so nice of Tommy to say. And 2) the marvelous 82-year old Chita Rivera, Diedre’s hero since she (DK) was a little girl, not only was again nominated for a Tony, but she also performed at the ceremony as well. What a star!
We checked out the CDA downtown area on Tuesday, June 9, and it was absolutely charming. It had a real north woods feel, but with enough breweries to keep DK happy. We walked the town’s famous “floating boardwalk” at the CDA Resort’s marina. At 12’ wide and 3,300 feet long, it’s the world’s longest wet walkway. And after walking it, a little more than 1/6th of our daily 3-mile walk had been accomplished.
We then did a great scenic hike (of course, where in CDA is not scenic?), all mountains and hills and forests, right in the downtown area. “Tubbs Hill,” named after an 1882 German immigrant to CDA, is on the shores of Lake CDA. The city founding fathers wisely made it into a 120-acre preserve for future RV’ers to enjoy. A two-mile loop trail takes you completely around the belt of the hill. Since Tubbs is surrounded by Lake CDA on 3 sides and is thickly forested, you’re never at a loss for even more amazing scenery. Diedre was even able to do some “Tubbs Hill Yoga” on our hike, never being one to pass up world-class-scenic yoga locations.
(*=To clarify, that would be “THIS WEEK’s best fish tacos ever.”)
Thus begins our late-night run of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll.
The next day, we thought we’d view the CDA scenery from the other side, so we were off on a 90-minute cruise on Lake CDA. “National Geographic” has called it one of the five most beautiful lakes in the world, right up there, I suppose, with Loch Ness, Lake Woebegone, Lake Bell, and Veronica Lake. It was a lovely day on the water, sunny and cloudless, and not too crowded on the boat. 
We then headed back into Washington to Spokane and the basketball-centric Gonzaga University founded in 1883. After a nice walk through the charmingly small campus, we spent quite a bit of time there at “The Bing Crosby House.” What fun!
Der Bingle’s boyhood home is right on campus. The “Bing Crosby Collection House” was built by his father and uncles in 1913. Now the main level is a Bing museum and the upper level is the Gonzaga Alumni Center.
-Bing recorded over 2,000 songs, scored 368 charted records compared to Elvis’s 149 and the Beatles 68, had the most number one hits with 38 (Beatles 24, Elvis 18), and was nominated for 3 Academy Awards.
Bing died of a heart attack in 1977 doing what he loved: golfing in Spain. He was dedicated to the Bulldogs of Gonzaga University. There’s a statue of him on campus.
On Friday, our last day in CDA, we decided to do our 3-miles on the North Idaho Centennial Trail, a paved hiking path that goes west for 24 miles and then connects with Spokane’s Centennial Trail. The whole thing is 60 miles long. It’s built along the Spokane River, so the scenery is just … well, GET-OUT! The trail also had a French par course, so in addition to walking, Diedre was able to get in her “yoga-hanging-and-standing-on-
Now we come to the infamous golf hole number 14 on the Coeur d’ Alene Resort Golf Course as mentioned previously.
