Yakima Valley

Marilyn suggested a drive to get out of the house and we stopped alongside the Yakima River, which looked cool, wonderful and ready for dogs and people to jump in.  It seems that hordes do when it gets hot there:  small put ins allow all sorts of strange floatiing paraphernalia and teens, as well as some bodies you wish would cover up, to get cool and float down the river.  The parks in this remote (evidently not so remote) canyon were busting with floatables and people.  Overflow parking couldn't contain the hordes of teena nd post teens out for a mini rafting adventure.  In one way, in the heat, I was envious - but the music that was played at earsplitting levels was unintelligible, thumping dirges.  I felt old.

A bridge let us go beyond the mob(s) to a pathway along the stream that added to the river - through meadows and  aspens.  Marilyn and Robert were able to get across this rocking, unstable footbridge, while I had to waddle from one board to the next.  Koa floated across - the motion of the bridge was bounce, bounce, ooops, bounce ---not fun.

One of the meadows way back in the valley had been someone's homestead and all that was left were some posts and ancient apple trees.  The creek alongside was not too deep so it was obvious they got their water from the river.  After reading about the homesteaders, emigrants and 49rs at Marilyn's, we were in awe at the idea of women who could travel across the prairies and mountains  from Missouri in wagons and arrive to a new place in November and try to feed families off the land that hadn't been cultivated.  We were standing where someone struggled to live, and while there was lots of summer grass for the animals, winters in this country are fierce.

Dick and Jane's house in Ellensburg.  The man who lived here, with his wife, collected all sorts of materials to make his art, and evidently he was discovered and is now famous and has been shown in museums.  The whole house outside is covered with the inventions which obviously were done with a lot of humor.  Yet the art world talkes him seriously. We giggled a lot while wandering around the yard.