We packed our stuff and Tamera and Sonya helped me with that tent. I explained to them what my grandson Isaac explained: pull the tent closed and tight then fold over into a figure eight and then place it inside the nylon holder to be zipped up.
It was definitely a two-person operation, three if you counted me holding the nylon holder while they placed it inside and I zipped it up. We then gathered the rest of the food and put it all away.
“You are going to take the trash down, aren’t you?” Tamera asked. It came across more as a statement; like a command than a request or question.
“Certainly,” I replied. Then I quipped, “I could just accidentally forget and make the custodian or whatever he calls himself take it down.”
We both laughed but then she sobered, “And I’ll send you the bill that I’m sure he will mail to me for leaving the campsite without taking the trash. It’s just down there by the gate as we’re leaving the campsite.”
We gave each other farewell hugs and then got inside our vehicles and left the park behind. The whole event felt somewhat bittersweet, as all our reunions have. I don’t know if everyone feels this way about seeing relatives, especially siblings in the same light, but I tend to welcome seeing my sisters and their family, then am saddened that I have to leave them. Sometimes tears are shed, and I get emotional as I was on Friday upon seeing them since last year.
Anyway, we had already decided to take another route. They wanted to go as far as Waitsburg, then take US 12 to Walla Walla and south the College Place and Milton Free-water before getting on I-84 and continuing south. I informed them I would go on toward Clarkston and head north on US-195.
I took the left onto SR 124, and she led the way. She kicked in her afterburners, leaving me in her dust. I might have thought of punching it and seeing if I could keep up, except for a deputy sheriff driving his Explorer had just turned onto the highway off another road, and I just let her win that race.
Once I reached Waitsburg I was pleasantly surprised at seeing them at the intersection of Highway 12. East toward Lewiston and right would take them to Walla Walla and beyond. I pulled in behind them while Tamera got out, smiling at me.
“Sonya’s hungry and wants to get something to eat.”
“Ron’s stepdad had a restaurant here some time ago, but he passed, and I think Ron sold what he had in the business. I noticed a hardware store now occupies that building. I don’t think there’s anywhere else to eat here,” I told her.
Ron was a good friend of mine who served in the National Guard for a time before he and his stepdad bought this little restaurant and tried to make something out of it. But that was thirty years ago. I went there twice, once with my former roommate to go on a camping and fishing weekend near Dayton and another weekend that I spent with Ron and his family. They lived in an available apartment on the second floor above the restaurant.
“I know. I think we’ll see if there’s anything in Walla Walla. I thought you were going to try and race me. I was doing over a one hundred when I had to slow it down on that sharp curve near Prescot. Then just as I slowed way down to negotiate that low and behold a deputy comes from the other direction.”
“That would have been a very expensive ticket,” I told her with a laugh. “Well the reason I didn’t take you up was for that very reason too. Some deputy had just pull onto the highway from another road and went past me.”
We both laughed then she went back to her car, and they took the right turn going to Walla Walla and I turned left going toward Clarkston. After eight miles I found myself in Dayton. There was a really nice restaurant called Bernard’s, but the overhead vents were not cleaned regularly and it caught fire and burned to the ground. A vacant lot appeared as the one and only reminder that a restaurant ever existed. I also noticed the old A&W drive-in no longer exists either.
Columbia Fruit Packers replaced the Green Giant packing plant I noticed as I drove passed that heading out of town and back to the highway. As I mentioned earlier my itinerary was to go to Clarkston and then head north to homebase near Cheney. But then I spotted State Route 127 with Central Ferry and Colfax highway markers and immediately decided to take that route instead.
An hour later I was in Colfax buying a cup of coffee at a convenience store that not surprisingly sold WSU Cougar merchandise. I took a break and then realized I was starting to get tired and unless I planned to get a hotel room here, I had better get back on the highway and go home.
I’m home now relishing the trip, being with my sister and niece, and the drive home that ended with no surprises and incidents. Considering past road trips, that in itself is a bargain.
Jerry Schellhammer 