We make it to T-Town

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Right now, it's Tuesday afternoon in Tacoma.  I've just had lunch and a shower, and before that a bike ride along a route formerly traveled several times a week when I was a Tacoma resident.  I visited Costco and REI and came out of it with my glasses newly adjusted and a resignation to continue shopping for shoes and other elements of my wardrobe for my son Tyler's wedding on August 31.  We spent 3 days at the ocean on the southern Washington state coast, at Seaview and Ilwaco.  It was the 10th year in a row that Carol and I and 8 others have done this, at the same beach house rental.  Spectacular.  Discovery Trail

We are on the road, and have no nearby place to park our travel trailer.  A friend cleared brush on her land and had an electrical service installed for us, but that's 20 miles away from everyone.  Have you lived this way before, no home and no reservations?  I haven't.  Friends are so generous, they will offer to help in so many ways.  They provide basic shelter as we engage in bed surfing (it helps when your friends, unlike us, still have the "big house" that is now an "empty nest" with space available).  They even offer to provide clothing (borrowing shoes to wear for one day at the wedding) and food (fridge free-for-all policy).  It's physically very comfortable but one must deal with the awareness of being present in a micro community without paying dues.

Today we did some work to arrange for meet-ups with family and friends, including a couple baseball games, one in the majors (Seattle Mariners) and the other minors (Tacoma Rainiers).

Brief summary:
From Billings, we drove to Butte.  From our campground, it was straight up the hill to the downtown area, and we really enjoyed the people and places we found. This city was built largely on mining, in the late 19th and early 20th century it was one of if not the largest producer of copper ore in the world.  Labor union energy was strong here and reportedly Butte was never a "company town".  The largest hard rock mining disaster, taking 168 lives, occurred here in 1917.  Breweries were big in those days, and these days it's micro-breweries (which we enjoyed so much that our one day in town did not include visiting any of the historic sites).  Biked past some of them no doubt on our way to Muddy Creek Brewing and the Butte Brewing Company. 

Then on to Cheney, home of Eastern Washington University.  Great morning bike ride around the perimeter of campus. Surrounded by wheat and barley fields (Spokane county is the #1 wheat producing and #2 barley producing county in the US). Couldn't find a Sunday Times. 

Tacoma!  Lots of people, places and things.  Our visit is flying by.
If you are a university you need one of these.  EWU



Just outside Seaview. Wallapa National Wildlife Refuge.  The red-legged frog can leap 4 feet.

Wildlife Refuge headquarters forest loop hike. The hemlocks and western red cedars were magnificent
All the "beach people", our 10th year in Seaview, WA


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