Our trip to the northwest, August 2019


After realizing that it had been too long since we saw our friends in the great northwest, we decided to make a trip to see them. We started by flying to Portland. We had hoped to have dinner with Louise's cousin Frank, but our flight was delayed so we had to cancel. Instead, we hopped into our rent-a-car and drove immediately down to Silverton, about an hour south, to see Ralph and Judy. Ralph I know from the early 70ies, when he was finishing his Ph.D. in biology at Yale. He taught for many years at Gettysburg College; after retiring a couple of years ago, he and Judy moved to the Portland area, where two of their children lived. (He swears that it had nothing to do with marihuana being legal in Oregon.) It was a real treat seeing them after too many years.

Silverton is a nice little town, with nice little buildings, not much traffic and nice little pot dispensaries. These are heavily regulated, but charming none-the-less. You can buy buds with different names, although I have no idea if they provide discernably different effects. You can also buy joints-ready-to-smoke, packaged somewhat like cigarettes, or liquid THC for cooking. It's a brave new world out there!

We also learned about Silverton's most famous one-time resident, Silverton Bob. In 1923, two-year old Bob (or Bobbie) was on a trip to Wolcott, Indiana with his family when he became separated from the rest of the family. The family was unable to locate him, so they returned to Oregon without him. Six months later, Bob showed up in Silverton, to be reunited with his family. It appeared that he had walked the whole way, including swimming rivers and crossing the continental divide during the coldest part of the winter, covering a total of as much as 3,000 miles. You'd have thought that the one idea that kept him going all that time was vengeange and that he would burst into their house, guns blazing, but you'd be wrong. Instead, it was love that kept him going! When he burst into the house, it was to lick all of their faces raw!

Bob became a national hero. He played himself in the 1924 silent film The Call of the West and was featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not! And when he died, fellow canine star Rin Tin Tin laid a wreath at his grave.

The story of Silverton Bob
Insisde the dispensary
Strolling through nearby Silver Park
Mount Hood in the distance Peter at breakfast Music at the park Rudy's dream

After three fun-filled days in Silverton, we drove back to Portland where we spent the night before catching an early flight to Seattle. We had booked an apartment through AirBnB, which was not as close to our friends Andreas and Connie as we would have liked, so we rented a car to give us more flexibility.

The first thing we discovered was that the apartment was only a block away from Archie McPhee. I don't believe that we had actually gone to Archie McPhee before, but Toni had gotten hold of their catalog years ago and fallen in love with it, demanding that we purchase all of her Christmas present from then on from Archie McPhee. They sell the weird and the silly, from plastic vomit and rubber chickens to inflatable turkeys. Of course, we went to the store and spent an hour or so admiring and/or purchasing much of their stock. Here are some pictures from the outside and inside of their store:

We spent some time with Andreas and Connie, although Andreas was working and it was hard for him to get away. We also took a side-trip to Snoqualmie Falls, which Andreas had taken us to years ago.

Top of the falls Rainbow The falls in the mist Louise on the trail to the base of the falls
An old tusker Louise resting Peter resting Rushing water on the top of the falls

Our last trip to see friends involved taking the ferry to Kingston to see Joe Jack and Peggy. It was a wonderful day, and we poked about a bit in and near Kingston.

Ferry getting started Louise on the ferry Peter Peter with Joe Jack and Peggy
Site of Point No Point treaty signing Lighthouse JJ and Louise Peggy

We still had a day before returning to Austin. After taking the ferry back to Seattle, we went to tourist ground zero - Pike Place Market. It was crowded (natch) but still enjoyable. We bought some trinkets, watched the tourists (but not us) standing in an endless line to get into the very first Starbucks, and strolled around. Andreas was an early adopter of Starbucks, but then became enraged when the corporate mermaid was changed to a more stylized design. "Where are the nipples?" - he protested, and has not drunk a cup of Starbucks since then.

Sign for the original fish market Watch out for rebel scum Line for Starbucks The original Starbucks logo
Peter with totem pole Peter Louise R2D2 (actually our portable a/c unit)


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