We started out the next morning driving to Texarkana where we had a short visit with my sister and her family.

Then we took the train to Chicago and met my future daughter-in-law and step-grandchild (that’s my #1 son in the picture, too).

Then back to Texarkana, and some time spent checking out the cemetery, Old Washington, and Hope, AR – all important for my genealogy interests. The obligatory “State Line” photo in front of the Texarkana, USA, Post Office.

And of course a trip to Bryce’s Cafeteria (where I met LeMichael James’ aunt).

Next it was a visit to Burns, TN, to see my cousin and spend a couple of days with her.

Then we drove down the Natchez Trace…

…on our way to see #2 son and his family in South Louisiana.

Then began our trek across the country. I declared I didn’t want to mess with Interstate Highway travel, so we kept to the regular US highways as much as possible.  This is a stretch of the old Route 66 that’s still there in Western Oklahoma (or maybe the Texas panhandle).

While we were in Amarillo, we got a chance to visit Palo Duro Canyon, and really enjoyed our time there, particularly since it was a little rainy and not too hot.

Unfortunately, we still had to ride on the Interstate in some places, like here in New Mexico.

We took a couple of days and drove up to Santa Fe and Taos.

Then due south through New Mexico and turned west again on I-10. We got to see White Sands.

And then into Arizona where we took a detour to see an old trading post and Indian war Fort.

A couple of days in Tucson, and then north through Phoenix and into Flagstaff where we finally got to see some trees again.

Then the Grand Canyon

Bryce Canyon National Park

and Zion National Park

North through Utah, and into Idaho where we saw Craters of the Moon National Park.

And on to Spokane where my father was born. We found one of the houses he lived in as a child.

Then across the great state of Washington, including the Columbia River Gorge.

and in to Tacoma, and Franke Tobey Jones.

Thus endeth our trek from Dallas to Tacoma.

Tomorrow, I’ll try to review a few of the highlights of our year here.

I spent the family fortune at the garden store on Saturday, but I got most of these plants then, and got them planted before the weather changed.

These are cute little fuzzy purple flowers. I have no idea what they are called but I liked them.

These are three lupine that I got about a month ago. I think the first and third ones are going to be blue and the middle one will be white, but we shall see. They were barely seedlings when I brought them home, but I’m assured the deer won’t eat them.

These are two daisies of some size, shape or description. I have no idea what color their flowers are going to be, but the top one looks like it’s going to bloom any time now, so I won’t have to wait to long to find out. They also arrived as seedlings about a month ago, and you can see the bottom one got bent over, either in the wind or chasing the sun, at some time in the past. They are also guaranteed to be anathema to deer.

These are two new window boxes that are going to be hung up with brackets on the rails. They are mostly verbena, I think, and the deer supposedly don’t like it. They are also supposed to attract butterflies. I have more of it in the hanging baskets.

Two more verbena, in blue and red. They spread out all over the place (as you can see) and should be great to fill in around the bottom of other pots.

This hanging basket was here when we moved in. It was originally filled with all different kinds of succulents, but most of it had died from lack of water while the house was empty. I cleaned a lot of it out and the two tall things grew up from whatever rootstock was left. I added the blue-green and lime-green mounding things. I think they are a relative of Hens and Chickens, but I’m not sure what they are called.

I got this little pot of viola at the spring Women’s Association meeting for the church. They are thriving!

These are two flat bowl-shaped containers that I put begonia, and more verbena in. There also a little white flower that I can’t remember the name of, and there’s more of the dwarf petunias in the bottom bowl. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know they aren’t dwarf petunias, but I don’t remember their names either).

I know I said I’d never have begonias again after they were the only things I could grow in the shade in Dallas, but aren’t those flowers the prettiest things you’ve ever seen? I just hope I have enough verbena sprinkled around that the deer won’t be tempted to come up on the deck to nibble the flowers of everything else down to the ground.

First some views from lunch at the Ram, sitting outside on the deck, watching the sound.

Followed by some good shots of the neighbors here at Tobey Jones at our Duplex Social that we have once a month. The weather was so great (low 70s and sunny) we thought we’d have it outside in the Gazebo.

We finally got our server at the Ram to admit that the reputation the Pacific Northwest has for rainy skies and cold weather year round is just the residents blowing smoke, trying to keep the rest of the country from finding out how wonderful it is around here. It’s been years since I’ve had a REAL spring (in Arkansas and Texas it goes right from summer to winter and back to summer – usually twice in the same week).

Have I said lately how much I love it here?

Uh…

The reason I’m doing this is because my Outlook won’t connect.

I’ve even tried telling it what server to look on (the one that is happily feeding my email to my iPad and iPhone), and it says I’m certainly not there.

I guess it will be okay until I have to change my password. Then I don’t know what I’ll do, because I can’t change it from the Apple products, but I can’t connect on the Microsoft stuff.

I REALLY don’t want to start over with a new email account somewhere. My life (calendar, contacts, RSS feeds, as well as email) is in that Exchange account.

It was 3 PDT, but as you can see it was really 2 p.m. sun time.

I think this was the first time I had ever gone in the original entrance. It’s usually closed and locked, but they had the doors open today because it was so warm.

Kate, the program director, had forgotten she had a trip to see the Tacoma Rainiers (minor league baseball team), so she wasn’t there, and consequently, the games weren’t there either. We didn’t have too many people show up, so there was no great loss, but it would have been nice to play something (either bridge or cribbage or something).

Oh, well, we’ll play bridge tomorrow afternoon, anyway.

We did get a good look at THE mountain (or as one of my friend’s kids say, “Mount Reindeer”).

I may get tired of looking at it one day, but not yet. Not for a while yet.

We had the Tacoma Marathon today (TBTG, there were no bombs or other problems that I know of), but it did mean I had to carefully plot a route to church. I had to cross the route twice, but I didn’t have any problems because the police were guarding the cross streets and alerting traffic if there were runners coming. (Remember, we live between 13 and 14 on the map, and the church is on the hill above 20.)

With the beautiful weather, I would have loved to eat lunch on Commencement Bay (to the east of us), but I figured with the marathon running right along Ruston Way, the restaurants there would be packed.

So we went to Steamers on Titlow Beach (just south of the bridge on the west side of the peninsula).

It was a good choice since there’s a wonderful little park right there.

So after lunch Big Al and I sat on the boardwalk…

…and looked at the bridges and the water and sniffed the sea air…

…and watched kids splashing in the shallows and doggies chasing balls in the Sound.

Then on the way home we took a detour through Point Defiance Park. Everybody and their aunt’s uncle had decided to take the kids to the zoo, so it was pretty crowded around the entrance, but we were able to get out of the crowds on 5-mile drive (thankfully, the marathon was long over.)

Vashon Island was its own beautiful self.

The Tacoma Narrows bridges looked just as good from the north as they had from the south.

And the view of Gig Harbor was wonderful. It’s a pity my camera isn’t good enough for you to see the Olympic mountains behind the peninsula between the trees. They are still snow-capped and beautiful.

One for the back porch…

…and one for the front porch.

And we had a great Cinco do Mayo party with margaritas (both virgin and not) and a really good Mariachi band.

Big Al…

…and his trusty sidekick!

Raise your voice and urge your members of Congress to ensure a place at the table for all God’s people. Tell them to:

1. Protect and strengthen SNAP. SNAP effectively and efficiently helps 47 million low-income Americans put food on the table. As unemployment and poverty have remained high, the number of families at risk of hunger has not increased since 2008.
2. Improve international food aid in ways that make the program more efficient while also targeting the nutritional needs of women and children in the 1,000-day window from pregnancy to age 2. The emergency food aid program, Food for Peace, reached over 53 million people last year.

Cuts to these programs will mean no food on the table for millions of our brothers and sisters. Call your senators and representative today at 1-800-326-4941 or send them an email.