July 11 Packwood, WA. - near Mt. Rainier

Wednesday

Breakfast with Russ and Kitty and then the 2 hour drive up to Dave and Darlene's.

Drove through Wonderland Campground in Naches, WA., where we'd had a lot for 8 years, eventually with a 5th wheel camper on it.  Spent many fun weekends there, and 6 weeks during 2012, when we came up from AZ.

When we arrived at Dave's, we saw John and Linda Cozad's 5th wheel.  We wondered why they hadn't been at Carol's, when they had said they would be.  We relaxed all afternoon, with we girls playing Rummikub.  At 4:00, the 25 or so of their friends arrived for a BBQ.  Most had heard Tom play two years ago and were anxious to see what he'd do tonight.  He kept them entertained for an hour and a half or so with several funny ones, serious ones and a new one entitled "The Angel Flight", that had most of them in tears.  It's about a pilot bringing home the body of a fallen soldier.

Here Dave was talking about on of the songs Tom Plays and sings.  The patio is along the side of their garage.  They have a nice A-frame home.  Since their name is Cartwright, they call their place The Ponderosa.


Thursday

Relaxed in their great backyard, played more Rummikub, and went to the clubhouse to show our Italy slides on the big screen.  Back to sit around the back yard, then hotdogs over the campfire in their big pit (it cooled down from the 93 the day before).  More music and watching a lone cow elk come into the yard, as she usually does.  Their yard backs up to a national forest.  Dave has seen more than 50 in those woods when the leaves are gone, and has had 30 in the yard at once.  He just leaves them alone.  If they started running, their hooves would tear up the lawn.  Their house is 3 doors from the golf course and pool.

Here are the Three C's in front of Dave and Darlene's camper:  From the left, John and Linda Cozad - he and Dave went to school together in Richland, WA. (Tri Cities).  He started at Hanford not long out of school.  Had cut part of his index finger off at a food processing plant, so couldn't join the military with that trigger finger partly missing - though he got into Basics and was on the range, shooting with the next finger, when the instructor told him to go get out!  Next:  Dave and Darlene Cartwright.  Dave served in the Marines 20 years.  Then us-Tom and Ev Campbell.  Tom served in the Air Force 24 years. 

Dave and Tom met at the Hanford Patrol Academy classes, where they were older than so many of the class, and had the military in common.  They decided we should all get together and Darlene and I hit it off.  She immediately told me I reminded her of her older sister, who had passed away.  Then they introduced us to John and Linda.  We watched our kids grow up, saw grandchildren arrive and grow, had many fun camping trips, and other get-togethers over 22 years, from 1990 through 2011.  I taught Darlene how to play Scrabble and she became proficient.  Linda enjoys Rummikub, so we always play that together.

We said our good-byes, got lots of neat hugs, and all turned in.  We told them we'd leave as soon as we awoke the next day.

July 9-10 Tri-Cities, WA.

Monday

What a fun day!  Tom and Sharon Halazon were leaving with their RV to go on vacation, but said they'd meet us for breakfast on their way out of town.

From there we drove the hour to Walla Walla, WA. to visit Chuck and Karen Hindman for the morning and breakfast.  The guys even strummed a few tunes together.

Then to Barb Warner's.  Her husband, Mark, was Tom's best friend for 20 years-gun shows, music.  He died from injuries in a motorcycle accident 23 months ago.  We hadn't seen Barb in that time.  She gave Tom one of Mark's banjos.  He's had one for many years, but never learned to play.  A man is teaching lessons in Vail, so he told her he'll sell his and learn on Mark's.  She also gave him three more of his Hawaiian shirts.

Back to Kennewick to take Russ and Kitty to Tom's favorite Chinese restaurant - the China Café.

Tuesday

Did a couple of errands and visited our former next door neighbor, Irmi, at Pinewood.  She is 85, doing well, and so glad to see us.

From there to Dave and Carol Schneidmiller's to prepare for our party.  They were gracious to open their home for 25 of our friends to come over.  It turned out that they knew a few of them.  We had lots of hugs, short visits, and Tom and Marc Harden played some music.  Tom loves doing that, but said he sure misses out on visiting when that goes on.  Everyone enjoys it and misses him not being around.  It was really nice to see everyone.

Vacation in conjunction with daughter's 40th birthday surprise July 8, 2014

July 8

We left Tuesday a.m. and had an uneventful trip to St. George, Utah.  Took a pretty picture of the Mormon Temple there.

Wed.
Drove to Idaho Falls, ID.  After dinner we walked by the river and falls.

Thursday
Drove to Missoula, MT.  We have been through there so many times on our way from Washington State to Tom's parents' in Livingston, MT., but had only stopped once- several years ago with our friends, the Cartwrights.  That time we ate at the Iron Horse Brew Pub, so we decided to do that again.  The food and beer were good, but the conversations and music were so loud.  Then we walked around downtown and over the bridge over the river.  Tom walked around Fort Missoula.

Friday - the big day!
I called her that morning, right after they had started their drive.  Wished them a safe trip and good weekend.

Tom visited a small air museum while we waited for game time.

Terry helped us figure out which ballpark they'd play in and we headed there early since she said Dalton left ahead of them with the team.  I asked some people if this was the right park and told them we were Dalt's grandparents and were there from AZ. to surprise him and Jacque.  They thought that was neat and said he was right there in the dugout and to go on over.  He must have heard us talking, because he came around the corner with a very startled look on his face.  He's 16.

 Jacque, her daughter, Peyton, and husband, Terry walked in, but we were hidden behind a building.  She was bent over looking at a shirt and I said "You don't need one of those."  She was speechless as she looked up and then said "What are you doing here?"  Then some tears.

Granddaughter, Peyton, 9, was really surprised, too!

We watched two games that day and two the next.  Dalt got struck out a couple of times, but had one good streak, where he had four RBI's and him in.  Then he and another guy teamed up to get the second and first basemen out.  We left Sunday afternoon to drive 5-6 hours, so couldn't stay for the 5:15 game that night-the one the coaches had saved Dalt to pitch at.  He got 9 strike-outs and kept them at zero until there was a really bad call.  The umps threw the coach out because he challenged them.  They lost 4-0.

Meanwhile, we drove to Kennewick, WA. to stay with our friends, Russ and Kitty Burtner.  We had dinner and an enjoyable two hours on their deck, which overlooks Canyon Lakes Golf Course.

Now I can post about our next trip-couldn't spoil a surprise for our daughter

Of course we already had this trip planned before we left for Italy.  It was to go to Post Falls, Idaho to surprise our daughter on her 40th birthday.  Her husband was the only one who knew we were coming and he called when he found out their son's baseball tournament would be in Missoula, Montana that weekend.  That made the trip even more exciting, since we haven't seen this awesome young man play for over two years.

Stay tuned-you never know where we might travel next!

Next year?  Tom's 50th class reunion will be in Waterloo, Iowa in September.  We want to go across the South to visit friends in San Antonio, visit the WW II museum in New Orleans and the Naval Aviation Museum at Pensacola, FL.  We'd like to visit friends in Arkansas and Illinois so I'll be looking at a long loop around before heading back to Tucson.

We want to visit the southeast and the northeast (especially in the Fall) and we need to find places where we can use our time-share points instead of losing them.

We want to go back to England, Scotland, and Ireland and also want to take a Baltic sea cruise to visit Scandinavia, Berlin, and St. Petersburg.

Recap of The Best of Italy Tour

We're glad we saw this country on a tour instead of driving.  Few street or highway signs were in English, and many people spoke very little English.

We visited Assisi and Orvieto, two small areas that we probably wouldn't have included in an itinerary we arranged.

The tour company arranged all the bus trips, funiculars, boats, mini-buses, etc.  We were at the head of the line at the Vatican, got right into the Academy of Arts to see the statue of David, Tower of Pisa, etc.

11 days- 1252 miles on the bus, plus 424 miles round-trip to Maratea and back to Rome on the train

Traversed 6,109 stairs (Tom 6,409)!!!!!  I may have missed a few, if, by chance, I was talking to someone. Ha!  Or listening intently to a guide.

We visited Rome, Florence, Orvieto, Montecatini, Assisi, Venice, Pisa, Positano, Pompeii, Isle of Capri, Sorrento.

It was a fantastic trip and we recommended it to friends several times in the first few days we were home.

Wednesday, June 18th-headed to airport and home-long day ahead

6/18:  Headed home.

Up at 4:00 with a headache.  Raining.  Bags in hall at 5:15 and taxi at 5:30.

Hotel gave us some breakfast items since the buffet isn't open yet.  At the airport bought some Americano coffee (not like Folgers!).  Everyone around us is eating subs.  Typical in much of Europe.  Many Italians only have coffee and croissants, we have been told many times.

Walked to the train to go to another area.  A young woman was looking around frantically and then ran up to me, asking if I was flying to Istanbul, Turkey.  I said no and she started to run to the escalator and I said, here, let us help you.  She needed to get on the same train as us and go to G-8, where ours was G-1.  Her boarding pass said they had started to board 25 minutes earlier, so I thought oh, no, she'll probably miss the plane.  When we got off I pointed to the G gates and told her to run fast.  About five minutes later that gate employee was paging one last passenger, so it was either her or someone else, and she made it.  We hoped so.

We showed our passports three times before getting on the plane.  We had some crackers with us, so bought a small package of salami and green olives.  11 days of running around and never had any olives that grow everywhere here.

We'll fly three hours-over Genoa, Paris, and into London.

A 14 year-old boy from San Francisco sat by me.  He and his grandma (chaperone) had just completed a one week educational tour to London, Florence, Paris and Rome,  Had never been anywhere but San Diego.  I thought he might have been of Italian descent and he said yes, and Portuguese.  His parents have never traveled to Europe.  His step-dad designs war tanks.

They served us breakfast at 8:45-ham and cheese sandwiches.  But I've been up 5 hours, so it felt ok.

Landed in London, walked to an area where a bus will take us to another terminal after one security guy asked us several questions.  At that gate went through security again.  We get so tired of the people who don't read the explicit signs and aren't ready, with jackets and watches off, shoes, etc., to go through the lines and hold everyone else up.  People ahead of us acted like they had all day and were the only ones there.  Walk to the gate and show passport, walk about 8 feet inside and have to show it again!

4,820 miles from here to Dallas-9-1/2 hours.  We have 3 seats for the 2 of us-wonderful!  Fussy 18 month old and 3 yr old.  Duh, bring something for them to play with, or a stuffed animal or doll for the baby, at least.  Tom suggests tranquilizers and stuff 'em in the overhead! My ankles are very swollen again.  The stewardesses gave me bags of ice to hold on them and lots of bottles of water.

Dallas-showed our passports 3 times, got bags, went through customs, re-checked bags.  Escalators, train to the domestic terminal.  Gulped down a burger and realized we had more time than we thought.  Then a thunderstorm hit and we had a one hour delay-so spent almost 4 hours there.

Maury and Susan picked us up.  Home at 10:15.  Bed at 10:30 with ice packs and elevated feet.  Awake 30 hours!

Tom was wide awake 4 hours later and me 5-1/2 hours.  Unpacked, threw everything in the wash.  A pot of good coffee!  (The next night I only slept 2-1/2 hrs and did 5 loads of wash between 11:30 and 3.)