Happy Halloween from the Flight Deck!

Fasten your seatbelts everyone, we are hoping for clear skies, but we might hit a little turbulence en route. The refreshment cart will be through in a bit, and thank you for flying Pan Am.

Happy Halloween!

Sunday Fun: Indian Blankets and Indian Casinos

On Sunday we checked ourselves out of the Working Girls Hotel, (after one more delicious diner breakfast!) and then got busy wrapping up the rest of our touristry. First up: The Pendleton Woolen Mill! I looooove this "Sir Wooliam." Hilarious.

It explicitly said on the door and on the web that NO tours were given on weekends. But apparently that was a big fat lie, because they announced one as we walked in. And as sister LOVES tours about how things are made, we were so there. The tour wasn't two hours, thankfully, but mostly we learned they use this...

...and these... (So colorful!!)

...to make these! Then they are shipped to the Washougal plant for washing and piling. Mostly what we learned is they spend a lot of time truck blankets back and forth from Pendleton to Washougal. So fancy though.

Sister tried her darnedest to blow the rest of her Social Security check on cigarettes and one-armed bandits. No! She gave up a crisp five dollar bill and got nothing in return. It was fun tho. The Wildhorse is pretty fancy. It's like being transported to Vegas. Or at least Reno. If you've ever been to the casino at Kahneeta, it's like being transported to...Madras.

Last on our agenda: visit with some of Pendleton's finest. Here's my HILARIOUS sister documenting me being stopped by the 5-0 for speeding on our way back from the casino... 40 in a 30 as you enter town. Diet Cokes only, of course. After a lot of Yes sir, No sir I had no idea, thank you officer, Business? No, we're just visiting Pendleton from out of town, he let us go with a warning. I think considering how much we spent boosting the local economy, the Chamber of Commerce would have approved of the warning I received. ;)

Underground Tour!

This was the third of the underground tours we've done together...after Seattle's and Portland's. It was a little more kitchy that Seattles, but much meatier than Portland's.

In fact, we were under Pendleton for two hours. This is a very realistic model, not a fellow tourgoer who couldn't take it anymore.

No underground tour complete without highlighting the purple manganese sidewalk prisms.

I love ceiling tiles. These ones were in a former pool hall. We have considered putting them in our house, but they end up being quite pricey. The little baggie held camphor during prohibition to cover up the smell of booze.

My favorite part of the tour: the original "Cozy Rooms" door that was boarded up in the late 50s and unboarded in the late 90s... intact! I hope they do something to reinforce or preserve that right pane, it's not going to last forever like this.

Small Town

Pendleton is still very much a small town. Cute as a bug, really. Sister with the big boot at Hamley's.

And then my turn.

We got lunch at this greasy spoon Saturday afternoon. I will say, they served the best steak fingers I've ever had -- and supposedly invented in my own town. HAH! Pendleton's rocked. That cute table of boys behind me was the male half of a wedding party that came in for beers and nachos before their pix and then the ceremony. They were hilarious in their ill-fitting tuxedos. One of my many odd high school jobs was measuring men for tuxes at the rental place in town. I would have done a MUCH better job.

We waited and hour and then came back to peruse the goods (mostly the sparkly belt buckles). When we walked in we said "Hey Mike...how was lunch?" He said it was good...his second that day. ;)

We really wanted to peruse the items in this shop, but she closed early and never opened again. This was true at another establishment that had a similar sign saying "Sorry, closed. Forgot about a doctor's appointment. Back Monday."

And of course, we can't forget the strange man in the ladies room at Hamley's. It almost looks like he has weird wings. It reads more cougar bar than steakhouse to me, but whatevs.

Su-ite!

We were lucky to get the suite -- the only unit with an in-room bath. I loved the old school brick!

And this old vanity. Neither of can see a sit-down vanity without thinking of ya, Stace. ;) Such luxury.
I told sister it was nice of them to hang this painting of me sleeping. She said I wouldn't probably be sleeping if I had that many babies around me. EXCELLENT point, angels or otherwise.

But enough of the room. Time for sister to don these....

And me these, and hit the town!

The Ghosts of Dead Hookers

Sorry, couldn't pass up the opportunity to use that line. It was Sisters in...Pendleton!! Doesn't roll off the tongue quite as easily as Sisters in Sisters, eh? Regardless, it is halfway betwixt our towns, so why not split the drive for a fun weekend together? And since we had to wait until quittin' time to leave, we stayed at the Working Girls Hotel! Hee hee!
It's a former bordello, and possibly haunted at that. No, not scary at all... no sir-ee... nope...

It was actually a sweet place to stay. It's an unmanned hotel (key code yourself in!) and we had the place to ourselves, save a cute couple who were also from our respective towns. I was shocked to see the cream and sugar from the Style House "Rose Baroque" Fine China set I own that was my parents' (made in Japan for Montgomery Wards!) They ditched it long ago, after discovering it wouldn't survive the dishwasher. I love it, and have never seen it anywhere else! :)

The second floor room kept us from the street noise, but we did have to negotiate these severe stairs every time we left.... and you KNOW how good I am at falling down...

I'm pretty good at falling down on these too, so I was glad they warned me.

On Deck...

And lastly, the best part of yurting? The deck. We both agreed this pic was reminescent of the deck on the old Neer City Road house. :)

I could have just sat here all day. One day I think I did!

After you waited just a bit for the dew to dry, of course!

There was a lot of this action.

Such a fun yurtinghuntinganniversary weekend!

Guest Photographer

You aren't going to believe this.

My husband (with his entire year of photography training from Uncle Sam) found his camera!

AND USED IT! To take pix of...ME! This is mostly unprecedented. As indicated by use on this blog of the phrase "proof I was there."

I like this pix a lot. It reminds me of a similar photo from our hitchin', the sun shining behind us on the beach!

Yurt Hunting

Yay! Yay! Yay! Let's go adventuring!

I'm so excited to go out adventuring!

OK...that 10 feet of the trail to the truck was all I could muster....please carry me the rest of the day. Thank you kind sir.

From the yurt we were able to head out for some driving around, hiking around, and hunting! Some of it on lovely, lovely roads like this one.

As evening was drawing to a close, we drove through this scary old burn.

You will note that there are no more peaks taller than us in the picture. (!) That's because I think we drove all the way to the top.

Night Yurting

A wood stove. I'm still psyched at this discovery. A little warm wood heat...

These delicious, tho rather plain, individual cheesecakes I made...

...and what everyone takes camping with them -- a bottle of 2000 Gaston Chiquet champagne...from the year of our hitchin'! But which was actually a birthday present to me. I know! Who would have guessed I would have let that age for another 10 months!?! Then gettin' your butt kicked at Scrabble, and pretty much, anniversary yurting is complete! (We played twice and we each got our butt kicked once!)

Contemplative Spot

Up the hill a ways from the yurt was a little viewpoint that I dubbed "the contemplative spot..." in which one is able to contemplate...

And shoot.

But not guns please. Use common sense and not discharge firearms within a quarter-mile of the yurt.

Out in the far distance there we actually witnessed a small lightning fire that torched a few trees and smoldered through the night. So for a while we were contemplating watching a forest fire. But no, it went out. The contemplative spot was saved. Phew!