A Quick Trip to Clarkston, WA, June 11-13, 2015

Before my trip to Grand Junction and the dinosaurs, Jerri had asked me to go with her to Washington to pick up two of her grandchildren. Of course I said yes, not thinking that there was only a day of being home before we would take off again. Oh well, there would be two of us driving the twelve-hour route to Clarkston, WA.

The drive was really quite pretty and different from what I had expected. It had rained quite a bit in the desert from Reno to Winnemucca and there were many puddles and small lakes that glimmered in the dawn’s early light. We turned north on US 95 from Winnemucca and stayed on that road until we were almost to Clarkston. There is quite a bit of desert in the Nevada portion of 95 but it changes to rolling grassy hills in Oregon. There we espied several pronghorn.

Pronghorn do not live in North America!

I forgot to tell you that Shirley and I learned there are NO antelope in North America, only pronghorn. (That was an amazing factoid to me as the deer and the antelope have always played on the range. I guess pronghorn just didn’t work in the verse). Anyway, they are pretty animals and seem well adapted to their range in Oregon and Idaho.

We passed through a lot of farmland in Idaho as well as woods that are used to recreation and lumber production. In fact, southwestern Idaho farmers grow more than a billion pounds of onions each year! We saw many other crops but that stuck in my mind. We also saw many beautiful horses and other livestock along the way. Of course, there were many youngsters who were prancing and dancing around the pastures.  Canola is grown in eastern Washington, too. We drove by miles and miles of these fields.

One crop that surprised us was the growth of canola plants. They look like a short mustard plant (at least that’s what we thought as we were zooming along the highway. Sorry about the reflection from the window).

Erik, Jerri’s oldest son, lives in Clarkston with his wife, Tori, and her nephew, Alex. I should have taken a picture of his house as it is 116 years old and looks pretty good for its age. Erik says the doors don’t always fit well and there is quite a draft in the winter, but it works for them. Erik is the personal gardener for the president of Washington State University in Pullman and the grounds for which he is responsible look terrific.  During our one full day there, he took us on a tour of the campus and the presidential grounds. I was quite impressed with everything we saw. Erik planted over 2000 scarlet (or red) tulips so that the presidential grounds were very colorful in the spring. We didn’t see them, but we did tour the front and back yards. The president is quite ill and we were not able to meet him or his wife, but at least we got to see the grounds.

The WSU president’s home

A portion of the back yard

Erik is at the old entrance to the university

Sierra and Erik in a little private glen he made for the WSU president

Sierra, Jerri and Erik

We had a great snack at Ferdinand’s, the WSU creamery. Wow! They make super ice cream and delicious cheese there! You might have guessed that Ferdinand’s is named after Ferdinand the bull, which doesn’t quite compute, but it’s cool and all visitors check it out.

This is the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers. Clarkston is behind the hill on the right and to the right of the river. The salmon fishing is great there and many, many people fish in those two rivers. Clarkston is also where a paddlewheel boat docks after a river cruise.

We took a walk along the Snake River and I happened to get a picture of young Alex taking a rest break.

Jerri, Alex and Dalan are checking out the river.

That evening, all of us went to Effie’s for the world’s biggest burgers. Oh my gosh! This is no lie. An Effie burger is at least 9 to 10 inches diameter!  If I’d had my camera, I’d have taken a picture of it so that you would believe this story. Jerri and I split one and we couldn’t finish it. I was so stuffed that I couldn’t eat any dessert. That’s extremely unusual for me. The only one who finished his split burger was Erik and then he ate Alex’s leftovers.

This is a photo from the interet since I didn’t get my own photo. But you get the idea of how big this burger is.

The trip was too short, but I’m glad we did it.  I got to meet Tori and Alex for the first time and that was good.  I got to see Erik’s workplace and find find out why he’s so rightfully proud of his work.  He seems very contented and happy there in Clarkston and is looking forward to staying there for many years with Tori and Alex.  Thank you Erik, Tori and Alex for your hospitality!

We left about 5 AM the next morning for the return trip to Minden. Jerri and I entertained ourselves by guessing 50s and 60s artists on Sirius/XM. She seldom misses with the 60s folks and I don’t get many of either decade.  Sierra and Dalan listened to their tunes on their iPhones. They are the mod ones in the family. Again, it was a twelve-hour trip that seemed endless this time. Needless to say, we were all pretty tired when we got home.  I’m getting too old for this stuff.

Dalan expresses how we all felt when we arrived home.