Yesterday we travelled "east of the mountains" because our niece had her very first art showing. She graduated with a fine arts degree a few years ago and she was a featured artist at the college she attended. She has sold commissions, but this was her first professional art showing. Why her first showing wasn't local is a convoluted story not worth telling. (someone knew a guy who knew a guy)
Unfortunately, it was in a small town (population 19,000) It's a university town and it has a famous rodeo. When I searched for things to do in this town, there were like seven things. Three of which were breweries and wine cellars and one was a local museum.
So, we took "the back roads" to get there before crossing over the main pass outside of Seattle. We were in no hurry and it was a really nice trip over the mountains.
At the top of the pass, we stopped to use the bathroom and get breakfast. But we took one exit too soon and we ended up in a tourist trap, most of which wasn't open yet. We impulsively decided on getting an overpriced breakfast sandwich and left. Just to see the town we were supposed to stop in off the next exit. Welcome to traveling with Surely and Kevin.
While we were waiting for said sandwich, I was looking at the display locomotive across the street and making Sheldon jokes when I noticed a sign in the window. The Health Department rating for this particular establishment was a C. As in: okay. LITERALLY IT SAID "OKAY". The next available rating was Above Average and the next was Excellent. I thought it was a good sandwich, Kevin was meh about it. Probably because I unwisely pointed out the "C" rating to him.
We get to this town two hours later, maybe, and there is a landmark that all truckers and farmers know. Kevin LIT UP because he remembered seeing it when he rode with his dad to get hay when he was a child. Pause: Kevin's dad was a long-haul truck driver and bucked hay for YEARS. Continue.
Now we are there about five hours too early and we can't check into the hotel until 3. We found it anyway, on the main street, that is literally called Main Street and was satisfied with the location and appearance. I had chosen a private, local hotel over a chain hotel on the outskirts of town.
I now refer to the Top Things to Do in Town. There are few.
This region of the state is the only place in the whole world to find blue agates. So, that was my goal. We went to the park on the list, which was riverside and looked for rocks. While I went to the bathroom, Kevin spotted one in the river and went to get it. He stayed dry but opened his finger on something. He told me he said to himself "Maybe I should have waited for Surely to come back or at least leave the car keys on the bank." See, I'm not the only one in this house who makes questionable decisions searching for rocks. And I think that first rock is indeed a blue agate.
Then we walked along the interpretive trail along the river where I learned about materials like pit run, gravel, sand, etc. We talked about erosion and remediation. Kevin can do DEEP into this particular topic. I was reminded of how it was when we went to the Grand Canyon. Fun fact: you don't take an excavation company pit boss to a canyon. Color him: unimpressed.
We met a few dogs and had a nice walk in the SUN. Mygosh, the SUN WAS OUT. We were in t-shirts!!! Kevin said that alone was worth the trip.
We started to return to town when we spotted a coffee stand. We stopped and got a drink then found a place to eat lunch. We found a nice restaurant in the center of town, staffed with college kids. It was clearly a locals hangout. I don't know why but we were clearly marked as outsiders. Maybe because we weren't wearing cowboys boots.
One of our favorite games is to overhear and interpret conversations. The winner being a guy ghosting a girl on a date when she went to the bathroom. He paid the bill and peaced out. To be fair, she was on her phone the ENTIRE TIME.
Anyway.
There were two elderly gentleman having lunch and they were talking about farming and fishing and all the things you would expect. Then a couple and a man sat across from us. Kevin motioned with his eyes to peek and I thought "Oh, no. It's a pastor." He had a notebook and papers, dressed in a suit. It was obvious that they were meeting to go over something
Then Kevin heard something about a car and insurance. But I heard something about an excavator so now I'm curious. Then Kevin flinched and did the ASL sign for crying. I exclaimed "OH NO" significantly louder than I wanted to.
Meanwhile, Kevin is also watching a toddler eat mac and cheese with his dad. His dad who is doing dad things and not paying attention. Kevin reported that little man spilled a big spoonful of mac and cheese onto the seat. Not to be wasteful, he scooped it up in this little fist and ate it. Then shortly thereafter, ran said hand through his hair. By the time they left, it was everywhere; including his sock monkey backpack.
But now I'm invested in the couple across from us. It turns out that they had either lost their house or had it heavily damaged by what sounded like flooding, but man caused flooding.
Then I learned that text message responses can be admissible in court. Because the couple received a shrug emoji text in response to a question and the lawyer said "Between the emails and the texts, we should be able to make a case with the judge."
We had to leave so we didn't get to hear the rest of the situation but I'm still thinking about that poor couple.
Next, we drove down the street parallel to main street, which was literally just another main street. All brick buildings in good repair, many store fronts closed and not much interesting. We bumped into a grocery store, which was perfect timing because I had to GO. And yes, Kevin asked why I didn't go at the restaurant and I don't have a good reason.
Now we have two hours still before we can go to the hotel. I looked at the list of Things to Do and found one of the things was just a few blocks away. It was a private home, decorated with thousands of bottle caps, reflectors, and other repurposed items. The display notice said they've been working on it for over 45 years and had other artists help. There was a twisted chimney with a mannequin head in it and it's a good thing I'm not a screamer because it scared the snot out of me. We walked around the block and saw all the things then returned to the car. That took about twenty minutes.
I searched for Antique stores and nothing. I searched for ice cream and nothing beyond fast food or grocery stores. We have already crossed off the Travel for Ice Cream Adventure off of our list.
Again, there is nothing to do in this town and we had done most of what was listed:
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#6 was the gallery opening. #1 and 2 were closed |
We went to the hotel and figured out parking. It is a refurbished building and the parking is in the back of the hotel but not right behind it so it was kind of a thing. Kevin thought we should just go in and see if there was a room ready or if the hotel had a suggestion of things to do.
Luckily our room was ready and there was really not anything else to do. (even the girl at the coffee stand laughed uncomfortably and didn't have any suggestions when we asked) We went to our room, unpacked and took a really good nap. It was a relief to not have something to do, somewhere to go, someone to take care of. I don't think either of us realize how tired we actually were. Mentally and physically.
We woke up in time to attend the opening. We dressed up a little because we didn't know and got in the car. Kevin said "I hope we don't lose our parking spot" because the lot had filled since we arrived. He pulled out into the street, saw our family outside the gallery that we didn't notice was RIGHT THERE. He pulled around the block and someone had ALREADY taken our spot. We found another and laughed at the situation.
We walked the whole block to the gallery and it was fun to say "We're here for the Niece's Name showing" and be shown to the gallery. She does charcoal drawings and they're pretty amazing. There were twenty hung around the room. They had her full name as the artist, they were gallery priced and had a note card with her as the featured artist for attendees, and a posted bio. It was quite the experience to see her in that element.
It was fun to watch which drawings people gravitate to. We all had our favorites so it was an ongoing discussion. We encouraged her and created ways to get her to interact with attendees, which I can't imagine how awkward one would feel doing. Then we walked through the rest of the gallery/museum then left thirty minutes before closing.
Kevin decided he wanted pizza for dinner, which is unlike him. I will eat pizza every day but he's kind of whatever about it. Where we live, there are a million Mexican and Thai places but not a really good pizza place. So, we had a goal. Kevin asked the gallery curator (who was wearing custom cowboy boots with her dress) where to go. Turns out, it was walkable and right next to the grocery store we had been at earlier.
Now it's Friday evening and the restaurant is full. We could wait thirty minutes or we could eat outside. The sun hadn't gone down yet so I'm all Let's Eat Outside. I didn't do the math of the Restaurant is Full versus the time it would take to get our meal. We were chilled by the time the food arrived but the pizza was SO GOOD. I lamented that we found great pizza and it's over a doggone mountain pass to get to it.
We walked back to the hotel and CRASHED. Kevin was asleep almost immediately but I was determined to relax a minute. I read two chapters of my book and realized This is Dumb, Go to SLEEP. We woke up at 7:30 and was on the road at 8:00. Originally we were going to return to the restaurant for breakfast but we were both not in the mood. We went back to the only coffee stand in town then got onto the highway.
This time, we travelled the main thoroughfare the whole way. Traffic was omgosh speeding and we made record time back to the green side of the state. We stopped for breakfast at our regular place. Yes, we have a regular place, we have gotten that old.
The gallery is featuring Niece through May and she sold one painting after we left. The curator seemed to think that selling more wasn't going to be a problem. Now she's officially a professional artist and she can decide if she wants to pursue that more or return to doing commissions and for pleasure.
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This was our Christmas gift a few years ago |
Now we are home to a very happy dog and still have the weekend ahead of us. We're glad we went and equally glad to be home. And we don't feel the need to return to that town. Everyone was nice, every place we went to was nice. We just don't need to go back. Except maybe for pizza.