Kittee and I met Mom at the train station in Pasco, WA.Since I was 3 years old, my Mom and I have been making trips to the west coast – Pendleton, OR from N. Carolina, by car (family vacations), by plane (vacations and fishing trips), but my Mom has always wanted to do a cross country trip by train. Well she has finally gotten old enough to make a 4-day train trip on her own, so this year she made the cross country train trip from Charlotte. She said it was a beautiful, relaxing trip, and she met some interesting people on the way out. She also said that the service and food was excellent with a "we want you back-- by Amtrak" attitude all the way across country. After we got back to the ranch Kittee and I rode horses in our riverside arena, then we spent the balance of the day relaxing with Mom and handling horses. Mom even was hand feeding my Misty (up close and personal) as we sit under the shade of the backyard walnut tree waiting for Misty to dry from her after ride shower. That evening we introduced my Mom to a FIRST new experience --- eating in a Mexican restaurant. Now don't get me wrong, my Mom has traveled the world since she retired... Germany, the USSR (before it turned back into Russia), Austria, the Czech Republic, etc. and lived in Peru for awhile, but had never eaten in a Mexican restaurant. Well, Kittee and I have taken care of that. Now at 80 years old my Mom has eaten twice in Mexican restaurant since being on this trip to Oregon.
Sunday, morning we treated Mom to our ranch's apple-bread French Toast and sausage breakfast. She enjoyed that. Thereafter we prepared for the arrival of our Pendleton family to have an evening get together with a BBQ ribs dinner. A lot of the meal preparation I had done on Saturday, so Sunday was an easy day with a Fuzzy Navel in Mom's hand to keep her relaxed and on holiday.
Mid-afternoon the family from Pendleton began to show up, and everyone circled up for a chit-chat family gathering.
This year we missed cousin Worth, as he was working the graveyard shift at the flour mill and cousin Nicole, now hanging out somewhere in Texas. I did get a three generation’s picture of Aunt Pat with cousins Lynn and Brilynn. 
With Aunt Pat and Mom finding the need to eat by the clock, we had a good spread of munchies for them to work on before the evening BBQ meal was presented. Afterwards the saucy ribs and trimmings were consumed, I think everyone was well sufficed. So as the sun was sinking slowly in the west, a few mosquitoes became present and everyone began to go about their own merry way.Monday, was Memorial Day so Kittee and I did a little horseback riding after breakfast. After lunch/ mid-afternoon we took Mom for a stroll back to our Contemplation Station by the river.
There we probably sit and chatted for the better part of an hour, watching the shades and shadows of the sun change on the backyard bluff wall. Heading back to the house we stopped for a few piques of the green view of the Upper Walla Walla River Valley.
By the time we strolled back to the house, had dinner, sit around and chatted until it was time to call the holiday weekend done. Tuesday Kittee and Mom headed for Pendleton, I was off in my Big Yellow school bus for my last week of schoolwork.Interesting FIRST new experience --- for me took place on Friday, 29 May; I had my first acupuncture treatment from Dr. Vu in Walla Walla. More to come about this experience, as it progresses. The needles are painless.
This past Sunday, we had another ranch BBQ with Mom and introduced our upriver friends the Cospers, to our Walla Walla friends the Hopwoods. It was another most pleasant evening get together, dinner, but my Mom has now developed a hay fever allergy reaction to the pollens of the great outdoors over the past week. Sad. Even my stallion Rusty has also developed an eye irritation reaction this past week.
and that's the way it is with life around the ranch lately --- Dale
1 comment:
Your mom looks great for 80! Enjoyed reading about her train trip - we want to do that someday too.
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