Last Dance in Whidbey Island home

All of our furniture was on its way to our new home in Leisure World.  We stayed a few days to clean our home and pack our car.  The last thing we will pack is our dance shoes.  

Tomorrow we will be married eight years.  We got in one last dance, to celebrate how we got together:  We met at a dance.

"Glamping" in our rental (i.e., formerly known as Brigadoon, on Whidbey Island)

We had set the possession date for our home to be 2 1/2 weeks after the official sale date.  The main reason was that there were some important events we wanted to celebrate with grandchildren before we left Whidbey Island for good.  We also wanted to get everything in order--clean, downsize, and arrange for movers.

The movers came yesterday, and.........TOOK OUR FURNITURE!  How dare they!

We are without a bed or chairs or, well, actually, everything.

So we are camping out in the house.

We are sleeping on the inflatable mattress we use when camping in the desert:

The only chairs are the Adirondack chairs that ordinarily live on the front porch:

Otherwise, we are living in a ghost house.  Nothing there.  It is spooky, wrong, right, healthy, hopeful, plus any number of other feelings.  Simply, it just "is."

Roy Blatty

• I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
• Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
• I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
• All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
• Time to die.

Rutger Hauer, Roy Blatty in Blade Runner (one of the all-time great films) died today.

How many actors have as their legacy lines like this?

And he ad libbed it, off script.  When he was finished the entire production crew applauded.

Ebey's Landing: 8 years and 2 months later: Saying goodbye

One week after our first date (and coincidentally one week after we both knew it was love at first sight), 8 years and 2 months ago, we did something that foretold our future:  We went on a hike.

We went to Ebey's Landing.  Here is a photo someone took of us that day:

 

 So, today, to celebrate that hike, and to celebrate our wedding anniversary which will be in a few days, we retook the hike.  (and, in addition, to say goodbye to a hike we have taken many times by ourselves and with family over the years).

Here is a photo we took today, to recreate that photo of 8 years ago as close as we could.   So much life has happened since that first photo, we have done so much that it makes our heads spin thinking about it, but nothing can or ever would change the fact that we feel the same way today as we did then. 

Our last time at the Whidbey Island Fair

We have sold our Whidbey Island home and we both know this may very well be the last time we go the Whidbey Island Fair.  A happy and sad time, but we intend to fully enjoy this day with our granddaughters!

Oh dear, the girls are getting older....they needed to fix their hair and look pretty before we could walk to the fair.



Marina and Stella gave Grandma and Grandpa a tour of all their fair exhibits:  Of course we were excited to see their all projects on display.  We are very proud of  these girls!

Grandpa couldn’t stay away from the yummy fair breakfast....he ate two breakfasts!



Then we were off to see rest of  4-H youth exhibits and their animal exhibits.  Even after all these years we all look forward to this part of the fair.  The children’s exhibits are really what a county fair is all about.  We are happy that Marina and Stella have fair entries every year and have had this experience.  We’re not too sure how many children have experienced a real old fashioned County Fair.



The girls and I especially enjoyed this unusual animal exhibit:



Of course Marina and Stella met up with one of their school buddies, they are teenage girls, after all. Dan and I got to watch all three girls screeching and laughing as they twirled around on the rides.









It was a wonderful lazy, crazy day of summer at the fair!


When we got home I opened a bottle of wine for Dan and made chocolate milk for the girls and me.  I found out the that wine opener doesn't work on a bottle of milk! 

Dan at Saratoga Woods with his three “girls”

Marina and Stella are very much like me.  They are “girly” girls, but they also like to be out in the wilderness and rough it, just like me.  They are up for any adventure.  Today we mentioned taking a hike at Saratoga Woods.  They arrived with their hiking shoes and were excited to go!







For the past eight years, Dan and I have hiked many times, countless miles, and every trail in Saratoga Woods, but my history with these woods goes back decades.

My favorite thing as a child and a young teenager was my horse.  I loved everything about horses: riding, grooming, feeding, cleaning stalls, and even the sounds and smell of a horse.  I was one of those girls who had a horse to take care of and love, and so I didn’t have time for or need a boyfriend.

In 1983, my first year living on Whidbey Island I went to an auction, and while nursing my new baby boy, Owen, made a winning bid on a seven year old gelding. I named him Cromwell.  This was my first horse in 17 years!  Cromwell and I discovered all the hidden trails through huge tracts of forests on Whidbey Island.

This included the forests that are now called Saratoga Woods. They are part of  the Whidbey Camano Land Trust, which Dan and I have donated to.  I had horses as an adult for over 25 years and often rode in these woods.  After my back surgery I spent hours running in Saratoga Woods.

When Owen was a senior in high school, he took me to the “Big Rock.”  This is an enormous glacial rock from the Ice Age that had been moved by a glacier over fifty miles south (from the Deception Pass area) and was left here when the ice melted.  I had never seen this rock and at the time the rock was hidden and not part of the Woods.  Only the kids who roamed freely in the forests knew about the “Big Rock”, the name they had given it.

Owen climbed up the rock, threw me a rope, and helped me climb to the top of the rock.  It was beautiful, covered with moss, ferns, and flowers growing in all the cracks.  This was a special day.

The “Big Rock” is now part of Saratoga Woods thanks to the Waterman family who donated 40 acres that included the rock to the Woods.  The Waterman family at one time were loggers, owned a lumber mill, and about half the forests in South Whidbey.

So today Dan and his three “girls” hiked in our beloved Saratoga Woods and to the “Big Rock.”

Here we are at the “Big Rock”.  Marina has her right hand on the rock and Stella is trying to see the top of the rock:





There used to be a privately owned airstrip here. Owen told me (much later) that when he was in high school they used to race cars on the strip.  It is now overgrown with new trees.  Here we are on the airstrip:

 





Stella is pointing to an old notch that was made about a hundred years ago in this old cedar stump.      The notch was used to hold a springboard for two men to stand on as they used a gigantic 2-man hand saw to cut down these old growth trees that were hundreds of years old.

There are several of these notches throughout Saratoga Wood if you take the time to look.  This one is on the Springboard Alley Trail:



Marina is sitting on a “tree” on the Bent Tree Trail.



We had a wonderful day hiking Saratoga Woods with our Granddaughters.

Every good hiker deserves a trip to DQ and to indulge in whatever special treat they want.  So off to get ice cream we went.  Although this picture shows only Marina and Stella enjoying their yummy treat, you can bet the Grandma and Grandpa had our share of ice cream too.



We have sold our lovely Whidbey Island home, the moving truck will be arriving in a few days, and we will be leaving our island paradise.  We love these trails these and have hiked them with all our grandchildren. This may be the last time we will be deep in our woods.  We are sad to leave and excited and happy to move and make our home at Nuestra Casa deep in our deserts.



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Jules, Ian and Adam say goodbye to Whidbey Island

Jules, Ian and Adam came out to Whidbey Island to say goodby to us, and our home. 

Here they are looking sad.

 And you can tell how sincere they were because all they needed was cream sickles to bounce right back!

We went to the playground where they had gone so many times in the past years.

 

Many of our best memories of our Whidbey Island home involved them.  It was good to say goodby in this way.

Celebrating the STP (Seattle to Portland bike ride)

Today is day 2 of the STP, our 210 mile bike ride to Portland.  Ordinarily, we would be leaving Mindy and Wayne's farmhouse where we spend the night, in Napavine, and be heading out for the 95 mile ride to Portland.

We have done seven of them with Jules.

But not this year.

The main reason is that we decided that our bodies were too old.  We could get in shape for the ride, as our muscles and lungs are fine.  But what we can do little about is our arthritis, the natural effect of aging and, for Vicky, the natural effect of having her back broken 20 years ago when someone rear ended her.  On long rides we are simply too uncomfortable.

And this year we needed to spend our training time fixing up the house, downsizing possessions, and packing to move. 

It is sad for us to give this glorious experience of riding, with 10,000 other cyclists, the STP, but it also feels right.

In the morning before we head out for Portland, Mindy and June would make us breakfast of pancakes and fried eggs.

All things come to an end.  Our time living on Whidbey Island, our STP.  But, for both, age has caught up to us, and we need to downsize not only our possessions but also the toll on our bodies that our physical activities have caused.  In our new home we can swim, walk, dance, play ping pong, ride our bikes short distances, and camp and hike in our deserts.

This morning, to celebrate our STPs, Vicky is making pancakes and fried eggs for us, just like Mindy and June did for us for so many years.

We have sold our Brigadoon.....closing was today

We can't put how we feel into words.  We have loved it here.  Absolutely loved it.

We will miss the trees, the solitude, the birds, the deer, the coyotes.

It is trite, we know, but we have lived life to the fullest here.

But we don't want rest on that.  We want to see if there is something "else" out there.  We have purchased a home in Leisure World, in Mesa, AZ, and we love that home and the life we can have there.  But that's not really why we are moving.  Leisure World will be our "jumping off" place to our beloved deserts.  Now we can get to those remote desert areas without having to drive 2000 miles.  And it will be our "jumping off" place to who knows where?

We want to see more of our wonderful country, so we will.  We will spend our summers going every which way.  We don't know yet.  We don't really care right now, as we feel that it is that we still have a spirit of adventure that we want to embrace.

We feel like we have "done" Whidbey Island, gotten all we can from it.  And it has been absolutely glorious.  We don't want to leave it when we are tired of it.  We want to leave when we love it.

And move on to something else. We don't know what, but check back in two years and we'll tell you.

Thank you Whidbey Island home.  You have been our Brigadoon, and we will always love you.

Our final time on our front porch

while we own our home on Whidbey Island.

Closing is tomorrow.  We have spent so many afternoons here, watching birds, watching deer, looking at flowers. 

A chapter in our lives is almost over:

60+ years, and this is the last time for both of us

Mowing a lawn.

We have both mowed lawns all of our lives.  I started at about age 8, in Oklahoma.

My father paid me for mowing, but he did something interesting.  The first time I mowed I did it for "free."  This is in the hot Oklahoma sun with a push (non-powered) cylinder mower.  Then the second time I mowed, I got paid for the first time.  I don't know why he did it that way, but I learned a lot from him about how to do hard work and how to feel good about myself.  I wish he was alive to thank him.

We have mowed with push mowers, power lawn mowers, DR mowers, Kubota tractors pulling mowers.  In short, about every conceivable type of mower.   For 60+ years.

And now we are done.  It is too hard on our backs.  Since we got to Brigadoon (i.e., Whidbey Island) 2 1/2 months ago, we have mowed 13 times.   More than an acre.  It is hard work because it isn't flat ground. 

We are done with mowing....forever.  This was our final time mowing here and, since we do not mow in our Mesa home, the final time we will ever mow anywhere.   We aren't even taking our lawn mowers with us. 

A milestone in life: