COWBOY UP

The holidays are upon us.

Again.

Hard times for those who are alone – with no immediate human contact.

10 months out of the year I do fine: I have good friends. I can get outside the bulk of every day, most every day. I have activities that keep my body, soul, and mind occupied the majority of awake hours.

I’m happy.

I’m healthy.

I’m reasonably {adjusted} to my new station I life.

But 2 months out of the year I am scrabbling to hang on.

I’m told this is normal.

I want something different – Bob would want something different for me.

I know Elohei has Plans for me that won’t include this deep sorrowing; I am patiently waiting.

But, some days … waiting is hard.

I woke up punk this morning; and when I did fully wake up (without rolling over again and trying to shut the day away), I didn’t want to get up.

There’s no rush, anymore, to get up.

When that thought tries to dominate my thoughts … I jump out of bed quick; and find a reason to get out of bed.

The reason I settled on this morning was, Christmas greenery 😉

I want to do something different with the front porch this holiday season; and I thought a trip to Centralia might help me with that – I knew just the place I wanted to go looking, for what I had in mind 😊

Control the Day; or the Day will control you.

Rearranging the Day’s Plans.

I figured it would take me a little under 2 hours one-way, safely driving the backroads in the driving rain. I changed the furnace filter, put the garbage/recycle cans at the curb; grabbed my travel coffee mug, book, coat ... and boogied.

An urgent escape from the house …

Driving along with cowboy music playing.

I’m trying not to get lost in emotions this year.

A logging tower seen from Old Pacific Highway N; Bob was a logger most of his life. The first 18 years we were married, he ran the tower machinery.

Falling leaves were fluttering on the wet breeze, and woodsmoke was in the air.

The drive was enjoyable – the temperature, even with the chilly rainfall, was okay. The music playing was uplifting, and soothing. The scenery was enjoyable; even though the mountains were being shy, and hiding themselves in the shrouding clouds.

I was hoping, with each mile the tires ate up, I'd shake the blues. Old Pacific Highway.

The half way mark; coming up on Paradise Cove RV Park.

Construction is everywhere – no doubt housing for biden's southern illegals, & taliban pals; just before the freeway overpass.

Coming into Toledo, from the Barnes Drive freeway overpass.

I had good intentions of stopping here on the way home for a hamburger & fries; those were waylaid further up the road.

S Lewis County Airport; Jackson Highway.

Toledo Airport Officially Listed as Possible Site for Major Commercial Airport in Washington State: https://www.chronline.com/stories/toledo-airport-officially-listed-as-possible-site-for-major-commercial-airport-in-washington,260200#:~:text=Toledo%20Airport%20Officially%20Listed%20as

Get this on the Calendar! Yummy breakfast here 😊

Utility work; Jackson Highway.

A concern - this area floods; the freeway floods too, around Chehalis & Centralia this time of year. This will be my last trip 'til Spring 2022.

Jackson Highway from Toledo to Mary's Corner; 14 mins.

I don’t know what it was that triggered the tears, but something rubbed my fur the wrong way … and all those emotions I was hoping to distance myself from, started putting their hooks into me ☹

The missingness comes and goes.

There have been significant periods this year where the missingness has not been acute (I’m aware of the absence, but it doesn’t tear at my heart anymore): but, then there are days like today – where it really sucks me in: it hits my heart with a vengeance, and hooks my thoughts. I just have to ride the tears out. They eventually stop.

Most of the time, the tears happen suddenly – no warning: no apparent reason for them (no thoughts had been whipped up). But when they start flowing … the reasons make themselves known.

My heart misses Bob’s heart.

Always at this time of year.

Without warning, I was hit with a dose of creeping melancholia.

I don't know who I am anymore. All I know is I'll never again be who I was ... and that hurts on all levels.

The missingness is hard to shake.

I lost my entire life in a heartbeat in 2018 - on every level: everything I had known for 44 years.

Work Me Lord.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpHaUeYdL_A)

Plans for 2022: Main Street gawking in Centralia.

Centralia is a city: but it’s half the size of Longview. Literally. It might be fun to spend an entire afternoon kicking around Main Street, sometime in 2022 😉

I made my destination without any snafu’s; and found what I could use.

After I stashed my purchases in the Highlander, my stomach was urging me to feed it – so I nipped over to the Country Cousin.

Country Cousin Restaurant; 1054 Harrison Ave, Centralia, WA.

The interior hums with a farm vibe - with whimsical kitschy touches.

I read while I ate.

The birdhouses were in my line of vision; I bought the white one.

Alternate route back home ...

Old Highway #603; from Chehalis.

Another goal for 2022: Somerville Road, Chehalis.

Somerville Road; Chehalis-WA

More construction; Old Highway 603. It seems like green grass is being planted with housing projects at alarming speed to satify the glut of the obamanites.

Highway 603 to Napavine is where things took an interesting turn 😉

I thought I’d bypass Vader by going over Military Road from Winlock: GPS led me off the beaten track to N Military Road … which does eventually tie into S Military Road (which I wanted); but GPS took me faaaar afield – totally missing the Military Road I was aiming for.

It was raining so hard, I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss the familiar turnoff spur, so I used GPS: what a mistake.

Highway #505 dropped into Jackson Prairie, near Mary’s Corner … then onto Jackson Highway: backwards from where I was wanting to go. It was a schizoid GPS drive!

If a squirrel has rushed into the roadway, and GPS followed it, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

Uhhh ... WRONG Military Road!

N Military Road - the skinny white line DOWN from the red line is what I needed. Stupid GPS!

I'm sure Bob was aware of this 2nd Military Road - but it is new to me.

#505 Highway.

A new experience ...

N Military Road leads BACKWARDS from Winlock.

Jackson Prairie from Winlock; via N Military Road & US-12 E - 14 mins.

Jackson House – Bob’s family is related to Matilda Jackson (not sure if she is blood-related, or widowed from a blood relative; but she is definitely in Bob’s Family History notations (https://parks.state.wa.us/1060/Jackson-House)

Elohim has a sense of humor; He knows how to get me laughing.

Not where I intended to be; but ... when Elohim starts cutting the cards, I go with the flow 😉

When I eventually made Castle Rock, I drove home over Delameter: daylight was fading, so I called it a day, and will top the gas tank off tomorrow.

I was still laughing about GPS snafu when I walked through the door at home, and hauled my stuff inside from the car.

It was a crazy round-about-drive home … but it dispelled the gloomies: and I am thankful.

Cleaning this birdhouse will be interesting ...

DEAR GOD: I TRUST YOU

This Shabbat, I rested in Elohei’s faithfulness.

Shay dropped by to get the paperwork started for the sale of my house; I still have some papers to fill out, and I’ll get that done before we meet for lunch, Wednesday afternoon.

But from Friday until today, I didn’t do anything but rest in Elohim’s faithfulness, Yeshua’s love/companionship, and the Ruach Ha’Kodesh’s serenity.

Friday afternoon, Shay dropped by the house; and we had a nice visit. She shared a memory of Bob with me … and it warmed my heart; I was thankful she shared it with me 😊

Saturday afternoon, I went for a short walk along the lower end of the Pacific Way Trail – it was hot, and I did get a little red … but I want to stick to my walking schedule. So, I laced my hiking shoes, grabbed a bottle of water, and beat feet along the graveled path: I only did a short 2-mile power-stride-walk this time. I wanted a mini workout: I did not want a heat stroke.

Along the way, I stopped twice: to watch a Great Blue Heron, and to watch ducks frolicking in the water.

1/3 of the Pacific Way Trail - 2 miles from 48th to 42nd – 2-mile loop.

SATURDAY. June 31, 2021. Great Blue Heron; Pacific Trail Dike Hike.

SATURDAY. June 31, 2021. Black Swedish Duck, with others; cooling off in the dike waters along the Pacific Way Dike Hike.

This morning, I was woken around 4 AM by the sound of raindrops beating out a rhythm on the roof above my head. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing: it’s been months since rain has made itself known here. And then, just as suddenly as it started … it stopped.

But it continued to mist the windshield off and on; from Heron Pointe this morning, to Francis, this afternoon.

I went to Fellowship this morning.

It was Communion Sunday: I like Communion Sundays 😊

But before I got there, I was almost pulled into a wreck situation.

I don’t know what the fella in front of me was doing, but I could see through his back window that he was ducking towards the passenger side … and in doing whatever it was he was doing (fiddling with the radio, sorting CD’s, or playing with his wife’s knees) … his tires were ambling over the white line/crossing the skimpy shoulder/quickly heading towards the ditch.

I put enough space between our cars so that I wouldn’t have locked bumpers with him – but if his tires left the blacktop and his car bumped in and out of the ditch at the speed he was rolling: his car would have boomeranged back into me even if my car was standing still.

So, I slipped my car into neutral, and flicked the hazard lights on ‘just in case’ … and gave my horn a quick toot – not a loud, rude honk – but a quick, short bleat; to grab his attention and get it back to where it needed to be.

I did not want to get sucked into a wreck: especially on my way to Fellowship!

After Fellowship, I thought I’d drive the loop route back to Longview – and check on some houses I’d seen for sale online. The addresses were located at various points along the route, so why not?

SUNDAY. August 1, 2021. Giving up on this house: the listing agent is confused about the location; and I’m not burning up any more gas trying to track it down.

Rain woke me up this morning, and it's been a drizzly, gray day; all day long.

Running down house leads today, while I'm driving the Loop Drive towards Longview.

Willapa Hills Region.

Leaving Willapa harbor and brisk ocean winds behind, driving inland promised sunshine and warmer temperatures.

Coming up on Forest Creek, and Doyle Road, the earthy odors of cow pastures was pretty overpowering. The pungent smell filled the whole car: I had rolled the right-side front passenger window halfway down, as well as the left backside passenger window, to create a crosswind of cooling breeze blowing around me.

It was too cool for the air conditioner (set at 70-degrees) to be running (outside temperature was 67-degrees); and too stifling humid inside the car to keep the windows rolled up.

Country life means pungent farmland odors.

When I passed through Francis, the outside temperature had climbed to 71-degrees: the air conditioner was turned on … but the windows weren’t rolled up until the barnyard odor was blown out of the car’s interior.

The environment lightened up, and the atmosphere warmed up considerably; around Pinnock Creek.

Garbage and evidence of violent mayhem along the route; this is new - I'm passing this way every week: twice, every week. This violent ugliness is new.

A lot of roadside sales along the route ... but I'm not giving in to the pull.

Bob always teased me that I have no self-control when it comes to roadside sales (garage sales, estate sales, moving sales, flea market barn sales, ect.): and I admit – if I saw a road sign, I was pulling over … or begging him to pull over, so I could ‘look the stuff over’ 😉

When we were first married, it kinda annoyed him; but as time went on, and he saw what a bang I got out of walking through the sales, he got used to it – and would humor me along the routes without prompting, if we had the time and money 😊

I have the time and money now: but like I said … I’m judiciously saving every nickel and dime I don’t have to spend on ‘running around gas’ (Fellowship, Thursday Naselle Coffee Hour, and house hunting ventures), to put towards my new home, before I start filling it up with other people’s castoff stuff.

It was a warm 73-degrees in Pe Ell, when I breezed through there around 3 PM.

And 82-degrees in Chehalis.

I was hungry by the time I made Centralia.

Entering Chehalis.

Business district of Chehalis.

'Old Town' Chehalis; kinda like Commerce in Longview used to be. Commerce is pretty null and void, now.

Centralia; Peking House still not fully open - they are doing orders-to-go, but no in-house dining option.

Outside Temperature, & gas usage since leaving home; and running around, for 4 hours.

Curbside Parking Lot at The Country Cousin Restaurant; Centralia.

Curbside Entrance at The Country Cousin.

Walking through the door, I smiled when I saw the tall, wooden, Cigar Sales Indian – my Uncle Don Anderson, had one like it standing next to his old-fashioned jukebox in his Skamokawa house. Every time I hear the Hank Williams song, ‘Kawliga’ it brings back that memory of Uncle Don’s Indian statue … and I’m a 10-year-old little girl standing by his jukebox 😉

‘Kawliga’ song: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FY7RWJAtJQ

I like Hank Williams songs.

I am warmed by the memories of those summer days at Uncle Don’s house; where we kids roamed the fields like wild savages, and played hide-n-seek in the bamboo forest along one side of the old stately house. The house no longer exists: except in my memories.

Cigar Sales Indian at The Country Cousin. My Uncle Don Anderson had one like it next to his jukebox - in the house in Skamokawa.

I ordered a Reuben sandwich.

Leaving Centralia fat and sassy, I drove back through Chehalis, and along Jackson Highway to the Hwy 12 junction – then turned right and drove Hwy 12 to Hwy 603 … which dropped me right into Winlock and the last house I wanted to check out.

I will not be making an appointment to see that house.

NO on the house for sale in Winlock!

The house size was perfect ... everything else was NOT – the neighbors, both sides, were junk yard pigs – and there was no turn-around: I had to back out to the main roadway. There were no encouragements to buy that house.

I know there is a house out there waiting for me to find it: but, the houses on my list this afternoon, are not “it”.

I’ll keep surfing the internet, waiting for {the one} that checks all the boxes, and trusting Elohim’s Plan and timing: He knows best where my “fit” will be … and when the timing is right, He’ll bring it about 😉

“In God’s Perfect Time” song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0VOD3j06eI

5½ hours on the road; I'll top the tank tomorrow – and wipe down the dusty interior. Tonight, I am beat.