SASQUATCH & LAVA VALLEY DAYTRIP

It started out with a plan, but the plans fell flat the closer we got to the goal which was *Layser Cave near Randall (info at bottom of post)*. But I wanted to go in the back way through Cougar, so we stopped at the Ranger Station to see if the road we wanted was open … the woman working the desk said it was not. BUMMER! She said there had been a washout and the forestry service has decided not to fix it – ever. Double bummer :-(

While there we spotted this Sasquatch ‘orphan’ that needed ‘rescued’, so I bought it: we, here in the Pacific Northwest, must do our part in helping to keep this beloved elusive creature safe ;-)

Bigfoot rescue Kit. Bought at Cougar's Ranger Station.

So … our plan spoiled, we decided to try for Ape Cave and Lava Valley: we’d come all that way, so we might as well go home with some recorded memories imprinted in the gray matter data bank, right?

Lava Valley. Cougar, WA: A big, pretty, dark magenta colored rock caught this rock hound's eye.

Lava Valley. Cougar, WA: I have a rock fetish, what can I say? LOL. Seriously though, I do like to study rocks, and this white mineraloid rock is interesting with the bright green spots of lichen on it. Lichen takes a long time to grow – mere millimeters or less a year; and they are the oldest living things on earth. Lichens that are 3 inches wide are estimated to be about 600 years old; I estimated this lichen to be the size of a pencil top eraser, so it probably began its life on this particular rock after the Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980 … making this lichen about 37 years old.

Lava Valley. Cougar, WA: Actual path of a lava flow … past (known record of a Mt. St. Helen’s eruption was 200 years before the 1980 eruption) & recent (1980) flows, making this Lava Valley at least 237 years old – or more.

Mt. St. Helens backdrop behind Lava Valley. Cougar, WA

Lava Valley. Cougar, WA: White pumice gravel made nature’s way.

The 4x sufficiently dusted out and our awe-inspired juices flowing, we back-tracked to Ape Cave and milled around with the other visiting gawkers. We happily tramped up the trail and oohed and awed over the volcanic lahar tunnel, but we did not go into the Cave because our old legs simply could not stand the steep stairs necessary for the descent into the murky, musty bowels of the earth – and with baby boy prone to asthma attacks when moldy dust is stirred up, we just stood around the yawning mouth of the underground tunnel cave and watched everyone else ascending and descending. Apparently there is some sort of fungal disease that the Cave bats have been infected with and the visiting humans can carry it out with them; if they do not clean their shoes with the shoe brushes provided, humans can carry the fungus and spread it to infect other bats which will wipe out the entire colony. 

Ape Cave Gift Shop. Cougar, WA

Ape Cave Requirement. Cougar, WA

Huge piece of volcanic pumice rock from Mt. St. Helen's eruption. No way of knowing whether it was ancient (200+) or recent (1980).

Bat Preservation Plaque at Ape Cave. Cougar, WA

Entrance to Ape Cave. Dark & mysterious ... and not for old duffers. Cougar, WA

Look at ALL those STEEP stairs.  We passed on exploring the depths pf Ape cave. Cougar, WA

Pumice rock chunks litter the ground around Ape Cave, which is just a GIGANTIC lava tube.

By then, we were getting hungry; so back into Cougar we drove. We immediately saw a restaurant that appealed to us … and ordered food that would have made our elusive hairy Legend proud. I ordered a ‘Bigfoot BBQ Bacon Burger’ made with a ground baby back ribs/brisket patty which was DELISH! (eating like this every night until our home is finished has made me REGAIN the weight I lost PLUS – and I am certain more will be gained before this is all finished), and Hubs had a ‘Crazy Ape Burger’ liberally sprinkled with chunky slices of jalapeno peppers; we are going to be rolling home ... literally. I have already warned Hubs that as soon as we are back home we are exclusively eating Weight Watcher’s recipes; every single WW recipe book I own will be employed and we are not deviating until we lose at least 1/3 of what the scales say we weigh. Restaurant food can be delicious for adventurous eaters, but it is also very fattening.

Lone Fir Restaurant in Cougar, WA. Of course we had to stop after spotting Sasquatch advertising the food ;-)

The food here was DELISH – and you get your $$ worth. Definitely worth a return.

Staggering out to the pickup loaded down with the load we put on at the Lone Fir restaurant, we turned the 4x towards home and had a ‘gotcha!’ moment when I spotted what looked like 2 big elk in a field. I excitedly called out: ‘2 elk!’ and asked Hubs to make a u-turn so I could get a better look at them, saying, ‘they’re a lighter color than normal – aren’t they supposed to be a dark brown with a buff colored rump? These 2 are just plain buff ...’ and then we started laughing because when we got a closer look at them, they were spendy cardboard imitations of the real deal; cleverly done …

GOTCHA! Fake cardboard elk faked me out. Cougar, WA. We have seen albino elk, but these were not real.

And for once there were no vehicles behind us and Hubs was able to pull over at Eli’s place so I could get a picture of his flashy tepee. Eli is Kerry’s (my BIL) friend & carving buddy; he is also Native American and has a novelty shop on his premises where he sells Native American flutes, artistically carved woodwork, and other tribal doodads. But I like the spacious and colorfully painted tepee ;-)

Eli's tepee. 'Eli's Creations' in Ariel - this side of Cougar, WA. Near the Tribal Lodge.

It was a great way to bring a close to the Shabbat menuchah (rest).

*However, once we got back to the Hotel, I did a search online for the Layser Cave and found that the road leading to Layser Cave was OPEN from the RANDALL SIDE and going to Layser Cave by way of Randall would have gotten us there. Maybe next time we have buddy with us we’ll go the Randall route. We first stumbled upon this cave when our granddaughter Alyna, was about 5 years old, and the cave was pure then (17 years ago)… we have been back there many times since, but we understand that it has now been turned into a tourist trap and that vandals have defaced it with graffiti and wood-smoke stains from illegal fires. But I would still like our little prince to see it because it is a cool cave … small compared to other caves, but still pretty cool to experience. It looks claustrophobic glancing at the entrance opening, but when you get inside, it’s a rather open area; and there is comfortable standing space before it slopes at a backward angle.

From Randle, Washington travel south on State Highway 131 (Forest Roads 23 and 25). Veer left in 1 mile at the Y of Forest Road 23 and Forest Road 25.

Continue to follow Forest Road 23 for about 7 miles to spur road 083. Turn left on Forest Road 083. The hard to find trailhead is on a sharp turn that goes up and left.

2 State Hop

We had a hankering for a tasty hamburger and the need to get out of Dodge for a little bit, so we decided to hop over to Oregon and get a Bundy Burger at Bundy’s: https://www.facebook.com/bundysdrivein/

But first we stopped by the house to see how things were progressing …

Men on the roof! (pic taken 1 street over from our home) The ROOF was DONE by 5 p.m. I was impressed at how quick the men were :-D

Then on down the highway to Puget Island, WA, where we caught the Ferry to Westport, on the Oregon side:

Ferry channel; mid-river. Columbia River.

Westport, OR Ferry Landing.

Not exactly a 'packed house', but the Ferry was loaded. 3 spots to spare ...

Having satisfied hunger cravings with deliciously messy hamburger drive-in cuisine, we crossed the river again to spend some time on home turf; and we peeked at the kitchen while there …

Guest Bathroom skylight. Rebuilt and installed today.

Kitchen skylight. Rebuilt and installed today.

Sink cabinets installed today. Matt even picked a larger overhead cupboard to attach the microwave to so it will be lower to the stove, which is very helpful to a small person like me, who has to reach overhead safely. I keep joking that I need a kitchen built for midgets, but I have a 6'2" hubby who would not appreciate that :-D :-D :-D Chris and Matt are doing a great job in designing and building a kitchen that is beneficial to the 2 of us. We really appreciate them and will not be able to thank them enough for going 'above and beyond'.

Floor tiles picked up and delivered.

Things are looking good. This house is pretty much 'custom made' so the guys do run into snafus that eat up time and frustrate everyone, but they are troopers and we thank them for their dedication and hard work. Elohei will bless them abundantly, I am sure.

And we had an enjoyable day, which is always a plus ;-)

Then we came back to the Hotel and settled in for the night.

What A Difference A Day Makes

The kitchen remodel is coming along – this is what has taken place in just two days; yesterday and today. The pictures without cupboards in them were taken last night after Supper: what a difference a day makes! It is looking good and we are happy :-D

The appliances will not come until around the 21^st, so we will still be eating out until then. We are so tired of restaurant fare! I’m thinking we won’t grace the threshold of any restaurant for at least 6 months … at least that is what Bob is hoping :-D :-D :-D

There were also men on the roof this afternoon (I didn’t have my camera to catch that, darn it!), and that should be done either tomorrow or Saturday at the latest. Hopefully before the rain comes ;-) Rain is forecast for this weekend.

Sept. 13th, 2017 - Kitchen remodel begun; old cupboards removed; area prepped for new ones. HALLWAY wall.

Sept. 14th, 2017 - Kitchen remodel begun; new cupboards placed in position and ready for trim. HALLWAY wall.

Sept. 14th, 2017 - Kitchen remodel begun; trims.

Sept. 13th, 2017 - Kitchen remodel begun; old cupboards removed; area prepped for new ones;

black mold taken care of. LAUNDRY ROOM-BACK DOOR. 'Fridge area.

Sept. 14th, 2017 - Kitchen remodel begun; new cupboards placed in position. LAUNDRY ROOM-BACK DOOR wall. Fridge area.

Sept. 13th, 2017 - Kitchen remodel begun; old cupboards removed; area prepped for new ones. It looks like the previous owner has a water leak at some point before we bought it: a HUGE patch of black mold was uncovered. LAUNDRY ROOM-BACK DOOR wall. Cook stove area.

Sept. 14th, 2017 - Kitchen remodel begun; new cupboards placed in position and ready for trim. LAUNDRY ROOM –BACK DOOR wall. Cook stove area.

Sept. 13th, 2017 - Kitchen remodel begun; old cupboards removed; area prepped for new ones, including getting rid of the black mold. CARPORT-DINING ROOM wall. Sink area.

Sept. 14th, 2017 - Kitchen remodel begun; new cupboards placed in position and ready for trim. CARPORT-DINING ROOM wall. More to be placed tomorrow. Mold situation taken care of.

Sept. 13th, 2017 - Kitchen remodel begun; wooden floors removed and area prepped for new tiles.

RAIN!

It rained last night and earlier this morning – not a lot, but enough to make the air fresh again. I hadn’t realized how burnt-brown and dried-out our world had become until the wildfires sent so much smoke into the hemisphere that is shrouded the sun and turned it blood-red in the hazy overhang. I was miffed when I first felt the raindrops because I had wanted the roof on the house before the rains came, but it smelt so darned good I couldn’t really work up enough anger to keep the miffed angst alive.

Instead we went shopping :-)

It was over to Home Depot, then to Lowe’s, where we looked at kitchen cabinets, countertops, appliances, floor tiles, and a deep ‘farmer’s kitchen sink’. Matt & Chris – our Contractors – met us there, and between the 4 of us we pulled the new kitchen design together and are pleased with the way it is formulated in our heads. Economically it’s a good design too – these guys deserve to be fairly compensated for their hard labor and I feel that with the items chosen, and the funds we have to work with, they will be. Kitchen Prep will start on Monday; thank Adonai. My understanding about the roof work is that THAT won’t start until the 17^th – NOT HAPPY about that, but what can I do? Time was wasted in that regard and we can’t get it back, so we have no choice but to roll with it. Unhappily. I wanted the roof on BEFORE the rainy season started but things did not work out that way. Anyway, the kitchen design was worked around the floor tile design which is really colorful and reminds me of being outdoors walking in the sunshine on broken shale; the boxes of tile are a mixed lot with varying shades and color designs. When the tiles are laid out and put in place, the floor is going to be real nice when it’s installed. This is just one tile:

We all think this floor tile will go great with our dark floors in the rest of the house.

And the floor tile will be highlighted in the kitchen with the white walls and white cupboards. The colors will really 'POP!' with the sunlight streaming through the skylight and making the kitchen bright.

Since work on the house won’t officially start until tomorrow sometime, tonight we are spending the night back at home where the bed is kinder to our aging bodies, and I can get some clothes washed and repacked for the week ahead.

DAY ONE AWAY FROM HOME

Well, last night was the beginning of our crazy joyride while repairs to our home start today. I spent yesterday doing laundry and packing, Hubs packed the pickup and we headed out – the night was warm, but not sticky warm like it had been earlier in the week and the sky was actually BLUE instead of hazy with heavy smoke and ash clouds; things appeared promising:

Clear skies ... looks like the smoke and ash is being blown away.

So far the ride is anything but joyful. We arrived at the local Hotel to find the desk clerk arguing with lodgers because several rooms had been double-booked – Bob & I looked at each other with a look that said, ‘Let’s hope we have a room tonight and that our room has not been double-booked’: it wasn’t and we sighed a sigh of relief because we were all tired and Hubs and I just wanted to get our stuff unloaded and hauled to our room as soon as possible, get baby boy settled comfortably, and veg out before bedtime. The relief was short-lived … our room was on the 2^nd floor – up 2 flights of 8 stairs each. Now, this may be okay for younger folks who have younger knees; for old folks like us, it wasn’t so great. We had a home 6 years ago that had 12 stairs out front & 12 stairs out back – we sold it because our knees couldn’t take that ups and downs several times a day anymore: I miss the huge garden I had and the chickens I enjoyed … but I do not miss the stairs!

And here we were faced with 2 flights of 8 stairs each with just as many trips to the pickup and back before we could even think of resting for the night. We did it in shifts, managing a climb of 64 steps a piece between the 2 of us PLUS the original 16: we were POOPED by the time we got everything shifted from pickup to room and called it a night. 

Our knees are on fire this morning. And people keep knocking on our door looking for their friends! It’s like, ‘If they are your friends, you should KNOW the door you are looking for – stop knocking on ours! Our knees H.U.R.T. and every time you knock we have to shuffle over there to tell you that you have the wrong door” >:-P Hub’s bad knee is swollen to twice its size, mine just ache. Hubs and I do go on vacations, but they are carefully planned and we know we can call off the vaca and go home whenever we feel like it (as in gone too long from the home base). The longest we have EVER been away from home base was recently when we took the trip across America from Washington State to Vermont for a 14 day round trip rescue mission – the situation is a bit different here today. This Hotel hiatus was not our idea, and someone else (a rotten Insurance Agent who does not have our best interests at heart) is in temporary control of our lives – we don’t like it … any of it. This is NOT ‘a vaca’, it’s an invasion and entrapment.

We have no choice but to {make the best of it}, but I gotta tell you, it’s gonna be hard. We all want to be back home where we can do our thing in our own space as noisy as we please and in familiar surroundings. I suppose you could say we are lobos hopelessly out of place with little desire to conform to the jungle we find ourselves in.

 This is gonna be a loooooong 31 days.

Harvest Wreath

Fall is in the air along with heavy hanging wildfire smoke. Today I had some spare time, so I hung my Harvest Wreath and Harvest Welcome Sign at the front door; Fall is my favorite time of year, so I kinda go all out … Hubs draws the line at halloween though, so I have to be careful with what I do by way of celebrating Fall. These things are safe …

Harvest Wreath & Harvest Welcome sign

I bought this wreath about 4 years ago at a Harvest Bazaar in Oregon. I was a vendor there, and this was the first concession I ever made to spending my profits: I liked it and had to have it. And it didn’t cost much.

This Harvest Welcome sign is 24 years old, but it still looks new; I have carried it from pillar to post since we left Cathlamet 22 years ago and have hung it every year regardless of the home we had as we moved about. It is a 4-Season Welcome Sign so all the seasons are covered ;-)

Water Damage

While Hurricane Harvey was tearing things up down South of us, a flooding on a smaller scale was taking place here at home. Unbeknownst to us, while in town enjoying a pizza for Hub’s birthday … the water line to the ice maker in the ‘fridge sprung a pin-hole leak and flooded the entire kitchen floor while we were out having a good time. It went unnoticeable until around 10 p.m. that same night when I went to the ‘fridge to snag a piece of left-over pizza and I and saw 2 puddles on the floor near the ‘fridge: ‘hmmm’, I thought. ‘Did Hub’s unknowingly spill something while passing through?’ So I wiped the puddles up and was just getting ready to ask Hubs if he had gotten something to drink when he passed through the kitchen and remind him that he had to be careful with spills on the wood flooring. Instead … when I took a step forward I noticed that puddling quickly rose up between the flooring and flooded each place my feet had just been – ((((ALERT! ALERT!!)))) My mind was registering in a flash that this was something more than a simple absent-minded spill! So instead of shooting a query down the hallway to Hubs, I shouted instead, “Hon, get in here and look at this floor! NOW!” Even as I shouted and heard his feet hit the floor, my mind’s eye could already see the floorboards lifting and $$$$$ flashing before my startled eyes.

Oh man! This was NOT good …

As soon as he reached the kitchen and I pointed to the floor and showed him how the water rose up with every footstep, he said, “The ice maker sprung a leak – this is exactly why I hate ice makers” (we had kept the refrigerator that was in the house when we bought it & it had an ice maker in it; we don’t really use an ice maker, but it was part of the package). Our eyes met and we knew the floor was toast. NEW FLOOR gone in a heartbeat; we had just had this floor laid 2 months ago. So Hubs pulled the ‘fridge out and walked behind it to inspect the damage … a pin-hole in the tubing was the culprit, and the entire floor behind the ‘fridge was swimming in water. Hubs shut off the water valve and we grabbed paper towels and started trying to sop up as much water as we could; we did a pretty good job of it in a little under 2 hours. The floor wasn’t leaking anymore water around midnight and Hubs said we’d done as much as we could – he went to bed. But we knew the flooring would have to be pulled; and I knew the cupboards flanking the ‘fridge would also have to be trashed because water was flowing out from under them as well as the floorboards.

The next day our nephew, who is a contractor with his own business, came to inspect the situation and told us that what we had assumed was true: the floor was saturated, but there was no way of knowing the real damage until they started tearing into the floor. Yesterday was the telling. The fellas came early and got right to work moving the ‘fridge out of the kitchen and into the livingroom before getting busy tearing up the floor:

Heavy water damage in the kitchen - new flooring had to be pulled; only 2 months old.

As the flooring came up it was obvious that the entire floor would need to be pulled, not just the small area around the ‘fridge as we had hoped – the water damage had covered 3/4^th’s of the floor, so at that point they pulled the entire floor. Every board had a high water damage reading. The back wall was inspected and it has been saturated too; it may have to come out as well …

Even the kitchen cupboards along the back wall had to come out and will have to be replaced - they were custom built 20 years ago and are unmatchable. The new ones will be white.

This is what the back wall cupboards used to look like ... and the original floor too; we had put wood flooring down over the linoleum before we moved in June 30th, 2017.

We all put a lot of time into making sure the new flooring would match with the blonde cupboards - all that time and $$$$$ gone in a tiny pinhole leak!

It became necessary to section off the entire kitchen so I would not suffer an environmental asthma attack – the plastic sheeting would have been put up later on, but with us still in-house, it was necessary to put it in place earlier: those poor fellas were then working the rest of the day in what amounted to a stuffy greenhouse when the plastic sheeting was taped in place and zipped shut:

Kitchen has been quarantined while everything is drying out.

It has been ‘a week’ here and we are more than ready for the Sabbath Rest! So we are kicking back and relaxing over the weekend and with any hope we can face the coming week with optimism and calm hope that things will start looking up around here.