I spot a coyote

Judy at Maryhill

Heron sculpture at Maryhill

Barge and tug

Wind power

      We drove  a hundred miles up the Columbia River last week to the Maryhill Museum of Art, where  Judy played her autoharp along with twenty people strumming lap  dulcimers.   They serenaded  the museum-goers in the hub of the wheel-shaped  Native American exhibition.  They played all morning and half of the afternoon, while I sat on a bench in the shade and watched the barges of wheat being pushed by tugs along the river.

    The trip to the dry side of the Cascades Mountains was a homecoming of sorts for Judy.  She lived in Goldendale in the  1980s, when she was the medical/safety officer for a big aluminum smelter.  She also served on the fire crew that put out brush fires stated by sparks from passing trains.   The velvet browns  of the hills looked the same to her,  but the windmills along the ridges were a disconcerting sight.
  

Judy's cabin

Barn decoration

   We found our way through the Ponderosa pine woods to  the cabin Judy had  built, and the current owners graciously invited us in.  I admired the blue pine paneling.  Judy kept shaking her head and saying,  "Every nail.  I put every nail in there."  She showed me the pipes she'd laid to bring water to the cabin, and the insulated, cedar-lined outhouse.   She was gratified to find that the horse she'd decorated the barn with was still there after 25 years.

Judy and Lipizzan

    When Judy lived at Goldendale, she helped her friend June Boardman with the foaling and training of June's Lipizzan horses.  We visited June, and Judy got some good horse time.

Can you see it?

 Usually it is Judy who spots wildlife when we are out in the country.  She pointed out a juvenile bald eagle in all of his brown and white glory.  She spied deer in fields a quarter mile away.  She stopped the car in time to allow a covey of quail to cross the road in front of us.  But I was the one who saw the coyote.

Klickitat River

  

    We drove though the hills and up the Klickitat River, where the salmon were running. We passed a street sign for Fish On Lane. Judy explained that the fishermen stand either below a rapid, where the salmon pause to gather her strength to fight their way upstream,  or just above the rapid. The salmon  wait there to catch their breath before continuing.  "Like me, "  she said.

Celebrating

Mary's kitchen

Grocery in Klickitat

    We stayed two nights at the our friend Mary's vacation house in  Klickitat, Washington.  Mary, with her artist's eye, has turned a millworker's house into a bright and homey getaway.  Klickitat is small, three blocks wide and seven blocks long in the shadow of the lumber mill that shut down in the 90s.  Over the back fence Mary's neighbor told us with satisfaction that their high school  could field a football team this fall, while some of the nearby towns could only play a form of nine-man ball.  On Saturday evening the local grocery store celebrated its fifth anniversary in business  by putting on a free barbecue  for the whole town.  They offered us grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, homemade potato salad, rhubarb pie and chocolate zucchini bread.  A band played country music in the tiny grass park next to the rails-to-trails hiking path.  They were big enough to fill the whole town with with music: 5 electric guitars, a dobro, a mandolin, a fiddle,  and not one but two accordions.

Simone, 4 months old

     On Sunday morning we drove back downstream.   When we got  home we found that Courtney had sent us a photo of Simone at 4 months.