Spontaneous Weekend

August 13-14, 2011
By John & Cheryl Schmit


We had a great time this weekend. Our main objective was to deliver a headboard to Artie & Heidi for their new king size bed. Our second objective was to find a dark area to see the Perseid meteor shower Saturday night. We accomplished the first, but the full moon was too bright to let us see any meteors. We also had a great ride home on Sunday.

There was a bit of difficulty getting out of town on Saturday. I had to get the new tires I bought on Friday rebalanced. That made us leave about two hours later than we expected.

The ride over the Cascade was beautiful. As we rose in altitude, the clouds on the mountains began to break up. Soon every turn was a photo opportunity. Traffic was light and soon we were cruising through the Washington Wine country. We were slowed a bit by a small roadside grass fire. Mindful of our objectives, we kept an open eye for possible view and vista lookouts that would be good for stargazing. We noted a few that we would check out later.

We arrived at Artie and Heidi's a little after six and they had the food ready to go. Heidi made some of her special salsa and we had chips while she and Cheryl prepared the meat and corn on the cob. Artie soon had the new natural gas grill warmed up and put the streaks on. While the food was cooking, Heidi gave us a tour then broke out a nice bottle of Chardonnay and we toasted the new house.

Dinner was delicious. Time passed very quickly and soon it was time to go look for meteors. We drove west to a view point we noted on the way in. A road headed south out of Prosser went up a steep hill and leveled out onto a very dark plateau. Dark except for the brightest full moon we'd seen in a long time. It was even casting shadows. We saw more stars in the city than under that moon. It was no better any where we looked. It got real late, so we decided to stay in Yakima over night.

Sunday morning was beautiful and the weather stayed in the mid-seventies and partly cloudy skies. Just outside of Yakima is a neat antique and fruit stand. We've shopped there before and decided to stop in again. Sure enough, besides some nice looking fruit we found a cobalt blue pitcher and bell.

As we continued toward the north, we went through parts of the Yakima Army Training Area. On Saturday we had seen the army tents and structures set up on the hills. Today we saw the big vehicles rolling down the dirt roads. A pretty neat sight.

We made a last minute decision to check out the Ginko Petrified Forest in Vantage. This is located near where the I-90 freeway crosses the Columbia river. We were only thirty minutes away, why not! We got there in short order and found they wanted a State Park Pass to walk the Informative Trails. We didn't have that. Maybe next time. We did drive around and checked out the views of the river and the interesting landscapes.

We finally decided we needed to head home so we took the back road to Ellensburg and checked out the farms along the way. A stop for ice cream and we got back on the freeway to cross back over the Cascade mountains. Traffic was heavier headed back towards Seattle, but that is normal on a summer, Sunday evening. A great weekend!

Click here to see the pictures.