We are back on the road again, and our first stop has been in our home town of Spokane Washington. We have been making the rounds of all our relatives and friends in Walla Walla, Spokane and Colville in Washington, and Lucile and Nampa in Idaho.

First stop was long time friends in the Walla Walla area, John and Nita Sulivan. John and I first met in 1966 when I first went to work for Boise Cascade in Wallula Washington. We camped right in the front yard of their farm. We woke up to frost. Now frost is a five letter word, but it is sometimes associated with that four letter word that we are so fearful of, s**w.

In Spokane we visited Gary’s Sister, Holly, and two of her children and their families, Nephew Wade with Denise, Alysa and Jared; and Nephew Carl with Melissa, Devan and Skyler.

Then we went to Colville Washington and visited Aunt Shandon and Aunt Lindell. Next we started looking up cousins, and Gary has them by the dozen. We didn’t quite get to meet with all of them, but we did get to visit on the phone with those we couldn’t make it out to visit.

We then stopped to visit with Cousin Gary Cook in Lucile Idaho. This is right on the Salmon River and Gary and Bobbie can fish from their deck, wow! Next we stopped in Nampa Idaho to visit Holly’s remaining son, Nephew Abe with Carrie, Gavin and Leighton.

Now I could tell you all the family secrets about this roughs gallery of relatives, but I dare not, because most of them are on my mailing list. We will just let the record say that I have a family tree full of fine people, and it has been wonderful visiting with all of you again this year.

The rest of this week we will be staying in Ketchum, (Sun Valley,) Idaho. We will be listening to Dixieland Jazz with our long time friends, Ed and Sarah Daugherty. After setting up camp in the parking lot of one of the ski lodges, Judy and I went for a ride on our tandem bicycle. We did an eight mile loop up through Elkhorn and into Sun Valley and then back to Ketchum. This loop has 380 feet of climbing to do. I was puffing like a steam locomotive and couldn’t figure why. Then I noticed the GPS was registering over 6,000 feet. Wow, I need a turbocharger to help pack the oxygen in. The weather is a nice 58 degrees and the sun was shining brightly. So far we haven’t seen any of that white four letter stuff up close. There is a dusting on the mountain peaks around here, however. So far the weather forecast looks pretty favorable, but we are definitely keeping our fingers crossed.

Well hugs to everyone, and we will probably see more of you as we start working our way south now.

Gary and Judy