West with Wilson, #5, 2006

What a nice night with Jack’s parent’s. All of the baby’s grandparents were there and Jack’s dad cooked steaks. Boy was I happy. Jack is just a 7 months old so he does not like steaks. I tried my best to get a bone or two and had no luck. It was a nice evening and while warm we all ate outside.

We left Phoenix the next morning in the rain again and it also rained on us in western AZ. See just have the two of us come your way on this trip and it will rain. We made it across I-10 and through LA to I-5 and then we started that long trip up central CA. Boring. Lots of tomato trucks trying to get us off the road. But after a long day we made it Sacramento the state capitol of CA. We stayed in Motel (bring your own shampoo) 6. My favorite motel in the country.

Up early we took off on I-5 going north to Portland and Seattle. It was 55 degrees when we left. Cool and nice for a change. This part of I-5 has very nice views along the way. Lake Shasta was way down. It needs rain, but for the first time we had no rain. Just a nice trip. We made great time and looked like we would be in Portland late in the afternoon and to Seattle by nighttime. Wrong. 80 miles south of Portland we were stopped. I mean stopped. A sign said I-5 was blocked and we should take “alternative routes”. What ever that was. We had no idea. After an hour we had moved 2 miles. So George got off the interstate and took what he thought was an “alternative”. But we got lost. Lost for an hour or so. Finally we found another route. But it was also a parking lot. So we just moved slowly until we saw a trucker take off on a side route. We followed him. Now 5 hours after we were first stopped we finally found the interstate. It was moving and I need to stop at a rest stop. So did George.

After the rest stop we again were stopped. This time by a fire on I-5. Another 2 hours. After many calls we decided to stop and spend the night in Portland. We finally got to Seattle on Sat. morning. Just in time for most of George’s sister's family to come over to see us and play in Lake Washington. The water was cold. But it was a great day and we will be here in Seattle for about 10 days.

Wilson, Aug 26th.

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