On Monday, August 23, 2021, Lisa and I drove from Ravenwood RV Resort in Athol, Idaho to the Blue Valley RV Resort in Walla Walla, Washington. The drive took about five hours and went through miles and miles of "already-harvested" grain fields. Very spectacular. We arrived and easily backed into our very nice spot.

We called Bill and Gina and set up a dinner engagement with the four of us and Bill's mom, Ann. We picked up Ann at her assisted living facility and then drove to a restaurant called "The Brik." The food was very good, but the staff was clearly struggling to keep up with the few patrons. Lots of business like this are having a hard time getting workers since most can make more money on unemployment during the Covid free-money period. It all still worked out fine was we had a good meal and were able to visit with each other. After dinner, we all walked next door to "The Blue Palm" yogurt shop for a cool treat. It was fun to consume something sweet like the yogurt after dinner. After the yogurt, we drove back to Ann's apartment and went inside to visit for a while. We got to see the photos of Ann's 90th birthday party. It was a wonderful event with lots of relatives and friends in attendance. Ann's party came off wonderfully even though it was in the middle of the Covid cautionary restrictions.

Tuesday, August 24, 2021 - We took some time on this day to perform maintenance and cleaning on the RV. While I worked on the outside by cleaning the nose-cap and the right side of the RV, Lisa worked on cleaning the inside of the RV. We also did the laundry since the RV resort has washers and dryers for our use for a fee. So, we could wash the clothes and the rig at the same time: multi-tasking. We spent most of the day on these chores. We knew that we needed a "catch up" day since we had been pretty active over the last several weeks and using the RV rather than cleaning it.

Wednesday, August 25, 2021 - We decided that we would start the day with a trip to Batteries Plus and Bulbs to get some batteries to replace the ones for the senders on each tire. We have sensors that send tire pressure and temperature to the cab of the truck so that we can monitor it at all times. It also gives us warnings when tires overheat or loose pressure. It has paid for itself since we have had two occasions where the front tire on the truck overheated on a long downhill, and one time when we had a flat where the tire was losing pressure so we could search for a place to pull off the highway to change the tire. We then drove to the town of Milton-Freewater, which is just across the state line in Oregon, to buy diesel fuel for the truck. It is only about 12 miles away, but the savings on diesel is about $.40 per gallon. This is a decent savings when you are buying about 100 gallons of fuel. Milton Freewater used to be two towns, Milton and Freewater, but the combined into one town in the 1950s. Apparently, water was free in "Freewater," but not in Milton.

After fueling the truck, we drove to Walla Walla, to pick up my cell phone at the Batteries Plus and Bulbs shop since they had replace the battery. I have been getting less and less service out of the battery in the phone; nice to have a new one installed. We then drove to Subway Sandwiches to buy sandwiches for lunch. We had made a date to take sandwiches over to Ann DeWebber's apartment in an assisted living facility in Walla Walla. We had a very nice lunch with Ann and visited for about three hours. It was so nice to talk to Ann and learn about what has been going on in her life over the last few years. We had missed her 90th birthday party, so this gave us a chance to visit for a while. It was a lot of fun, and we made plans to get back and see her before we leave on next Monday.

We then returned to the RV to relax before going to dinner with Bill and Gina. We ended up going to their favorite restaurant in town; The Walla Wall Steak Company. We had a wonderful meal with Bill and Gina and great conversation. It was great to hear about their plans for the future where they are beginning to think more about the transition to retirement. They may even try to do a little traveling and exploring the country after they retire. We also made plans for some bicycle riding in the local area on Friday and Saturday. We are looking forward to riding with them. The dinner was great and we had a really fun time with Bill and Gina.

Thursday, August 26, 2021 - We head for the Tri-Cities area to explore a little and go to Costco. We are also planning to stop by Ann's old home which she sold prior to moving to Walla Walla. We also have to stop at the Ford dealer there since we have an intermittent warning light coming on that indicates that we may have a problem with an airbag. We will see what it takes to get it fixed, or if we should just ignore it?

We stopped by Ann's previous home that she sold before moving to Walla Walla, and took some photos of the home and the area around the home. We also went for a nearly four-mile walk on the levy of the Columbia River. There are several very nice parks along this trail and the river was very wide and impressive. At one time, we saw a group of about 12-15 kayakers heading downriver. After our walk, we went to Costco to do a little shopping followed by lunch at a local Subway. While we were eating lunch, we left our truck at the Discount Tire right next door to have the front tires rotated and balanced. It took them over two hours to get to the truck, so we had to wait for quite a while to drive it away. After the tires were rotated, we drove to the local Ford dealer to have the service department check into our airbag malfunction light that is illuminated. We decided that we would make an appointment in the Boise area to have it inspected. We then returned to Walla Walla to go to Walmart for some shopping before we go over to Bill and Gina DeWebber's house tonight for a taco dinner.

We had a great taco dinner and conversation with Bill and Gina. They are great hosts and really made us feel at home. We made plans to take a bicycle ride from Bill and Gina's home on Saturday. We established plans to ride one of their common routes that would take us to Milton-Freewater in Oregon and then return to their home via a looping route back to Walla Walla.

Friday, August 27, 2021 - Bill and Gina had to work until about noon on Friday and then they were available for a bike ride. We got up early, had breakfast, and then took some flowers that we had purchased at Costco over to Ann's apartment. We had a nice visit before we went back to the RV to put on our riding gear. We then went over to Bill and Gina's home where we started a bike ride to the south and towards Milton-Freewater, Oregon. It was a gorgeous day with very little wind and reasonable temperatures. This ride turned out to be about 21 miles with very little in the way of cars to contend with. We rode back to Bill and Gina's home. We got to see some pretty nice country and we made plans to ride again on Saturday in the Tri-Cities area. Bill, Gina, and Lisa rode their EBikes while I rode my rode bike.

On Friday evening at 7:45, Lisa and I drove to the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in Walla Walla to attend a dance with a live band. We had a great time. It has been so long since we have been able to dance and Lisa's right shoulder is much better since her surgery, so she is able to dance now. We danced cha-cha-cha, rumba, salsa, nightclub two-step, east coast swing, and even a little free-style. Boy, it has been a long time since we danced and it was such fun. The people who we met at the hall were all very nice and having fun too. I believe that we would have attended this dance more often if we lived in the area. The live band was pretty good and provided music that was "danceable." They did kind of botch their version of "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond, but other than that, they did a pretty good job. They also played some country songs too. Lisa and I have decided that we need to practice our salsa, since I have forgotten quite a lot of what I used to know. I need to review the tapes. The dance concluded at around 10:45. We drove back to the RV, tired, but both feeling that we had had a fun day.

Saturday, August 28, 2021 - We went to Bill and Gina's home at 10:00 am to drive to the Tri-City area to ride the bikes on the Sacagawea Trail along the Columbia River. The trail is all paved and proceeds along both sides of the Columbia River in the Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco area. We ended up riding for over 26 miles on the ride. We stopped at one point a "LuLU's" to have a very nice lunch before continuing the ride to Richland near where Bill used to live. LuLu's is right by a large marina where we were able to watch boats of all sorts come and go into the Columbia River. As we rode the bike path along the river in Richland, we got to see all sorts of very nice condominiums along the path. This would be a great place to live.

After our ride in the Tri-City area, Lisa and I returned to our RV to relax. Later that evening, we received a text from Bill and Gina that they were running some errands and would be in our area, "Could they bring over dessert?" Well of course!! They brought frozen yogurt from the The Blue Palm, which is one of their favorite locations for sweets in the Walla Walla area. We enjoyed it on the deck with great conversation. It has been so nice to visit with Bill and Gina. We hope to do some traveling with them in the future.

Sunday, August 29, 2021 - On Sunday, we went to church with Bill, Gina, and Ann. It was a great time and we both really liked the backup pastor, Randy. The primary pastor, Tim, had traveled with his wife to help with relatives who were in poor health. Randy was filled with enthusiasm and the message he was preaching was a good one that we enjoyed. Randy brought the scriptures to life with personal experiences and laughter. Everyone there was friendly to us and made us feel at home.

After church, we all went to Applebee's to have lunch. The food was good and the conversation was great. After lunch, we made arrangements to go visit with Ann in the evening and then went back to our RV to get our bikes for another ride with Bill and Gina. This ride would be our to the Whitman Mission just west of town. The route took us through town and then out into the country west of town. We went past the airport and long several country roads to the mission. The Whitman Mission was established in the area west of Walla Walla, and worked closely with the Indian tribe in the area. In the year 1847, members o fthe Cayuses and Umatillas tribes killed Whitman, his wife, and twelve other people. The Indians also took 53 people as hostages. It was a significant event for the region. Whitman College is named after Marcus Whitman who was killed. After exploring the mission grounds, we rode back into Walla Walla, to Bill and Gina's home. Since we were leaving the next morning, we said our goodbyes and drove over to Ann's apartment to visit. On the way, we stopped at The Blue Palm to pick up some frozen yogurt for dessert with Ann. We know for sure that she does not like chocolate. We purchased several flavors and then proceeded to head for Ann's apartment. We had a great visit with fun conversation until it was time for us to leave. We said our goodbyes and reluctantly headed back to our RV. Lisa and I both agree that we had a great time in the Walla Walla area visiting with Bill, Gina, and Ann. We hope to make it back to the area before too long.