Central Washington

This summer, we spent some time in the US, in the Northwest (Washington and Oregon State). First, we stopped in Central Washington for a few days to visit relatives there.  The pic above is sunrise, 4-something in the morning.  I was awake because one of my kids had woken up sick and my husband and I were cleaning it up.  I noticed the sun rising outside and stepped outside to take a pic. Good thing I did too, because this only last a few minutes before the colors faded.  The Northwest has been having (and is still having) tons of fires, even up in Canada, which was helping the sunrise be so colorful.

This pic is the same view as the sunrise pic; the same hill in the distance, except this time, on fire. This picture took place just days after we took the first picture.  It was a huge fire and scary for some of the residents there.  It started late at night too, after some of my family had already gone to bed for the night.

While in Central Washington, we had a mini family reunion with my parents, siblings, and their SO's. We were lucky enough to stay in a relative's cabin up by Lake Roosevelt (pictured above).  We spent some time there fishing and swimming almost every day.  It was hot and dry there, but the water was refreshing.

This is the only fish the whole party caught during the two days fishing.  (Lake trout.)  My 13-year old daughter caught it!  My bro-in-law cleaned it and fried it up for her.  I got a taste and it was delish.

We saw wildlife frequently from the cabin; lots of deer, turkey vultures in the distance, hummingbirds, and wild turkeys.  The kids loved it.

My aunt and uncle have a wonderful Marionberry patch at the cabin with lots of lavender by it.  The berries were ripe and we enjoyed some every day (I guess I only have phone pics of the berries; none good enough to put on here!)

Back at my other Aunt's house, one of the kids' fave pastimes is going out to see the baby cows on the dairy farm.  This was the smallest while they were there, and their favorite.  After leaving Central WA, we headed to the coast, which I'll talk about later.  :)

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