The family reunion festivities aren’t quite what they used to be.  I didn’t make the last few years, mainly due to funds and other issues that were going on at the time.

I have a mini-note about going to the reunion in the post, A bit of Grim but that is mainly about the dogfight between Molly and Scout.

My sis started hounding every one to make the reunion this year about a year ago…and she’s relentless.  She keeps reminding — one could say she’s the perpetual nag but it usually helps to keep focus on a date. Even with her great job of nagging, most of the younger ones in our family (grandkids, nieces, nephews, etc.,) didn’t show.

What’s left of the siblings did though and we had a great time.  Sis and I flew into Pasco and rented a car to drive to Moses Lake.  Our great nephew, Justin, and his girlfriend were supposed to be on the same flight we were on but they were a no-show and the plane left without them.  Sis texted him when we were in the boarding area waiting for our flight, they were on the way.

OMG!  I’m such a sick bitch about missing a flight I insist on being there early.

She texted them after we got on the plane and almost all the boarding was done, they were at the airport and on their way.  Sis went up to talk to a stewardess and they even held the plane up for an additional 15 minutes or so but they didn’t arrive.

The real downside is his mom bought them new tickets/or paid for a transfer fee to get them on another flight.  His mom is my niece and daughter of our oldest sister, Neomi.  They all live in Moses Lake.

We flew Allegiant Air and there aren’t many days of the week that flights go in and out of there to Las Vegas.  We get to talk about that one on the return trip.  WHEE!

We left Pasco in the rental car and made it into Moses Lake and our shabby hotel/motel by around 10ish PM and then headed for Neomi’s place where we had spaghetti she had made for her can’t-make-it-to-the-airport-on-time grandson, Justin.  So sorry, Justin!  We enjoyed it without you.  It was really nice to have just the sisters together visiting for a few hours.

Back to the hotel and sleep and we had an outing planned with Neomi, just the three of us girls again where we had a drive-around.  We stopped at a vineyard up in the hills that had a winery and allowed wine tasting.  It was quaintly cool, the owner/hostess came down from the vineyard above us, although we were right in the middle of it, or close to it, and the two sisters had some wine.  I haven’t been in the mood for wine in a very, very long time.  So no vino for MOI!

The downside to this post.  I have some pictures to add but my external hard drive (a new one) is being a be-yatch and struggling to even pull up anything. I’m trying to gradually move things over to a second internal drive I just installed.  I stopped writing this to see if I could access my images.  Yes, but it’s long and tedious.  So…back to the reunion.

While the girls were going to snort up some wine, I took pictures, and the resident cat made sure its presence was known.

I like this, it was by the drive and overlooking an incredible view.

 

The grape growing hostess took a picture of the sisters, MOI, Neomi, Vickie

Then we headed for Dry Falls of Columbia.  I love that place.  I have pictures from years ago but I think they were taken with a 35MM.  The view point is incredible.

  

We were a long way up, I zoomed a number of shots to get the canyon floor.  Particularly where someone/something crossed in the muck.

 

We had another happy-sisterhood photo

There were two concession stands at the stop, one had some food but we had already stopped for lunch along the way, the other had ice cream.  Double dark sinful chocolate (something like that), huckleberry, and vanilla.  I had a monster waffle cone with the chocolate and the huckleberry.  Wowie-kadowie…wonderful.

I have a lot more pictures of the place but I don’t have a week so moving on, we drove to another area in the same valley that has a power station, leads to irrigation channels for the valley growers, and a massive waterfall.

It’s a little disturbing to see something like this:

We could see people on the rocks on the left of the falls so I zoomed them.  I wondered if they were wearing shirts that said “STOOPID” on them but they weren’t.  We were quite a distance from them and even when I was much younger, I can’t see myself hanging around on those rocks over the water. The power station in the middle – look to the left of the waterfall and you’ll see the people in both shots.

  

We headed back to Neomi’s place. Everything was about food.  Did I mention I normally eat low-carb? Not for those three days.  I ate everything that was setting around.  Sis had a giant bowl she kept filled with Yorkie Patties.  I can’t even count how many of those I ate.  It was continual food orgy for me, chips, salsa, Yorkies, prepared food, load it up and shoot it into my mouth.  In retrospect, I have no idea why. Everyone except me took a turn at cooking it seemed, I just ate.

Sis lives in a house/duplex (she owns both) that used to be living quarters on the air force base for servicemen’s families but it was all turned over for civilian use.  She has a decent sized garden every year, a chicken coop with hens, storage barn, and all kinds of things jammed into her property.  I hadn’t been there in years so it was really fun to take a look around.

They have a couple of little dogs that are ancient and they got a pup – he’s about 6 months old.  The little dogs are funny as hell to watch and kind of sad at the same time.  One is blind and the other one can’t hear.  The blind one goes out to the middle of the back yard, sits down, and has a growling barking thing with an invisible friend/foe every now and then.

We did get to a poker game.  As always, a ton of fun and we start out keeping track of what everyone owes but no one ever pays up.  Lots of noise, lots of drinking, smoking, and carrying on.

   

One of the most fun reasons to play poker at the reunion is in the shot above.  My brother Ken.  No one enjoys it more than he does and it’s just fun to sit down with him.  The two beside him are Justin-late-for-the-plane and his girlfriend Brittany.

Enough of the pictures and on with the event.  We had a flight heading out of Pasco at 7:30ish.  This time Justin and Brittany were with us when we loaded up and left Moses Lake, we were on the same return flight. We got the car turned in, checked in at the airport and settled down to wait for our flight.

Wait we did.  First an hour went by.  Then two, then three, then four and finally they announced there wouldn’t be a flight out that night.  They would put us in hotels for the night and send us home tomorrow.

UGH!  We waited in line to get our room vouchers and flight changes for the following day and by the time the taxi took us to Kennewick (why not Pasco?), it was 12:30 or so before we got half-way settled in our room.

The following day we had to hurry to catch the only flight we could catch out.  They had one scheduled to leave at 7:30 PM but it was booked so they called/or sis called them, not sure which, and we had to be there by around 10 to get out of there, otherwise it would be two days before we could fly out. Allegiant is great for low cost fares but sometimes…”Straight to the moon, Alice!”

By now I did feel bad for Justin.  He was going to start online job training with Apple that day and he was stuck in Pasco.  Obviously he was worried. It worked out, he trained, he got hired, he now works from home in Las Vegas as an Apple customer service rep.

When we landed in Vegas, he didn’t have a ride home from the airport, “Would you gives us a ride?”

Oh cripes!  They live around 15 miles from the airport up by the old digs.  It was quite a ways out of our way home but we took them.  By the time we got home it was late, we were dragging ass, but hey, we both had a good time.

I think the grape stomping Winery is next on the Todo list…