May 27

So how do you end a family vacation? This morning, Ron, Grace, and I set out for Coeur d'Alene to hook up with even more family members. Uncle Harry and Aunt Virgie Lee were going to meet us at Top of China for lunch, off of US 95. Top of China is a buffet. Its most prominent feature was the pepperoni pizza. It reminded me of a Chinese-Italian restaurant that was once in Arlington. Very strange.

I sat next to Uncle Harry, and across from Mike. I don't talk to either of them very often, so it was a nice opportunity to visit. Uncle Harry was a logger most of his life. He and Aunt Virgie Lee live in St. Maries, 40 or so miles outside of Coeur d'Alene. Jeannie and John, their daughter and son-in-law also joined us. John is a welder and dock builder. Jeannie is retired for health reasons. She had a stroke several years ago and can't work. She is quite a person to talk to, lots of stories, lots of laughter. I'm always awed at the different roads life takes us, sometimes parallel, sometimes crossed, and sometimes in totally different directions. I see the folks about once every couple of years. They get older, more frail, but I'm impressed by the measure of joy they bring to their lives.

After lunch, Grace, Ron, and I went to Jeannie's for some of Aunt Virgie's desserts. She's great with the sweets. She makes a mean chocolate cake, and she had some chocolate chip bars, and a graham cracker-pecan concoction that was excellent. I'll have to fix it sometime. So we gabbed for a couple of hours. I love the stories, and Harry, Virgie, and Jeannie are all great storytellers. John is quite the storyteller, too. I'm happy to have the family that I have.

We made our way back to Spokane in late afternoon. Ron had a workout at the gym, while Grace and I walked around Riverfront Park. The park extends along both sides of the Spokane River from the upper falls to the Maple Street bridge. It's the site of the 1978(?) World's Fair. The park has a carousel, so we took a ride, and we walked across the footbridges to get a better view of the upper falls. The water is very high, so the river looked like a seething mass of energy hitting the rocky banks along the island and the shore. Signs all over the place warn about the extreme drowning danger at the river's edge. After seeing the rapids and the falls, the warnings tell a story.