Tuesday, October 22nd;
Again we
were up before the sun, tucking things back into the truck, prepared for
another long day of rolling wheels on asphalt. Our destination; McChord Air
Force Base in Lakewood Washington, a few miles south of Tacoma. This is where
Justin is posted and his family have a real cute house on base, just a few
hundred yards from one of the gates. With GPS programmed and wife and doggie
loaded up, our journeys next phase began.
Highway 5
turns into this peaceful looking country type of road as it winds up and down
heavily forested hills and mountains. The curves are many and due to their
sharpness, often the speed limit is suddenly reduced, for safety reasons of
course. As always, I stayed within 5 or 10 miles of the speed limit. Every time
I saw a State Trooper, sitting, waiting like a spider waiting for a fly, I
would laugh to myself, "Not today fella." I hate speeding tickets, and attending
bad-boy school...been there, done that.
The road can
get hypnotic at times. Kerry and I kept busy with conversation and books on CD.
Kerry went to the library in Tucson before we left and signed out 6 or 7 CD
books. They sure made time (and miles) pass quickly. While listening to one of the
books (TD Jakes On the 7th Day) we saw a commotion up ahead. A dozen or so
vehicles were suddenly pulling off of the road onto the shoulder. I immediately
hit the sound system off button so I could focus 100% on my surroundings."
Was it an ambulance or other emergency vehicle coming," I pondered while
scanning in all directions. Kerry was at full alert as well. Then we saw it...the pit of my stomach
churned painfully. In the ditch, on the right hand side of the road was a
family car, upside down, wheels still spinning. There were people in that car; we prayed for them! We prayed that their injuries were minimal...Kerry
remained silent.
Usually when
we have come across an accident, we are the first ones to jump out of our car
and run towards the scene, assessing, helping in any way we can. I didn't stop, there were so many people
there already. There would be nothing we could do, other than get in the way of
the good Samaritans already diving in to
help. Kerry suggested she calls 911 and before she could get her phone out and
dial, up ahead, coming from the opposite direction, was an ambulance. We were
both impressed at how quickly help arrived on the scene. We continued our way
north, silently, for awhile before returning to TD Jakes and the story he was
telling.
As we
entered Portland we were both entertained by the big city on the river and the
crowds all around us. Huge ships docked in the shipping yards and tall condos
were eye candy to us. It was very beautiful. Up ahead was a large bridge and in
the middle of it, a sign read Welcome to Washington. We were now entering the
city of Vancouver. I always thought Vancouver Washington was near the Canadian
border. Kerry thought the same thing. We were now past the half way point of
this leg of our adventure.
Our gas tank
was getting a little low so Kerry plugged in a request for the nearest Costco
into the GPS. The GPS told us to take
the next exit, and we did. Then it had us turn left and then right. This went
on for 5 or 6 miles. We were wondering if this side trip through Vancouver
Washington was really worth the few cents per gallon savings. Eventually we
found the Costco and fueled up. Leaving the gas station we hit our previous
destination on the GPS and I was amazed that it had us turn right, at the next
corner and only a mile up that road was the on ramp onto highway 5 north. I could have sworn that the highway was miles
away.
By 3pm we
arrived at the main gate of McChord Air Force Base. Of course we couldn't just
drive onto the base. We spoke with Steph (Justin's wife) on the cell phone just
as we exited the highway. She met us at the gate and together we walked in to
the office where a pass would be issued to us so we could drive on and off of
the base for the duration of our visit.
After the
paper work was filled out, we sat and waited. We were told that it would take a
few minutes for the base pass to be printed out. I knew there was more going on
behind that partition then they were telling us. I could see a guy, in the back
sitting at a desk with his computer screen glowing. They were doing an FBI
databank search, just to make sure we were the good guys. With all of the
stamps Kerry and I have in our passport, from all over the world, I wouldn't
have been surprised if they checked with Interpol as well.
Soon, he
came back and called our name. When we reached the counter he looked me
straight in the eye and said, "Sorry about the weather," and
continued on a bit about his family in Tucson.
He was apologizing to us because it was damp, cool and over cast while
in Tucson it was sunny and over 80 degrees.
Finally, we
arrived at Justin's home. The shift
today was slightly over 7 hours from John's place in Eagle Point to Justin's
home on base in Washington. For the next week or so our plan was to just hang
with the family and love on them. With Justin away overseas, Kerry and I had
the urge to just pack up and go visit Steph and our two grandkids Daisy and
Brandon. We needed to see their faces and hug on them without letting go. For
the next week that would be all we would do; hug and love on them. After Kerry and I showered and changed into clean clothes, we settled in, waiting for the grandkids
to come home from school.
Justin's
family has 2 dogs, Dakota and Bowser. Dakota is a friendly, fun loving, non
possessive animal while Bowser had a drive to keep what was his and to ward off
any threat to his world. Dakota was still the Alpha Dog in the house ... Bowser
was all bark. When we entered into Bowser's world with Rosie, Bowser appeared
to be aggressive, trying to show Rosie that she was not welcome. We would keep
them separate using their kennels, when needed. It seemed that with this dog
rivalry, this was going to be a long week. Our worry was not that they would
fight, but instead, we worried about Bowser's size and how easily Rosie could
be injured.
Chocolate is sweet and so is sugar, but there is
nothing more sweet than seeing Daisy and Brandon's faces light up when they got
home and saw their Grammy and Grampy sitting there with outstretched arms.
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