Another Day in Paradise: Countdown in Wall Walla

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Mountain obscuration -- see photo -- keeps us grounded today. It is exotic to be in a part of the country where we can read "W CNTLDVD" in the weather forecast and actually CARE about anything happening west of the continental divide....though the thrill is officially wearing thin at this point.

Around noon, Bill, Dick and Bob wandered over to the field near the Veterans Park close to the Fort Walla Walla Museum to watch the radio controlled aircraft club in full swing. The overcast skies created a real challenge to keep the aircraft in sight as they ascended. They seemed particularly impressed by a glider that launched with a motor. When it reached target altitude and the motor was turned off, the prop folded back into the nose, and from that point on the pilot controlled it remotely to ride the thermals. Bob got to see the museum, which he had missed earlier in the week.

Ruth spent the day with family in the area. Janice graciously offered to add anyone else's laundry to her wash load, and otherwise stayed put for the day knitting a baby sweater for a friend. Judy left for a walk just after 11:30, starting out along a water spillway behind the hotel, looping around through some light industrial areas and then back downtown for lunch, stopped in at a couple of the many wine tasting cellars along her route, and came back to the hotel to swim before supper. Five of the six of us convened for some takeout back at the hotel in Dick's newly-acquired palatial suite, nicknamed the Taj Mahal. The previous night, because we got the last two rooms the hotel had, he'd slept on the floor of the room he'd shared with Bill and Bob. He was only too glad when the hotel offered him a room -- in fact, a SUITE -- that had come free for Sunday night, and so that was where we dined and watched the end of the NASCAR race (which Bill doesn't think is nearly as exciting as it used to be).

Then the weather...which told us that we are going to have to wait til morning to see whether or not we're going to have more mountain obscuration along our planned route of flight. It'll be interesting to see whether our previously low opinion of the value of getting all the stuff in the planes and flying if it turns out we only get 60 miles further east to Lewiston rises tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

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