Day 28 - Ellensburg, WA to Ridgefield, WA (home!!!)

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Today is the day; one more day of driving and we'll be home, and the weather is perfect (mid-70's to mid-80's in the afternoon and sunny all day).

Left Ellensburg and immediately headed for my first detour through the Yakima Canyon, a beautiful winding road that's a great alternative to the freeway for heading down towards the city of Yakima.

Stopped in Goldendale, WA and visited one of the wind farms that are popping up everywhere in this region. In the past few years they've added hundreds of these units in the Columbia River Gorge. While wind energy is a great resource, the wind farms have been creating a considerable challenge for the Bonneville Power Administration in a couple of ways. First, BPA needs to run power lines to these new sites from their existing power grid, and second, the power from the wind farms is difficult to manage because the wind can die suddenly and BPA needs to scramble to find other power sources until the wind returns.

Not too far from Goldendale is the beautiful Maryhill Winery and I stopped there for a snack, overlooking the Columbia River Gorge. Then I continued my drive along the Columbia River, seeing familiar sites like Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams and Bonneville Dam.

The last 20 miles to home were the hardest because it's mostly freeway and I was tired and very anxious to get home, but before too long I was pulling in the driveway and it felt "good". Sereda was stuck in a meeting at work and couldn't break loose to greet me this afternoon, but our dog, Mitzi, and cat, Gretchen were both happy to see me. I lay down on the sofa to take a little nap and both pets immediately jumped on top of me, settled down and napped with me. This is a regular afternoon routine of ours and I wondered if they would quickly return to the routine, and they did.

Soon Sereda came home from work and it was sure great to see her again! I knew that I was going to miss her (and I did!).

So now the trip is complete and I have a million things to do, but for now I'm just going to relax and bask in the satisfaction that the trip was a huge success and that I enjoyed every single day. Later today or tomorrow I'll crank out one more blog entry that will serve as my summary and epilogue of the journey, so please come back one more time to look for that.

Thank you for following the blog and for tolerating my weak attempts at humor. It's been a lot of fun for me and I really appreciate your interest in my journey.

Remember, one more blog entry will follow this one.

Jack

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Comments

[dani]

Glad your Back!
Excited to hear all your stories in person! lots of love Dani, Jenny and Kirk

[Mike]

Wow. Congrats! It was fun following your blog and pictures. Let us know when you're ready to celebrate your belated B-Day.

[Mike]

Congratulations!!
Wow! You did it and all you lost was a phone. It was really nice meeting you Jack. I hope you look at your trinkets and remember us, the AKMC. I know if I ever get this website back up and running right that you will always have space on our web pages. Your blog should be the best documented going there and back again. Don't forget to try and get on Miata.net as Miata of the month. All they want is a story and 3-4 pics of your great adventure. Lastly, if you are up for another Tree of Miata Adventure and to expand your Roadster Experience. Please consider a visit to Japan....look up the Kanazawa Roadster Club on google and read about another Americans visit to our sister club. Peace, Mike AKMC Anch Rep