Farewell to Friends

We said goodbye to Tom and Nanci this morning and headed back to Portland. I'm sure Nanci is glad to have her refrigerator space back! We had a lot to pack in the truck. Nanci picked some lovely dahlias to send home with us, so we'll be reminded of our visit and the beauty of the garden and landscaping. We'll also carry with us our appreciation for Tom and Nanci's friendship.

The trip back to Chris's house was expected to take just two hours. Unfortunately, traffic made the trip much longer. At one point the Google Maps navigation on my iPhone suggested a brief detour around an accident, which really helped get us on our way again. Northbound traffic was at a near standstill for miles, so we were glad we were headed south.

We stopped at Safeway for some groceries and at Arco to fill up with diesel. At the station we were told it would be a few minutes before the pumps were turned back on, since they were having a shift change. That's a new one for us.

At Chris's we let ourselves in, put the cold food away, and sat down to relax a bit. When Chris got home, he and I walked to New Seasons to do a bit more shopping. Kirsten, Constance, and Kirsten's four kids will come to Chris's for lunch tomorrow, so we had to get some provisions. On the way home we stopped at Fred Meyer's for cherries and at the extremely posh, upscale Goodwill to look for small vases.

After a late dinner, we all went for a walk. We saw a huge long line of people waiting to get some gourmet ice cream from award winning artisanal ice cream shop, Salt and Straw. Chris suggests we might want to go there sometime when the line isn't so long!

[photos later]