Poulsbo, Seattle & Spokane

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we drove 750 miles, listening to the 18 disks of Frank Herbert's science-fiction opus, Dune. Hearing Paul Atreides trek across barren Arrakis, where water underlies all of the traditions of the Fremen desert dwellers, it was disconcerting to look out the window and see lush green forests and the open-to-the-sky water of Puget Sound. In any event, listening to audio books makes the driving time much more enjoyable.

On Tuesday morning, we left the Hummingbird Estates at 8:00 after breakfast on the terrace. On our Spring road-trip to New Mexico, all the hotels provided a brown-bag breakfast that was never very appealing. We joked that it reminded us of the breakfast our hotel in Venice provided for us in 2007--a Twinkie and an orange soda. This breakfast was something else: scrambled eggs, sausage patties, home-made hashbrowns and muffins, tangerines and Oregon blackberries. Oh, and coffee. It was great. we really recommend the Hummingbird Estate for an inexpensive, relaxing, romantic get-away.

We got to Poulsbo, Washington around 5:00 pm where we stayed with David & Debbie Grisanti. We all met each other in Shiloh (a Christian communal ministry) in 1970, and we've been friends for over 50 years. David was a teacher at the Calvary Chapel Bible School in Twin Peaks, and then the pastor of Calvary Chapel Silverdale on the Kitsap peninsula, across the Sound from Seattle, for 27 years. Now he runs Ministry Training International, which provides training for pastors and leaders across the world.

We had a wonderful time visiting and wished we could have stayed longer. While we were there, Kathy got to cross "picking blueberries" off of her bucket list.

Wednesday morning, we had an appointment in Seattle to have breakfast with another friend we hadn't seen for over 20 years, Liz (Lober) Li and her husband Skip. We had to leave David & Debbie's house by 6:15 to be sure we caught the 7am ferry to Seattle.

The ferry was a few minutes late but all of Kathy's fears (joke folks) that we'd miss it were unfounded. The weather was sunny and clear instead of rainy and foggy. I can see why summer visitors would decide to move to Seattle.

Driving through Seattle was a bit of a nightmare for me (since I actually don't drive very often). But with Kathy navigating, after about a half hour we found Liz & Skip's house in Seattle's U District, and he came out and directed us to a parking space they'd prepared behind their house.

Although we'd known Liz for 40 years, (she was the Director of Marketing at Maranatha Music when Kathy and I both worked for Calvary Chapel), we'd never met Skip. He's a lawyer and the founder of a well known private land-reform ministry in Central America named Agros. When we arranged to meet them, Kathy and I both read his book, Buy This Land, which was fascinating. 

We had a wonderful breakfast. Liz made a delicious spinach quiche along with home-made banana bread and fresh berries with yogurt. And, though the food was amazing, the conversation was what made our visit so special; we felt like we could keep talking for hours. But, we had to be in Spokane before 5pm, so we said our goodbyes and hit the road at 10:30 am.

In Spokane, we had dinner with another set of old friends, Ken & Jamie Ortiz. Ken and Jamie were in Shiloh with Kathy and I in the 1970s and later, Ken worked on staff at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa while we were working there. In 1984 they moved to Spokane, Washington where he became the Senior Pastor at Calvary Chapel Spokane. Once again, conversation was the main course, and we were some of the last to leave the restaurant.

A member of Ken's congregation arranged for us to stay in a penthouse suite of the Historic Davenport Hotel in downtown Spokane.

We'd both seen hotels like this in the movies, but we'd never stayed in one. It was quite an experience. We got back to the room late, and I fell asleep watching the second season of 100 Foot Wave series on HBO. The surfing was not really that great. Give me a regular surfing movie any time instead of a (mock) reality television show. 

This morning, we slept in. (It's 8:00, can you believe it?) I caught up with two days of the blog. Today we're heading to Kalispell, Montana and two nights at Glacier National Park.