The Texas House

Many of you have asked to see pictures of the house in TX that we'll be renting.  We're not quite there yet, but I thought I would post a few pictures that my friend took when she looked at the house for us. 

Here is the front of the house.  It's the 2 story with the brick bottom, white top & sign in the yard.

 Going in the front entry looking towards the living room:

Standing in the eat - in kitchen looking towards the living room:

Fenced backyard with a pool: 

Upstairs Loft Area before heading into the bedrooms:

Bedroom 1 that will be for one of the kids:

Bedroom 2 that will be for one of the kids:

Master bedroom:

So, that's it.  Of course it will look different once our furniture is in there, but it gives everyone an idea of where we'll be at.  We're looking forward to getting there & we love visitors!!

-Catherine

Palouse Falls and the Painted Hills

I've officially left Joint Base Lewis-McChord on my way to San Antonio. It is shaping up to be one amazing road trip. My first day I drove the scenic route to Palouse Falls State Park where I spent the night in my hammock tent. It was sunny and warm when I got there, and nicely enough a rainbow was present in the mist kicked up by the waterfall.

Sunset kind of fizzled, only because there were no clouds in the sky. The photo below is from a similar vantage point as the one above, only looking downstream through the scablands where the Palouse River will eventually join the Snake River.

Sunrise was beautiful. Water levels were up so there was a lot more mist being kicked up by the falls, but the light on the clouds was phenomenal. There were several other folks camping, but I think I was only one that got up early and enjoyed the sunrise.

From there I made way through the Palouse hills, where I frustrated my GPS to no end ("turn around when possible"... ha ha, no way!). I'd see a road that "looked interesting" and would drive down it. These were small country roads that often turned into gravel farmers' roads, which was a ton of fun to explore and see.

It turned out to add an hour or two to my total drive, but was fun nonetheless. I then headed south into Oregon. For fun I punched the "alternate route" on my GPS to get to the Painted Hills unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. That took me on the twistiest road I think I've been on that lasted for three hours! There was one stretch of about 45 minutes where I saw no houses, no villages/towns, and only one other vehicle (though I did see a cowboy riding a horse after a couple of cattle). It was a great drive through open country.

I eventually made it to the Painted Hills for a short stop before I headed another couple of hours to Bend, Oregon.

The Painted Hills are this pretty stretch of land where the topsoil has eroded away leaving behind this popcorn-textured clay formations. I'm glad I took the time to go see it, as it wasn't too far off my path and made for a nice stretch break.

I'm spending two nights here in Bend, checking out the Bend Ale Trail. I'm taking advantage of the break to rearrange how I've packed the car to make getting to food and camping stuff much easier, which will be important in the next couple of weeks!

Take care everybody. Cheers,

Marc

Moving on

My, how the time has flown! I'm busy wrapping things up here in Washington, getting ready to make my way to Texas. It has been a busy and (at times) challenging but very rewarding, personally and professionally, time here at Fort Lewis. We've made a bunch of good friends and will miss them.

Funnily enough, I literally received my acceptance letter to Baylor University this past week on Friday. Nothing like waiting until the last minute!

Keep posted for updates on our adventures, as the next month will see a ton of change for the Skinners in Washington Texas!