A Wilde Visit

My distant cousin on the maternal side, John Wilde, and his wife, Kris, came over from Seattle, from where they were heading out on a cruise, to touch bases with us after many years of just exchanging notes and Christmas cards. We served together in an Elders Quorum Presidency in college and it was great to see them after all of these years. We had a nice lunch and showed them around our beautiful valley. 

 

The Flooding Columbia

Our Ward Summer Picnic was held along the Columbia at Walla Walla Point Park on June 28th and this is what we saw near our picnic shelter. The was a lot of snow in the mountains this year, the melting was delayed by cool weather, and then the warm weather hit all at once. Hence, high water.

 

Ella's Birthday

On June 27th we celebrated Ella's 12th birthday in Seattle. We had a great time eating at P.F. Chang's downtown and then seeing Les Miserables at the Fifth Avenue. What a great venue! Every time I go there I say a silent thank you that someone had the foresight to save that structure intact. They have reworked the set and play a bit for its anniversary (25th I think) and as a tie-in to the movie that is due later this year. Nice new touches. What a great play.





Girl's Camp

Well, June rolled around again and you know what that means - Girl's Camp. KR went from June 19th to the 23rd for perhaps the 100th time (this time as a counselor in the Stake YW Presidency) and had her usual rousing time. Why doesn't boy scout camp have such realistic first aid demonstrations? And to top off the excitement, they had to close camp early (KR stayed in a motel in Cle Elum as she had camp-closure duties) because of a persistant black bear - stock picture provided for reenactment purposes (not sure the bear was this big or bloodthirsty).

 

The Tree Comes Down

I have been wanting to take down the pine tree located in the front bed and put in something that will grow taller and narrower. I saw an ad for instant tree removal, called him, settled on an price, and he cut the thing down and hauled it away in minutes. Isn't it great when you can get something off your "to do" list quickly and with no muss or fuss. Nice.

 

China VI

Our last stop - Beijing. We visited China (and Beijing) almost 20 years ago and Beijing was the only overlapping place on the two tours. Boy, has it changed a lot. The Olympic Park and the Birdcage Stadium are new, of course, but Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall were all duplicate stops for us. As some of the premier tourist sites in the world, the Chinese government has spent a lot of resources improving the tourist facilities at the sites. Another thing we noticed - on our first visit, there were very few Chinese tourists traveling to see their iconic places. That has totally changed. We stayed in the venerable Beijing Hotel, adjacent to the largest shopping area in Beijing and home to a wonderful fast food (Chinese-style) street. Scorpion on a stick, anyone?

 

As we finally completed the LONG trip home and arrived at our beloved Wenatchee Valley home, we were exhausted, but gratified, for the opportunity to see in depth such an interesting part of the world.

 

China V

Xian met all of our expectations. A great city and the Warriors even exceed their hype, if that is possible. We also enjoyed the best cultural program (and dinner) of our tour. Fantastic. The old Xian city walls - very cool. You can rent bicycles on the top of the walls and ride around the entire perimeter of the old city. We, unfortunately, did not have time to do so.

 

China IV

After another plane flight and a long bus ride through the countryside, we arrived at the banks of the Yangtze at the Three Gorges Dam site, the scale of which is a little mind-boggling. The cruise up the river to Chongqing was a little disappointing, as we had lots of mist, fog and smog, and it cut down on the viewing distance and made photography a mite challenging. The food on the ship was good and the rooms were nice. The level of the reservoir has obviously changed the nature of the Three Gorges area - kind of like filling the Grand Canyon with water. KR was feted for her birthday. Chinese pastries are a little like Central American pastries - they look a lot better than they taste, but her cake was actually not too bad. We exited the ship in Chongqing and our bags were carried across a pontoon bridge on the Yangtze balanced on a bamboo pole. Chongqing seemed quite large to me for a city I wasn't familar with (on my childhood globe it would have been Chungking), and I gulped when they said there were 28 million people in greater Chongqing. I think I bumped into almost every one of them while we were there. If you get a chance to visit Chongqing some day, check out the Dazu Rock Carvings - very cool. 

China III

We passed back through Chengdu on our way out of Tibet and it was fortunate that we did - somehow we lost track of our camera on our stopover on the way into Tibet in the Chengdu Airport and we didn't realize it until our plane was boarding. One of our guides tracked it down in the Chengdu Airport lost & found while we were in Tibet and we were able to get it when we stopped for a few days to see Chengdu. We kept our cash stash in the camera (thinking that it was something we would always keep our eye on) - all $1000 were still in the case. Chengdu was the only place in our tour we returned to a second time. Chengdu is a beautiful city. We especially liked the People's Park, with its "facebook" path where parents advertise their adult single children for matchmaking purposes. Small children, since most families only have one, are treated like little kings and queens. They are dressed up and paraded around like dolls. Chengdu is the site of the famous panda breeding center, and we were able to take a tour and watch their large number of pandas. They allowed you to handle a young panda (for a considerable fee) - KR got a late birthday present. We also were able to see the rare forest panda (pandalargus mikenorthamericanus) in its natural habitat - it even smiled at us before scampering off. Another highlight in Chengdu was a fantastic cultural program that was performed in a traditional tea house. The costumes and makeup were stunning. The theater was very small and intimate, and we had front-row seats. Then it was off to Guilin and our cruise down the Li River. A view of the mountains and river is featured on Chinese money - it is a very iconic place for the Chinese. We enjoyed the food in Guilin - they are famous for their presentation, as you can see. A very hot and humid place, however. I don't do well in hot and humid. Oh, by the way, avoid anything that looks like a bug or group of tentacles on a stick. They also stack up smoked quail like cord wood. However, the hour-long foot rub (for $20) was a deal.