Washington Rendezvous

Oh dear.  We laughed a lot in Kennewick and Yakima, Washington, visiting Jim's high school friends Buddy and Pat and their respective spouses Nancy and Cindy.  The guys graduated from Davis High School in Yakima and have known each other for what ... 50 years? How can that be? The four locals stay in close touch and have celebrated New Years Eve together for many years.

First we met Buddy and Nancy at our Kennewick RV park (wish we'd taken some photos), then the six of us had lunch at Shakeys Pizza Parlor in Kennewick, then Jim and Bev met up with Pat and Cindy in Yakima. Thanks for your hospitality Buddy/Nancy/Pat/Cindy!

Bev,  Nancy and Cindy outside of Shakey's Pizza Parlor in Kennewick. 

Bev and Jim at the Bale Breaker Brewing Company in Yakima, where we had dinner, brews, and listened to a Bellingham, WA band called the Yogoman Burning Band.  Pat and Cindy drove us back to our park, but  park was closed, but someone let us in, then Jim almost fell in a pond ...  it's a long story.  Alls well that ends well.

Jim photo bombs Cindy and Pat at the Bale Breaker Brewery while holding an actual hop.   The great grand parents of the current brewery owners planted hops in the Yakima Valley in 1932, the year before prohibition ended. Today the brewery is surrounded by the family's hops fields. Bev had never seen hops close up before and thought they smelled minty.

As the guys tell it, Buddy was not the wild child in high school that Pat and Jim were.  Buddy is now making up for it; Pat seems nonplussed and Jim is oblivious. Maybe you had to be there, but this photo made the six of us laugh very, very hard.  Cindy is using it as her screen saver.