Saturday, October 02, 2010
Our fireplace is working fine now
I thought I'd better mention here that Tim from Handy's Heating came back last Monday, checked out our new fireplace and replaced the control module on it. Now it is working fine, but our weather has been warm enough that we haven't needed it since then. The forecast calls for a high temp of only 61 on Monday so maybe that day we will be able to use it. I do know it will get a lot of use over the winter and am glad that we did go ahead and have it installed early enough that it will be ready when needed.
Time really seems to be flying. I can't believe that it is already October. It really is true that the older we get the faster time goes. Annie has been gone over five years and this month will mark four years that Pat & I have known each other. In fact, we will be visiting good friends over in the Lake Chelan area of Central Washington on the 22nd which will be our exact four year anniversary. Roy, if you read this, we will have to plan on something special that day.
We are planning that trip for about the middle of the month. To get there we cross Stevens Pass which reaches an elevation of about 4100 feet, on US 2 and go through one of our favorite towns, Leavenworth. We should get to Leavenworth about the right time to stop for lunch. That time of the year the fall color should be brilliant. I hope the weather will also be great. October is usually a good weather month with fairly warm days and cool nights. It should also be ahead of the snowfall in the mountains. The long range forecast is calling for a return of the La Nina conditions in the Pacific Ocean which usually means colder temps for us. Winter always brings more precipitation and if it is cold, that can come as snow. Two years ago when we last had a La Nina winter we had close to 24 inches of snow here around Christmas and we usually have none all winter. Spokane in Eastern Washington, where I grew up, had four feet of snow that winter, much of it on the ground at once. They always have snow but not that much! See why we wanted to have the fireplace installed before winter? When we come home we will probably go to Winthrop and come home across the North Cascade Highway (WA State Route 20) if it hasn't yet been closed by snow. It is over a mile high and it has so much snowfall that the State Highway Dept doesn't try to keep it open through the winter. But when we come out on the west side we are right in our own backyard. And by going that way we can stop for lunch at Duck Brand Hotel & Cantina in Winthrop, another of our favorite eating places.
Enough for now. I still have some photos from our Oregon Coast trip back in May to post, especially those of our visit to the light house at Newport. I'll get to that before much longer.
Time really seems to be flying. I can't believe that it is already October. It really is true that the older we get the faster time goes. Annie has been gone over five years and this month will mark four years that Pat & I have known each other. In fact, we will be visiting good friends over in the Lake Chelan area of Central Washington on the 22nd which will be our exact four year anniversary. Roy, if you read this, we will have to plan on something special that day.
We are planning that trip for about the middle of the month. To get there we cross Stevens Pass which reaches an elevation of about 4100 feet, on US 2 and go through one of our favorite towns, Leavenworth. We should get to Leavenworth about the right time to stop for lunch. That time of the year the fall color should be brilliant. I hope the weather will also be great. October is usually a good weather month with fairly warm days and cool nights. It should also be ahead of the snowfall in the mountains. The long range forecast is calling for a return of the La Nina conditions in the Pacific Ocean which usually means colder temps for us. Winter always brings more precipitation and if it is cold, that can come as snow. Two years ago when we last had a La Nina winter we had close to 24 inches of snow here around Christmas and we usually have none all winter. Spokane in Eastern Washington, where I grew up, had four feet of snow that winter, much of it on the ground at once. They always have snow but not that much! See why we wanted to have the fireplace installed before winter? When we come home we will probably go to Winthrop and come home across the North Cascade Highway (WA State Route 20) if it hasn't yet been closed by snow. It is over a mile high and it has so much snowfall that the State Highway Dept doesn't try to keep it open through the winter. But when we come out on the west side we are right in our own backyard. And by going that way we can stop for lunch at Duck Brand Hotel & Cantina in Winthrop, another of our favorite eating places.
Enough for now. I still have some photos from our Oregon Coast trip back in May to post, especially those of our visit to the light house at Newport. I'll get to that before much longer.
Labels: Annie, Friends, Pat and I, Reminiscing, Small towns, Weather
