White Rock to The Dalles, Oregon

Well, we arrived safely, without incident, in The Dalles, Oregon as scheduled! Thank you for your prayers.

This morning we saw Savannah off to school. She got up before I had a chance to sing the "Red Red Robin" song to her. A family treat! Then Scott & Kayla came over to Paula's at 8 a.m. to see us. Suzy also phoned one last time and with a few extra people around it made it a bit easier to leave, tho' for a long time I will have this haunting picture in my mind of Paula holding Daisy tight and crying as we drove away.

We decided to take the Nexus lane going thru the border and the guy in the booth was a little flustered and pulled us over to be checked out. While we went inside with Trooper, who found a pole at the entrance to relieve himself!!!, we joined a bunch of other people waiting in line to be processed. Finally it was our turn. They didn't care a hooch about Trooper, but they x-rayed our truck & trailer, wanted to know what kind of dog food we had. Thankfully we knew it was made in the U.S. Anywaz, after 1/2 hour we were on our way, which is about how long the line-up was to go thru the regular lanes. By then it was 10:00 a.m. and while we tho't it was a late-ish start to get on the I-5, we arrived here around 5:45. We stopped a couple of times for washroom breaks and Trooper had a good time checking out all the doggy news in the unfamiliar rest stops. He's a good passenger.

We followed the Columbia River upstream along from Portland to this destination. It was sunny, quite a beautiful day, with interesting scenery. Tomorrow we expect to reach Twin Falls, Idaho which is north of Salt Lake City. That'll be interesting as we've never been to Utah.

Haven't had any fine dining experiences, as I know some of you are wondering. However, there were a few special occasions just before we left that I mustn't leave out. When we went to Merritt earlier this week, Brenda Grenon - my dear little Ukrainian buddy - made a delicious lunch of fresh homemade pyroghies smothered in extra onions and bacon with sour creme [and a salad on the side]. With all that butter that they were later sauteed in, we were thankful that she'd made them with whole wheat flour! [you couldn't tell as they were every bit as good.] And then....when Suzy came over she'd managed to sneak a few of our family favourite cookies, Gingersnaps, out of her house as well as a few morsels of her cinnamon buns that Justin had left behind. We brought these goodies with us. So, let's see, tonight we ate at Shari's........not to be recommended. Should I go into the details of the menu? Bill? I really should have arm wrestled that big pizza delivery guy I passed in the hallway on our way out for supper. Whatever he had in the bag smelled so delicias!

Well, tomorrow's another day. We thank you all again for your support and well wishes. May Jehovah bless every one of you.