Spring Break

Raymond Pert gave us this sibling assignment:

Write about spring break...and perhaps share pictures.

As I look back over the years, spring break memories are about as clear as the slushy mess on my front walkway.

I do remember a couple of spring break trips in college, but, if I have pictures, they are hidden in a box in the deep, dark recesses of the basement.

One year, probably my sophomore year of college, PKR and our friend CB came up to Kellogg from Meridian, and I traveled back down the Meridian with them to spend part of my spring break.

What I remember from this week is the car trip back to Meridian was really fun. We stopped at each Historical Sign


along the way from Kellogg to Meridian along I 95, and learned quite a bit about Idaho history. I also remember the river being very high (I'm not sure which one), and it was really cool.


The next year, my junior year, PKR and I went to Seattle for a few days on a trip with kids from Campus Crusade for Christ. We did some outreach things, and enjoyed being in Seattle. I was quite amused being with PKR in Seattle.

He had never really been in a big city before, and it kind of freaked him out. I still remember a group of us were in downtown Seattle, and got a bit sidetracked down by the waterfront, and went down the wrong road, and came across some men sleeping in blankets in a doorway. Oops...wrong turn.

Those were both nice trips, mostly because they were shared with PKR.

My First Trip to the Big City

“Here Come The Brides” was a favorite show to watch when I was younger. I especially enjoyed the theme song sung by Bobby Sherman titled “Seattle”, the town on the western side of Washington state which was the setting for the show. It went like this:

The bluest skies you've ever seen in Seattle

And the hills the greenest green in Seattle

Like a beautiful child growing up free and wild

Full of hopes and full of fears

Full of laughter full of tears

Full of dreams to last the years in Seattle

In Seattle

When it's time to leave your home and your loved ones

It's the hardest thing a boy can ever do

And you pray that you will find

Someone warm and sweet and kind

But you're not sure what's waiting there for you

The bluest skies you've ever seen in Seattle

And the hills the greenest green in Seattle

Like a beautiful child growing up free and wild

Full of hopes and full of fears

Full of laughter full of tears

Full of dreams to last the years in Seattle

In Seattle

When you find your own true love

You will know it

By her smile, by the look in her eye

Scent of pine trees in the air

Never knew a day so fair

It makes you feel so good

That you could cry

The bluest skies you've ever seen in Seattle

And the hills the greenest green in Seattle

Like a beautiful child growing up free and wild

Full of hopes and full of fears

Full of laughter full of tears

Full of dreams to last the years in Seattle

In Seattle

This week's sibling assignment from Inland Empire Girl posed this task. Think of a town that evokes memories from a time (or times) spent there. Were you there for a special event, did you visit there regularly, or does it just hold a special place in your heart because of people or events that happened there? Raymond Pert's is here, and Inland Empire Girl's is here.

Because of the song, the town of Seattle always held some magic and, in July of 1979, I finally got to go there.

That summer, the All Star Baseball Game was being played in the King Dome in Seattle. My dad and his friend Dick and my brother joined a large contingent of Kellogg residents who all purchased tickets and traveled to Seattle to see the game. My brother’s wife, Mom and I also got to go to experience Seattle.

Besides traveling to Orofino in the summers, this was the first time I had ever traveled to a major city for any kind of trip or vacation, so this was a BIG DEAL.

We stayed in downtown Seattle at “The Kennedy Hotel”, and did some sight seeing. One vivid memory I have was proclaiming in our hotel room, “I didn’t come to Seattle to sit around a hotel room. I want to go out and do something.”

And we did. We strolled around Pikes Street Market. We toured Underground Seattle, and went to Pioneer Square. We saw the Space Needle. We went to the “Woodland Park Zoo.” I still remember the nocturnal section, where large bats hung from the ceiling in an eerie glow, and Lorises lumbered along in their slow, methodical way. Also seeing Mount Rainer was an awesome experience.

It was my first time in a big city. It was my first time seeing the ocean….well at least Puget Sound. It was my first exposure to a large zoo. It was a magical time.
And Seattle has always held a special place in my heart. PKR and I went there for a trip in college, and then returned there for our honeymoon. Unfortunately, the last time I was in Seattle, believe it or not, was for a conference I attended in 1987. Can it really be 20 years since I have been to this magical city?

We have really got to get over for a visit soon.