Motorcycle Weekend

Posted on September 27, 2026 by Donna

I have had a livelong relationship with motorcycles which inspired this weekend.

We headed out Friday afternoon after I got off of work.  We were heading to my father’s cabin, but traffic was awful.  Everett and Bellevue traffic was slow, contributed to by the stormy weather as well as being Friday evening.  But then there was crash on Snoqualmie pass, and it got even worse.

But it was Dolly Parton Day.  I found a tribute to her that had been held the evening before in Ellensburg.  So we listened to the recording of it, and it helped lighten the mood.

 

The moon was rising from behind clouds and was beautiful.  The photos do not do it justice.

Ryeleigh was enjoying the ride.

We arrived, and the moon was still pretty next to our lit trailer.

I continued the Dolly Parton Day theme by making 2 Dirt Road Martinis from her 2024 cookbook.  (Tom didn’t want one so had an Old-Fashioned instead.). We sip them while finishing the show.

The next morning the weather had improved.  Ryeleigh enjoyed trying to spot wildlife from the porch of the cabin.

We went walking, of course.  You could see Mount Rainier and Adams clearly.

I appreciated Thomas’ skull and horns collection.

We went to one of my favorite overlooks and took a panoramic photo of the view.

The main reason we went to the cabin was to be within striking distance of attending the Coal Dusters Motorcycle Club: Pioneers of Local Dirt Biking in Ronald on Saturday afternoon.  We went with my dad, brother Greg, and his partner Sue.

There was a collection of dirt bikes dating from the early 1960’s to the early 1980’s.

Here were the two oldest ones.  They do not seem very functional.

There were a lot of vintage photographs as well.

This was my favorite one.

The event was a fund raiser to put a roof on the Ronald Schoolhouse which was originally built in 1916.  We were in the nearby Hawthorne Hall which was the gym and stage for the school.  It was an impressive building, and the outlets were nothing we had ever seen.

They had people who had ridden the coal and slag piles in the area.  They told stories related to these times and what dirt bikes they had.  It was being recorded to preserve the history.  It was fun to hear the stories.

There were raffles, and I really wanted to win this old photo of the Number 9 mine.  This is the slag pile that we used to climb on our dirt bikes in the 1970’s and 1980’s.  Unfortunately I did not win it.

And this is the Old Ronald School that needs the new roof.  Hopefully this event really helped this cause.

This is a map that shows the relative locations of the different mines and their coal and slag piles.  Most of the people at the meeting talked about Number 5, but we spent most of our time at Number 9.

Today (Sunday) we headed to Anacortes to participate in the Oyster Run.  I haven’t gone before as usually I consider it a bunch of loud hogs driving dangerously past our house and upsetting the animals.  But Tom has gone before so I thought I would give it a try.  I usually stay home and make sure nobody crashes into our fields, but it hasn’t happened yet so likely won’t happen now.  The weather is absolutely gorgeous.

First we checked out the Washington Vintage Motorcyclists spot, and some great bikes were there.  Here are my favorites.

The motorcycles kept coming into Anacortes.

Here are our bikes.

Our bikes in a sea of Harleys

Some cool paint jobs.

Then we got to watch the Seattle Cossacks.  We’ve seen them before, but they are always impressive.

Then we walked around checking out more bikes.  These are the ones that were interesting to me.

They went all the way to the shipyard.

We headed to the Rockfish Grill for lunch and the Hawks game.

Then checked out more bikes.

We got on our bikes and headed to Washington Park.

This is the tree where my friend and co-worker Lori Egbers’ ashes were scattered.  It has been almost 8 years.  It’s hard to believe, and I still miss her singing and laughing at work.  But what a beautiful place to remember her.

We went back home and then headed to friends Shimon and Denise’s place to pick up some apples.  I made the mistake of trusting our beagle in their yard where their much smaller dog Gus is well contained.  But not Ryeleigh.  Fairly quickly she somehow found an escape (we never found it), and she ended up a ways away howling. So we all chased after her in their neighbor’s field and finally got her.  That was scary.  Never trust a beagle!

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Back on the Farm

Posted on September 23, 2026 by Donna

We stayed home last weekend while William was still in the hospital.  He had plenty of visitors though.  We caught up on the farm.  I am admiring our two young tom turkeys.

I enticed them into the sunshine to see their bronze highlights with some success.

On Sunday evening we watched the Seahawks, and I posted a “Win for William” post on Facebook.  They did, in fact, win which I thought was great. At the same time though William was getting his chest tube removed which was a huge step forward for going home.

On Monday, doing the chores, I admired the frosted tips on Jameson’s hair.

I also noticed that we have deadly nightshade on our farm.  Fortunately nobody seems to be eating it.

Tom found a shed snakeskin on our farm.  There was one at dad’s cabin that I wished I had picked up.

I have been drying edible flowers and herbs. I have dried violas, chamomile flowers, marigold, nasturtiums, dill weed, dill seed, spearmint, lemon thyme, oregano, lemon balm,  peppermint, thyme, sage, chives, basil, parsley, basil, fennel seed and fennel leaves.  The house has been smelling great!

Monday night, William was able to go home from the hospital!  The air pocket outside of his left lung finally resolved, and he was good to go.  Such a relief, and I think he will do much better with sitting and walking at home.  Hoping his recovery is complete.

Today I was finally able to get all 3 tom turkeys showing off at the same time. They are majestic.

I was admiring the cows while they were eating their morning grain.  Louella is looking really healthy.

Jameson is growing up nicely.

Sonja is looking fat but healthy.

Bluey was begging for bread bits from me and looking cute.

Unfortunately, Diddley’s arthritis is getting worse, and he really isn’t walking much.  So I moved him into the barn with Vanessa, the crippled sheep.  It is supposed to rain quite a bit, and I didn’t want to leave him out in that. Plus I am not sure he is getting up to drink water so this way I can make sure he has access to food, water and shelter.  But it is definitely going to be very hard watching his decline.  He is my favorite sheep. Not of all time but living sheep.  Bob comes to mind as an overall favorite, but Diddley is a close second.

I finally finished spinning Jet’s wool into yarn.  He was a black Shetland wether we had who died in 2022 at age 14 years.  The wool is from his 2014 and 2019 shearings.  I accidentally S-plied singles into a 2 ply yarn.  I realized it when I was all done.  So rather than give up, my zoom spinning companions educated me that I could then Z-ply the 2 ply yarn into a 4-ply yarn.  So that is what I did, and the resulting yarn is looking good.

I appreciated gorgeous Wally sleeping on our bed this afternoon.

I finished this book that Al strongly encouraged me to take home rom the cabin and read.  It is about the history of the Bumping Lake (near my mother’s family cabin).  It includes history of the local characters, mining, dam building, road building, environmental protection, the CCC, fisheries, fire fighting and the Supreme Court.  William O. Douglas was tearing around the area in a a battered brown Dodge Dart and used the pay phone in the Whistlin’ Jack’s parking lot to make phone calls, including regarding important Supreme Court decisions.  I was wondering if I ran across him in my childhood doing these things.  Anyway, this is a great book about PNW history and worth reading.

For dinner I made Sheet-Pan Chicken With Apple, Fennel and Onion because we have homegrown chicken, apples and fennel.  And it was amazing,  One of the best meals ever and highly recommended.

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Harborview

Posted on September 18, 2026 by Donna

I worked on Monday and then Tuesday we went back to Harborview Hospital for the rest of the week to try to entertain William, support the parents, and advocate for his care.  At one point on the first floor near the 8th Avenue lobby, there was a frustrated woman who was confused about directions.  She said that they should tear the whole thing down and start over.  I told her that I didn’t agree and gave her directions to get to parking.  But then I got verklempt.  I was thinking this hospital saved the lives of my husband and grandson.  Plus all of the people we have encountered in all the hospital stays have been kind, highly skilled, hard working and compassionate.  I also did my ER training in medical school there with Dr. Copass.  Plus my aunt was a longtime nurse manager for the clinics at Harborview.  So it has been an incredibly important part of my life episodically.

On the way down Tuesday morning we saw some protestors.

On Tuesday morning, after we arrived his oxygen had been stopped, and his nasal feeding was removed.  But he still had the chest tube.  It had been taken off suction, and he was having daily chest x-rays with persistent air between his left lung and ribs.  He was still in the ICU but on medical status.  So the monitors were taken off as well.

Here he is with the physical therapist walking the hall in the ICU with some construction going on.

At lunchtime I appreciated this quote near the 8th avenue lobby.

Tuesday afternoon I was knitting in the waiting room as my father was also visiting.  Only 2 visitors at a time.

Wednesday morning we were heading back to Harborview.

When we got there we rolled William around in his chair to see the sights on the same floor.  This is the view from the skybridge nearby with the oldest portion of the hospital on the right and Mount Rainier ahead which was hazy.

William didn’t appreciate the sun so didn’t last long.  I managed to get some knitting in by his window which was now directly above the ED entrance so good for people watching.  He had changed rooms in the ICU.

Later that morning the occupational therapist took him for a walk with Russ and us.  

We ended up in the therapy room with a Wii bowling game.  William enjoyed it and smiled more than I have seen since the crash.  He beat Russ too which I think he enjoyed.  He did have to sit down between each of his turns so definitely lacking stamina.  But the OT was now thinking that he wouldn’t need inpatient rehab anymore.

We went to lunch in the Harborview park. Some employees were playing with a soccer ball.

That evening we crossed Lake Washington with nice views of some rowing crews practicing with Mount Rainier in the background.

We had picked up some pizza and had dinner with my mom and Al, catching up on things.  It was nice.

Thursday morning was another commute to Harborview.

This time though we were on a mission to find eclairs.  William had requested one for breakfast.  We went to the Pike Place Market while things were still being set up.  Not too many tourists yet.

And we found eclairs at Le Panier there.  Unfortunately I don’t believe he ever ate his.  The adults did though and really enjoyed them.

He had moved to the 8th floor overnight, and his room was much smaller.  Really only room for chairs for 2 people at the most.  So I ended up knitting more this time in the bridge as there is no waiting room for the eighth floor.

We were waiting on news for the plan for the chest tube as nothing was changing.  Tom and I finally gave up waiting and decided to pick up lunch from Potbelly for everyone.  (The surgeon did arrive while we were getting the sandwiches.)  We spotted this Honda CB 550-4 (like mine) while walking.  We did see him park his bike,  but he didn’t want to talk to us.

Here’s the inside of the sandwich shop.  We picked up our order and headed back to the hospital.

Tom distributed lunches on the eighth floor, and I grabbed drinks from the car (which we have been living out of for most of 1.5 weeks).  Then we met again at the park.  And I had the best sandwich of my life.  And there was a really, really cute doggie there.  The photos do not do him justice.

It made me miss having our beagle with us at this park for lunch and walks.  But it wasn’t fair having her sit in a car almost the entire day in the parking garage.  So we had dropped her off at her boarding facility (which she loves) on Monday.  Here’s a photo we were sent from her adventures there.

William was doing well, playing with his devices.

We had a vacation scheduled for this week which we cancelled.  But I was trying to keep spirits up so tried to make it sort of a vacation.  So I was looking at Seattle restaurants on my bucket list.  The pizza we got for Mom and Al was on that list but wasn’t very good, in my opinion.  But I had made reservations for the Little Beast in Ballard.  My options were 5 or 7 so I chose 5 earlier in the week.  Unfortunately I didn’t realize we would have a late lunch while waiting for surgeons to show up.  So we weren’t very hungry.  We did arrive for Happy Hour though so we got discounts on cocktails and appetizers.  I got a Pimm’s Cup, and Tom got a French 75.

And I got a Scotched Egg, and Tom ordered some Normandy cider.

Then we got our dinners.  Tom got a bavette steak and tallow fries with ketchup, and I got roasted chicken and mushroom pie.  We could only eat small amounts, and these were boxed up.

This morning we packed up from my dad’s house and headed back to Harborview.  We found out that Thursday evening they had tried to reposition the chest tube to help drain the air pocket using some sedation and lidocaine, but William didn’t tolerate this.  So today’s plan was to do this under general anesthesia in the operating room sometime today.  William wasn’t allowed to eat and seemed really tired.  So he fell asleep, and we left for home.  After we left he did have the procedure done which he tolerated.  We are waiting now to see if it works to drain this air.  There will be another chest x-ray, I’m sure, tomorrow morning.  Back at home we unpacked, picked up our dog and attacked the umpteen farm chores that need doing.  I did the animal chores while Tom mowed.  We harvested corn, beans, pumpkins and squash in the garden.  There is some beautiful basil in the greenhouse I rally need to do something with soon.

I sent a photo of Jameson to William to hopefully cheer him up a little.

Our cat Wally likes the lawn chairs that we never, ever get to sit in.  At least someone gets to use them.

We had the Little Beast leftovers for dinner.

So this where we are at.  We will be home this weekend, and I need to work 3 days next week.  Really hoping William gets to go home soon.

 

P.S. I showed William this video of our goat kids playing from 19 years ago.  That made him smile as well.

P.P.S.  There is a fund raiser to support William’s family during this difficult time.  It is at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-williams-healing-journey

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