On Tuesday we headed to our 1969 Boles Aero trailer in the mountains north of Ellensburg.  Here is the interior front of the trailer with Ryeleigh and Mr. Bill.

And here is the back of the trailer’s interior.

And here is the view with Steve.

I took a panorama shot with the new cabin being built.

And here is the exterior front of our trailer with the bunkhouse that my brother has been staying in.

And here is the cabin that my father, brother and stepson have been building.  It is looking so amazing!

The Labor Mountain Fire was raging the first evening we were there.

The smoke did make the sunset really pretty.

On Wednesday morning, I got tour of the progress of the inside of the cabin.  Thomas was painting the ceiling of the living room from the scaffolding.  This is a view from the loft looking to the front.

Here’s the back of the loft looking out the windows to the back.

This is the dormer looking east.

And the dormer looking to the west.

Here’s the windows of the living room from the ground floor.  Unfortunately the scaffolding doesn’t let you get the full impact of the ceiling and windows.

And this is the kitchen area.  The windows have trim on them, and the light fixtures are up and running.

Here is the electrical equipment.  The solar system is working great and now energizing of the power tools on the project.  Pretty impressive!

This is the east side of the cabin.

And the north side.

Later that morning I picked the abundant elderberries that are ripe on the property.  I had never noticed the elderberries before, but they seemed to be everywhere.  Here’s one of the bushes after I partially picked it.

When I got back, Thomas and Greg were on the roof, working on the ridge cap.

Steve seemed to be enjoying himself.  He is a lot slower now than he was the first time he came here.  He is almost 11 years old now.

Tom put a coating on the Boles roof while the ridge cap was being completed.  With the ridge cap being done, that means the roof is finally down.  A major accomplishment!

That afternoon there were lightening strikes nearby. I got nervous and headed to the trailer with the dogs.  But nothing further materialized, which is good.

We set up an impromptu dinner in the cabin’s kitchen area with a plywood table. There was spaghetti, garlic bread, salad and watermelon.  It was fun.

 

On Thursday morning I headed out on a walk with the dogs.  The ground was golden with the smokey sunrise.

The valley below was quite smokey, but at elevation we were better.

I visited the burnt down castle and noticed that brush really growing up in it.  It is also now Buddy (Greg and Sue’s cat) grave.

I headed to a favorite cliff overhang to the west.  I could see about 1/2 dozen deer there.

 

I could also hear elk bugling as we could hear in the evenings as well. I tried to capture it on video but was not successful.

Another view of the smokey valley.

There is another structure being built to the east.  It is quite large.  A little hard to appreciate in this photo.

The pine trees that the family planted after the fire and survived are really starting to grow up.  It is nice to see.  Plus there are a lot of bushes growing up now too, a little over 10 years since the fire.

I spent some time plucking the elderberries off of their stems.  It was tedious, but I have a decent amount of berries.

This morning I took Ryeleigh on another walk. She was really enjoying tracking the scents.

Most of the window trim in the living room has been completed.  It is all looking so great.

But then we had to head home.  En route we saw the Goodyear blimp apparently landing near Arlington.  I couldn’t get a great photo to it because I kept getting obstacles instead.

When we got home, there was a really pretty dahlia to greet me.

We had a great trip with some relaxation and hanging with family.  It was really nice.