Making Tracks
By Kat Bryant
My father flew out from Virginia last week to visit me and my brothers. We hadn’t seen Dad since Mom passed in April, so it was great for all of us to get together, share stories and play our favorite family board games.
By the way, just to clarify for those who don’t already know: When I refer to “my brothers,” I’m talking about my brother Jeff and his husband (my brother-in-law), Roel, who live in Seattle.
But this wasn’t purely a social visit: Dad also is gathering information to decide whether to move to Western Washington to live closer to his children, or stay in the East near the rest of his family for the long term.
One major concern, of course, is the amount of rain we get out here. His town in Virginia gets an average of 44 inches annually, spread out pretty evenly throughout the year. That’s actually a little more than Seattle (37 inches), but far less than Aberdeen (83 inches). Dad likes his sunshine and doesn’t think he could handle six months of steady rain each year; but he also doesn’t want to live in a big city.
My brothers wisely introduced him to the “blue hole” — Sequim, which lies in the Olympic Mountains’ rain shadow and receives only about 16 inches of rain per year. It’s a bit of a drive from either of our homes, but certainly a lot closer than Virginia. They took him out there to look around, and he liked what he saw; so he’s considering it. Yay!
Another selling point is that — like so many great places in Western Washington — it’s on the water. Dad’s been an avid fisherman all his life, so that’s important to him.
Because of this, I thought we’d introduce him to deep-sea fishing, Westport style, while he was here. So I booked us all on a Saturday charter and hoped for the best, given how late it was in the season.
Right up until Friday, the forecast promised a nice sunny day in between two very wet weather systems. But it was not meant to be: The captain decided to cancel because it was expected to be a very windy day on the ocean — up to 25 knots. So much for that idea!
Still, we made the most of his few days out here on the Harbor. We rented a house in Grayland for the weekend; checked out the progress on the house my brothers are building in Westport; beachcombed and played in the surf with our dogs; had meals at Bennett’s, Aloha Alabama BBQ and the Tokeland Hotel; and, many thanks to my friend John Shaw, got a very thorough tour of the Westport Maritime Museum.
Besides loving the water, Dad’s also a major history buff. You know the type: He owns hundreds of books, all of which he has read at least once and continues to refer to. At museums, he reads every placard on every display — and he retains all of it, which just blows me away. (Half the time, I can’t even recall what I wrote about the previous week!) So, he very much enjoyed talking with John and touring the museum.
Next time he comes to visit, I’ll have to introduce him to my friends with the Aberdeen and Hoquiam museums, too. In the meantime, here’s hoping he’ll eventually join me and my brothers permanently in Washington!
Kat Bryant is lifestyle editor of The Daily World. She wrote this on Friday and forgot to run it Tuesday, so here it is on Thursday instead. D’oh! Reach her at kbryant@thedailyworld.com or on Facebook at Kat Bryant-DailyWorld.
