It's Outdoor Wednesday!

I've told you before, and I'll tell you again, there are three states I love with all my heart,  Oregon, Washington and Nevada.
I love Washington because I grew up there---I am sentimental about it and nothing can compete with sentiment.

My favorite river is there  (my middle son laughed at this--he doesn't think people really have favorite rivers.  I do tho), The  Columbia.   
My 2nd favorite river is the Snake River and my 3rd favorite is the Yakima River.  (yes, I am being kinda silly and ornery about having favorite rivers---can one really?)

Anyway, I grew up where all 3 of those rivers converged.  There was water, water everywhere!  (and yet is some weird paradox, the land is arid and dry, we use irrigation to grow all those apples and peaches and wheat )

Sometimes it looks like this:

Sometimes it looks like this:

But they are always doing this:

To get this:

There is an island in the Columbia River, in my hometown, called Bateman Island.

I will be honest here and tell you that when I was a teenager, we had parties out there---at that time you could drive out there, so we did, and then we partied down!  It's a wonder someone didn't get in a accident driving back and forth on this little one car lane.

Bateman Island is an island located on the Columbia River between the cities of Richland and Kennewick, Washington. It is approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) long and 0.5 miles (0.80 km) wide (160 acres (65 ha)) and is part of the city of Richland

Lewis and Clark mentioned Bateman Island in their journals in 1805. William Clark and two other men made their way towards the mouth of the Yakima River, but due to the time the farthest they got was Bateman Island.

In 2002 thanks to support by Bechtel Hanford and with help from many volunteers, about 27 tons worth of beer cans, and other debris left there over the last 60 years was removed.

Geez!  We drank a lot of beer!!  (27 tons?)

It's nice to have it all cleaned up now.  You can't drive out onto it anymore, but you can walk.  In May, the Handyman and I took our morning walk out there to do some bird-watching.

I had to get a list of the birds to remember what I saw, as I had forgotten a notebook.

(of course I didn't see all of these--just a few as a matter of fact)

Here are some photos of what we saw on Bateman Island on our  6am walk.

(it looks completely different than I remember from my high school nighttime keggar days.)

Now it's beautiful

I am linking up with Outdoor Wednesday hosted by A Southern Daydreamer.

Check it out for some beautiful outdoor photos from all over!

Mrs. Somebody Somebody and Spudnuts

This weekend, while traveling up north to Washington State, I finished "Mrs. Somebody Somebody."



It is the first in an on-line book club that I have started. (There are only a few of us, so if you want to join in, just let me know. ) We are reading a list put together by a panel from BEA, on "hot picks for book clubs". I think it was hot "fall" picks or something like that. There are 30 books on the list---we're in it for the long haul.


As I've said many times, I am not a book reviewer, I just like to read a lot. Having said that, "Mrs. Somebody Somebody" by Tracy Winn, just didn't do it for me.
It was touted as "an astonishing debut", "poignantly chronicling the characters", and "a rare achievement".
It was well written, I will give it that. I think that it was just not my kind of book. Each chapter was an essay written about someone in the mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts. So, while it did mention other characters from previous chapters and linked them together in a very flimsy way, there was no plot, and I guess I prefer a good plot. Or at least characters I like. The people from Lowell, MA were sad and depressed people and I didn't like them very much.


That's all I'm going to say about Mrs. Somebody Somebody in this post. We will be discussing it online in the next few days. July's book is "The Last Time I Saw You" by Elizabeth Berg, just in case you want to read with us.

If you have read it and liked it, I would be happy to know.  It just could broaden my horizons about the book.

****************************
What else besides read 3 books, did I do this past weekend?  I'm glad you asked!
 
While were were up in Washington, we went to the Spudnut Shop.
 

The Spudnut Shop is one of the last remaining maker of Spudnuts and it is in our hometown.

By 1948, over 500 Spudnut Shops had sprung up across the country. Spudnuts were advertised widely, with the slogan "Coast to coast...Alaska to Mexico". The cartoon character "Mr. Spudnut" frequently appeared in ads, restaurants, and even in parades.By the 1980s, however, the parent company closed, leaving all the franchisees to fend for themselves. The Spudnuts brand lost significant popularity, but it did not disappear completely; some 35 Spudnut Shops in 9 states exist today.

Spudnuts, donuts made with potato flour, are better than Krispy Creme, better than Dunkin' Donuts (except the coffee), better than any donut I've ever tasted. And, embarrassingly, this was the first time I've ever had a spudnut. I wanted to try them because I've seen them on the Travel Channel.

If you think potatoes and donuts don't mix -- think again. At Spudnuts, donuts are made from potato flour and then deep-fried to perfection. In addition to the spudnut, they make a traditional cake flour donut called a spuddy. Health-conscious individuals need not despair; Spudnut also makes spuffins -- a healthy, muffin-like treat. Confused yet? No matter what you order, you are bound to enjoy it (just don't call it a "donut").

It wasn't a fancy bakery, but kind of a divey little cafe, as you can see by the pictures, BUT, the whole time we sat there having coffee and eating our donuts, the line didn't end. People just kept coming in and walking out with boxes and boxes of spudnuts.

The people who worked there were very nice and it was clean, it was just old and funky.

I ate two....again....I was not Weight Watcher friendly this past weekend. I wanted to eat a whole bunch more.
Just so you know....we walked a lot while on our holiday. To counter act all the calories we ate.

They had these dowels that they let the glazed spudnuts hang and drip from.

and they kept bringing in more and more boxes to fill with dozens and dozens of spudnuts, which people were taking out the door.

It looks so innocent.  But inside it holds an addiction.  A Spudnut addiction, and it's hard to break free.