Last week, I told you all about how I was spending my labor day at The Dave Matthews concert.
This is a little recap of our overnight trip to Eastern Washington.
Everyone always says Eastern Washington is very similar to the Midwest.
However, having grown up in the Midwest and lived there for 21 years, I must say I have never seen a wind farm in Indiana.
They are pretty cool and a great idea (however, I'm told they are fairly ineffective and very expensive...so much for being green) on land that otherwise looks like it could come from a NASA view of the moon.
I made my husband pull over at the scenic viewpoint.
Word to the wise: always pull off at the scenic viewpoint.
They never disappoint.
Isn't this view of the Columbia River amazing?
On the top of the hill there are these bronze horse statues.
My sister in law hooked us up with some amazing VIP box seats to the show.
Totally awesome!
DMB is one of my favorite bands and yet I've only seen Dave Matthews live once. In college. In 1996.
It was his first live acoustic show with Tim Reynolds and it was amazing.
However, way too much time has gone between then and now.
The VIP tickets gave us access to the VIP lounge with mixed drinks, air conditioning, several seating areas like this one, and the best part, flushing toilets! The lines for the port a potties was unbelievable. This little perk alone was worth it!
The sun went down on one of the opening acts, the Avett Brothers.
Here I am hunkered down in my box seat watching the sun set on a gorgeous evening listening to great music.
I've been listening to the Avett Brothers for awhile now and love them.
They come on my Pandora Dave Matthews Station a fair amount.
They put on a great show.
One of my favorite songs by them is
I and Love and You
A great song!
Dave Matthews took the stage after the Avett brothers and gave a great show.
Even amongst reports that it wasn't one of his better shows (many complained that it was too mellow), he played some of my favorite songs.
This was my favorite song of the evening.
All Along the Watchtower (a Bob Dylan cover).
It was such a fun night to be a part of.
Thanks Esther for the tickets!
It was such a fun night to be a part of.
Thanks Esther for the tickets!
Since the Gorge is literally in the middle of no where (well, technically it's in George, Washington--nope, can't make that up!) it would have been a three hour drive home after midnight, so we decided to spend the night in a nearby hotel.
Our hotel was in the town of Ellensburg, which had it's own event going on labor day weekend.
The rodeo was in town, which apparently, even made Starbucks take note and provided this local Starbucks with their special Ellensburg Rodeo Blend of coffee.
Ellensburg is also home of Cental Washington University.
I love college campuses so we took our Starbucks and wandered around campus for a bit.
After filling up the car with gas for our ride home, I stopped in the restroom.
I've seen a lot of "dispensers" in bathrooms, but never one that dispensed cologne.
We made another pit stop in Thorp.
Thorp had two of my favorite things, fruit and antiques.
We shopped the top two floors of the antique shop first.
I spotted this rooster and was totally reminded of one of my favorite summer books, Let's Pretend This Never Happened. This is the blog post about the story of the 5 foot tall rooster.
(disclaimer-don't click on this link if you are under 18 or if you can't look past some curse words)
And while you are getting the five foot tall rooster, who doesn't need a mouse with an oar.
Or is it a shovel to get back at the farmer's wife?
You always need a mouse standing at the ready.
This folk art hippo made me smile.
And for real, who doesn't need a unicorn hat?
That's pure antique isn't it?
It's not?
Well, it's just pure awesome then.
The only thing more awesome is this wolf hat.
Yep, I totally made that face AND posed with a wolf hat on my head in public.
The wolf is mortified.
That's how I roll.
Besides unicorn and wolf hats, the antique shop did have some legit antiques.
I sort of gravitated to old rusty file drawers and cabinets.
I love these chippy cabinets
This huge file cabinet was awesome!
I also was digging the marble collection and double folding chairs and old tractor seat.
I found my husband perusing the vintage ads.
I thought this one Southern Bell ad with the kid asking "what will the telephone look like when I grow up" to be quite fitting. Especially since we just bought our oldest son his first cell phone.
As we were leaving the antique mall I noticed a sign that said that there was a mill just a mile down the road.
Well, being ever adventurous, we took yet another detour and headed deep into the heart of Thorp to visit the old mill.
It was closed, but we were able to take a little tour of our own around the property.
I just love little detours to off the beaten path places like that.
It was such a fun quick get away!
Where is your favorite place to get away to?
I also grew up In Indiana, went to Purdue, and now live in Indianapolis. The area north of West Lafayette, In towards Chicago on I65 is totally covered in wind farms. It goes on almost to the Gary city limits. It must be big business for them. We see the windmill turbines on semis headed north all the time. Your concert looks so great. Hope you had fun!
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