On Saturday, June 11th, 1966, we were married at the Calvary Presbyterian Church in Enumclaw, WA. We celebrated our 45th anniversary this year by retracing our honeymoon. It was an awesome trip that brought back memories of our life together.
We met friends, Nina and Dave Pearcy, at the church for pictures. Nina was Teri's bridesmaid. We enjoyed lunch and a really good visit with Nina and Dave talking about high school classmates, kids, grandkids, etc. and made plans for them to visit us in July. After lunch, we headed to Buckley to catch up with some more friends, Rick and Uretta Lykstad. Teri met Uretta while working her first full-time job at Mutual of Enumclaw. We relived the many card games and family times together. Then we decided to visit some more friends by knocking on their door to surprise them. We had another trip down memory lane with Jean and Floyd Opland of Enumclaw. Fishing trips and 4th of July celebrations with them and their family. Jean said we had to come back again since we only talked about 1/8 of what was going on in Enumclaw.
The first night of our honeymoon was spent in Cle Elum at an old, cheap motel that no longer exists so we just found a place to stay and called it close enough. The next day we went to the Ohme Gardens in Wenatchee just like we did in 1966. In 1929 Herman and Ruth Ohme began their orchard on 40 acres of land. The land included a dry, rock strewn bluff. The Ohmes dreamed of alpines, pools and pathways. They achieved their dream by transplanting small evergreens, hauling native stone to form paths and borders, adding ground covers and shaping pools adjacent to natural rock formations. The gardens are a beautiful, lush alpine setting. The transformation is amazing.
These are just a few of the many varities of ground covers with assorted colors that you will see in the gardens. The Ohmes hauled water in five gallon milk cans to sustain the new plantings.
The rock work was amazing - benches, fireplaces and so much more.
There is an awesome view of the Columbia River from the gardens. Wenatcheee has a huge industrial district near the river.
There were several structures in the gardens. The totem house was really intriguing with the beautiful wood burls.
On Sunday of our honeymoon and retrace trip, we also visited the Rocky Reach Dam located on the Columbia River in Wenatchee. Construction started on the dam in 1956 and it went into commercial operation with seven generators in 1961 (six months ahead of schedule) just 5 years before our visit in 1966. They are currently celebrating 50 years of operation.
The fish ladders and fish viewing windows are so fascinating. There were some nice salmon passing by the windows. The river was running high making the water very murky.
Rocky Reach Dam is home to 11 generators with a peak generating capacity of 1,401,000 kilowatts and there are 12 spillway gates. During the initial construction of the dam, 3.3 million cubic yards of dirt and rock were moved to make way for the structure. The cost of the original project was over 270 million dollars and no tax money was used.
The grounds around the dam were beautifully kept with lots of flowers and green lawns. A public park with picnic area is located near the dam.
We spent the 2nd night of our honeymoon in Chelan, WA. The Apple Motel where we stayed in 1966 is still there. In fact, we spent a Valentine's Day weekend there a number of years ago. On our honeymoon, we visited with Bill's uncle and his family, Chuck and Arlene Townsend and their kids. While we were there, we took the time to wash off the "Just Married" some friends had sprayed on our red 1965 Chevy Impala with artifical snow. The clear coat was never the same after that but our friends had fun decorating our car.
Our next destination in 1966 was to visit Fleetwood Warren and his bride of one year. In fact, they were married on June 11th (our anniversary) the year before we married. They lived on Aeneas Valley Road where we enjoyed watching the deer grazing in the meadow behind their log home. We couldn't find the house and realized it may not even be there but it was fun to look around. Mr. Warren was Bill's neighbor who took him fishing and hunting as well as the Assistant Principal and geometry teacher where we went to high school. We ended up staying with them for several nights before heading back to Carbonado where we lived for the first year and a half of our married life.
At this point of our retrace trip, we diverted from our honeymoon trip to visit some more friends. We went to Republic to vist a retired postmaster friend, Fred Bremner. Fred was Bill's Vice President when Bill was the President of the Washington Chapter of the National Association of Postmasters of the United States. We got to know Fred when we attended district, state and national conferences. He retired many years ago but at 81 years old, he remains very active in his community.
Our last stop on our trip was Cheney, WA. We invited friends, Ed and Laurelyn Wendt, to join us for dinner and then we continued our visit at the motel. Ed was one of Bill's ushers in our wedding. I don't think they even call them ushers any more - maybe groomsmen?? Bill and Ed have been friends for many, many years. They hunted and fished together. They both played all the high school sports together and Bill spent a lot of time at Ed's home. Their children are close in age to our two oldest children so we visited with them a lot. They currently live in Malden moving there after Ed retired. Laurelyn has since retired from the Rosalia School District. We had such an amazing time on our trip that we didn't want it to end - kind of like our honeymoon.
