Flat Stanley brought with him a beautiful booklet called "Ohme Gardens Alpine Wonderland Making the Dream a Reality." He brought home a booklet and some postcards and pamphlets from "Aplets & Cotlets" fruit and nut candies. Best of all, he brought home a box OF fruit and nut candies, which we all had a great time sampling! And he brought home a few other postcards from the area. It was all a lot of fun to look through! Thank you so much, Fawn!
Here is what Fawn wrote:
"Dear Alexa,
Your Flat Stanley came all the way to Wenatchee, Chelan Co., Washington.
While he was here, these are some of the exciting things he saw and did:
We went for a walk along the banks of the Columbia River.
We went shopping at the farmer's market for lettuce, asparagus - purple, fresh apple cider, baby walla walla and sweet ontions.
We went to the neighboring community of Leavenworth.
We went to the head quarters office of the Okanogan & Wenatchee National Forest.
To Church at Grace Lutheran Church.
The distance between your town, Port Carbon, PA, and my location, Wenatchee, WA, is approximately 2,661 miles.
If Flat Stanley should come back to visit, he should wear anything he's comfortable in because the climate here is: Great springs and falls, very warm summers and humid/cloudy but not too cold winters.
Some other interesting facts about my location include:
Known as Apple Valley and River City.
Elevation about 650 feet.
Yearly Apple Blossom Festival.
Great Salmon Festival in Leavenworth - known for the educational programs.
Ohme Gardens are beautiful with an interesting history.
First fruits make the best fresh fruit milkshakes. Nectarine is my favorite.
Liberty Farms is still a mom and pop factory.
The farmer's market flower lady is now a dear friend. Her flowers are my summer treat.
The River Walk on the banks of the Columbia River is a favorite place. Beautiful and peaceful. Love walking down there.
The Forest Service here, "Okanogan & Wenatchee National Forest" is one of the biggest national forests in the nation. I am a purchasing agent fro the Oka-Wen. I transferred here from the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in Butte, Mt almost 6 years ago. I have worked for the Forest Service 30 years now. I took a military furlow from 1985-1988 and enlised in the army as an M.P.
Fawn"
We also received in the mail a "framed photo" of Flat Stanley who was visiting my father-in-law, Alexa's Grandpa Henry, in Ridge, New York:
We received a Flat Stanley home from my brother, Alexa's Uncle Jordan, who was hosting him in Egypt, where he is deployed! Here is a picture from Flat Stanley. I'm not sure how well it will show up as it was done in pencil but my brother gave Stanley an army uniform complete with the name "Stanley" on one pocket and "U.S. Army" on the other, camoflauge etc."
He wrote:
Dear Alexa,
Your Flat Stanley came all the way to Sharm El Sheikh, Sinai, Egypt.
While he was here, these are some of the exciting things he saw and did:
We took a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter ride across the Strait of Tiran to go to a remote outpost atop Tiran Island. Tiran Island looks across the Gulf of Aquaba, and is a great place to see the Sinai and Saudi Arabia from. He also took a quick trip to Tel Aviv, Israel for a 3 day weekend.
The distance between your town, Port Carbon, PA and my location, MFO South Camp, is approximately 5499 miles.
If Flat Stanley should come back to visit, he should wear shorts, tee-shirt, sandals, flip-flops and sunscreen! Because the climate here is VERY HOT!!! Sunny too :)
Some other interesting facts about my location include:
Mount St. Catherine's is here. Moses from biblical times went to the top and came back with the ten commandments. He also crossed the Red Sea into the Sinai during the exodus from Egypt.
P.S. Here is a description (if applicable) of the enclosed photo/s, postcard/s or souvenir/s:
Pictures of Flat Stanley on the helicopter, and on Tiran Island (EDITOR'S NOTE: These were previously posted on an earlier blog entry).
A postcard from Egypt.
Jordan"
As I think I mentioned, our family just went on a three day camping trip. It was only about a half hour away from home, in Pine Grove, PA. We stayed in a little log camping cabin:
It did rain some of the time and there was a lot of fog/mist over the mountains
Flat Stanley really enjoyed the swing on the front porch of our cabin. So did I! Every morning when I woke up (I was always the first one awake) I would make a cup of coffee, grab a book, and go sit on the porch swing for a while.
And we saw some interesting bugs (which I tried to stay far away from)
In my last update, I mentioned that Flat Stanley's friend Chris in Nova Scotia had tried to send a couple of pictures but that the emails were blank. After a few tries we did get the pictures from her. She wrote:
"Stanley's visit here has been rather quiet lately since his hosts have been under the weather with a virus, and the weather itself has been day after day of rain :-( We did get to visit the site of an old gold mine at Moose River Mines, and Stanley helped out in the garden (before the rainy weather really got started in earnest)."
Flat Stanley at Goose River Gold Mine Park:
Flat Stanley helping in the garden:
Flat Stanley on gold-bearing quartz rock at Moose River Mines:
Flat Stanley by the lake looking for ducks and muskrats:
I got another email update from Flat Stanley in Calgary, Canada. He wrote:
"Yesterday was Canada Day here in Calgary and Tim and Lynda took me to Heritage Park to celebrate. In some ways Canada Day is similar to your July 4th, and in some ways it is different. Both countries celebrate getting their independence from Britain with big parties all over the country, but Canada did it through parliament rather than revolution, and our break wasn’t as complete as that of the US. Here in Canada the Queen is still our head of state through her representative Michelle Jean, the Governor General.
One thing about western Canada, and probably the western States as well, is that history is a lot shorter here. Anything over 100 years old is ancient, and there is nothing over 150 because at that time all there were out here were aboriginals and fur traders. I’ve been out east to Pennsylvania and Ontario and know that there are buildings still in use that might be 300 years old, and in Britain there are churches that are 1000 years old and still in use. It makes us here in the west seem awfully young by comparison. With that aside, Heritage park is a celebration of the history of western Canada in general and Alberta in particular. It’s a living historical site like Williamsburg so there is a lot to be learned – too much for one trip.
One thing Tim told me was that his favourite part of the park was the old steam train, so we got a number of pictures of that. In one you can see me standing on a small platform at the front of the train, and in another I am sitting on the fence waiting for the train to start up.
As we left the train we ran into some of the national police force for Canada. The fellow on the left is wearing the old Royal Northwest Mounted Police uniform, and the one on the right has the modern dress uniform on. They must have thought that I was robbing the train, because they put me in the jail at the RCMP post in the park. A look at what jails were like 100 years ago. They soon let me go though.
The RNWMP were commissioned by the Prime Minister in the 1880’s to go out to western Canada, or the Northwest Territories as it was known then, and keep peace between the aboriginal people and the settlers. As they moved west under the command of Colonel Macleod they set up forts in a number of locations including Lethbridge, Fort Macleod and, at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers, Fort Calgary. Because of their presence and numbers they were able to keep the peace without resorting to violence, so the Canadian West developed as a peaceful ranging and farming area without the “wild west” mentality that came to many parts of the western US. For some reason we seem to feel this is a hole in our history, so Calgarians celebrate the “wild west” with 10 days of stampede.
Next we went along Main street and stopped for a rest on the veranda of the Wainwright hotel. Here you see Lynda holding me for the picture. She was waiting for her chorus to sing and entertain the crowds at the park for Canada Day. There is a picture of her and her barbershop group, The Rhythm of the Rockies, singing for the people.
There is also a picture of an oil drilling rig called Dingman No. 1. While petroleum may have first been discovered in Pennsylvania, it has long played an important part in the economics of Calgary. Most of the head offices oil companies are situated here because the first commercial oil drilled near here was in Turner Valley around 1914 at Dingman No.1. Since then the drilling and manufacture of oil has moved farther north and is now primarily situated in the Fort McMurray area in NE Alberta. But the head offices remain here in Calgary.
The next picture up shows me on some sort of haying machine, perhaps the same one that fills the wagon for the hayrides they have in the park.
The next picture shows me sitting on a sandstone fence. Sandstone was so prevalent around Calgary that it was known as the Sandstone City. All the public buildings, including the schools, and many of the middle to upper class houses were built out of sandstone, and many of those houses are still lived in today. Next is me on the window sill of one of the sandstone houses. They really are very nice. Warm in winter and cool in summer. The next picture is of the Prince house. Mr. Prince was very rich which is why he could afford to import all the bricks needed for his house rather than using sandstone. In an bit of an ironic twist Mr. Prince got so rich by owning a lumber mill which turned out the materials that most people used for their houses – wood. The final look at housing is the old west is of a sod hut, a house made out of dirt, with grass for a roof. Many of the early settlers built these as their first home as the saved up for a “real” house. Tim tells me that his Grandmother lived in one of these when she first came out west in the early 1900’s.
Finally, with one more train picture, we were off to the Wainwright station and home.
Next, we are off to the Stampede on Friday. More when we get back from that.
Flat S."
Here are some of the pictures they included in their email:
We also received a postcard in the mail from Flat Stanley above, in Calgary, Alberta Canada! Here is a picture of the postcard:
On the back, the little blurb said:
"Calgary
Alberta, Canada
The Centre Street Bridge with its crouching lion statues crosses the Bow River into the city's downtown."
And Stanley wrote:
"Alexa,
Here is a view of downtown Calgary showing some of the oldest and newest objects- the bridge is 100 years old (young by PA standards I'm sure) and some of the buildings aren't finished yet.
F. Stanley"
Blah. I don't know why that postcard picture is getting cut off the way it is. Sometimes this site just does that to my photos. Sometimes I can fix them by cropping and recropping until I get it right, and sometimes it just doesn't seem to work no matter what I do. This is one of those instances.
Okay! That's it for today. I DO already have several other updates sitting in my email inbox but I think this entry is long enough for today, so I will try to do another update tomorrow catching us up :)
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