A Weekend at the Ritz

Ritzville, WA actually. I know in my last post I said we had the entire weekend to before we could unload in Quincy, WA. But Malcolm called the receiver in Quincy and they told us if we could be there by noon on Saturday, they'd unload us. Easy easy! We were there at 9:00 that morning and that was after parking to sleep four hours!

When Malcolm told Mark that we could unload Saturday, he got us a Monday morning reload. Still had a lot of sitting time though, but it was better than waiting till Monday afternoon or ever Tuesday morning to reload.

So we dumped our fertilizer off in Quincy, and then drove 60 miles to the town of Ritzville, WA where there was supposed to be a car wash that we could wash out the trailer.

I didn't get picture of this little exercise because I was busy pumping quarters into the machine and backing the truck up, pulling forward, backing up, etc while Malcolm crawled around on the rim washing it out. I also had to trot down the street and find a store in town that would make change on a $20. The change machine at the wash wouldn't take anything larger than a $10. I ended up dumping about $29 of quarters into the car wash machine, about $4 at a time. We also got a lot of strange looks, and one guy even had to pull in to tell Malcolm he'd not seen that done there before. And then also, an older lady who pulled in to wash her car next to us took pity when she saw me rolling and unrolling the tarp, getting hit with over spray in the mean time. She pulled a sheet out of her trunk that she had been taking to good will, and left it for us to dry off with. Part of that small town charm I love.

She also told us of a good place to eat in town, and I'd seen a movie theatre on my way to get change, so since we only had about 100 miles left and more than a day to get there, we decided to park by the car wash. There was a large gravel area near the grain elevator and the railroad.

After a nap for Malcolm, he needed one after all his climbing around in the trailer, we walked into town for dinner at a Mexican place. After we ate, we had an hour before the movie. Across the street was this little charmer. I had to go in and see for myself.

The sign doesn't lie! This is my first ever Fabric/Liquor combo store!! One wall was quilting fabric, a small but nice selection, and the other wall was liquor and regional wines, also a small but nice selection. The whole thing was very fascinating to me. Who on Earth ever thought to combine those two into one store! I'm still baffled by it.

Malcolm went to the truck to chat on the phone with Brandon. I grabbed my camera and went back to take the above pictures, then walked around town and took a couple more.

The movie started at 7:30. The Ritz is one of those old theatres, so often found in older towns. I hadn't been to one yet, but I knew about them because the one in Bowman, ND which was near the ranch, was similar. What I mean is that they only have one movie a week, and one showing a night, one theatre, and this one, it turns out, only had a one stall bathroom (one for men and one for women) sticking to its singular theme all the way through! The interior of the theatre had its water stained red wallpaper, or perhaps it was even fabric. Hard to tell in the dim lighting. And all the locals were showing up with their kids to watch Night at the Museum (the new one, not the original one). The place was about half full, everyone was snacking on popcorn and soda's, and it was fun watching everyone coming in and visiting....with other people, not the one's they came with. I didn't see that in Chattanooga very much!

The movie was cute. I couldn't figure out how they were going to do a sequel to the original movie, but they managed it quite well, with a plot I hadn't been able to predict. It was a fun and different way to kill time on a long weekend, and it only cost us $12, and that was with the more expensive seating that got us "extra leg room and a bigger seat."

Sunday morning we drove back to the interstate, ate at a cafe there that offered so so food and over priced at that. Typical...

Lounged around all morning. Malcolm took the dash apart and worked on some switches. I watched Becoming Jane, which I had bought over a year ago and still hadn't managed to watch. Then we drove to Palouse, WA. We were here a year ago on this same load. At the time we noticed a couple cafe's in town, so we planned to hit one of them for dinner, but they were closed for the evening. We ended up in the bar for dinner, watching the Nascar race with about 6 of the local guys. On a side note, we were stuck in the Nascar traffic on Thursday on our way out of our delivery in Petaluma, which is right by the speedway for this weekend's race. Congrats to Kayne (spelling?) on his win! See I payed attention! I even heard the announcer say that the best he'd done on that track was finishing 23rd or something like that. So I'm happy for the guy. Good driving! That track....I've not seen a track like that. Having watched some Nascar because I grew up in a southern home with a southern Dad and brother, I am familiar with some of the tracks. I know that Bristol has a lot of wrecks because its a short track, and I know that Daytona and Indianapolis are the biggies. But I'd not heard of this Sonoma race, and the track looked crazy!

Ok, enough on Nascar! Sorry!

Had intended to have a latte and scone at The Green Frog this morning. We parked in town a year ago and ate there waiting for the mill to open. The lady there was so friendly, and baked everything fresh. She even made Malcolm wait for something out of the oven. And the town people all saw our truck in town, called the mill owner, and told him there was a truck lost in town. He came to find us and guide us to the mill. More small town charm.

Well to our disappointment, The Green Frog is closed on Monday morning, as is the Family Cafe. We ended up at the bar again...this time for breakfast. Different 6 locals this time and we watched the Early Show on CBS instead of Nascar.

Just finishing loading now, and then we'll head for San Francisco. We're supposed to deliver in the morning between 4:00 and 5:00. We have pearled barley and it's going to a bakery. Last year, the bakery guy was so happy to see us (apparently they were running low) that he gave us an entire grocery sack of fresh baked bread, an assortment of all kinds. We snacked on a loaf or two, and then had to throw the rest away. I felt so wasteful.