Mom's Weekend at WSU

              This was my fifth Mom’s Weekend at WSU, and it was another memorable one. The weather was perfect for the five and a half hour drive over, sunny and clear. I rolled into Pullman at about 5:30, and lucked into a parking space right in front of Sarah’s apartment. I had my suitcase and 12-page, highlighted program of Mom’s Weekend events in hand.

            Johnny had a “new” restaurant to take us to for dinner, Gambino’s, in Moscow, Idaho. We mistakenly thought it would be less crowded than eating in Pullman, but the food was excellent for our party of six: Sarah K. and her mom, Gerri, and Johnny; Sarah S. and her boyfriend, Andy, and me. Fettucine was twirled, and pizza munched on as we traded funny stories about our kids’ growing up. I announced that it wouldn't be a successful Mom's Weekend unless I got ice cream from Ferdinand's Ice Cream Shoppe.

               Johnny and his girlfriend Sarah had plans for her mom and me the next morning. To my surprise, they included waking up early and hiking. Johnny’s a night owl. I’m a recovering night owl. Neither of us are particularly outdoorsy. (I know, we should be kicked out of Washington for that!) 

              As we ate breakfast at McDonald’s he recalled (not fondly) his father and I dragging him snowshoeing up Mt. Rainier after he’d stayed up until 3 a.m. the “night” before. He remembered one of the people we’d been with that day who kept lecturing about “glissading” down the mountain. He used technical terms to clarify for Sarah and her mom that glissading amounted to sliding down a snowy mountain on your butt.

               In the Mom’s Weekend list of events, a hike and yoga at Kamiak Butte was listed, but we didn’t sign up for their tour. We'd do our own thing. Kamiak Butte is a National Natural Landmark, located midway between the towns of Pullman and Palouse. After Johnny scared us by nonchalantly saying that a rumbling noise in a dumpster was a bear when it was really a Bobcat forklift vehicle behind the dumpster, we started hiking up the trail.

               Johnny said that he thought it was about a ½ mile hike. I waited until we got started to break the news to him that in the program it said it was a five mile hike. The trail switch-backed up higher and higher through a quiet forest. To my eyes, it didn’t look that steep, but my legs and lungs said otherwise. The temperature was perfect for a hike—in the 50s. I had worn a fleece pullover that I’d take off in the sunshine, then put back on in the shade.

               I huffed and puffed up to “the top.” The view of three states: Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, was spectacular. WSU was down there, nestled in the rolling hills of the Palouse. There was a family near us taking graduation pictures of their son in his cap and gown. We had two seniors with us, but hadn’t thought of hiking with graduation gear. I was just proud of myself for remembering to bring running shoes.

The palouse wasn't this green when we were up on Kamiak Butte, but it was still impressive. That's WSU in the center.

               On the way up, we noticed that by far, most of the hiking parties coming down consisted of sons and their parents. Not many girls chose this activity for Mom's weekend. As we passed each other on the trail, I’d catch snippets of conversations: Dads asking for shorter routes home, Moms asking how Chem 101 was going, or who their over 6 ft. tall “child” would be rooming with next year.

Laura and Johnny, Kamiak Butte.

               We noticed a trail headed up even higher than we were. So, we weren’t at the top. In the debate of whether to push on or go back to the car, I chimed in that I thought we’d gone far enough. Johnny disagreed. Right then, a couple of grandparents in their eighties popped up, and continued up the trail for the higher level. Johnny gave me a stern look that goaded me, “If THEY could make it, you certainly can!” I quit my whining, picked up my feet, and started hiking higher.

               We came around a bend and spotted snow still blanketing the forest, true to Johnny’s prediction. Then a movement caught our eyes. A tiny chipmunk with black stripes down its back, flitted in and out of a pile of fallen logs, peeking at us.

Our chipmunk friend.

Chipmunk photos taken by Sarah Kemp.

               At the very top of Kamiak Butte, we took in the view of endless hills that were once an ancient inland sea. I did my own solo impromptu down dog yoga on what felt like the top of the world. Then we started the hike back down, taking a different loop of the trail. There wasn’t any snow, just a little mud on the trail, so darn it, we couldn’t glissade down.

Gerri and Sarah, Kamiak Butte, WA.

The moms: Laura and Gerri make it to the top of Kamiak Butte.

Instead, Johnny called Sarah and Andy. Sarah had a paper due so she had opted out of the hike. He told them to meet us in the town of Palouse for lunch at the Green Frog. A reader of my blog recommended it. The sandwiches were very tasty and the Coronas icy cold. We all generously donated our dill pickle wedges to Andy. Every table in this friendly café and bakery was taken, but two people in the kitchen easily handled the crowd.  Across the street, we strolled through the Bank Left art gallery, and savored some handmade chocolates.

               After squeezing in some shopping at the Moscow Mall, we all met at Johnny’s apartment where we found out that Kamiak Butte’s elevation is 3641 feet. Snoqualmie Pass is 3022 feet high. No wonder this sea-level girl was winded!

               We made a sudden, semi-panicked attempt to get WSU’s creamery ice cream 15 minutes before Ferdinand’s closed, bolting out of the apartment. But when we got there, the line of other ice cream desperate moms stretched way out into the parking lot. I’d just have to do without their famous ice cream.

Instead, we visited the grizzly bears at the vet school. Three baby cubs frolicked and tripped over one another. Two teenaged-looking bears stood up on their hind legs, and wrestled as we watched with our faces pressed up against the chain link fence.

Back at his apartment, Johnny and Sarah K. made us Chicken Marsala, salad, and homemade bread for dinner. His other roommate Marissa’s mom, step-dad, boyfriend, and Dalmatian were there too, and we all couldn’t stop laughing at Bill Engvall’s standup routine on Netflix. (Dexter, the Dalmatian didn’t laugh much.)

After dinner, we went to Sarah’s apartment. At 1:00 in the morning, we were still talking, playing with makeup, and painting fingernails with OPI’s Suzi Sells Sushi Down by the Seashore.

Kimbrough Hall, WSU, Pullman

               Sunday morning, Sarah and I ate the scones we’d bought at the Green Frog and steeped some tea for breakfast. Then it was off to Kimbrough Hall, the music building, to listen to Andy, Sarah, and Johnny play piano. I was very pleased with my private, insiders’ concert performed by the music department’s top pianists. 

               We made an intense, quick shopping trip through Wal-Mart to get them both stocked up again. Sarah and I had our picture taken by a professional photographer at the Bookie.

Sarah, Laura and Johnny Stark at Dupus Boomers.

   Then lunch at Dupus Boomers in the Cub Union rounded out Mom’s Weekend. Unbelievably, I succeeded in getting my Ferdinand’s ice cream, after all. An ice cream sundae made with WSU’s creamery ice cream was on the menu. I enjoyed the delicious treat right down to the whipped cream and cherry. I also scored some Cougar Gold cheddar cheese on my way out of the Cub because there were still a few cans left in the bookstore!

Mom and her two cougars: Johnny, and Sarah Stark outside the Cub Union on Mom's Weekend.

               There were a few activities that we missed, like the fashion show, the Ukrainian egg sale, and the baseball game. There were a few that we couldn’t get into like the Mom’s tea and spa. Sarah and I didn’t have matching hoodies, like the sorority girls and their moms. But the unplanned, spontaneous time we spent together re-connecting and laughing is what Mom’s Weekend is really all about. What a special weekend my two cougars and their friends treated me to! Can’t wait ‘til next year!

Johnny and Laura try to make stern Stark faces much to Sarah's amusement.

Laura Keolanui Stark is not sore from the glissade-free hike. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Welcome to Palouse, Washington

People say that everything happens for a reason. I’m not totally convinced. There’s a lady in Palouse, Washington who is probably still scratching her head about a random, unexpected visit from two strangers.

Sometime during fall semester, Johnny mentioned that he’d spotted a quilt shop in the small town of Palouse. One of the requirements for a class he was taking was community service. He chose to volunteer at an elementary school there. 

During our phone call, he told me about his adventures working with little ones on Math night. He described what a challenge it was explaining to a first grader how a Sudoku puzzle worked. He laughed about two brothers and their competitive sibling spirit. He said on the way to the school, he’d driven by a quilt shop, and promised to take me there the next time I visited him at WSU in Pullman.

The unique hills of the Palouse, eastern Washi

So, on my last visit, Johnny drove me over 15 miles of rolling wheat fields that still had patches of snow on them, to the tiny town of Palouse, population 966. 

We drove right down Main Street and parked across the street from the shop. But, when we got up to the front door of Small Towne Quilts, and peered inside, it was dark and empty. Taped to the door was a sign saying they’d moved to W. Illinois Street. No problem. It was a small town. How hard could it be to find?

Main Street, Palouse, Washington

Pretty hard. We made several passes through town, around a grid of blocks, up and down the hills, and past the elementary school where Johnny had volunteered. I waved to school kids and their bus driver (hey, they started it!), and wound up in a neighborhood before we decided to return to the shop and get the phone number.

Then we drove back to where we thought the quilt shop should be. We parked in front of a big, old house with the right address, but it had no quilt shop sign. It was in a residential neighborhood, and there were no cars in front of it. It didn’t even look like anyone was home.

Johnny dialed the number on his cell, and as soon as it started ringing, passed it to me like a hot potato. A lady answered as I fumbled with the phone. I told her we were looking for the Small Towne Quilts shop.

She asked, “Are you in front of a house with red gables? Am I looking at you?”

How do you answer that? I told her we’d walk up to the front door.

Apparently, she had been looking at us. She opened the door and it was like being at home. A dachshund ran right at us, and started barking furiously. The lady ignored her, and walked us inside. The dachshund quieted down when I told her to hush. She was a miniature; “our” doxie, Suzie is a regular one, but they sure had similar personalities—a little slow to warm up on first meetings. One big difference though, was that this one, named Alice, had blue eyes!

The shop owner, Bev, explained that she’d closed her shop so she could focus on the long arm quilting part of her business. She led us through her house into her studio where several sewing machines lined an outer wall full of windows that looked out onto the back yard. A long arm quilting machine was the centerpiece of the room. She told me that she hadn’t set up her fabrics yet, it was all upstairs. I think if I had asked, she would’ve taken us up there, but I felt like we’d already been intrusive enough.

We had a friendly chat about quilting, and inheriting dachshunds from college-bound kids. Her son asked her to take care of Alice while he went to WSU. He’d recently told her that he wanted “his” dog back. She told him that she didn’t think it was going to happen.

As we talked, Alice would run up, and gently place a hacky sack on top of Bev’s foot. Bev would flick it into the dining room or down the hall, and Alice would tear off as fast as her short, little legs could carry her to fetch it. Great idea! Although, I’m not sure it would work with our two dogs. T-Bone and Suzie already look like a double-decker bus when they start running together, and I’m always worried Suzie will get trampled.

Bev got a kick out of Johnny finding her shop for me. I told her he’d been trained to spot quilt shops on all those Shop Hops I’d dragged him on while he was growing up. She invited me back the next time I was in Pullman, gave me her business card, and told me to check out her website.

Welcome to small town America, where people are friendly even when total strangers barge in unannounced. Bev is probably still wondering what that was all about.

Laura Keolanui Stark will continue to make random surprise visits to anyone associated with quilting, so watch out! If you want to see Alice the blue-eyed dachshund, she’s on Bev’s website: www.smalltownequilts.com