Day one of a planned trip to Ritzville. Nobody plans a trip to Ritzville or do they? We do. Ritzville is located on Interstate 90 running west to east through washington state. It’s where the traffic lightens and semi-trucks and others finally allow space while doing 70 mph. At the sign marked Adams County, the full breadth wheat fields comes into view. Before that we saw much corn and a lot of sagebrush. In Adams, the wheat fields are circular and recently harvested. It’s an expansive site. Without the wheat, the soft flowing hills are tilled earth. In the distance I can see a large dust devil or smoke. But with wind at 13 mph and no covered on the soil, I figure the wind is lifting up the soil and twirling it into the air.

We left Bothell at 9:15 a.m. and ran into traffic until we got on I90 heading east. Over the cascades and into Cle Elum we located a post office where I mailed a package. The post office is located in an unreinforced masonry two-story building. It occupies a storefront on the main street. Parking is diagonal and people getting in and out messes with the flow of cars. On the side of the building are the familiar engineering tool symbol for masons. An old lodge perhaps.

Down the road approaching ellensburgh we stopped for gas at Thorp. Next to the gas station is the Thorp fruit and antique mall. On the ground floor are fruit and other consumables. On the second and third floor is an antique mall. In the mall the wood creaks at our feet with every step. You cannot sneak up on anybody in these upper floors. We creak around and around with both sides of the aisle with booths filled with stuff. Some of the things are actually antiques, most are vintage which is 25 years or less. Antiques are more like 75 years or some say one hundred. The things I see like sports bobble heads, old life magazines, books new and old, baseball gloves, and select clothes are all items I see on ebay. Here they are in an antique store. The prices are good and many good deals. They’re priced for ebay without the extra fees. Most items i see I can double the price and sell on ebay for a profit. But we were passing through and I wanted to see what going through an antique store was like when I really am a buyer. Any time before this, I was a looker with sticker shock.

We arrived at Ritzville, our destination and had lunch. After a long week and long day, we settled in our room for the rest of the day and night.