It's A Long Way to Tip...

No I didn't go to Tipperary yesterday, but I sure went a long way! Seventy-seven point four miles north to be exact, to get Anna started in her new venture, angora bunnies.

I was going to be clever and post the google map of our route up there but every time I try to put it here on my blog, internet explorer turns off. Hmmmmm. Google maps says I, common computer user, can do this, but apparently I, Lanny Person Vick, cannot. This is weird since both, blogger and maps, are Google "products". Oh well.

And the only pictures that Anna took were of bunnys and bunny fur, and I know she will post these tonight, before the phone begins its usual evening ring.

She would have my hide if I "stole" them and posted them first. So you are going to be visually impaired today Dear Reader, well only here actually.

Back to the drive. We went up nearly to Snohomish, I think we were just a couple miles to the south of it, in this gorgeous farming valley (our local valley, what I always call The Big Valley, use to be a farming valley but now it is an industry, warehouse and cheaply built housing valley). We left around noon and arrived around two, having made a couple of quicky stops on the way up there, a quick bite to eat and money.

The bunny lady was really nice, an artist. Anna picked out her bunny based on temperament and color. We chatted with Bunny Lady, saw her other baby bunnies (not old enough to leave momma), tossed the ball for Bunny Lady's Border Collie and then said good bye.

Oh wait. I told her I was headed to Covington, and did she know the back way there by any chance? I was not looking forward to rush hour (it was straight up three by that time) down Hwy 405. Hwy 405 is not one of my favorite roads, I do not like being a marble in a concrete marble works, especially when I am a soft squishy marble and all the other marbles are bigger and meaner and tougher than me.

So she gave directions to Duvall, and beyond, but I was sure that I could figure it out from Duvall, with a little help from a link up via Bet to Google maps. Sure enough the road through Duvall and Fall City and up to Snoqualmie junctioned with Snoqualmie Parkway. Snoqualmie Parkway turns into Hwy 18 and Hwy 18 takes you right to Covington and our fuchsia start supplier.

The drive from Bunny Lady's to Duvall was splendid! We hugged the west side of this beautiful farming valley, Snoqualmie Valley. Then we crossed the Valley and entered Duvall. One of these days when I have time to just meander around the girls and I are going to go back up here. We picked up Hwy 203 in Duvall where it is Duvall's main street and then heading south turns into Carnation-Duvall Road.

I was on familiar ground. Hwy 203 was the majority of the route we, Dirt, Mike, Rebecca and I, took up to Burlington on the motorsickles August '09 to visit the wonderful Coulters. A trip where God once again turned our lives upside-down, inside-out and all-about, but that is a story for another day, suffice it to say, this road is nearly permanently embedded in the ol' noggin', only a severe case of dementia will remove it.

From another day with the Coulters I knew that I could take a different road out of Fall City and head up to Snoqualmie and North Bend. And every one knows that from North Bend I could hook up with Hwy 18 and drop down into Covington. But I was sorta hoping that I didn't have to go all the way into North Bend.

Enter Bettikins. With a call to EBet and her looking at Google Maps at home, we figured out that in Snoqualmie I could take the Parkway and it would magically turn into Hwy 18!

Yah Hooosie!

On Monday, Rebecca and I drove up to Covington to Earthworks Fuchsias to check out, and purchase if decent, what seventy-five cent fuchsia starts look like. Well they look just like the two-ninety-nine ones at fancy-pants Watson's and the selection was far larger!

When I got home Monday with my own personal fuchsia collection, Dirt and I figured that at that price I could put some baskets together, grow them out a bit and sell them for an honorable profit for my trouble. And that it would give my cusotmers somethin' pretty to take home with their nutritious bounty. We even figured in the price of the fancy soil sold at Costco and the hanging pots from McConkey's all of which are on the way home too. So I was ordered, ordered mind you, to include another trip to the Fuchsia Lady when I went to get Anna's bunny.

Since Covington is a shoptropolis, on Monday Rebecca and I went ahead and shopped at the Costco right there on our way out of Covington, a half a block off of the main drag we past down. And heck, looky what is in the giant never ending parking lot that connects half of Shoptropolis, Carl's Jr. and some mighty tasty burgers.

So Anna and I did virtually the same thing, got to Covington, went out a mile or so to the Fuchsia Lady and her wonderful employee Dawn for eighteen baskets worth of fuchsia starts (I had even packed my sales tax waiver in my bag, check it out, I'm sorta getting organized and a tad bit grown-up).

We headed back into Covington proper where the Hwy entrance is. We zipped into a pet supply, saw a neighbor in the parking lot, stopped to say hi, in the pet supply store we figured out we could do better at Freddy O'Meyer for bunny supplies, zipped across the road and into megaparking lot, ran into Freddy's for bunny supplies (and ice cream), came out, repositioned the car closer to Costco, went in, bought soil, chatted with the same Costco employees that Rebecca and I chatted with on Monday, (weird, I'm feeling like a "regular" at Covington Costco) went out, loaded our purchases into the Exploder, chatted with the young men loading their purchases into a Mini Cooper, asked them how they go shopping to Costco in a Mini Cooper and wasn't the car rather antithetical to the whole Costco experience, hopped back in the car, went to the middle of megalot and pulled into a parking spot at Carl's Jr, got our very big juicy yummy burger dinner for everyone back home, (felt like a regular here too) asked for it to be double bagged for warmth, it wasn't, headed out to the car, double bagged the food with our own reusable shopping bags, jumped into the car, looked at the bunny and drove straight home.

All in all, a ninety-six mile trip back home from Bunny Lady's to avoid the freeway-marble-works and swing over to pick up fuchsia starts, soil and a few other grocery items from Costco and into Carl's Jr. Burgers for take-home dinner. Well worth eighteen extra miles.

And actually when I Googled the trip straight down from Bunny Lady's to Covington to home via the freeway, it is eighty-nine point two miles. So really, my beautiful scenic route only was six point eight miles out of the way. Albeit not on freeway fast track but I'm thinking considering rush hour, I was just as fast, and way happier!

Hope you were able to hang in there Dear Reader for that wild scenic ride. Sorry I didn't have photos but I will return to the scene of the drive soon, with more time and a camera on my hands than I did yesterday. Right now I've got to run down to McConkey's right quick and get pots for the fuchsias. Beem me over Scotty!