the larch

today dawned bright and beautiful. my wife called from the second buy-in of a base sponsored poker tournament, mostly to see if she could afford to buy back in. we had a nice conversation for a bit before she insisted i lay back down since the kids were still asleep.

yeah, easier said than done.

no. 1 was up not much later, feening bad for his games that he had gone a full eight hours without. that boy is on the nod bad.

after he got his fix, i decided to head up to snoqualmie, a mountain town, in search of a collectibles shop i suspected might have vintage star wars toys and the like, hopefully for very reasonable prices. (d & k, if you're reading this, it was spur of the moment, and i forgot to put your phone number in my cell. or i would've at least called.)

so we left the house in a state i believe most people refer to as a shambles and got in the car to head out and have some fun on the road, even if the store was no longer there.

we had a great time in this little town whose big claims to fame are a still-working train line where one can ride on antique passenger trains, logging, and some beautiful falls. the building that the collectibles store used to be in was in a state of condemned-to-be-rebuilt-as-a-historical-monument, so we popped into a local garage sale, and i asked what had become of it.

"oh you mean the flying frog, it's across the street now. it's expanded too. you'll see it right there, across from the depot on main."

i thanked her, and we headed to the flying frog. we found it, and indeed, they had a plethera of vintage star wars collectibles, as well as real fossils and geodes, other sundry collectibles, and--

"oh my god, space 1999."

the owner pops his head up with a surprised chuckle and says, "yeah. do you remember what the name of the ship was?"

"oh man, ummm. alpha 1?"

"the eagle."

"the eagle?"

"yeah, the eagle from moonbase alpha."

"ah, that must be where i got the alpha thing from. i was what? 5, maybe 6. i had some of the action figures, but never the actual space ship."

i stood for a few moments, basking in fond, though vague, memories from my childhood while staring at the object that i had no doubt ogled and fantasized about whilst looking at a jc penneys catalog near christmas time.

my hope of very reasonable prices was a bit misplaced, but the proprietor did have a largish box of star wars figures, and i decided to go ahead and buy a few i didn't already have.

the boys were beyond well-behaved.

as we were heading back to the car, we passed a cafe, and popped in for hot dogs and sandwiches. we sat at the old-fashioned counter, and i asked the soda jerk for two of his finest kid's hot dog meals, and two of their finest root beers. i plunked my two bits down, only to discover that we've come a long way, baby, and whipped out my card instead.

the boys devoured their dogs, mowed through their chips, slurped their root beers, and made a huge mess (much to many of the patrons' delight) of their ice-cream cones, while boba fett kept falling off into the sarlacc pit, a power droid nearly lost his legs, and the death star commander kept reminding them that if they weren't well behaved, they weren't going to get to play video games when we got home.

the day was wonderful, my kids were angelic, the sun was bright, and a good time was had by all.

and i noticed something about western washington: it is full of hot, scantily-clad minas, just add sun.

darth sardonic