Old Retired Guy Blog
May 27 - 30, 2007
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Hooper (Page 2/2)[May 29, 2007] Alyson took us on a walking tour of Hooper today. We stopped at the old store that now functions as a museum, and visited the old hotel. The train tracks and grain elevator formed the backdrop for this interesting travel to rural America. (By the way, in case you're thinking that I'm just a city boy looking at these "country folk" like they're exhibits in a museum, please note that I grew up on a small farm near the unincorporated village of Franksville, Wisconsin. We had only 105 acres, not 50 square miles, so I can relate to a certain extent to the residents of Hooper.) In the afternoon we drove out to Palouse Falls State Park. This beautiful water fall used to be owned by the McGregor's, but the land was donated to the State of Washington for the park. Their property boundary is now on the far edge of the canyon.
When we returned from our afternoon of touring we wandered around the property surrounding the ranch house. Several horses were grazing in a nearby pasture so Paul got the crazy idea of feeding them peanut butter. He heard that this is what they did to make the horse on "Mr. Ed" make the motions that looked like talking. One horse took the peanut butter and immediately shook his head up and down and spit it out. It was quite hilarious. The strange thing is that when Paul offered the same horse more peanut butter the horse ate it again and responded in the same way, spitting and shaking its head. Maybe horses aren't that smart.
Later we found out that everyone in
town was invited to a going-away party for one of the residents.
It turns out that the unofficial "Mayor" of Hooper is from Wisconsin. When we heard that her son wanted a bratwurst we realized that this was obviously a smart kid so we gave him one. He really enjoyed it. [May 30, 2007] This was a quieter day, in part because we knew we were driving back to Portland in the afternoon. We took another walk through town, stopping the park to see the monument that marks where the school used to be located. Then we went down to the river and hung out for a while under the bridge that is named for Alyson's Uncle Sherman. After lunch we packed up the car, waited while Mark hosed all of the dust off of it, and headed back to Portland. All in all a very nice weekend at a very nice place with some very nice people.
For more great photos, please see the Our Trip to Hooper Gallery. End of Hooper Entry |
Alyson
informed us that "everyone" included us so we packed up some food for the pot
luck, brought bratwurst to grill, and walked over to the grounds behind the old
hotel. Since the grills were already lit we were told that we could put
our bratwurst on to cook. After I started cooking I was surprised to find
that several of the residents came over and put their meat on -- chicken, pork
chops, and steak -- and then left. As a result, I ended up tending the
grill and cooking for several local families. You won't run into this type
of friendliness in any big city. 
