Abbey's Road

Back in March I met a couple in New Mexico who were going to go to north central Washington to look at some property. They ended up liking it enough to buy some property so they gave me the website and contact information. I made some inquiries but never made it up here until now. The owner/realtor, Jim Platt, owns a ranch near Tonasket, a small town in an area bordering Canada which is called the Okanogan Highlands. It sits between the Cascades and the western reaches of the Rockies and is much drier than the western slope of the Cascades. It has a number of charming, little towns though no large or dominant cities. They tell me that it actually has four distinct seasons which you don’t find many places. Jim invited me to stay at his ranch for the weekend, but he also invited a number of other people too. He was so busy he didn’t have a lot of time to spend with each group, but I was able to go out looking at a number of properties with some of the other people there. I parked in front of his house and Abbey and I enjoyed hanging out there for the weekend. He has horses, llamas and a bunch of rabbits. When I first drove up I saw a bunch of rabbits hanging around. These rabbits didn’t look wild, though. They looked like the pet store variety, but were just running around the ranch loose. It turns out that one of his former caretakers raised rabbits and a couple of them got loose. True to form they multiplied... well… like rabbits, but the local wildlife has kept things under control. Abbey didn’t take long to notice them and she has been getting most of her exercise by chasing them. Once I realized she wasn’t going to catch them I let her chase them whenever she wanted to. He also had some llamas, including 3 babies, and 7 horses. Abbey pretty much ignored the llamas and horses until the last day when she got brave (or stupid) and chased one of the llamas. Luckily, it ran away instead of punting her back over the fence.

It was an interesting weekend and I met a lot of nice people. Jim’s ranch is in the Aeneas Valley outside of Tonasket and he seems to have owned a sizable amount of the land in the valley at one time or another. He has sold most of that land and he seems to have built an interesting community here. He knows nearly everyone since he has sold them the property and he tries to get all of them to get to know one another as well. It just seemed to have a good feel to me. Ironically, I didn’t get to see the property that I originally came to see. Jim had to go back to Seattle for the week so he asked me to stick around until the following Friday so he could show me the property and I could experience the Omak Stampede, a local highlight. I decided to stay even before I realized I left my camera in Jim’s car, which was now with him back in Seattle. I was going to go up to Canada for a few days since a large part of the Canadian wine country is just over the border, but I ended up staying at Jim’s place while I did some work, and had some done, on my RV. It’s nice and peaceful here, and it’s kind of cool hearing the nightly chorus of the coyotes every night around 9. Tonight’s full moon seemed to get them a little more excited than usual. During the week I pretty much had the place to myself except for the caretakers, and older Romanian couple. The wife would come over everyday to move the sprinklers (Jim’s a bit of a nut on watering his lawn and he keeps the sprinklers going 24 hours a day from May to September) and do other things around the house. I got to know her a little bit though our conversations were never too involved because her English is still pretty weak. She brought me over some peaches and tomatoes, and when Jim was there, she would bring over stuff she baked. She’s real sweet. Her husband is definitely from the old country, but they are both very hard workers. They are building a woodworking shop themselves on their own property because he plans to make furniture and cabinets after they build their house. If I ever build I know where I can get a lot of my woodwork done. One of the days I had lunch at a friend of Jim’s house. Mort is a real interesting character who I had met at dinner the previous Saturday. He’s in his 70s and still works fulltime, though for himself. He’s done a bunch of very different things in his lifetime from being a journalist to a lawyer, and he even lived on a sailboat for a while. So it was real interesting for me to talk to him and get some inspiration.

Jim came back Friday afternoon and we went to look at one of the properties again. I had gone during the week to see the property he didn’t get to show me the previous weekend, but I wasn’t as interested in it. When I saw the other property for the second time it just had a good feeling to me. I really liked the views. Plus, it has a creek running through it named Edwards Creek. How perfect is that? It is 20 acres, has some trees and some pasture land, is only one property away from the state and national forest and you can even see the Cascades from it. I had gone back and forth all week about it, but when we got back to Jim’s ranch I decided to go ahead with it. It’ll take a little while to close on it, but it looks like it should go through without a hitch. So, if anyone wants to really get away from it all, you can always camp on my land in the Aeneas Valley near Tonasket, WA. As a bonus, it’s only about 40 miles from the Canadian border and Canada’s largest wine region. See the pictures below.

Since I had already stayed the extra week I figured it was worth staying one more day to experience the Omak Stampede and Suicide Race. Jim and I went with yet another couple there looking at property on Saturday night. It was my first rodeo and it didn’t disappoint. It was a real hoot. We got their just in time to see them introduce all the Rodeo Queens from other rodeos on the circuit. I think I liked the buckin’ bronc and buckin’ bull riding the best. I don’t think I’ll ever be trying that, though. The salute to our armed forces with the Humvee tearing up the dirt in the arena, and the political/ideological editorials by the PA announcer got a little over the top, but the rest had that real, small, western town feel. It almost felt like we were in a movie – kind of like Bull Durham at the minor league baseball park. I couldn’t believe how far some of the contestants came to participate, and how much some of the better ones have won in their rodeo careers. The climax of the evening was the Suicide Race. I think you either have to be insane or drunk to participate. They ride on horseback down this unbelievably steep hill about 500 ft. down to the river, cross the river, go up the bank on the other side and then into the arena and across the finish line. Supposedly it’s not uncommon for horses to get badly hurt, but luckily none did that night. From where we were we could only see the horses go down the hill and then later come into the arena. I would’ve liked to see them cross the river too. At least now I can say I’ve been to the world famous Omak Stampede and Suicide Race. If anyone wants to join me next year, it’s always the 2nd weekend in August and next year’s will be the 74th.

There were wildfires nearby so the sky was filled with smoke on some days

Property Pictures