`We're passionate Protestants,' the husband said

ROYAL - A cute family, a dad and two sons, stopped for lunch two Fridays ago. When I asked their destination, on that finally not-foggy day, I was met with wide grins all around.

"Hiking" escaped from their burger filled mouths. Dad clarified that indeed they were going hiking at Crab Creek. When I inquired as to the cold weather, he just grinned and said: "No snakes or mosquitoes!"

Back in August, I had two lovely ladies stop on their way to the annual Lentil Festival in Pullman. As I am prone to do, I asked them what made them stop here.

They said they had been to the Iron Horse Brewery tap room in Ellensburg and other patrons had steered them to Deli-sh.

Today, Jan. 9, I got to meet Gary Parker, the not-so-silent partner at Iron Horse Brewery. When I asked what made him open a brewery, he said:

"Well, my son went off to Montana to get an education but found out the out-of-state tuition was too much for him. A year later he called and said: 'Dad, I finally have an education. I know how to make a great beer. Let's open a brewery.'

"So we did! And he does make a great beer!"

A few of my travel-through customers have given Coyote Ridge or the Camp Outlook juvenile center in Connell as their destination, or as one sweet little girl said: "We are going visit Daddy in time-out."

There was a fun family from Montesano (they had a Montesano football sticker on their mini-van, but we liked them any way). They would come almost every weekend to visit their daughter who was at Camp Outlook.

Sometimes it was just dad and mom and the kids, sometimes dad and grandpa with just one or two brothers or sisters, or even everybody a few times. They always stopped for breakfast and sometimes for lunch.

On one of the warmer summer afternoons on their way home they stopped for a bite to eat and to load up on sweet corn. We were all standing outside, as they loaded up, when mom exclaimed: "Where's Stephy?", the 4-year-old daughter. We all started looking for her and found her fast asleep around the corner in a chair, surely exhausted from the long trek to visit her sister.

I felt they were trying their best to be supportive of their daughter, sister and grand-daughter and get her on a better path. I never found out if they did, but I always hope.

As Cougar Football started up in the fall, we started having a lot of regulars who attend every home game. One lovely couple stopped a number of times throughout the season.

They told us their son was a Cougar player on special teams and how they had promised him they would attend every game they could for his senior year. On one Friday afternoon they stopped and we were chatting and the husband whipped out his wallet to show me their family picture - three boys, three girls.

Pointing he said: "That's the football player, those two boys were rowers and those two girls were rowers, this other girl is just waiting until she gets to be a rower next year."

Wow, I exclaimed. What a beautiful family!

Before I could say anything else, the husband said: "And no, we aren't Catholics or Mormons. We are just passionate Protestants!"