Our travel across country continued and would end at Ft Lewis Washington, however before dropping Aunt Louise and Grandma Loretta off at the airport for their flight home, we made one stop at Mount Ranier and wanted to drive high enough into the mountain until we got snow (considering it was summer time this was a novel goal).

We did accomplish this and then Loretta and Louise were dropped off at SeaTac Airport and took a flight back to Detroit. Chuck (James Dad) would spend the next 2 and a half years at Ft Lewis which at the time was a high technology test bed for the latest technology in war fare. James Dad would do special assignments in California, Alaska, and Japan during his stay and would come home for good in 1984 with an honorable discharge, and a World Series Championship in Detroit (tigers winning over San Diego), just as his dad did in 1945 Tigers winning over the Cubbies).

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After Dad came home from Korea he wanted to have a car while he was at his new location stateside (Ft Lewis Washington). Dads Mom (Loretta) and Aunt Louise drove out with him to his new base on the other side of the country and would take an airplane home. While in route they made a slight detour to see Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Completed in 1941 under the direction of Gutzon Borglum and his son Lincoln, the sculpture’s roughly 60′ high granite faces depict U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

After a quick visit the family continued onward to the Pacific Coast and Fort Lewis Washington.