In which friends were met with

Hello! Gosh it seems like ages since we last had a cup of tea together.
I have had a surprisingly busy week and can't quite believe it's nearly friday already. I spent a lovely couple of hours this evening meeting some leaders from the Tri-Cities Girl Scouts(collective name for Richland, Kennewick and Pasco). A lovely couple picked me up from the Richland Girl Scouts office and whisked me off to Starbucks, where we sat and discussed all manner of campsites and cookies, and a lot of "so how do you do X in England/America?" went back and forth. The discovery that Brownie leaders in Britain have Owl Names and Scout leaders have Jungle Book names was met with both surprise and delight, and I had to admit to being impressed with how much the Girl Scouts here seem to get involved with the community. Some of their main activities involved volunteering in various different roles; decorating hospital wards at Christmas, growing vegetables to donate to food banks, going to the Farmer's market once a week to set up a stall and advertise Girl Scouts; it all seemed very worthwhile as well as fun. Next week I've been invited to try horseriding with one troop of Brownies at a ranch on the edge of Richland. Needless to say I am rather looking forward to that!
And so a return to Sunday. As you know I hired a car at the weekend, so on Sunday I took myself off to Palouse Falls, about an hour and a half away. As you might guess, it was a huge waterfall in another gorge (the fact that there could be multiple large gorges here should give you some idea of how immense this place is!). I didn't set off particularly early, as I was quite tired from all the excitements of Leavenworth the previous day, but I had a few hours to wander round before heading home. I'll put some photos up of my walk on Flickr.
The Falls were absolutely beautiful and full of rainbows from the mixture of sunlight and spray, but for me the best part of that walk has been meeting some new friends. Four students who had been in my orientation on the first day passed me as I was approaching the waterfall, and I have to say I wouldn't have recognised them, but luckily for me they remembered that I was the "English one". We chatted, swapped numbers and email addresses and carried on our ways, and since I have been on an impromptu hike with them, made plans to go to Seattle, and intend to go with them to see the Green Lantern tomorrow night. After three weeks of meeting almost no-one, it has been a great delight this week to have some company at last. And the fact that one of them has a car isn't so bad either!
So I can now look forward to enjoying my first American 4th of July on the waterfront in Seattle in excellent company. What more could I ask for? Well, apart from a bar of Dairy Milk, of course.

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