November 10-12/14

We spent our last full day in Washington doing a bit more touring of the local area. We drove the RV to Cape Disappointment State Park (about a 5 minute drive from our campground) We had originally planned to bike there but due to the previous weeks rainfall, the bike path was actually washed out so we couldn’t get there that way. Just as well as the hike we ended up going on was strenuous enough and it would have been a killer to have to bike back to the campground afterwards. Cape Disappointment is one of Washington state’s most famous and popular parks. It boasts a premier campground, 3 beautiful beaches, public artworks, 2 lighthouses, an interpretive centre and miles of hiking trails. We first walked to Waikiki Beach – named in memory of a Sailor who was from Hawaii (known as The Sandwich Islands back in the days of The Lewis and Clark Expedition) who drowned on the expedition. This beach is one of the locals’ favorite spots for storm watching because the waves crash on the cape here with the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse in the background. From there we took the Discovery Trail up to the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse which was a 1.2 mile hike one way over some fairly rough hilly terrain. It was a beautiful view from there. We could see the Jetty’s that had been built to control the mouth of the mighty Columbia River because with all of the tidal action, there is a tendency to fill the mouth in making it impassable for oceangoing ships.

Once we returned to the RV we had our lunch and then headed north up the Peninsula from Seaview to check out what was there. In Ocean Park we stopped at Jack’s Country Store.  We had been told Jack’s was a must see as it was a huge store covering a full block and was supposed to contain all kinds of unique items. It was somewhat of a disappointment as it was just a hodge podge of stuff with a grocery store included. From there we drove to Oysterville which was right on Willapa Bay which is famous for its Oysters. We ended our day by stopping at the Seaview Laundromat where we caught up on our laundry and did our grocery shopping at the local IGA while the laundry was going.

Tuesday morning we packed up and headed south on Hwy 101 out of Washington and into Oregon. It was a very windy day and shortly after entering Oregon we had to cross a huge bridge in Astoria with very high wind gusts. Rob did a great job driving across the bridge and keeping the RV from blowing around too much. I was thankful that it wasn’t my turn to drive that day as it reminded me of the bridge I had driven across in rain and high winds back in Tacoma.

Once we got safely across the bridge we saw beautiful scenery as we drove through Seaside, Cannon Beach, Rockaway Beach, Tillamook, Newport , Florence, and the Oregon Dunes. Just north of Florence we stopped off at a lookout point and as I exited from the RV I smelt a familiar smell and immediately remembered being at Fisherman’s Wharf  years ago in San Francisco. Sure enough, upon looking over the cliff down to the water, there were at least 200 barking Sea Lions sunbathing below on the rocks and swimming in the rough ocean. If you have ever smelled sea lions, it is a smell you will never forget. It was fun watching them frolic in the waves and on the rocks. Also where we stopped was a great view of the Heceta Head Lighthouse which has the strongest beam of light on the Oregon coast.

Just past Florence, the Oregon Dunes begin and go for about 48 miles along the coast. The sand dunes along the Highway were huge. I said to Rob that it was a good thing we had not planned to camp in that stretch of the coast since I am not a sand lover as many of you know. Shortly after the dunes ended, we arrived at our destination – The Mill Casino Hotel and RV Park on Coos Bay in Oregon.

Wish us luck at the Casino!!

 

Well, they did have some more live music on Saturday night. Kathy and I went out for dinner at the Lost Roo and arrived back to hear the final song around 8:45 and it’s good we missed the earlier songs, as they were playing some grunge metal that sounded like Deep Purple. Speaking with the neighbor yesterday, he said another band came on after we left, but said the first one was better. Oh well.

Yesterday was a quiet day with some researching in the morning and Jazz getting combed. The 2nd last Nascar race of the season was on starting at 12:15, so that was my order of business for the next 3 hrs since I haven’t watched a race in a couple of months. The Lamplighter right next door, here I come. Kathy joined me a bit later.

With the race over by 3:30 we took Jazz down to the beach for a walk, but once down there it didn’t last very long as the wind was really whipping.

Back home for a game of Rummicube and a steak BBQ and an early evening.

No pic’s for today.

Nov 6-8

Wednesday was travel day with about 150 miles (240 km’s to go), but it proved to be a slow drive for a few reasons. We went to Gig Harbour to take a short walk and get a few pic’s, but that was short lived when after about 10 minutes it began to rain and hard. We were a bit damp getting back to the RV, so about noon we left town heading toward the seaside.

After the heavy rains, traffic volume increased as we headed south towards Tacoma and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. This suspension bridge that spans over 1 mile was constructed back in 1940 and 4 months later with high winds it began to “gallop” and after 3 hours it collapsed. Now it is known as Galloping Girdie. As we approached the bridge the rain picked up and we ended up missing the toll plaza. The electronic sign read “Very high side winds” as we approached and they weren’t kidding. Kathy was driving and she very scared even though we were only going 15-20 km/hr. Winds lessened once we were off the bridge, then we encountered a couple of army convoys on the main freeway, keeping traffic slow again. Finally as we got around 30 miles from the sea, roads became very windy, (not hilly though) as we had to snake our way through bogs and sloughs. We finally arrived in Seaview around 4 pm at the visitor information office and learned that this area is all about tourism, oysters and cranberries. The whole peninsula is definitely a summer mecca. She informed me that one in four oysters eaten in the world are from Willapa Bay and there are many cranberry operations in the area as well. Something additionally was happening right now in the area – clam digging. The season is open until Tuesday Nov 11^th. She asked if I wanted to borrow a “clam gun”. A what, I said? A white plastic plumbing tube with a handle you stick in the ground to dig out clams. I declined but said we would check it out later with the locals as it was done near low tide and the evening tide – so basically “fishing in the dark”.

We finally arrived at the Sou’Wester Lodge in Seaview. Some of the pictures you will see only partially explain the “park” we are staying in for 5 nights. It’s not an RV’er’s haven by any means, but the whole arrangement is quite quirky. The place rents out vintage RV’s from the 40-60’s, has 4-5 cabins (old shacks) dating back 100 years and this gigantic old house that probably dates that far back as well. The resort is run by a lady and there seems to be a following of people likely staying here that help out around the house and yards. Possibly a hippy compound or today’s term might be “free spirited souls”! It is very nice in a unique way. They run a store in the old house with quite a little selection on the honour system! Most Saturday nights they have local artists perform in the great room in the big house which holds about 25 people. On Thursday night, when we arrived they were actually having a performance that night as well which was a couple in their 30’s playing acoustic guitars and singing songs from Hank Snow, Hank Williams, Ernest Tub and a number of other artists….for 1 ½ hours. They were very good! Kathy and I had front row seats as at the beginning the audience was us and 3 other people. It filled up a little later on to around 25-30 people. No charge. Hardly wait to see what Saturday brings! One of the other items of note is in the great room, there is a record player and probably 3-400 albums you can go in and play. http://www.souwesterlodge.com/vintage-travel-trailers/

 

Seaview is on the Long Beach peninsula which claims to be the World Longest “driveable” beach at 28 miles or close to 45 km’s. It does get challenged for this on the internet, but just the same it’s is one massively wide and long beach. The biggest we have ever seen. Besides the beach, they have a paved bike and walking trail that winds its way through the beach grass for a 15 km stretch which is excellent.

Friday morning brought an abundance of sunshine and I kept saying to Kathy, I don’t care what we do today, but I just want to stay outside. On Friday morning we headed out with Jazz for a long walk into Long Beach which is only about ¾ mile away. After a coffee, a trip to the Long Beach bakery called “Cottage bakery and deli”, we walked the ½ mile board walk getting back home around 2. OK, Jazz has had her exercise, but we’re not done. On to the bikes we go to explore part of this paved bike trail and biking on the beach as well. After another hour we were back home then decided to check out the nearest happy hour spot – The Lamplighter. We spent an hour or so there speaking to a couple of the locals and one was giving us some “tourist” tips for the area and also for S. California around Palm Springs were we will be in about 5 weeks. Later in the evening, in the dark, we headed down to the beach to check out the clam digging, but there wasn’t much going on as we watched some locals for 10 minutes, then it was getting much colder out, so back home we went. It’s about a 5 minute walk to the beach. Needless to say, we didn’t see anyone find a clam (each person has a 15 razor clam limit and they must buy a license). Maybe in warmer weather this might be fun, but I don’t even like fishing in warmer weather!

Saturday, we woke feeling a few sore muscles from the exercise from the day before. Bright sunshine met us again. After a slower lazy start, we hoped on the bikes again just after 11 am to head to the other side of Long Beach about 2-3 miles north to the Cranberry museum. It was interesting, but how excited can you get about a berry. On the way back we checked out a few shops (full of tacky tourist crap), had lunch (fish burger for Kathy and I had an oyster burger – deep fried Willapa oysters). We toured back on the paved beach trail described earlier (The Discovery Trail) getting home around 3. Have to rest up for tonight’s performance in the great room. Tonight it’s Old Light & Strawberry Fog.

We’ll let you know tomorrow how it went!

 

 

 

Nov 4-6

On Tuesday we arrived in Port Angeles WA shortly after noon aboard the MV Coho. This ship was much smaller than the BC ferry we took earlier holding around 100 vehicles. It was a smooth trip and Jazz was allowed to come into the lounge, so she enjoyed being able to be with us vs. staying in the RV.

We headed about 100 miles south to our next destination I had read about – Gig Harbour. They call themselves “The Maritime City”. It is located about 25 miles SW of Seattle, just north of Tacoma and there is definitely some money in the area. We set up camp around 3:30 and walked into town about 1.5 km to check it out. Weather was dry at that point, so that was a nice change. We had our lunch on the ship at 11:30am so that was real early for us, so we were in search of the Tide Tavern a recommended place to eat and have happy hour. Luckily we arrived there at 5 pm as shortly after the place became quite busy with locals. Food and drinks were great. We went back home by around 7 and shortly after our favourite song began to play….rain!

The next morning was somewhat clear and I had located an Albertson’s grocery store about ½ to 1 km north of us. Using google maps I was able to find an alternative route for us to take vs. the highway. This was our first grocery expedition using bikes and knapsacks. We loaded them full and as we headed outside, it was just teeming out so a coffee at the in store Starbucks was in order. Once the weather cleared we made it back to camp safely and restocked the fridge for a few more days. Then our song played again. So it was an indoor day for researching and watching some TV/movies. We decided we needed to head out the next day – south and in the pursuit of a longer stay location. We found The Sou’Wester Lodge in Seaview, WA.

Coast, here we come again. If you haven’t realized it yet, we both have a strong propensity to be near water.

November 2-4, 2014

On Sunday, we caught a local Victoria bus and took it into downtown and to the waterfront. As usual it drizzled rain the entire time we were out sightseeing. Victoria is much smaller than Vancouver and we liked it better. It didn’t have a big city feel to it at all. We checked out the Empress Hotel. Rob wouldn’t go for High Tea so we just observed it for a bit. We saw the Parliament Building where there was a memorial set up for the 2 recent fallen soldiers. We also went to Fisherman’s Wharf. It is a quaint little community of multi coloured floating houses and a few restaurants. It was pretty neat actually. Nothing like other “Fisherman’s Wharf’s we have seen before. We were amazed at how big some of the houses there were and many were nicely yet uniquely decorated.

On Monday, we left our RV campground and headed to Butchart Gardens, just north of Victoria. We spent a couple of hours wandering through their beautiful property. It was the best time of year to see the Japanese Gardens. The colours were amazing as you will see from the attached photos. Throughout all of the Gardens there are many different water feature areas and the entire property is extremely well kept. We could see an obvious difference between Butchart which is a privately owned Garden and the Royal Botanical Gardens which we are members of at home. RBG depends on donations and is a non profit organization whereas the Butchart Gardens are owned by the Butchart family. It has been open for over 100 years always owned by the Family. When it first opened it was a labour of love for a husband and wife back in the early 1900’s. It is classified as a National Historic Site of Canada and is in a league of it’s own when it comes to Gardens.

After leaving the Gardens, we drove further north on the Island and explored Saanich Peninsula which included the town of Sidney. From what we saw, Sidney would be a lovely place to live and we learned that Sidney has the best year round weather in the entire province of BC. So, if that means less rain than everywhere else in BC, then that would be the place we would go if we were ever to move west. Of course, it was raining quite hard as we drove through Sidney, so we‘re not sure we believe what they say about their weather.

Speaking of weather, we just realized that is has rained every day where we have been since October 20^th until yesterday when we finally had a dry day.

On Monday night we had planned to Boondock at Walmart in Victoria as we had to be on the road early to get to the Ferry Terminal by 9 am to take the Ferry to Washingon, U.S. Our GPS took us to the Walmart but unfortunately it was in a very compact area of box stores and only had covered parking which our Motorhome would not fit in. So, we had to quickly search other parking options as we had no campground to go to and there was no other Walmart nearby. We ended up discovering that the City of Victoria allows 24 hour parking on some of its city streets downtown and we were able to just park on the side of Menzies Street which was right beside the Parliament Building and only 1 block from the Ferry Terminal. We had a beautiful view of the Parliament Building which was brightly lit with white Christmas lights and also had a great view of the Empress Hotel which also was all lit up.

Tuesday morning, we pulled into the Ferry Terminal about 8:30 am and waited for the U.S. Custom and Border officials to drop by. It was an extremely easy process. All they asked us was if we had any fruit, vegetables or meat onboard the RV. We said “no”. They asked where we were going and for how long. And that was it! We were in the U.S. Easy Peasy!! No questions about Jazz or her food or anything.

The Ferry ride was 1 hour and 40 minutes long. Jazz was able to come up into the Passenger lounge with us for the trip. There were actually quite a few dogs on the trip and all were well behaved.

We arrived in Port Angeles, Washington between noon and 12:30 pm and from there we headed toward Gig Harbour, Washington where we plan to spend 2 or 3 nights. On the way, we stopped off at Best Buy to get a US Sim card for our Cell phone. Our Canadian phone number has now been disconnected so if you would like to communicate with us, please do so either by email, Skype or Facetime going forward or of course we always appreciate your comments on the Blog.

We’ll squawk to you again soon.