2013 July 5 Seattle area to Sequim and July 6-9 Port Angeles to Pender Island, BC and return

 

July 5 we drive north to Edmonds, WA to get the ferry across Puget Sounds.  We follow the ferry signs and then there’s a detour which didn’t make any sense at all.  They want to us to climb a 12% grade hill, stop at the top and then make a sharp right turn!  Not gonna happen.  Backed down the road and used our Kentucky Windage to find the road we thought they wanted us on…Yup – we’re in the ferry lineup – yea!  30 minute shuttle and we’re in Kingston.  Took highway 104 and crossed the Hood Canal on the “floating bridge.”  Around the Olympic NF and then into Sequim!  Found the Elks and got set up.  Got the bike out and got muffins for breakfast and had supper at a Mexican Restaurant.  Not many choices here in Sequim.  To bed early.

Up really early and drive from Sequim Elks where our RV is and drive 20 minutes to Port Angeles where we catch the ferry to Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC.  Be there at 7 AM for 8:15 AM ferry departure.  Board at 7:45 am

Ferry lineup in Port Angeles

 

Beautiful Olympic Mountains as we leave Port Angeles

Jerry snoozes as we cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  I ate a delicious bowl of Ivars’ famous Clam Chowder.  Yum!

Arrive at 10:30 AM and go through customs and drive through Victoria North to Sidney.

Customs lineup as we debark

Victoria – beautiful flowers and majestic buildings.  I haven’t been here since 1962!

How often do you see a sign advertising Murphy Beds?

On our way to Sidney.  In Sidney, saw a sign for a business:  FLUSH – Bathroom Essentials!  Funny.

Sidney is a neat, tidy, lovely little town.

 

Free wifi so stopped at the Woodshed and checked email, etc. and had a delicious beer and pizza. 

Mall next to the Woodshed.  The flowers up here in the northwest are so spectacular!

 

Drive to Swartz Bay to board the ferry to Pender – a 45 minute ride.  Our ship is The Queen of Cumberland.  Bumper sticker on the ferry to Pender.  They are laid back.

 

One of the many San Juan Islands.

Our host, Ian, was on the same ferry from Swartz Bay to Pender so we had a nice visit on the ride.

Following Ian to their home on North Pender.

Relaxing dinner and evening catching up with them. Hadn’t seen them since we spent a week in Abbeville, LA and met them in Nov of 2010.

On Sunday after a yummy breakfast, they took us around the island sightseeing.  We stopped at Brooks Point Regional Park and walked a short shady path to the beach.

 

 

Spotted a bright purple starfish!

 

And a seal mom and pup.  I was too slow with the camera and the pup dove into the water before I could get a photo.

Jerry, Ian and Vicki enjoy the warm sun and cool breezes as I take pictures.

Lunch was ice cream at the local shopping area called Driftwood.  Really yummy ice cream!  Mine was Mango!  RG has me hooked on mango!

 

Back to their home to sit on the deck and chit chat.  Then to the Cafe at Hope Bay for 6:15 dinner.

Ian built this  entrance for them.  Nice young couple, Rob and Amanda own it.  Amanda is an amazing chef!  Delicious food!

 Took the scenic route back to their home. Stopped at Magic Lake across the road from their home.  Pretty in the setting sun!

Monday was relax day.  Jerry amused himself and one of the cats…

Vicki made us a delicious dinner with local Prawns.

Tuesday up and “attem” early with ferry at 9:30…be there at 8:30 to line up. 

Stopped again at Sidney on the way from Swartz Bay to Victoria.  Had several hours to kill, so shopped at Captiol Iron, which was a glorified general store with really wonderful kitchen accessories and lots of other items such as clothing, camping equipment, and bathroom stuff.  Had lunch at a cafe in the same little strip mall, did email using Safeway free wifi.  Then drove to Victoria to the ferry.  Through customs.

Scenes from the Coho Ferry as we leave Victoria on the way back to Port Angeles.  

Rowing club.

Tour boats – so cute!  Lots of them running around the bay.  Also sea planes landing and taking off.

Was foggy, windy and rough on the way back. 

But as we came back in to Port Angeles, the Olympic mountains greeted us once again and the water calmed.

 

Stopped in Port Angeles at Next Door Gastropub.  Sat at a high table for two right on the sidewalk in the sun.  Had a beer and sandwiches.  Really gourmet!  I got my Dungeness Crab!  A real treat!  Home by 7 PM.  A wonderful long weekend visit with wonderful friends. 

2013 July 1-3 Seattle area

Monday, July 1 packed up, dumped tanks and left the Oregon City Elks RV Park and headed for the Seattle area.  Saw these sculptures on the way. 

 

 Some beautiful scenery early in the trip with sightings of Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens and Mt Rainier!  Crossed the Skookumchuck River (whatta name!)  Traffic was horrendous and we didn’t arrive at the Lake Pleasant RV Park in Bothell, WA (about 4 miles from Terry and Vicky Webb’s home in Brier) until 5 PM.  Exhausted and hot – 93 degrees here which is quite unusual.

July 2 was a rest morning. Grocery shopped then went to Vicky and Terry’s for yummy burgers (I had a Salmon Burger and tasted the Chipolte Black Bean burger, also yum), macaroni salad, huge green salad and brownies for dessert! 

July 3, Vicky and Terry picked us up and we drove to downtown Seattle.  Was great having a chauffeur who knew where he was going!  Parked in a parking building and came up into the Securities Building – a beautiful old edifice.

Street scenes as we made our way to Bruno’s for lunch (an Italian/Mexican restaurant where Terry and Vicky used to eat all the time when they worked in downtown Seattle:

Note the Blue trees.  There was live music in this attractive pocket park.

 

Underground grocery store next to Brunos.

  

Then we made our way a couple of blocks to Pike Place Market!  Wow, what a wonderful place of sights, sounds, and smells! 

   

Brick street and covered sidewalk along the market.

Beautiful flowers atop these buildings.

 

and a few places to sit and eat your lunch.

 

 

Dozens of produce markets, flower vendors, fish and seafood, trinkets, art, wine, ice cream, pastries of every variety, fudge, tees, and the original Starbuck’s store.  A pepper work of art!

   

After going about 4 blocks down one side, we crossed the street to the other side and caught views of Puget Sound and the city from this viewpoint.  Beautiful flowers, great area for picnicking and some outdoor vendors.

 

Waterfront sights: This freeway will be torn down soon as it is sinking into the silt.   Will be replaced by a tunnel.

 

 

Mt. Rainier and dome.

   

The flowers were so gorgeous and anywhere from $5 to $15 for beautiful bouquets.

 

Famous Pike Place Fish Co where the employees yell alot to each other and sometimes through fish around.  Didn’t get to see that but certainly a fun place to people watch!

 

After we were tired from walking, found the car and drove to the Mikilteo Lighthouse and surrounding area.

 

This is the ferry that goes over to Whidbey Island.

A beautiful waterfront area where people were picnicking, children playing in the sand or on the playground or in the water…and another picture of Mt. Rainier.  It is SO huge!  And we found wonderful ice cream here, too!

       

A Farmer’s Market down on the waterfront.

Jerry watches the Blender Bike where you can choose your own smoothie ingredients, for $5 then pedal the blender to mix it.  If you want the vendor to bike it smooth, it costs $6!

Terry buys us beets for tomorrow’s dinner.

 

 

Then on the way to our place, we pass the Boeing plant, the largest building in the world (by volume.)  They build 757 and 787’s here, I think Terry said.

 

Back at Vicky and Terry’s were were all happy to just sit and read or play on our computers on their lovely, shaded deck.  Finally about 8 pm we were hungry and ate chicken hot dogs and salad.  A very wonderful, jam-packed day!

2013 June 27-30 Oregon City ++

Thursday, June 27

Dinner at Chuck and Rita’s was the highlight of this day!  Wonderful appetizers, small slider grilled chicken sandwiches with grilled poblano peppers and aioli.  Great special baked beans, and potato salad added to the feast!  Wow.  Dessert was Marilyn’s berry cobbler with ice cream.  Egads!  Great visit out in Chuck’s beautiful back yard full of flowers and birds. 

On Friday, Chuck came around 11 bearing wonderful cinnamon rolls from his neighborhood bakery.  Lunch!  Had another great visit.  For supper, went to the Elk’s RV Park Hamburger Fry.  Good goopy burgers. 

Saturday was a rest day and then to a local bar and grill, The Horseshoe, for a beer and handmade pizza.  While sitting on the patio on a beautiful warmish evening, in came a PGR couple, Mike and Leann.  They sat with us and we had a great time sharing stories and getting acquainted.  They invited us to go with them on Sunday for a ride to Multnomah Falls.  Yes!  They mentioned at in Mollalla, a nearby town was a flag display, so we went to see it.  Two 100% disabled vets, one an Iraqi vet who is the OR State chaplain and Vietnam vet, travel the state of OR putting up around 1000 US flags and give out personalized medals for the OR vets.  Was very moving…they had 812 flags up for this display as they didn’t have enough lighting for all 1000.

 

Sunday, June 30 started bright and sunny and hot.  Here’s a picture of the Mulita River flowing by our campsite.  And a huge geese family walking/swimming up-river.

Met our new friends and two other couples at the Stagecoach Saloon near the intersection of I-205 and I-84.  Mike and Leann introduced us to their friends, Bob and Cat, and Bill and Trudy.  Had breakfast special, a feast for $6.99.  Off to see the Columbia River Gorge about 11 AM.  Already hot!  Took the scenic, shady Historic Route 30 which parallels I-84 along the Gorge to Multnomah Falls

Stopped at beautiful Vista Point, the Gorge Visitor’s Center,  probably built in the 1930’s when this area was developed by lumber barons.  Much of the Historic Rte 30 bridges were built by the CCC.  The interior is all marble and has a gorgeous dome.

 

 

Looking East, North and West below:

   

At Vista Point, we met Britishers Trudy and Andy who live near Lewes, our ancestor’s hometown in England!  It’s a small world!  Mike and Leann invited them to go see the Falls with us. 

Working our way East on Historic Route 30.

One of the beautiful guardrails built in the 30’s

Multnomah Falls!  Visitor’s Center and the Magnificent Falls!  They rank about 4th in the nation in height but you are able to get so close that they really are an awesome work of nature!

 

Leann’s parents have a huge bing and rainier cherry operation in Mosier, just East of Hood River which is further East from the Falls on I-84, so we headed there after the Falls.  Bought some Rainier cherries since we had the bing Cherries all up the CA coast.

 

We were going to cross the bridge and return via the river road in WA, but Mike and Leann and their friends had to go rescue a friend and we got a call to come to Marilyn and Emerson’s home for Sunday night dinner.  So we split up and went our own ways.  Back south and 1-1/2 hr later, pulled into their driveway at 5 PM, very hot and thirsty.  Temps were 93 at that time of day but the asphalt was radiating that sun and it was over 100 degrees on the bike…  took me quite a while to cool down and after 4 glasses of water each, got re-hydrated.

Dinner was awesome with cousin Carolyn there along with her daughter, Kimberly, son in law, Todd and grandson, Logan – 4 yrs old and adorable!  Also there were cousin Chuck and Rita and son Alex, 18 and ready to go to college in Corvallis in the fall.  Got to see Marilyn and Emerson’s daughter Rebecca, too!  Rita’s Mom was there, too so there were 11 for dinner…  Emerson grilled huge boneless pork loins and we had a lovely salad and Carolyn’s wonderful Gazpacho.  Then, as if we needed more, Carolyn had made a wonderful red raspberry pie with graham cracker crust and cream cheese/powdered sugar/lemon juice filling.  Oh my!  We were fortunate to bring home the two last pieces!

Home by 8:30 and fell into bed!  What a wonderful, full day!