O.M.G.

Another year? Yes, you heard it here first. We have been offered and have accepted the Assistant Manager’s positions here at Evergreen Coho SKP Park for the summer of 2013. The nine member board was unanimous in wanting us back; it is always good to be wanted.

This summer among the many things we have seen and done; we have flown over most of the Olympic Peninsula, thanks to our friends Gregg and Rosalie Melde. We have traveled by ferry to Seattle twice to see Pike’s Place market, the Space Needle and Monorail. We have immensely enjoyed having over a dozen of our RVing friends come and stay with us.

What makes us want to return are the many new friends we have made in the park, and we can’t think of a better place to be in the summer; this has become our second home. Besides, we have averaged over 25,000 miles a year traveling the North American Continent; it is time to slow things down a bit. We have truly enjoyed our summer here and look forward to returning next year.

Connie will be 65 in a few days and a week after that will be our 45 wedding anniversary!

Update: We celebrated CB’s birthday in style, a monster cake, coffee and friends in the club house, several friends stopping by our coach and we topped it off by going to the Ajax Café with my favorite ex-sister-in-law Earlene and Kevin. What a great evening of laughter, and fantastic food! As we left the café we were treated to a full moon hanging just above the tree line of Indian Island, reflecting off the calm waters of Port Townsend Bay; it was a portend of things to come and a fitting end to our summer.

Only in Seattle

Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, Space Needle, Pike’s Place Market and Ivar’s Clam Chowder headline this city named after an Indian Chief.

From Chimacum it is an hour by car and 35 minutes more on a ferry crossing Puget Sound. Once past the piers and docks, the steep, San Francisco like streets pass monolithic effigies of steel and glass. Connie and I were on a fact finding mission, requiring us to navigate downtown Seattle; that meant figuring out the bus system. Doing an online search got us an inkling of what and where but boots on the ground is the only way to know. Seattle should be ashamed, online it says seniors are 75 cents, on the bus there was no mention of a seniors price; regular fare was a whopping $2.25! There was a 75 cent fare for those with a special card, after questioning the driver she allowed us to pay the 75 cent fare and told us we could get the special card at the bus headquarters, what! Apparently local people know about the card and lower rate while the visitor pays full boat. At $2.25 I thought the buses should have been more limousine like, albeit the buses were many and not too difficult to figure out which one to take.

After we obtained the information we were after, we retraced our breadcrumbs back to the wharf area. Ivar’s clams restaurant has been in the same location since before we first were here in 1969, so we decided to see if they were like Mo’s and just living on their reputation. Upon request we were shown to a window table overlooking Puget Sound and a fire-boat tied up alongside. We were entertained by people outside throwing breadcrumbs in the air to the waiting seagulls, swooping down to grab them in mid-air. We also watched as a jet black harbor seal had his lunch of not so fast swimming silvery fish. We both opted for the spring salad and Ivar’s signature clam chowder in a hollowed out loaf of French bread; it was absolutely fantastic!

With a full belly, a little shopping and being a bit tired from walking up and down some very steep streets, we boarded the ferry for the return trip (it was only $3.75, round trip, cheaper than the bus!).

Pat & Ed's turkey feed

About twenty or so gathered at the behest of Pat and Ed Hedden's for smoked turkey and all the Thanksgiving trimmings. It was quite fitting in that we all give thanks for the friends we have made here at Chimacum Coho SKP Park. With the exception of a few lucky ones who will stay thru the winter, we will all too soon go our separate ways. Whether or not we return, good memories will stay in our hearts and minds.Like the mighty Coho, the urge to return is great.

Thanks Gregg

Thanks Gregg…………

We have a friend who is a licensed pilot; he has a plane and a hanger at the airport, about three miles from here. He loves to fly, fortunately for us he likes to have company.

To fully appreciate the beauty of the Olympic Peninsula, one must fly over it in a private airplane. The expanse of green forests gives way to the deep blue sea; both blanketed by blue sky and the occasional white puffy cloud. There are never any grey skies because only an idiot would fly in that kind of weather.

We flew over Sequim, Port Angeles and thru the Olympic Mountain range past Hurricane Ridge, where the road ends and the endless Olympic wilderness begins.

The strong swimming salmon find their way up the  River and deposit eggs for another generation before giving themselves to the hungry bear or fertilize the area with nutrients from their bodies. Salmon always return after three or four years at sea, and they always return to the place of their birth.

The Elwha River is one exception; salmon were forever blocked by man’s intervention. Two dams were constructed a century ago without fish ladders; where once 400,000 salmon thrived, barely 3,000 are left. Man does, however, have the ability to learn from past mistakes. As we flew over we could see that both dams have been breached to allow the river to return to its natural flow; this is the largest river restoration ever done. Now the Elwha river salmon that have been blocked from 90 percent of their habitat will restart the natural cycle. In four or five years there will be much celebration as we watch the flash of several thousand silvery bodies; a century of our misdeeds erased.  

 

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 That being said, I gotta get out my fishing pole; yummmm!

Boat, bus, foot, monorail and elevators

 We walked on the ferry from Bainbridge Island, and then walked the 12 blocks to the Monorail which took 90 seconds to get to our destination. What a great day with good friends.                                            The backdrop is the space needle in gray mist, Chihuly glass adds the color with thousands of delicate "flowers".

 At the base of Seattle's iconic Space Needle is the Chihuly Glass Gardens, an eighth wonder of the world.

 Seemingly impossible colors and shapes and an amazing vision of one very gifted man.

 With Bill and Marilyn Register; lunch in the sky, rotating 360 degrees every hour.

 Yeah, way up there. Please God, not today.
We were here about 30 years ago, it is always breathtaking.

Wowie! The Wagyu burger is named after Washington States version of Kobe beef. Topped with a grilled onion and bacon jam and two kinds of cheddar cheese. This was five stars good.

Gettin' down and gettin' funky

Our good friends Bill and Marilyn have joined us here in Chimacum, Wa.. Their favorite band happened to be playing at the Port Townsend Brewery. Now you must understand, this brewery is very small (1/4 acre), and the back yard has grass (not exactly Busch Gardens). There is an assemblage of plastic chairs of differing colors, outdoor heaters, umbrellas and little tables making for a "let your hair down" atmosphere. There were several gals that filed the little dance platform, they added to the music and had everyone movin' to the beat.

The band Deadwood Revival was from Port Angeles, about 35 miles away. They were fantastic, a cross between folk and 70's rock with a lot of improvisation. The lead played banjo, acoustic and electric guitar good enough to run with the big dogs. They currently have three albums, check them out.

http://

www.deadwoodrevival.com/

 We said farewell to our friends from our home base at Del Web Festival, Buckeye, Arizona. It is about 115 degrees there now so they will take their time getting there.

What if?

It’s been said that a boat is a hole in the water that you throw money into, our friend Greg Melde claims his airplane is a giant vacuum that sucks up money.

Greg took us flying, what a thrill to see this area spread out like a map in real living color. There is more shore line than I had imagined, that is something you can’t see all of from a highway, it got me to thinking about our house on Puget Sound that we foolishly sold oh so many years ago. It also got me to wondering how different life would have been had we not moved from Port Orchard, Washington to Carmichael, California.  You can’t live your life on “What if”’s but I will always wonder.

Our home is in Arizona, the harsh environment of the desert with its bristles, thorns and tumbleweeds is in stark contrast with the blue water surrounding lush green foliage, polka dotted with the vibrant color of flowers with a backdrop of snow covered mountain peaks. Yes, it is said that the desert has its own kind of beauty, but it also has a ton of ugly thrown in.

More Native American lingo

Today we travel to the Lavender Capitol of the World; Sequim, Washington, pronounced “squim”. With the driest climate in the state this small hamlet is popular with the retired set and is perfect for growing that purple flower that is supposed to calm and quiet our spirit. It is also home to some very spendy restaurants such as the Oak Table, where you can spend a very long time waiting for service before going to the Black Bear restaurant for a very good and reasonably priced meal, waaah!

Several Lavender farms surround the area but our favorite is “Purple Haze”, yes there is a portrait of Jimmy Hendrix hanging on the wall. Besides being named after one of my favorite songs, this picturesque little farm looks like a Monet painting. It also has an area housing “Bob and Shirley”, a resplendent peacock and plain peahen. There were also a few roosters that Bob was busy shooing away from Shirley, she had just given birth to six little chicks that were busy hiding under Mama. Bob’s awesome display of feathers was being used as a fence against those rascally chickens and would quiver and make a noise like a buzz saw.

Sunnyside Farmers Market is a delight to all your senses with a nursery as part of the open air grocery store, with enough “Organically” grown items here keep any old hippie happy. There are many flower children “flower grandparents”? I’ll pass on the free love stuff. Disgusting!