Summer 2015 PNW

Hi guys! Better late than never.  My last blog was before my surgery, was I missed?  Don’t answer; I don’t take rejection well.

CB and I are ensconced at the La Conner Marina RV Park. This used to be called Potlatch RV Park and was pretty junky until the Port Authority took it over and now it is very nice.

We are overlooking the Marina where there are hundreds of boats;  most have undercover moorage.  The big ones are tied up along the perimeter.   Sailboat masts pointing skyward, ready to carry colorful canvas to propel them to ports thruout the West Coast and beyond.   All have names and home-ports emblazoned on the fantail (that would be the boats butt for the un-initiated).

La Conner is where my parents moved to when they retired.  CB and I spent many happy days visiting. My Dad had a large cruiser moored near their home on the Swinomish Channel.  Dad and I would navigate the channel and head out to sea by way of Deception Pass.

Many sailing ships made the fatal mistake of trying to sail through the pass on a changing tide, when water flowing thru reaches speeds of 25 to 30 miles an hour. Going through in a power boat can be very interesting, full throttle and moving forward very slowly while being tossed about due to the severe turbulence caused by a massive amount of water flowing thru a narrow and shallow pass.  It truly is very deceiving.  Those sailors sure were deceived.After negotiating the pass we would head north and spend several days crabbing and fishing around the San Juan Islands.  Lots of good memories.

But I digress. Our trip up from Az. to Wa. was a very long one due to the refrigerator door hinge falling apart.   Connie was thrilled;  she has wanted a new refrigerator since we bought the coach.

My problem was location, location, location. The damn thing fell apart in Jackpot, Nevada (the easternmost part of our trip) and the only place I trust to do the replacement was in Eugene, Oregon (the westernmost part), 615 miles of slow road and a weeks time. Did I mention Eugene was hot? But CB loves that new refer!

Blaine, Washington, finally! The Thousand Trails RV Park here old, in disrepair and open to the general public, half of which resemble something out of Dueling Banjos. 

After two weeks at the TTN Park, we move to my nephew Tom’s house on the Nooksack River.  Tom and Sonia have a backyard view to die for.  The river runs straight at the house and turns just below at a 90-degree angle. If that is not enough Mt. Baker appears at the other end of the river, Wow!

That back yard was party central.  Starting somewhere around 5, adult beverages were wending their way towards several tummies. Going to meetings was discussed. Gary’s 75^th birthday was fun for all, I have a feeling Gary will have trouble remembering putting the empty marshmallow bag on his head.

We did not want to wear out our welcome so we left Tom and Sonia’s and headed back to Blaine and the TTN campground.  After a few days Fran and J.C. Benoit came and camped near us, hoorah!  Great to see our old Happy Trails friends again.  Soon after we had to move to the Mt. Vernon TTN.

The Mt. Vernon TTN is worse than Blaine.  We could not find a space where we could get TV signals, even with 200’ of cable and lots of swear words and work to set up the remote dish.  Add to that the cell phone signal was not enough to get on the Internet!  If all that was not bad enough, the power went out!  If we left Cara in the coach, we were afraid the power would go off and leave her in an un-conditioned home.  F….. that, we’re out of here!  After looking for the perfect place we decided La Conner was where we wanted to be, and it is.  A vend, avidi viche; or something like that……it’s Latin for crying out loud!

Here in La Conner I feel a presence.  My Dad went out to fish from here and never came back; he is still out there somewhere.  On my next birthday I will be 70, a year my Dad never attained.   He was such an avid fisherman; he went out doing what he loved.

Besides my nephew Tom and his beautiful bride Sonia living close by, my niece Tracy lives in La Conner, as does my ex-sister-in-law Earlene.  floating in the air (or so it seems) above Skagit bay,

the coastline of Whidbey Island and the setting sun; it We still see Earlene as family, and better yet, a good friend.

We have had a lot of fun with Earlene and Kevin. We have sumptuously dined at their beautiful Skagit Bay Hideaway, while floating in the air (or so it seems)  on their beautiful deck above Skagit bay, with a background of  Whidbey Island and the red setting sun; the table covered with buckets of the Pacific Northwest’s bounty; crab, shrimp and salmon.  Paired with the perfect wine; it simply

Doesn’t get any better.  Kevin makes a cocktail unlike anything I have ever had before;  gin, lime juice and basil leaves, shaken and strained into a martini glass rimmed with salt and sugar.  Yummy!  It is no wonder the bed and breakfast apartments are constantly full.

All of us took the whale watching boat out of Anacortes.

         Also included were Cory, Emily, Jaidan, Makayla, and Cal, they complete our family on my Dad’s side.  My mom’s relatives are thankfully in California, I could go into that but there are limitations on expletives.  

What fun we had watching the Orcas cavort about; there were many from different pods, diving for food with their tails giving a final push. After awhile they would blast through the surface and let out a large blast of air and mist; what a sight! Talk about fish breath, yuk!