Summer's eve.

Our time at the Escapee’s Evergreen Coho RV Park has come to an end for this year; we have made some new friends and learned a whole lot about running an RV park. We look forward to coming back next year in May for five months; we hope you will join us.

Our first stop was Portland, Oregon for a couple nights stay at the Columbia RV Park. Connie bought a McIntosh desktop computer, she had wanted to get back to Mac for a long time; and we saved state tax by buying it in Oregon.

We plan on being home in Festival about the 14th of October giving me two weeks to get ready for Halloween. I am just a big kid at heart; I love setting up my village of graveyards, ghouls, skeletons, witches and all things that go bump in the night. Next month it will be pilgrims, pumpkins and brightly colored vegetables, and we will be giving thanks for all the good things in our lives.

Coming up in mid-November will be Disneyland with Bryan, Gary, Blanche, Blanche’s kids Julie, L. Kae, and Raymond. Between now and then we will be having our fall brunch, hoping to see a lot of you there.

Christmas takes about two weeks to put up the tree, ornaments, an army of dolls and a little mistletoe. You can be sure St. Nick will be standing watch over packages wrapped in shiny green and red paper, tied up with bows of golden ribbon, each with a promise of something special inside. We will be wishing all our friends and family another year of good health and well being.

Dave

History, art, wood, water and friend.

Today we went to the Wooden Boat Show in Port Townsend, Washington. People from all over the world come to this event. An entire building is dedicated to the craft and art of wooden boats. The smell of fresh sawn wood and linseed oil brings back my fondest memories of my Dad; him and me building a small boat from scratch.

The biggest draw is boarding and viewing wooden boats of all description. The most intriguing of all was the Destiny with its storied past. Built in 1934 for Randolph Hearst and later sold to Howard Hughes, two of the wealthiest men of their time.

We came aboard and wound around below decks until we came to the kitchen in the forward most part of the ship. There we met Dawn, the new owner (pictured), we had a great time comparing notes; we were very much alike and quickly became friends. She and her husband sold their five coffee shops to buy Destiny and go see the world.

Port Townsend Washington is home to the Blue Moose Cafe, it is down by the dockyards
and looks very seedy. Inside is very small and very old, not what you would associate with
good food. Recommended by some locals we discovered a real gem. The sandwich I had was a double decker with toasted raisin bread, sliced apples, ham, cheddar cheese and sweet hot mustard, it was de-lish, as Rachael Ray would say.
  

Road trip to Joyce and Sekiu.

C.B. Cara and I took a road trip to Sekiu, an old fishing village from way back.

 As a boy of about 12, I accompanied my Parents, Dad’s Cousin Harold (Sy) Syverson and Shiela his wife, fun people, to Sekiu, the ultimate place for Salmon fishing. This was the one and only time my Mother would ever get this close to nature, something less than a five star hotel was to her “roughing it’. She would also go clam digging, but that is another story.

Highway 112 just west of Port Angeles is designated a Scenic Byway and it sure fits the bill. Running parallel to the Straits of Juan de Fuca, a large body of water separating us from Vancouver Island, Canada. It also leads to the San Juan Islands and the Puget (pewjet) Sound. Ships of all sizes, U.S.Navy surface ships and Trident Submarines regularly use these waters as well as Killer Whales, other types of whales, Salmon, Halibut etc. Here I go getting hungry again.

The original Clallam County Seat was New Dungeness (yes, the famous crab name), named by British Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver. That area is now called Sequim (skwim). In 1890 the County Seat was moved to Port Angeles where it remains today.  Logging is key to the survival of the area; it is also where to board the Ferry for Victoria, Canada, they even have a Dairy Queen.

The most interesting place along our way is Joyce, Washington. The Joyce General Market is celebrating 100 years of continuous business. It is all original; parts of the inside came from the Markham House Hotel which was in the now extinct town of Port Crescent. After failing to capture the Clallam County Seat, the town was totally abandoned by 1893. John Joyce opened the store and promptly named the spot Joyce, clever.

Inside are treasures beyond belief. Post office boxes claimed from the old Markham Hotel; one old character behind the counter said it was circa 1850, before the Postal Service came into being and was run by a private company. Among the vast assortment of past memories was a Chain Saw, hanging from the ceiling, it was about 10 feet long. After the old guy told me it was the world’s first chainsaw I did some research. A German engineer named Emil Lert invented what was called the first chainsaw and opened a company called Dolomar which flourishes to this day. The chainsaw hanging from the rafter was indeed one of these beasts. The engine looks a little like an early Volkswagen, it put out 8 horse power and weighed 128 pounds, ugh!

 
We found Sekiu, a speck on the map, with lots of boats and fishermen. We had a crappy lunch and headed home. We stopped half way back to let Cara have a run on the beach, the waves petrified her, what a wimp.   

Old Town Tacoma, Washington

We have driven past here for years and only have seen the Tacoma Dome. Along with the ultra modern Chihuly Museum of Glass, the old Tacoma Train Station across the “Bridge of Glass” is a refreshing sight; old opulence puts concrete and glass to shame.

The trains still roll down the rails but no longer stop, the massive building is now home to the Federal Courthouse since the station was closed in 1984.

The "Bridge of Glass" is full of Chihuly's work, this is looking up as you walk across.

Chihuly's Museum of Glass

Connie had been wanting to go to the Chihuly Museum of Glass for years. Thursday morning we drove to Fox Island where our friends Dean and Diane are staying (read "What a site" on this blog). Cara the wonderdog needed a playday with her old friend Poco Kleinsmith; Connie and I needed some alone time (the museum takes a dim view of dogs inside).
The museum's Hot Shop has room for several furnaces, artists (from around the world) and a gallery for visitors. The room was hot and full of activity, a furnace door would open, a pole would be inserted and would emerge with a red hot glowing orb of molten glass. The worker would place the pole onto two supports and continuously turn it while beginning to shape the orb with wooden ladles just brought out of a bucket of water. Several other tools would be used and the piece would from time to time be reinserted into the furnace.
We have watched this process performed at the factories that make Kosta Boda in Sweden, Waterford in Ireland and the Corning Glass Museum in New York, using the same technique. For our money the Corning Museum was far and away the best.
The Tacoma Dome and an artistic bridge added to the beauty of the high dollar marina next door to the museum.
Cross the bridge from the museum to the old Railroad Station and you will see more of Chihuly's art work than in the museum, and it is free.


Keep reading the next blog for more.......







 

What a site!

Dean and Diane wake up to this! Puget Sound in the foreground and Mt. Rainier surrounded by blue sky in the background. You think this is great? Just walk down the concrete steps to a large pier that juts out into the water for fishing, crabbing or just watching the tide change. All this for just opening a gate in the morning and closing it at night; gosh, I'm tired just thinking about it, aren't you?

Will work for site.

Well we survived our first weekend at wrrrrrrk. Dare I say we liked it? Except for the “having to be there” we had fun getting to know some of the “locals”; many come up to us and say how great it is that we are the new Assistant Managers and that they have heard such good things about us. Feeling wanted makes our tasks easier and seems to lighten the load. Not that what we do is difficult.
Connie has the hardest job, she is in charge of the office and has to learn how to check in new arrivals, check out those leaving, take in money, balance the books and a myriad of things that are required to run an RV park. She also has to interact with the lease holders, board members, volunteers, advisors and phone calls; some of the aforementioned good and some not so much.
We must sort and distribute mail for the 175 lease holders; that in itself is a job.
My duties entail driving around in my golf cart checking to see what spaces are unoccupied, making sure there are no water leaks or other disasters, moving garbage bags from the club house to the dump and my favorite job operating the backhoe. We have a diesel tractor with a backhoe (boys toy) and I use it to tamp down the garbage bags in our three dumpsters. So far I have managed to not damage anything. I also make sure the bathrooms have paper products as required, and clean up any spills or litter (I let them know I do not do toilets). At 5:00 I close the sheds and garage (man caves). The sheds contain a wood working shop, metal shop, paint storage, tractors, lawn and garden implements, wood chippers, chain saws, Gas and diesel storage tanks. If we had McGyver here we could easily build a nuclear power plant.
Volunteers do most physical labor jobs in the park, they form committees to do regular maintenance, cutting down trees, planting flower beds, mowing lawns, cleaning the streets, painting, repairing, you name it, they do it. So, if I find something that is a problem I let them know and they come out and fix it.

Buddy can you spare a dime?

As Alfred E. Newman may have opined “What, me work?

Well it is a sad story; here we are on Social Security and Medicare working in an RV (trailer) park and going to bingo on Wednesdays. I suppose next it will be food stamps and “Will work for food” signs. We have changed Cara’s name to “Killer” in hopes of getting her guard dog duty, it only pays dog biscuits but I understand with a little hot sauce they are not bad. By the way, do you have any change you can spare?

We are really having a ball here, lots of nice people, beautiful COOL environment. After seven years of letting our brains idle in neutral it will be good to put them in gear and let out the clutch.

Extra, Extra, read all about it!

Big news bulletin …………………..Beckes’ working………………. Stop …………..at Escapee Park…….. stop……………..Oh No!

Yes, you heard it here first. Connie and I are the new Assistant Managers here at Coho Evergreen Park.

I had received an e-mail Saturday asking if we were still interested in the job. This morning as we were literally pulling out to head to Seaside, the managers took us aside and wanted to let us know what a great job this is. CB and I decided that even though we could have gone down the coast for free camping @ TTNs, this was too good to pass up. We will take over for the managers on Saturday and Sundays. Connie will be in the office; I will park RVs coming in and roam the park in my golf cart, checking to make sure there are no leaks of major proportions or catastrophes that need immediate attention. I don’t fix the problem I just make sure the job gets done by the appropriate maintenance person.

For this we get a free space, electricity, propane and $6.50 an hour, what is not to like? Maybe next week we will tell you!

hot rod parade

Coho Days here in the park includes this hot rod parade after dinning on bisquits and gravy. Life is good. We will be leaving here tomorrow for Seaside on the Oregon Coast.

Timing is everything

Here we are getting ready to leave Evergreen Coho Park on Monday. A few months ago I saw an add for assistant manager's for this park and I sent in a resume, would you believe I just received an e-mail asking me if I would be interested in being the assistant manager for the rest of the summer! Go figure!

flip for pancakes

Pancakes are one of my favorite things, a few months ago I went to a pancake breakfast at the fire house in Festival, those firemen should not be allowed around food, the cakes were white and tasted like cardboard. Yesterday we had a pancake breakfast here at Coho Evergreen Escapee RV Park, Rachael the cook just had her ninetieth birthday! Her pancakes were some of the best I have ever had, golden brown, tasting of buttermilk and butter, fluffy with the edges a little crispy, it was almost a sin to put syrup on them.

Last night after dinner we took Cara out to the dog run; she ran with the pack and had a ball. We all miss Harry, but we know he is better off.

Today we awoke to a light rain, CB is going to high tea with Dianne and the girls here at the park, last year she and Fran had a ball. They were served by some of the girls husbands dressed in their finery. The food was good, plentiful and free!

The high tea is the start of Coho Days, a week full of activities. Everyday will be hot dogs for lunch, yeah!

Quilcene

Dean, Diane, Connie and I left Chimacum and headed south to Quilcene, Washington. If I had a license I could dig clams and hunt for oysters, Hood Canal Oysters are some of the best. We stopped at the headquarters for the East Olympic National Forest to get maps to the places I wanted to see.
Falls view Canyon Trail challenged us to walk about .1 of a mile of flat trail to get the shot you see above. Somehow we managed.



Farther south on 101 we took a steep narrow road that wound around Mt. Walker climbing 2.000 feet. From the view points at the top we were treated to views of the entire Puget Sound and Hood Canal. On a cold clear day you would be able to see Mt. Baker, The Olympic Range, downtown Seattle and Mt. Rainer. We could see it but not very well.
Lunch was the best yet on this trip; The Olympic Timber House Restaurant is five star for food and ambiance. Log Construction and rock walls sent us back in time to the days of lumberjacks and Miners. We came home tired from all that hiking but our tummies were full and happy.

 

Harry Beckes 7/15/96-7/27/11

Saying goodbye to an old friend for the last time is hard to do, but my little buddy had reached a point at which I decided to end his suffering.  He had kidney failure and cancer, and he was hurting.  I could feel it when I held him, he would involuntarily quiver.  A year ago he weighed over 16 pounds, today he was less than half that, just skin and bones.  He never complained and kept up the good fight but it was time.  Just a month ago he had caught a rabbit and brought it home to us, now he was having a tough time jumping up for his food and water.

He had just celebrated his 16^th birthday.  I remember bringing him home from the pet store, he was skinny and scraggly and Connie thought I had lost my mind.  Little did she know what a handsome, loving cat he would become.  I named him Harry after Harry Houdini; he was a great escape artist. Except for the sliding door, there was no door in the house that he could not open and he always kept us laughing with his antics.  When our dog Poco would walk down the hallway, Harry would jump out in front of him, looking like Kato, the sidekick of Inspector Clousieu in the Pink Panther series.  Every night he would warm my lap and my heart; I loved him very much.

Extremes

          Yesterday there was another sandstorm that raced through the Phoenix area with temperatures 110+, ugh! It sounds more like Afghanistan.

In order for that to happen in Western Washington, some dust would have to be found first, most dirt here is wet and has something green growing on it, especially since the Northwest is having a cold wet summer, so far, temperatures here range between 50 and 60 degrees. We have had about one day of sunshine about every third day or so.

You RV’rs still in Arizona had better dump your stuff and pull up your sewer hoses; what the hell is wrong with you? Have you lost your compass or just your way in life?

Port Townsend residents claim to have 500 resident black-tailed deer, they are everywhere. Some folks are none too happy; it’s hard to grow any food item that makes it to harvest. There is also a large herd of Roosevelt Elk and in the higher elevation are mountain goats. Predators include well fed bob cats, majestic bald eagles, wiley coyotes, rascally raccoons and several cunning cougars; last year, Jefferson County Animal Control had to put down seven of these beautiful creatures due to their wrong choice of diet (sheep, cattle, rancher, poodle), even a mountain lion has to watch his diet!