It’s been a busy last few days and we didn’t have internet connectivity for the last couple days, so I have a lot to catch you up on. I will cover our Tuesday (9 Sept) adventure with this post, but since I have a lot of pictures to share from Wednesday and Thursday, I will do separate posts in an attempt to keep your attention. So here we go:
On Tuesday, we rolled into Long Beach early enough to get out on the bikes and check out part of the town and the beach.
We had a tip from a fellow RV’er for a “good” RV Park, I believe it was called Anderson’s, however, when we got closer to Long Beach we consulted our iPhone apps and a couple websites, and decided Anderson’s was just too pricey. Our Passport America app turned us on to the Sandcastle RV Park for only $15. It wasn’t on the beach, but none of the parks really are.. theres always a long dune to cross or you end up getting the site at the end of a long row of RV’s away from the beach.
So, after a short bicycle ride from the RV Park, we were riding the nicely paved path that skirts the beach.
I took a picture of this pretty cool cartoon map we saw at a local souvenir shop to show you our location. I think we were parked right by that U-Haul truck at the top 😉
Here’s Stilla with Coach-in-a-basket riding along the beach path. You can see some of the boardwalk in the background too.
There was even a whale skeleton for our viewing pleasure.
Stilla on the beach.
After checking out the beach for a while, we hit some of the local stores and souvenir shops.
We chose to eat dinner at the Hungry Harbor Grille because they had picnic tables outside where we could sit with Coach. They even brought him some dog treats and water. They had an awesome pumpkin pie milkshake, hey, don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.
After dinner, we biked back to the RV Park and chilled out in front of the TV for the rest of the evening.
Stay tuned for the next post… Cape Disappointment State Park – it’s not disappointing at all 🙂
Monday morning at the Oceanside RV Park in La Push WA was cold and overcast with some fog and drizzle. We felt that there wasn’t much more to see here, pun intended, so we pulled in the slides, put up the jacks and hit the road before noon. We didn’t have a final destination in mind for the day, we figured that once we got further South, we would just consult our iPhone apps and the Rand-McNally database. We did want to stop and see the Hoh Rain Forest which is part of the Olympic National Park. We had to turn East off Hwy 101 and go about 19 miles to get to the Visitor’s Center. This is another of those “one way in and one way out” type of tourist attractions. Before we made the turn to Hoh Rain Forest, we stopped at one of the many turn-outs to view the beach.
The Hoh Rain Forest is one of the largest temperate rain forests in the US. It gets an average of 140 inches of annual rainfall.
I was concerned, as I often am, that the roads and parking lot(s) in this tourist attraction were going to be big-rig friendly. So I was glad to see a large parking area at the Hard Rain Cafe and RV Park which was a few miles before the ranger pay station. We pulled into the parking lot and I went into the cafe / RV Park office to ask if we could leave the Motorhome there while we toured the rainforest. The nice lady behind the counter was more than helpful and directed us to an empty RV site right up front. We disconnected the Silverado and headed on to the entrance where I presented my Access Pass for another savings of $15 🙂
Picture of the Hard Rain Cafe and RV Park Office.Picture of the free temporary RV site we scored while we toured the rain forest.
Our first stop after leaving the Motorhome behind was to see yet another huge tree at one of the pull-off’s.
We joined other couples in front of this huge tree to take turns taking pictures of each other.
This was one fat tree. Pretty impressive.
Here we are parked at the Visitor Center.
I was glad we found a spot to park the Motorhome for this side-trip. The entrance to the Visitor Center parking lot would have been tough to maneuver while towing the truck… it was a pretty tight corner as you can see from this picture.
The Visitor Center was undergoing renovation so we had to visit the mobile trailer they had brought in on-site to get information. It turns out that this park, like all the National Parks we’ve visited so far, is not dog friendly. They don’t allow pets outside the parking lot. We had to leave Coach in the Silverado with the windows cracked. We chose one of the shorter trails to hike.
This is the informational placard on the trail we took.
The trail was well maintained and marked. We meandered through the forest and took lots of pictures. It warmed up nicely and the sun peeked out a few times during our hike.
At one spot, there were even fallen trees that were left in place. We didn’t even have to duck to pass under.
Evidence that they get a lot of rain here… who would have guessed?
Stilla posed under a natural archway.
Got Moss?
Here I am taking a quick break.
Some of the trees had some exposed roots that were pretty interesting.
This was one long log that the trail followed along beside… you can see that it even continues down the hill out of view if you look at the path below.
This place was definitely worth the stop. Wish we had more time to check out one of the longer trail loops, but we had to get back to Coach who was waiting in the truck and the temperature was definitely going up.
When we got back to the Motorhome, we went back inside the cafe to get some lunch. We figured it was the least we could do to show our appreciation for the free temporary parking. I don’t know how Stilla does it, but she always seems to find the Germans. It turns out the owner was originally from Germany as you can see from the Bavarian flags next to our table.
We hooked the truck back up to the Coach and motored on after finishing lunch. We ended up choosing an RV Park next to Lake Quinault. Our travel distance for the day ended up being around 75 miles. The Rain Forest Resort Village ended up costing $39 for the night 🙁 They didn’t offer any discounts for Passport America, Escapees, FMCA, Good Sam, or Military Veterans unfortunately. Here’s a picture of the Resort Office / General Store.
The RV spots were nicely spaced and were all on nice green grass. There were only maybe 5 other rigs in the whole park. Except for the price, this is one nice park! The only other drawback was that we didn’t have satellite because of all the tall trees or phone signal (AT&T). And only one bar on the Verizon JetPack, but we survived.
We had supper at the restaurant and lounge that was at the top of the hill on the same side of the road as our RV site.
Front view of the restaurant and lounge.Side view of the restaurant and lounge.
Here is a view of the lake just a few moment’s walk from our site.
On Tuesday morning we found out that the World’s Largest Spruce Tree was located within the loop of the RV park, just around the corner from where we were parked.
Stilla posed with her morning coffee in front of the huge tree.
And now Coach has marked his spot on the world’s largest Sitka Spruce… his new claim to fame 😉
After checking out the world’s largest Sitka Spruce this morning (Tuesday), we got an early start and headed on down to the Long Beach Peninsula… we got here early enough to get out on the bikes to explore the beach and downtown area. Here’s a preview below. I’ll save the rest for my next post. Stay tuned:)
We hit the road from the Conestoga Quarters RV Park by 1130 AM. Our destination was the Indian Tribal Village of La Push, WA. The owner of the Conestoga RV Park gave us this tip. He says it’s one of his favorite get-away locations from his own RV Park.
We went West on Hwy 101 and stopped for pictures at Lake Crescent.
This information placard (you gotta love these things for blogs) gave us a description of what we were looking at.
Another view of Lake Crescent.
Another informational placard at one of the many turnouts we stopped at.
It didn’t take us long to make the 70 mile trip. After Hwy 101 finally turned South, it was no time at all before we were turning on Hwy 110 to head straight West to the Pacific Coast! I think the coast is only about 15 miles from Hwy 101. We usually like to put more miles between destinations, but this came highly recommended, and it was a little off the beaten path. So our expectations were high.
We checked in at the office.
The Quileute Nation Indian Reservation is sure proud of their ocean-side resort as evidenced by their exorbitant prices. They got us for $45 🙁 Their advertisement flyer that we picked up at the office claims that this is Washington’s most pristine coastal destination. We pulled into site #1 and disconnected the Silverado.
RV Site 1, (front-view)RV Site 1 (rear-view)
This is our view out the front window. We have a row of RV’s between us and the beach.
Stilla made sandwiches. We took them along with us to go check out the beach. We wanted to make the most out of the rest of the day so we can continue on tomorrow… especially at $ 45 a night!
We saw a large bank of clouds on the horizon as we headed West. By the time we got to the coast, it was completely overcast and it stayed that way for the rest of the day. With the exception of no sun, the beach was awesome.
I was fascinated with the huge dead trees that had washed up on the shore. This one looked like a beached seal on his side with his flippers out in front.
Here’s another humongous tree.
Some guys on their personal watercraft entertained us for a while.
After checking out the beach, we wandered back through the office where we overheard a discussion about a “hole-in-the-wall” that is near our location and is only viewable at low tide. So we got the specifics and jumped in the Silverado to make the ~10 mile drive to Rialto Beach. On the informational placard (below) you can see at the bottom where it says “you are here” and then “Hole-in-the-Wall” just North of there.
Once on Rialto Beach, we had to hike 1 1/2 miles to see the “Hole in the Wall”. Pretty cool.
Here’s a closer view.
And one with Stilla and Coach.
This was one of the views along the way.
We say lots of water-eroded rocks and tidal pools.
We spotted these starfish. Once we started looking for them, we started seeing them everywhere.
And finally, for your viewing pleasure, here are some pics of anemones, mussels, and other seaweed type stuff…
That’s all for now… stay tuned for more adventures 🙂
Saturday morning, we had to get up early (0630) in order to catch the 0815 ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria BC. After a short drive to the harbor, we parked the Silverado in a lot designated for day-trip passengers. It cost us $8 for the day. We had to put cash into a small envelope and stuff it into a pole with a small slot. We almost didn’t get it to fit because we had to use $2 in quarters when we ran out of dollar bills. Once the money was stuffed into the mini- envelope, we had trouble getting the quarters to spread out flat enough inside the envelope to fit through the tiny slot. We ended up tearing the first envelope, but got it on the second try. After securing our ferry tickets for the outstanding low, low price of only $70, we made it to the ferry with plenty of time to stand and wait with all the other passengers in the long line for customs.
Customs line at the Black Ball Ferry in Port Angeles, WALong line to go through customs at the Black Ball Ferry in Port Angeles, WA
Here’s the “selfie” of us finally on board the MV Coho bound for Canada.
This ship has been in service since 1959. I read somewhere that they dry-dock it every winter for an overhaul. They are constantly doing some sort of maintenance or upkeep to keep this old classic running. I also read that the original engines were finally replaced in 2004. There were even doing some touch-up painting during our trip. You can see the guy painting in front of the bridge in the picture below.
It took us a good 90 minutes to cross the 22 mile channel.
We almost had the ship to ourselves as you can see from this photo.
Stilla is posing at the stern of the ship with the Washington coastline in the background.
Here we are arriving in the VIctoria harbor.
We heard from others, that the “must-see” tourist attraction when visiting Victoria was Butchard Gardens, so we purchased tickets on the ferry. Another great deal at $104. It includes a tour bus ride with an outspoken bus driver. Unfortunately, this wasn’t our bus waiting for us when we got off the ferry.
This was our bus for the >45 minute ride to the gardens.
Our driver pointed out all the attractions and gave us great narration during our drive through the city and along the route to the gardens. He also pointed out that Victoria is the capital of British Columbia, not Vancouver as many believe. It’s great location and mild weather attract a large retiree population. And as the capital city there are a lot of federal government workers and office space… a local saying about Victoria is that it is known for it’s “newly-weds, flower-beds, nearly-deads, but mostly-feds”. Our return trip driver had a slightly different variation of this saying… he changed it slightly to include “rose-beds and well-feds”. HMMM, maybe he was more pro-government than the first driver 😉
Entrance sign at Butchart Gardens, taken over the heads of what seemed like hundreds of Asian tourists.
Here’s another informational placard that shows the layout of the gardens.
This used to be a limestone quarry. Amazing, huh?
There were many hedge sculptures hidden throughout the park.
Here’s some bears for Stilla… she likes bears.
Almost didn’t see this owl-like creature.
We got a happy Asian man to take our picture.
One of several fountains in the gardens.
Stilla posing on the steps of an inferior limestone outcropping that was left standing in the middle of the old quarry.
There were even metal sculptures, ummm wind-art, I mean.
Yeah, I can walk on water.
And here’s your obligatory flower pics:
We took an earlier bus back to Victoria from the gardens so we could see a little bit of downtown Victoria before the 3 PM ferry. If we missed that one, we would have to wait until 7:30 PM. We were anxious to get back sooner rather than later. We had to leave our little dog “Coach” in the Coach today with the air conditioning on. We had never left him alone for so long before.
The gardens were certainly worth seeing but I wish we had more time in Victoria to explore around. The China-Town district looked pretty interesting as we drove through on the return bus and the driver pointed out quite a few nice restaurants/bars/grills along the way… oh well, maybe we’ll return again some time in the future. Maybe even take the Motorhome over on the ferry, we sure saw quite a few folks doing that today.
We had an uneventful return trip on the ferry. We think we spotted seals or sea-otters but couldn’t be sure. Everything was fine when we got back. The truck was unmolested and unticketed, right where we left it. And Coach was happy to see us when we got back to the RV Park. He had been holding it for ~10 hours…we didn’t find a single “accident” in the Coach. He earned a good long walk and a couple of “treats”.
Yesterday, (Friday), we took the Silverado and went into Port Angeles to check it out. The RV Park is about 6 miles East of town.
We found out that Port Angeles is the birthplace of John Elway of Denver Bronco fame… GO Broncos! It is also the site of the “largest prehistoric Indian village and burial ground found in the US”.
Here’s a picture of us standing outside the visitor center which is also next to the ferry service and port of entry area.
There were a couple of wall murals in the nearby harbor park. The informational placard provides some background on the wall art.
Here’s a placard that gives a little information on the downtown area.
A few pictures of the harbor area:
We also drove out on the sandpit that is named Ediz Hook. It projects north-easterly for three miles into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We got out and wandered around the shoreline.
Coach was afraid of the tentacle looking seaweed branches that were washed up on the rocks.
View of Mt Baker across the Strait.
Later in the afternoon, we we drove through the Olympic National Park entrance and showed our pass. Saved another $15. It was a 17 mile winding paved road to Hurricane Ridge, which is only accessable from Port Angeles. The views were magnificent.
Deer were going up to people in the parking area.
View from the side of the Visitor Center at Hurricane Ridge.
View from the back of the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center.
Here’s another informational placard to describe the view.
And yet another informational placard… what would we do without them?
This is the view back into Port Angeles from the top of one of the short trails at the top of Hurricane Ridge.
I will try to post the pictures tomorrow from the trip we took today (Saturday) into Victoria B.C. We took the ferry over for the day and also visited Butchart Gardens. It was a nice trip, albeit expensive.
We also plan to pack up and move tomorrow. Check-out time is noon. We have a destination on the West Coast of the peninsula in mind, so we’ll see how that goes.
On Wednesday, I followed through on my promise to mow the Sawyer homestead. It was the least I could do in return for his hospitality over the last week. It took a few hours to finish the 5 acres and I was sure to feel it afterwards… it was a lot like work – you know – that other 4-letter word.
I also stayed motivated and got on top of the Motorhome with a hose and bucket and washed off all the tree sap and residue from being parked under the trees in Lake Tahoe, Eagle Lake, and Crater Lake. While I was up there, I also did a good inspection to make sure all the caulking and seals were in good shape and that my air conditioner panels and solar panels were all still fastened down properly. All was in order 🙂
Stilla made another super meal for dinner, we had Jaegerschnitzel. I think both Nate and I gained a couple pounds over the last several days.
On Thursday morning, I loaded up the Harley and bikes.
My goal was to hit the road by noon so we had plenty of time for sightseeing and to find a campground for the evening. I also had to chase down Nate’s chickens at one point, it turned out that his coop has a “trap door” on the side that wasn’t closed properly and when the chickens found out… it was just like lemmings going over a cliff. Actually, it was no big deal rounding up the chickens. I was able to account for all eleven of them once they stopped moving around. They were happy to get back into their coop, they knew where the food was.
We hit the road by 12:30 and took I5 to Olympia and then got on the Pacific Coast Scenic Byway, Hwy 101 towards Port Angeles.
Coach took over the navigator seat while Stilla made snacks.
We even passed John Wayne Marina on the way.
The trip took us about 3 hours and was very scenic. We passed by a few RV parks and State Campgrounds that sure looked nice, but we had already used our Passport America App to help us choose a place to stay. It told us about the Conestoga Quarters RV Park in Port Angeles that accepted the PA rate of $13 (valid for two nights, weekends not excluded) after September 1st. However, it turned out that the PA App was wrong… when we arrived the manager told us they don’t accept the PA rate until after October 1st. He said he tried a number of times to get them to update the PA database. Also, he had just given away the last spot we could have fit into! But, he offered to put us into his “overflow” space for free and move us to a pull-thru site in the morning. The daily rate after the free night is only $27, so all is well and the Urban Escape Vehicle got to exercise the generator for a little while.
This morning, (Friday), we moved into the pull-thru site and took the bicycles off the Silverado. I’m always worried we have too much rear overhang with the tailgate down and the bicycle rack mounted. It’s probably OK when it’s being towed on the highway behind the motorhome, but for running around town, I’d rather take the bikes and rack off.
We then went into Port Angeles to do some sight-seeing at the harbor and we also drove into the Olympia National Forest. I’ll save those pictures for my next post… it’s getting late now and we have to get up early to catch the ferry over to Victoria B.C. which is our plan for tomorrow… so stay tuned.
We visited Ft Lewis today (Tuesday, 2 Sept). Fort Lewis is now called Joint Base Lewis-McChord or “JBLM” for short in another government attempt to save money. Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base merged on October 1, 2010 due to BRAC initiatives back in 2005. You can find more information on this merger here if interested:
We went to JBLM for a couple reasons. First, a soldier that worked for me back in the 601st ASB, Katterbach GE (2003-2005 timeframe) contacted me on Facebook and invited us to his promotion ceremony. I humbly accepted and we drove through the horrendous traffic on I5 to make it in time for the 1100 event.
Kevin Lamar is promoted from SFC to MSG in front of the 7th ID Headquarters buildingMSG Kevin LamarSome of the promotion ceremony attendees.
Congratulations to newly promoted Master Sergeant Kevin Lamar! He was (and is) a superb Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) that could always be counted on to get the hard jobs accomplished. As I’ve said many times before, my success in the Army as a Chief Warrant Officer is directly attributed to the many fine NCO’s that I had the privilege of working with that did the “real work” and made me look good. MSG Lamar is certainly one of those professional NCO’s and his promotion is well-deserved. After the ceremony, where many kind words were spoken, we then graciously accepted the refreshments (aka “free lunch”) in one of the nearby conference rooms.
Refreshments after the promotion ceremony.
Thanks for the invite MSG Kevin Lamar!
The second reason we went to JBLM was to get my meds refilled at the base hospital. That went fairly well after a couple of long waits at different branches of the Pharmacy. It took most of the afternoon because they had to call Ft Carson and transfer my prescription. Then we had to get another ticket to get the prescriptions filled. There sure are a lot of retirees here 😉
After a short tour through the main PX… we had to see if it was any different from other posts/bases… It wasn’t, then we headed over to the FamCamp on base to see what it looked like for future reference. It is called NW Adventure Center JBLM and they have 48 full hook-up sites. It is located on the shore of American Lake. The fees are as follows:
50-amp with lake view – $25 per night
50-amp – $22.50 per night
30-amp – $20 per night
They also have tent and overflow sites available for $7 and $5 respectively.
We drove through the campground to check out the sites. I was pleasantly surprised, I would definitely stay here if we didn’t already have the awesome spot at my friend’s house in Yelm right now. Plus the price is right 😉
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the foresight to take any pictures when we were there.
We made it back home (Nate Sawyer’s homestead) in time for Stilla to reheat the leftover Sauerbraten from yesterday’s meal for Nate before he came home. BTW- We also saw Nate at the promotion ceremony and he gave us a quick tour of his office, aka closet 🙂
The “Closet”
Coach was patiently waiting for us to return from another day’s adventure without him 🙁
“Coach” and “AWOL” in their pen
That’s all for now… have to go mow the yard for Nate, figured it was the least I could do for his hospitality here, then maybe I’ll have time to get up on top of the coach to give it a washing and maybe waxing before we hit the road again. We were thinking that Thursday would be a good day to head on up to Port Angeles and then…who knows…? South along the Pacific Coast Highway?
We’re still hiding out at my friend’s house in Yelm, WA while we wait for everybody to go back to work after the Labor Day Weekend so there’s room at the campgrounds again. I’ve found out it’s tough getting a spot at any popular campgrounds during holidays. It seems that the “locals” always reserve the good places, sometimes weeks or even months in advance. I’m pretty sure we could find a spot at the FamCamp in Ft Lewis (now called Joint Base Lewis-McChord aka JBLM) or maybe even a local Elks Lodge, but it’s been a nice break to hang out here and do day trips in the Silverado. Over the last several days we have taken trips to Mt Rainier, Northwest Trek, and Seattle. I’ll bring you up to date on the Seattle trip with this blog post today but will save the others for a later time.
On Thursday, we drove to Seattle with Stilla’s friend Christine acting as our guide. Christine is a friend of Stilla’s that she knew from Colorado Springs many years ago, they have stayed in touch all this time. We met up with Christine on the 25th after we left Kelso, WA and stayed outside her house for a night on the street. She lives about 20 miles from where we are now. She also took us on a tour up to Mt Rainier, but again, I’ll save that for another post.
It was overcast in the morning but cleared up nicely by the afternoon. However, since we went up in the morning it was too late for us to have a good view of Mt. Rainier from the top of the Space Needle. The mountain is a pretty awesome sight, we can see it from the house.
Space Needle, Seattle WA
Stilla was a little nervous in the elevator, the windows face outwards. It goes up 520 ft to the Observation Deck at a speed of 10 mph.
Riding up the elevator at the Space Needle
View from inside the Space Needle elevator
Here are some pictures of the view from the top:
View from top of Space Needle
Mt Rainier should be on the horizon, but it was too overcast to see.
View from top of Space Needle (zoomed-in)
Seattle skyline from top of Space Needle (zoomed-in)
Evidence that it was actually us that took these pictures 🙂More evidence that we were there 🙂
After we got down, we took the tram to Pike Place Market.
Stilla and Christine in front of Tram in Seattle WA.Informational Placard on Pike Place Market
We heard that Pike Place Market was a “must see” when visiting Seattle. According to Wikipedia it one of the oldest public markets in the US. It overlooks the Elliott Bay waterfront and was built on the edge of a steep hill. It consists of several lower levels located below the main level, all full of unique shops and restaurants. The street level has fishmongers, fresh produce and craft stands. We were told to watch for the fish to be thrown around at the fish stores. The workers would toss the fish around when someone had placed an order while shouting or sometimes singing a jingle. We spent the afternoon exploring this unique place, here are some pics:
Sign at one end of Pikes Market
Stilla found a friend
We found the Pike Place Brewery and decided to sit down for a meal and drinks. I ordered their beer sampler which consisted of 6 small glasses of their most popular beers along with a pizza.
The brewing system extended through the floor of the upper level.
The top of the brewing system extends through the floor of the upper levelLower portion of the brewing systemStilla and her friend, Christine.All kinds of memorabilia and cool stuff was hanging on the walls and ceilings.Wall art.
I just had to take pictures of the cool beer coaster collections displayed in the hallway on the way to the restrooms 🙂
We kept seeing these really neat tour buses which were actually restored and converted WWII amphibious craft. Maybe we’ll take that tour next time.
Not sure what this was about, but there was one portion of an alleyway that was covered in bubblegum. Amazing what people can get started, eh?
OK, that’s it for now… will post again soon. Stilla is making Sauerbraten mit Knodel for supper as a “thank you” to Nate for his hospitality.
This is my first post. I’m new to this blogging thing, so please hang on while I learn this blogging platform and update the website in order to keep all my friends and acquaintances up to date on our current location and latest adventure. It can only get better from here, right?
I will try to go back to when we started our “full-time” Motorhome adventure (May 2nd, 2014) and post some text and pics of the places we’ve visited in order to bring this blog up to date. But I’ll save that for later…
Today we are still boondocking aka “moochdocking” near Seattle WA at the home of my old Army buddy (Nathan Sawyer). I’ve known him for many years, both in Germany and Ft Carson, CO. It has been really great seeing him again and catching up on old times.
Coach parked at Nate’s homestead.Major Nathan Sawyer coming home from work.
Thanks again, Nate for allowing us to hang out on your awesome homestead while we take day trips in the pickup truck to see the sights around here. Since it’s the Labor Day Weekend, we are also enjoying the added bonus of not having to fight the holiday traffic and beg for camping spots since we don’t have advanced reservations anywhere.
Nate’s house with the Silverado parked in front… I finally downloaded the Harley and put it in the garage.
We’ve been lucky with the weather up to now, but it finally started raining steadily today, so I guess we won’t get any riding time in on the Harley once again.
My Army buddy, (Nate) had prior plans for the Labor Day weekend so we volunteered to watch the house and dog, feed the chickens, etc., while he is away. We’ll just hang around the house(s) today and take care of stuff here while we wait out the rain and Nate’s return on Monday.
