RV Travels With Huggy

I really love my Nikon D200 camera and the quality of photos that I get from it. I have half a dozen different lenses, a special flash unit that works with it and some other features that make it a wonderful system. BUT, it is large and heavy to carry around so I find it tends to sit at home on a shelf unless I know that I will specifically want it to take photos, so then take it along. Sometimes I'll even take an extra lens or the flash unit, too.

So, I saw an ad on TV for a new Nikon camera, the Nikon 1, that looked good, offers some of the features of the D200 (interchangeable lenses, view finder, etc) plus a lot of things that the D200 will not do. I looked into it and found that Nikon had sale prices on the lenses that go with it that would be in effect until the end of the year. I hadn't yet bought myself a Christmas present, so went ahead and ordered the basic camera that comes with a 10 to 30mm zoom lens ($50 off on the sale) and a 30 to 110mm lens ($100 off!) from Amazon.com. They came last Thursday- the UPS guy came with it about 11:00am. I put the battery on to charge and Pat & I went out to lunch, with the quick start direction sheet.

When we got home, the battery was fully charged so I put the unit together, found an empty SD memory card, took a picture of Pat & one of our cats, Peewee

and I headed off to my local Starbucks to read the owners book, drink a mocha and learn about my new toy.

I decided to start out with it just letting it handle its own settings so took a couple of photos of one of our barista's while sitting at my table drinking my mocha and reading

This photo is totally unchanged from when it came out of the camera except to reduce its pixel count to upload to Flickr and I think the camera did a very good job on setting the best white balance, exposure and focus.

By the time I headed home at almost 17:00 it was getting dark and the homes in our park had begun turning on their outside Christmas lights. I thought that would be a good test of the automatic settings, plus it was raining so there should be some pretty good reflections on the wet pavement. Here are a couple of those shots, again with very little correcting of the image after it came from the camera.




Yesterday we went to lunch with a good friend over to La Conner, Washington. La Conner is a quaint little village on a waterway that separates Fidalgo Island from the mainland and the restaurant we went to is right on that water way. I left Pat & Barbara to place my order with theirs and went outside onto the dock to take some photos. It was a crisp, windy but sunny winter day and although it was shortly after noon, the sun in the winter this far north is waaaaay to the south in the sky so even at noon we don't have that terrible directly overhead lighting that you tend to worry about while taking photos around noon. I am just including one photo that looks across the waterway toward the Indian Reservation but I think it shows what the little camera is capable of in delivering landscape photos.


My lovely bride and I have a habit of going out to breakfast together on Saturday mornings and I have been carrying this little toy along so of course used it to take a picture of Patti B as she sat across the table from me.

There has been no image changing here, other than a very slight darkening of the image so it is almost as it came from the camera. There is a fireplace to her left providing some lighting and the lighting in this part of the restaurant is what I'd call cozy comfortable (not real bright) but the camera seems to have handled it very well.

I like the Nikon 1. There are two models, the V1 with a viewfinder and a 3" monitor screen. When you put your eye to the viewfinder, the monitor turns off. The other model (L1) just has the monitor screen. In my experience, those monitors are harder to use especially in bright light, so I spent a little more money and got the one with the viewfinder. So far I've only played with the standard lens which goes from a slight wide angle view at 10mm to a slight telephoto view at 30mm. The aspect ratio to compare to a lens length on a standard 35mm camera is 2.7, so the "normal" image size would be with this at about 18.5mm. Shorter than that would be considered a wide angle view, longer a telephoto view. At the higher 30mm setting (81mm on a 35mm camera) it is about the perfect length for people portraits. Oh, and the camera will take HD level video with sound and even has a connector for an external microphone for the audio. Some day I will get brave and give that a try but for now, I am having a lot of fun learning how to use it to take still photos.

I hope everyone who reads this had a good Christmas and will follow with a Happy New Year. Pat & I don't like to go very far from home on New Year's Eve but will be going to a party here in our park with the Singles Group. We went to events with them before we were married and they keep telling us to please continue coming as they consider us to be alumni.

Labels: Christmas, Events, Holidays, Landscapes, Our cats, Pat and I, Photo gear, Photos

I've done quite a bit of traveling by roads in my life but have never seen a sign that was quite so wrong as this one:


Don't people pay attention to the signs they are putting up? You'd think those putting it up would have noticed that it was just plain wrong.

Our North Cascades Highway has now been closed at least over this next weekend due to expected snow. The forecast up there calls for at least 22 inches of snow overnight tonight and more over the next few days. The State Department of Transportation will check it on Monday for avalanche danger and assess then if it will stay closed for the winter. Last year it wasn't closed until Dec 1 and then it was a good month late on opening in the late spring/early summer.

That is a beautiful route for us to take going to Eastern Washington. It starts right in our backyard in Burlington and drops us out at the town of Winthrop in the Methow Valley. We usually actually usually come back that way, taking Stevens Pass (the US 2 Highway)when going East. The two together, along with the connecting roads, make up what is called the Cascade Loop Trip and it is a wonderful outing for a weekend (or longer) trip. The two main passes on the North Cascade Highway (Washington State Route 20) are each about a mile high- there is only one regular pass highway in the state that is higher in elevation and there is so much snowfall every winter plus a very high avalanche danger so they don't even try to keep it open. I believe I heard this past spring while they were trying to clear the roadway to make it passable that there was still something like 70 feet of snowpack up there. That is a lot of snow to have piled up.


Here is a scene taken along the Wenatchee River about eight miles west of the town of Leavenworth at The Alps, a store that all my vehicles seem to find it impossible to drive by without stopping. They have some of the best candies you can find anywhere and also a good stock of toads and other collectibles that others in my family like to look at (and buy). This is just an example of some of the fantastic scenery along the Cascade Loop Trip. You could easily spend a week making this trip and visiting all the things to see along the way. Don't forget to take your camera along.

Labels: Comedy, Landscapes, Photos, Trips to see things

Hey, I am finally getting a few more of the photos from our Oregon Coast trip last May edited and ready to post. These are from the Yaquina Head Lighthouse in the town of Newport, Oregon. It was built in 1872 and is one of a series that are along the Pacific Ocean coast on the west coast of the US.


This first photo shows the lighthouse standing on a rise of land. It is a beautiful example of a traditional lighthouse and is now in the US National Park system although it is also a functioning lighthouse that is used for navigating ships at sea.


Here Pat is walking up to the lighthouse, which is 93 feet tall. The light source itself is 162 feet above sea level as the site is on a cliff well above sea level. These combine to make the light visible for about 19 miles to sea. The weather on the day we visited was perfect, sunny but not too warm and with these exciting cloud formations to keep the sky interesting.


As a part of the park system there are good signs displayed around the site. I hope you can read this but if not, click on it and you should be taken to my Flickr site where the photo is hosted and you can see it in a larger size. There is quite a bit of information available on this one sign.


This view is looking to the north from one of the windows as I was climbing the stairs. I don't remember how many steps there are but it is a pretty good climb, at least for an old guy like me. There is a photo later in this set looking down those stairs.


When you do reach the top you can only go as far as the top step. They limit that top step to one person at a time or two if one is a child. This is a working lighthouse and a necessary part of the coastal navigation system and there are things on that top floor that can be damaged. The view here is looking to the southwest.



Here is the source of the light. I am sure that when it was built in 1872 the light source was a flame of some sort but it is now electric. Notice that there are two bulbs but only one is lighting. I guess the extra is for an instantly available backup should the primary one burn out. The light is bright but not hard on the eyes although I doubt that you would want to look into it too long. The lens system that surrounds the light makes it focused and more intense outside the lighthouse. The lighthouse originally had Coast Guard attendants but it was automated in 1966.


The view from the top looking to the north. At the far right side of the photo you can see a car parked in the lot below and it looks pretty small from up here! One thing that I am not sure of is how the glass is kept clean. It had no noticeable salt spray or other things on it, even thought there are seagulls around. Maybe the wind and rain take care of that cleaning.


And here is a view looking to the south. There is a fairly large motorhome parked below in the lot. The road you see is the one visitors approach the lighthouse on. This Oregon Coast is a very beautiful area with a dramatic coastline. Here it is pretty rocky but there are also many very nice sandy beaches.



This is the stairs that wind around the inside of the lighthouse from the base to the top. It is just possible to see the floor at the bottom, way down there. There are good handrails to help but it is a fairly strenuous climb and the steps are narrow so it wouldn't be a good idea to attempt the climb if you are not sure that you can complete the trip up and BACK DOWN. But once you reach the top, it is sure worth the effort.

This is just another of the many things that we saw and did while on our trip. We spent a week down there, four days in the Depoe Bay/Newport area and could easily have spent a lot longer. If you have the chance to go, do so.

Labels: Landscapes, Pat and I, Photos, Small towns, Trips to see things

We spent four nights at a WorldMark Trendwest condominium in Depoe Bay, Oregon on our Oregon Coast trip last month. This was a gift from one of Pat's daughters and her husband for our third wedding anniversary. Here are a few photos from the Depoe Bay area.


I hope this one will work on your computer screens. It is a very large panoramic photo that I stitched together from about five separate photos that were taken from the deck of our second floor room in one of the ten buildings that make up this condo resort. In the stitching it somehow lost the continuation of the railing- there was no missing section of the actual railing on our deck. This shows a glimpse of our deck and more of our neighbors deck, as well as much of the building beside ours. There are ten of these three story buildings plus a few other buildings for different purposes. There is a nice lawn and a sport court on the water side of our building. The resort has three swimming pools- two outdoors and one inside, that are kept open and at 82 degrees all year There are also hot tubs, exercise rooms, and other activities. I was a bit surprised that in order to get an Internet connection I had to pay $16 for a ten day connection to their system. We were there only four days but the daily rate for four was more than the ten day rate.


This view shows a closer look at the small bay in front of our building. The big rock area on the right side was a real hangout place for seagulls and there are a lot of signs around asking that we not feed them as they are pretty messy. During our first couple of days there the weather over the Pacific Ocean was kind of stormy, although there were also sun breaks. In talking with our kids at home at that time, it sounded like our weather down there was better than it was at home during the same period. This is about 300 miles south of our northern Washington State home. There are some great sandy beaches along this coastline but not here- this one is pretty rocky.


Just on the north side of our condo complex was a place known as Boiler Bay. There is a nice pullout along the road there and that is where I took this photo from. Notice the shade from a cloud in the foreground with bright sunlight beyond that shaded area. That surf is from the swells coming in off the ocean.


This view is still of Boiler Bay, just a bit farther south or to the right of the last photo. At least during the spring when the snow in the mountains is melting, there are a lot of waterfalls where small streams flow into the ocean. There is one at the far right of this photo.


Of course you know that I am going to find a place to go for a mocha wherever I travel and there were more than one to choose from at Depoe Bay. This was taken inside Pirate Coffee which was the closest one to our condo and we liked their product. In talking with the Barista, I learned that Pirate Coffee is a major supplier to the US Military and likely provided the coffee that my son drank when in Afghanistan last year while he was there with the Navy. I haven't checked but do believe that they also have a pretty active mail order business. You can access them on the Web here. They also have quite a few things for sale, as you can see in this photo.


Depoe Bay is listed as the smallest harbor on the Pacific Coast. Here is the entrance to the channel from the open water of the Pacific Ocean. By the time this photo was taken the weather was pretty calm but I think it would be a real challenge to leave or enter this small opening during a storm. We took this photo just after eating dinner at Mazatlan Restaurant on May 5th, Cinco de Mayo, which is right beside this channel. These photos are taken from the lawn outside the restaurant, looking down onto the water.


The bridge is going over the entrance channel to the harbor at Depoe Bay and it carries US-101, the beautiful coastal highway that actually runs from the north end of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, all the way through Oregon and California to the Mexican border at the southern end of California. The channel entrance is behind the camera to the left of this view. You can see some of the downtown buildings that cover the east side of the highway through town in the background beyond the bridge.

Before we left home some friends who also live in our park told us of a good restaurant to try and they said it has a fantastic view of the shoreline. The name of the place is Tidal Raves. It was just south of our condo, not far from Pirate Coffee, and we went there for lunch one day. Jerry was right, the view from there is fantastic-

This photo was taken through the glass of the window beside our table. Luckily, they keep that glass pretty clean and that is no easy chore with all the salt that had been blowing ashore during the storms early in the week. The point seen in the background is the one with a few houses on it at the left side of the water views from our condo.

Depoe Bay is a small town, less than 2000 population, but it does have a "downtown" or commercial area. The main tourist part is along the east side of US-101 for about 4 blocks north of the bridge over the harbor channel. There are other businesses all along that highway for a distance of a couple of miles in both directions from this main area and I guess those would be considered to be in Depoe Bay.

The camera here is looking to the north.


And this one is looking south. The single traffic light in the town shows up. How about that, a town with only one traffic light?


Most of the businesses are restaurants or sell souvenirs and knickknacks. Pat is a collector of toads and things toady and one shop had a pretty good collection of those available. Here Pat is giving close scrutiny to that collection, trying to decide if any of them needed to move their residence to our house. Some did.

From Depoe Bay we did quite a bit of traveling around the coastal area. Using this as a base, we roamed from Lincoln City to the north to Newport to the south, 12 to 15 miles in each direction. I'll post some things about what we found in those areas later, but it will take a few posts. By the way, one of the guys I used to work with at Metro Transit in Seattle moved to Depoe Bay with his wife, also an ex-Metro employee, after they retired and he is serving now in his seventh year as a City Councilman. Pete likes it and it sounds like he is doing a good job. We got together for a great lunch at a place just a bit north of our condo called Jacks and again one afternoon at their house just off that little harbor.

Labels: Friends, Landscapes, Pat and I, Photos, Small towns, Toads, Trips to see things

The highway that follows the Oregon Coast is US-101. It goes north to south from the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, through Oregon and all the way along the coast of California. The whole of the trip is beautiful but some of the prettiest is the section through Oregon. May in the Northwest can offer very nice weather or not so nice, but by then it is rarely real bad and that is what we found. We had sunshine most of the way to our first stop, at the Shilo Inn in Tillamook. This view of Manzanita Beach is looking south from a viewpoint along the edge of the highway, looking down on Manzanita.



Our trip to the Oregon Coast to celebrate our third wedding anniversary started with our first overnight stop in the town of Tillamook which is the home of the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Pat & I are both fans of cheese and Tillamook is one of the best brands. They also have a nice self-guided tour of the production area as well as a wonderful selection of samples and of course a company store.


Here is the entrance to the place for visitors. There is adequate parking for cars and RVs so if you are ever in the area, be sure to stop and visit. Our Shilo Inn was just half a mile south of the cheese factory so of course we went to see the place the afternoon we arrived.


This sign summarizes the capacity of this place. From the upper level visitor area you look down through windows into two sides of the factory. The first is the production side where there are eight of these vats. Each vat holds over 53,000 pounds of milk to make a batch of cheese and it says that each vat can make three batches of cheese a day. They say they are the second largest producer of cheese in the US and I guess this shows why. There is a smaller vat where more specialty types of cheese are made that is in this same room.


This view shows one of the vats with others in the background, but this really doesn't give you much of an idea of scale of size. They are large.


On the other side of the visitor's balcony you can see the packaging section of the factory. This is a general view of the forward part of it and shows some of the 40 pound blocks of aged cheese on the path to being cut smaller and then packaged.


This shows the rest of the packaging section. You can also see pretty clearly the glass windows that visitors look through. This view gave me the most problems with reflections of any place here where I took photos. We were there on a Saturday so I think this was a smaller crew working than you would find on a weekday.


A closer view of the big blocks being cut smaller. I think these were to end up being five pound blocks but it is also possible that they cut some five and some two pound blocks at the same time from each of the big blocks.


These guys were sorting the blocks but I am not sure just what they were sorting. I guess they do, though.


This interesting machine in the background with the blue arms was called the Octopus, for obvious reasons. It was also involved in the sorting/packaging process.


A little different view of the Octopus. The cheese blocks shown here are wrapped and ready to move to wherever they go next. The moving belts through out the plant keep the cheese moving.


I am not sure just what size these are but they look too big to me to be the regular 2-pound once that we buy in the store so I think they are the larger five pound size. Those larger ones are probably mostly sold to restaurants. And Costco. I think cheddar is the one they make most of. I read there that mild and medium cheddar age a fairly short time but the time is extended to more like 8 months for sharp cheese. I guess that is the reason sharp is always more expensive to buy.

I learned of cheddar cheese curds at Tillamook Cheese Factory and it is one of my favorite things to snack on. It is available there in their store and I can find the product locally at supermarkets here at home, but the curds I buy from our store are not Tillamook brand.

One of the things I always enjoyed while traveling with my RV was visiting places like this that I found in the places on my route. The Tillamook Cheese Factory is a pretty big operation here in the Northwest and they do like visitors. They make a wonderful ice cream that I tend to stay away from as it seems to add pounds to me. But it is sure good.

Labels: Landscapes, Photos, Small towns, Trips to see things

We came home last Saturday from our week long trip to the Oregon Coast. I didn't try to do any blog posts from there. While I did have Internet connections, I don't have Photoshop on my netbook computer which is the one we had along with us, so I also didn't upload any photos to my flickr site which is where I host my blog photos from.

I don't have much time right now to work on photos but did do one that Pat used in her newsletter she edits for our homeowners association and while I was working on it I also prepared a version to upload to flickr:

On Wednesday, May 5th, we ate lunch at a very nice restaurant in Depoe Bay, Oregon called Tidal Rave. It is right on the coast with a fantastic view. I took a lot of photos through those windows and also some from outside. I think this is one from outside. There are a lot of others (I took something like 380 photos on the trip) and I'll get to them before too much longer. I promise. In the meantime, here at least is one from that most beautiful area.

Labels: Landscapes, Photos, Small towns, Trips to see things

This past week we returned to one of our favorite area towns, Leavenworth WA. It is about 130 miles away, east of us on US 2 on the east side of Stevens Pass through the Cascade Mountain Range. Leavenworth was a railroad town but went into decline when the railroads decided to no longer make stops there. Some in the town recognized the similarities of their area to the Bavarian area of Germany and proposed that they go through a rebirth to make themselves a Bavarian community here in the Washington State Cascade Mountains. They did that and have been quite successful. It is close enough to the population area around Seattle that many from the Puget Sound region go there, for a day or for a bit longer.


This view is looking west in the downtown area of the village. There are commercial buildings on the left and the town square is on the right. In mid-March the leaves have not yet returned to the deciduous trees so they are bare. There is also not much snow on the foothills around town. The Pacific Ocean had an El Nino year this year and most of the precipitation that usually falls here in the NW instead went south to California. I know they need water but think this year they actually got more than they wanted. I understand that some of it also traveled east, as far as the east coast, so they got some of our mountain's normal snowfall.


If we are not traveling in an RV, we like to stay in one of two hotels in town and they are both in this photo. This trip we stayed in the Linderhof Inn, the nearest one in the photo, but the Enzian Inn is in the background. Both are good places to stay while in Leavenworth. Both are right on US 2 as it goes through town and the entry to the shopping village is just a block away and across the highway. There are well marked pedestrian crosswalks and the traffic seems to be well trained to stop for pedestrians. Both these hotels have swimming polls (outdoors, so they were not yet open on this trip but the hot tubs were) as well as other things and breakfast is included in your room rate. At Enzian it is a full buffet meal.


There are many places to eat in town and most offer German food as well as regular American fare. Gustav's, shown here, is a tavern that is across the street and a block away from the Linderhof Inn. The food is primarily sandwiches but they are very good and there's a good selection of northwest brewed beer and ales. I like their Sleeping Maiden Porter but Pat prefers to stay with her wine. Beyond Gustav's in the photo you can see Visconti's, an Italian food place, that is also very good although more of a dinner place. We also love Cafe Christa in town on the second floor so you have a neat view overlooking the downtown village and the town square across the street. And they have a Bavarian chocolate mouse (did I spell that right?) that is so rich one serving is more than we two can eat together. A great place for a mid-afternoon break for coffee and desert.


Another view here of the foothills around town, showing how little snow there is this year. All the snow would normally be gone by mid summer but this photo was taken while it was still officially winter. These hills should be covered solidly with snow at this time of the year. Instead of it falling here, it went to Maryland and Virginia and that other Washington. Can we have our snow back next year, please?


I like attractive girls and anyone who has read my blog for very long knows that I really like my mochas, so when I spotted this young lady across the street pushing her baby in a stroller AND drinking a mocha, I couldn't resist taking her picture. It would be nicer with leaves on the trees behind her but I kind of like it this way, too. Made me want to go get a mocha. But not a baby. Been there, done that, and am now very happy with Grandkids. I can enjoy them and return them to their parents later in the day. But I think this is still a nice photo.

We only spent two nights in Leavenworth but that gave us half of the day we arrived and all day the second day, plus a little time on the third day. In a tourist trap type town where there are almost too many things to buy, that is long enough for one trip. We may well return later in the year for another visit and in a month and a half we will be going to the Oregon Coast for a week or so. Our travels now do not involve an RV but we are still getting out, seeing and doing things around the area and I will continue to take photos and make blog posts here. I have even started a Travel Photos set on my Flickr photo site (click on any of these photos to be taken there) and may go back in the Flickr archives to add some earlier photos to that set. More later.

Labels: Landscapes, Photos, Small towns, Trips to see things, Weather

I had heard early last fall that we were expecting to have an El Nino year weather wise this year, although it wasn't expected to start until after Thanksgiving, near the end of November. I guess it has arrived although we have also been wetter than usual and El Nino usually brings us warmer, dryer weather than normal. I guess it depends on where you look. Here in the lowlands of Western Washington State along the northern part of Puget Sound, we have had twice the amount of precipitation that we would normally have in the first part of a year. We have the Olympic Mountain range to the west of us and the snowpack there is above normal. To the east of us is the Cascade Mountain range and the snowpack there is below normal. Here is a photo of the hill to the east of my home that was taken about New Years Day 2008 (Jan 1st) and it shows the snow that was on that hill at that time:

Last year we had a lot of snow and this hill had visible snow on it from early in December until probably late February. This year there have been a couple of mornings when there was a dusting of snow up there but nothing that stuck around very long and right now it is totally bare clear up to the top.

While we have been seeing record cold and snow levels in much of the eastern part of the country, we have been warmer (and strangely, wetter) than normal. There were a couple of days this past week when our high temp hit 60 or over and even the overnight lows were all above 50. I know this affect is from El Nino out on the Pacific Ocean and I guess that is what is causing the excess' of winter back east. Our biggest problems right now with it are coming from saturated ground on slopes that are sliding down in mudslides. Friday the US-2 highway just west of one of our favorite little towns to visit, Leavenworth, WA, was closed when a large boulder came crashing down onto the roadway. I've seen photos of it on the TV news- about 25 feet long, 20 feet wide and 15 feet high. It totally covered both lanes of the roadway and caused a crater that is 3 to 5 feet deep under it. There are cracks in the road surface that extend up to 100 feet away from the rock. This is a main east/west corridor across our state and it is closed for a week or so until it can be repaired.

Other roads around our area have been closed due to mudslides & flooding and some will not open for awhile because they are worried about trying to clear them until the rainfall slows down. As I said earlier, this year's El Nino has been a bit different. Too bad we can't just direct the jet stream to deliver the clouds and rainfall to where it is needed! And just leave the cold weather up north.

Labels: Griping, Landscapes, Photos, Weather

Our summer continues although the temperatures have definitely dropped from the record setting levels of last week. They are even talking about possibly some rain by next Monday. We are kind of enjoying the cooler temps, especially since we've been involved in activities that have had us spending a lot of time in our computer room which can really heat up. The reasons for this are twofold. Last Saturday we changed our Internet provider from Verizon DSL to Comcast cable which meant we had a lot of people to notify about our new email addresses. I hadn't realized how many places I had that needed to be changed! Anyway, the new system is up and running with download speeds about four times what we had with our 3mbs DSL system. The other reason is that Pat is the editor of the newsletter in our community for our Homeowners Association. They hold their monthly board meeting on the first Tuesday of the month and the newsletter goes out the day after- today. Here is a photo of the clubhouse in our park:


This was taken 12 Aug 2008 by a radio controlled model airplane owned by a friend of one of our neighbors. I have posted a couple of photos from that set but I don't think I included this one. The gazebo where Pat & I were married is at the left side. You can just see part of the roof of the first house south of the clubhouse at the lower left side and our house is the one beyond the one you can see. The large part of the building nearest the camera, with all the windows, is the swimming pool room where the largest privately owned indoor swimming pool in Skagit County is located and it is used regularly. The clubhouse also has a large library, a comfortable reading area with a large TV, a kitchen, billiards room with a poker table and what we call the mirror room. I think at one time it was a dance studio where one wall is done in mirrors and there is a waist high handrail that runs along the wall over the mirrors. This room is used for meetings, parties, potlucks, etc.


Here is another from that airplane. This shows the north side of the parking lot for the clubhouse at the far left side and some of the homes from the community. There are 120 manufactured homes in the park. They are all pit mounted so are not up in the air like you find in most parks. The requirements for landscaping are pretty strict so all the yards look nice. The common area on this side of the clubhouse has a shuffleboard court and a putting green as well as a large, open grass area. Our annual park picnic comes up later this month and this area will be well used for games such as Botche Ball. Pat & I have used it to fly kites.

I guess that is enough for now. I've got to go and watch some TV.

Labels: Flying, Landscapes, Photos, Radio Controlled Airplanes

There is a group of us old school buddies who have been getting together each summer in Spokane, WA, where we all grew up, just to stay in contact, find out what all has been happening in each others lives and just plan have fun. This summer the group, which we loosely call "The Old Coots Club," decided to take a road trip to the Seattle area from Spokane for a couple of days rather than the Seattle area bunch going to Spokane. That trip was this last weekend and on Saturday, after a breakfast in the Kirkland area, four of the group came up to Skagit County, my home stomping grounds.

We met at our house which was an opportunity to show the place to them, three of whom had not been here before. Then we went to lunch together at the Garden Cafe inside the Skagit Gardens retail sales greenhouse, followed by a tour of part the area.


Our tour went out the Fir Island Road to La Conner. This is a scene looking down the channel toward the Rainbow Bridge. The eagle is an example of some of the public art that is on display in this town. It is very tourist oriented and has some nice things on public display as well as many galleries.


Another must see place is the waterway known as Deception Pass. Here is found some very fast tidal flow when the tides are moving into or out of Puget Sound. All of the water does not go through here but enough does to make this somewhat hazardous to boat traffic, especially if you are trying to go against the tide flow. Don't try this in a canoe or sail boat under sail! You won't make it as you can't go as fast as the tide. This is one of the two Deception Pass bridges, the longer one that goes from the small island in the middle of the channel to Whidbey Island. The only access for autos to Whidbey is via this bridge or one of two Washington State Ferry System boat routes. The island is long, extending south to where the other end is just off Mukilteo, where the ferry goes out to the town of Clinton.


This is the shorter of the two bridges, the one that goes from the mainland to the small island. The photo has one of our Old Coots Club walking back from the bridge where he went to take a photo. The traffic was very heavy on this day. With beautiful weather on a Saturday, lots of people were out and about both in autos and boats.


We finished the day off with a dinner together at Grazie, an Italian restaurant in the north Bothell area, between Mt. Vernon and Seattle. We prevailed on our waiter to take this photo with my small Sony camera and he did a nice job of it. Pat went along to lunch and dinner, but stayed home puttering in the garden rather than going along on our tour. I drove the Smart Car on the Coots Tour and three of them got a ride in it but since Pat doesn't want to ride in it on the freeway, we took our big car to Bothell, the VW New Beetle.

Our group does a pretty good job of staying in contact via email. I think we are finding that it is good to stay in contact with old friends as we grow older. We are all retired now so have more time to travel. One of us comes all the way from New York, two from California, three from the Seattle area, one from Vancouver, WA and three are in the Spokane area although one of them is a full time RVer so does move around. They will all have to change my email address after this next Saturday as we are changing our ISP. But they will figure that out.

Labels: Friends, Landscapes, Pat and I, Photos, Reminiscing