RV Travels With Huggy

No, this doesn't refer to something real recent, but last January 1st the weather here in northwest Washington State wasn't bad for mid-winter and we decided to go for a little drive. The "town" (it isn't much of a town size wise) of Edison is one of the oldest in the State although it probably hasn't grown much in the last 140 years or so, but it is not far from where we live in Mount Vernon and has a good place to eat. We arrived at the Old Edison Inn for lunch and I had taken my then new Nikon 1 camera along. I decided to play with it by taking a few photos inside, just to see how it would do in natural light. It did pretty well and here are a few of those photos:


This is a view of a part of the main area, where the large TV and the bandstand are located. On this day there were not a lot of tables set out (you can see some of them with chairs stacked on top at the left of the photo) because the night before there had been quite a party there to celebrate the new year and this space was used for dancing.


Here is the bar with the kitchen at the far left side of the photo. In the foreground is a long game table. I don't know what it is officially called but I call it shuffle board. The discs are small, about 2 1/2" in diameter. They sprinkle some sort of a powder on the surface and slide the discs from one end to the other. I think they try to get as close to the end of the slide area on the table as they can without going over the edge. Of course the opponent can and will try to knock your disc off if he/she can and try to leave their disc on the edge. From what I have seen, each player has three discs and they of course alternate as to who goes first. The speed of the discs is quite slow. I believe they have some fairly serious challenge games on a regular basis.

While we were sitting at our table waiting for our lunch order, I thought the lighting on our drink glasses was interesting so took a few photos of them. I do not regularly take still life photos but I kind of like the look of these, so here are a few from that set:


Pat's white zin wine is at the left, my Mac & Jack's ale to the right and both of our glasses of ice water nearby. The lighting is affected by the Christmas lights that were still strung around the interior.


Pat's wine is really pink or light blush in color but here it almost looks yellow or amber, due to the lights behind it.


Here is my ale with a poinsettia plant behind it. The Molson sign in the background is just a bar light. Mac & Jack's is a Seattle area ale that is very popular in this neck of the woods.

These are not spectacular photos but they do show a bit of what that little Nikon 1 camera can do. There is very little work with Photoshop, mainly just to re-size the images from their very large original size. The general feel of the place is kind of bar dark and the photos have been left that way to try to retain that feel, so I hope they will look okay on your monitor. I have been thinking about doing a post like this with these photos and finally decided to go ahead and just do it. The photos I use are hosted on my Flickr site and clicking on one of them should take you to there if you want to see them in a larger size that what is shown here.

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

This weekend is the annual Berry Dairy Days festival in Burlington, WA, another small town near us. They also have a car show as a part of it and we went over there for a Father's Day lunch and to see the cars. Many were also at the show in Sedro Woolley two weeks ago but I do have some photos of three of them from today. We've had nice weather until Friday night but today is better than yesterday so quite a few cars did come out to play. This weekend is also the annual Dirt Cup at our local Skagit Speedway which draws participants from all over the western part of the US.

Here are photos of those three cars:


This is a 1950 Crosley, with the owners in the background. I think these cars were sold back then through Popular Mechanics magazine as a kit car that the owner assembled himself. They are a very simple, basic car but I expect are worth many more times what they cost in 1950 today. This is a nicely done car.


Here is the engine compartment for the Crosley. There is a simple hood that is sitting on the rear part of the car so the engine is visible. Notice how nice and clean it is.


This is a 1939 Chevy Coupe. My last post had a 1938 Chevy Coupe and that car was also here, but they were not sitting side-by-side. This car is owned by friends of Pat.


I like hot rods. This is a nice 1927 Ford Model T Coupe hot rod that is fairly simply done. So many of them have all kinds of exotic things added to the engine, lots of chrome- basically they involve spending a lot of money. This one looks to me to be one the owner is paying for as he goes. It is also something that I'd not be afraid to take out and drive. Some of them you've spend so much money on that they probably just live in their garage.


Here is the interior of this car and as you can see, it is very basic at this point. I am sure that more upholstery will be added but I hope he stays with the idea that cleaner and simpler is best.


This is a three-quarter rear view of the Model T Coupe. Clean and simple.

These two festivals, this weekend and the one two weeks ago, are the closest ones to the town I live in other than those that happen right here. These both have pretty good car shows that I enjoy going to but the weather for the last one was certainly better. Of course the forecast calls for nice weather for the next few days, starting tomorrow. Murphy's Law works.

Labels: Cars, Festivals, Photos, Small towns

The day after our wedding on 28 April 2007 we went to the small Bavarian themed town on the east side of Stevens Pass called Leavenworth. It has always been a favorite place for us to visit ever since. This year to celebrate our Fourth Anniversary we spent two nights in Chelan, WA and two in Leavenworth. These towns are both on the other side of the Cascade Mountains from where we live and a bit too cold (and snowy) for us in the winter and pretty hot in the summer but they usually have wonderful weather in the spring and fall. This year it was warmer and dryer than on our wet side of the mountains but was still cooler than it should be for this time of the year. But we had a good time.

The last morning there we went to breakfast with friends at Enzian Inn and the following photos were taken of us on the fourth floor deck by my friend I've known since Kindergarten, Dave.


Here are Pat and I with some of the town and a few of the hills in the background. Other friends who actually live in the Bavarian area of Germany have told me the look and especially the setting of Leavenworth are very much like in Bavaria.


Here is another. Leavenworth is a rather magical place for us and we always enjoy our visits there. Our favorite places to stay are the Enzian Inn and the Linderhof Inn, both of which are next door to each other. They are right on the main highway, US-2, and at the entrance to the downtown village. For RVers, there is the Icicle River Campground or the KOA Campground, both of which are close in to town. If you get the chance to visit there, be sure to go.

Labels: Pat and I, Photos, Small towns, 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

I thought I'd better mention here that Tim from Handy's Heating came back last Monday, checked out our new fireplace and replaced the control module on it. Now it is working fine, but our weather has been warm enough that we haven't needed it since then. The forecast calls for a high temp of only 61 on Monday so maybe that day we will be able to use it. I do know it will get a lot of use over the winter and am glad that we did go ahead and have it installed early enough that it will be ready when needed.

Time really seems to be flying. I can't believe that it is already October. It really is true that the older we get the faster time goes. Annie has been gone over five years and this month will mark four years that Pat & I have known each other. In fact, we will be visiting good friends over in the Lake Chelan area of Central Washington on the 22nd which will be our exact four year anniversary. Roy, if you read this, we will have to plan on something special that day.

We are planning that trip for about the middle of the month. To get there we cross Stevens Pass which reaches an elevation of about 4100 feet, on US 2 and go through one of our favorite towns, Leavenworth. We should get to Leavenworth about the right time to stop for lunch. That time of the year the fall color should be brilliant. I hope the weather will also be great. October is usually a good weather month with fairly warm days and cool nights. It should also be ahead of the snowfall in the mountains. The long range forecast is calling for a return of the La Nina conditions in the Pacific Ocean which usually means colder temps for us. Winter always brings more precipitation and if it is cold, that can come as snow. Two years ago when we last had a La Nina winter we had close to 24 inches of snow here around Christmas and we usually have none all winter. Spokane in Eastern Washington, where I grew up, had four feet of snow that winter, much of it on the ground at once. They always have snow but not that much! See why we wanted to have the fireplace installed before winter? When we come home we will probably go to Winthrop and come home across the North Cascade Highway (WA State Route 20) if it hasn't yet been closed by snow. It is over a mile high and it has so much snowfall that the State Highway Dept doesn't try to keep it open through the winter. But when we come out on the west side we are right in our own backyard. And by going that way we can stop for lunch at Duck Brand Hotel & Cantina in Winthrop, another of our favorite eating places.

Enough for now. I still have some photos from our Oregon Coast trip back in May to post, especially those of our visit to the light house at Newport. I'll get to that before much longer.

Labels: Annie, Friends, Pat and I, Reminiscing, Small towns, Weather

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