Abbey's Road

The main reason I came back to Seattle was so that I could take Abbey to a vet there to get some tests rechecked. I took her Wednesday morning and we’re still waiting for the Lyme test to come back, but her other tests looked better than before so I was happy about that. The vet said she looked pretty good for a dog her age. I also did some shopping and got restocked at Trader Joe’s. I went a little crazy at TJ’s seeing that it could be the last one I go to for several months. We stayed in a pretty decent RV park in Bothell, near Lake Washington, while we were there. There were actually shrubs between each site so you got a little privacy. This isn’t normal for RV parks. A couple of the days I took Abbey to a park on Lake Washington so she could get her swimming in. She has been in more water lately than she has for a long time. I think she likes that better than hiking. One evening at the same park there was a free concert. Abbey wasn’t interested but I checked it out by myself. The artist was described as playing “deadpan folk and blues”. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but once I heard her music I knew right away why they called it deadpan. It was actually pretty entertaining. It was definitely folk music judging by the lyrics even though she played an electric guitar. And her style is hard to describe in words other than to say she was deadpan alright.

For the weekend we headed up the Mountain Loop Highway which is northeast of Seattle. I was itching to get back up to the mountains and thought this might be a good place to get my legs going again. One surprise was that while I was at the visitor center getting information I found out that a woman and her daughter were killed only a few weeks before on a trail in that area. It is still pretty close to Seattle so it isn’t exactly out in the wilderness. After finding a campsite Abbey and I took a short hike up to some ice caves. At first I wasn’t too excited but there turned out to be quite a few of these “ice caves” that form at the base of these cliffs. Snow piles up there from avalanches and in the spring melting snow above forms streams and carves the caves out from underneath. It may not sound like much but it sure was a popular trail. The following day I was able to hike a real nice, though very steep and challenging, trail. It started from an old abandoned mining town. The road to it is blocked off so I rode my mountain bike into the town and hiked up into Glacier Basin from there. There aren’t any glaciers there any more, but the wildflowers were beautiful and the surrounding peaks were jagged and scenic. I have missed taking hikes like this – up to a spot with nice alpine views and/or lakes. They are my favorite kind, though my legs were pretty tired. On Sunday morning it was raining so we packed up and headed back to civilization and did a few things before heading up to the mountains again – this time on the North Cascades Highway a bit farther north. More on that in the next entry.

Posted by Ed at 12:50 PM | Permalink

With the temperatures in the Seattle area unusually high I decided to head further out on the Olympic Peninsula. We got a late start on Saturday so we didn’t get too far. It was still pretty hot so after finding a campground I took Abbey down to a nearby river to cool off. The next day was supposed to be more of the same so we packed up and headed as far west as we could – the coast. In fact, we made it to Cape Flattery, the farthest you can go northwest in the lower 48. It’s on the Makah Indian Reservation, where they also have a campground at Hobuck Beach. The campground isn’t much more than a grassy field up against the dunes, but it’s only 100’ from the beach and was far more attractive than the RV park that looked more like a parking lot. I let Abbey out about 1 in the morning and the sky was filled with stars. I could even see the Milky Way. The beach was really wide, especially at high tide so it was great for walking on. The weird thing, though, is that in the summer there is always a fog over the ocean so you never get a really clear view. In the morning, after a little bit of coaxing, I took Abbey for a long walk on the beach. It didn’t take her long to get lost in the tide pools searching for fish and whatever else she looks for in the water. She was having a ball running on the beach without a leash. Morning is definitely her time. I was starving by the time we finally got back for breakfast. In the afternoon I drove into an outer lying area of Olympic National Park that is on the coast. There was a 9 mile loop trail, including 3 miles on the beach that I wanted to hike. Unfortunately for Abbey she wasn’t allowed to come. It was probably better because the trail out to the coast was mostly on a cedar-plank boardwalk, which was pretty uneven. The forest was so thick in spots that it felt like a tropical rainforest. Walking on the beach was pretty tough because there was either a lot of driftwood or it was very rocky and slippery. It was an interesting hike and pretty scenic too, but one of my knees was bothering me. I haven’t been hiking too much in the last few months so I think I’m not quite in the hiking shape I was in last year. I need to fix that before I go up to Canada in a few weeks.

By the time we got back to the campground the fog and mist were rolling in fast. We got to experience what this place is like normally in the winter. They said that it is pretty unusual in the summer. It cooled off considerably and was misting when I woke up in the morning. We went for a walk on the beach anyways and Abbey had a ball once again. I’m not sure all the sea creatures in the tide pool were as thrilled as she was. After breakfast it was still pretty overcast so I decided to head back to Seattle early. I got Abbey an appointment with a vet there in the morning. She was supposed to have some blood work rechecked 3 months from when she had it done in Sedona, which is right about now. Hopefully, all will go well.

Posted by Ed at 12:51 AM | Permalink

I was pretty tired when I got back from San Diego. I had reservations at Mt. Rainier National Park, but I decided to cancel them figuring that I wanted to rest up a bit and being in a National Park means that I would’ve been pretty limited as to where I could take Abbey. I found a nice state park just on the outskirts of Bremerton and on an arm of Puget Sound so we ended up staying there for 3 nights. It was there that I solved the mystery of the squirting water on the beach. In the mornings I took Abbey down to the beach so she could go “fishing”. The tide change was pretty dramatic so at low tide there was a huge wide beach covered with all kinds of stuff. I was watching Abbey in the water and this family came down to the beach. I saw them poking the sand and mud and water was squirting up. So I had to ask them what was squirting the water out. They didn’t know the name of the things, but they showed me. They looked kind of like slugs, but with a mouth on the end that looked like a tube. They burrowed in the mud and rocks. Sometimes they would squirt water out on their own, but if you touched them or stepped near them they would often squirt a stream of water up in the air. If you weren’t careful where you stepped, they would sometimes nail your legs. Well I felt much better after figuring that mystery out. Abbey had no clue what important things were happening on the beach, but she was just fine keeping busy with her “fishing”. She rarely fails to intrigue people and sometimes they stop for a while to watch her. I should put out a hat and see if anyone will throw money in. If she’s gonna entertain, she oughta make something from it. Or should I say, I oughta make something from it.

Bremerton is across Puget Sound from Seattle. My first full day back there I ended up shopping, doing errands and recuperating from the drive. I found out I could take the ferry across to Seattle without too much problem so on Friday I parked the RV at a mall, took a bus downtown and took the ferry across. On the way over we saw a bald eagle flying over us. It was the first one I’ve seen in quite some time. Later on the same day, I saw another one down at the beach when a lady, who was a wildlife rehabilitator, pointed it out to me. Being in Seattle I wanted to sample the seafood, so right after the ferry docked I stopped at Ivar’s Fish Bar, an institution on the Seattle waterfront since 1938. They have a unique system of ordering. They take everyone’s seafood order all at once, and while the seafood is cooking they come back to each person and get their sides and drink orders. It actually goes quite fast. I went with something simple, the fish n’ chips but man was it good. Piping hot and really crisp and tender. Welcome to Seattle! There were kids next to me feeding the seagulls, but they weren’t getting any of mine.

After stuffing myself I walked down to Pike’s Place Market, another Seattle institution. It has gotten quite commercialized over the years, but it is still a fun place to go. A must stop is the Pike’s Place Fish Co. Don’t buy your fish there ‘cause it’s overpriced, but go for the show and buy your fish across the street at Jack’s. That was the advice I got, and followed. The “show” consists mostly of the workers throwing fish back and forth from the counter to the outside cases and back. The guy on the outside shouts out an order, and the guys on the inside, in unison, repeat it as the guy on the outside tosses a fish over the counter.
Sometimes the fish start flying pretty fast. When I was there one of the customers actually became part of the show, though it was pretty sick. They cut the eye out of one of the fish and this guy ate it, though not before holding it in his teeth for his wife/girlfriend to get a picture. How would you like to bring him home to mom? I thought one lady was going to throw up. She didn’t stick around long after that. I did what I was told and bought my salmon at Jack’s, brought it “home” and cooked it up on the grill. It was real tasty that night, and the next night too in a salad. You can’t go to Seattle and not get salmon, even if you do cook it yourself.

The Space Needle

Posted by Ed at 12:37 AM | Permalink

It was a marathon drive from the San Juans to San Diego -1250 miles in 2 days - but I finally made it on the evening of the 12th. Mary Beth’s brother, Bob, and his kids – Kelsey, Robbie, Juliana, and Gabriella – were staying at Bob’s cousin Andy’s house overlooking Mission Bay. Andy’s wife, Jenni, and daughter, Melanie, were also there. And Abbey had four-legged company, Calvin and Hobbes, Andy’s two dogs. (This is Hobbes, I think, but Calvin looks nearly identical.) They were about the same size as Abbey and they were real good dogs, but Abbey didn’t pay much attention to them. The heat wave that has been following me around most of the summer followed me to San Diego, too. San Diego actually doesn’t get all that hot in summer, at least not when you’re near the coast, but it was in the mid to upper 80s while I was there. Since there is some humidity and Andy doesn’t have AC, it felt pretty hot. I took Abbey down to Mission Bay every morning, but that was about her excitement for the day. Unfortunately, there were signs warning of pollution from storm water runoff but luckily there weren’t any storms while we were there and Abbey can’t read. Andy and Jenni have an in ground pool and hot tub in their backyard and every night the ritual was to go for a swim, then sit in the hot tub and watch the fireworks at Sea World. Not a bad way to end the day. The first night we were there, though, Abbey was out in the back when the fireworks started and that was all it took. She barely went in the back yard the rest of the week.

On my first full day there Bob and the kids and I decided to go out on a boat to do some sport fishing. All of the kids, except Kelsey, that is. Being vegetarian she wasn’t too excited about spending half the day on a boat with 50 other people catching fish. I was getting pretty discouraged when everyone had caught at least one, if not several, fish except me. They were mostly calico bass and some mackerel which we had to toss back. I was thinking I was going to have to swallow my pride and ask one of the guys for help when they decided to move to a new location. People started reeling in barracuda like crazy, so I gave it another shot and sure enough, after a few minutes, I reeled one in myself. The bass weren’t bad eating, but the barracuda surprised us in that they were pretty good too. Too bad we didn’t get a yellowtail like some people on the boat. We didn’t get a lot of fish so it was probably the most expensive fish I’ve ever eaten. We had a good time though, so it was worth it. On Friday night the Atlanta Braves were in town taking on the hometown Padres. Robbie wanted to go see a game so the guys all went. We bit the bullet and spent the extra money on some decent seats and much to Robbie’s excitement we were treated to extra innings. We didn’t catch a foul ball but we did see an 11 inning, 15-12 marathon won by the Braves. Besides, where else can you get a hot dog and a beer for $14.

On Saturday we finally hit the beach. Good thing it was hot because the water was freezing. I went in a few times but came out after I was starting to feel numb. I think most people were at the beach just to party. We found out that Pacific Beach is the party beach. We saw shot luges, beer bongs and thousands of people including a group promoting the Rock/Paper/Scissors SuperChallenge. Every Monday at the Wave House in Pacific Beach you can go and watch the sunset and test your skills at Rock/Paper/Scissors. And you thought it was just for kids! Isn’t it amazing what people will come up with to accompany their drinking habits? Speaking of drinking games, while riding around Fiesta Island on Sunday we saw another unusual game. It was called OTL, or Over The Line, a very loose relation to baseball. The object is to hit the ball over a line, hence the name, and between two other lines without the other team catching it. The funniest thing about it was the “creative” names that most of the teams had. Let’s just say I can’t print them here. It reminded me of the Bookstore Basketball tournament we had at college. As my brother said, Americans must really be bored.

Sunday night Andy and Jenni took us all out on a dinner cruise around the San Diego harbor. It was their 25th anniversary the next week and Andy was going out of town so they decided to celebrate while we were there. All in all, it was great to spend time with both Andy’s and Bob’s families. The weather was a bit hot but we still had a good time. The drive back north was another killer but we made it all in one piece and just in time to return the rental car without incurring extra charges. My RV was still intact, too. Abbey sure seemed happy to see it after spending all that time in the car. It was good to be back in my RV though I will miss getting 32mpg.

Friends Imitation
Bringing Up the Bait
The 3 Sisters
Filleting the Fish
You call that art?
Now that's art!

Posted by Ed at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On the 6th Abbey and I took the ferry from Anacortes, WA to Orcas Island. It wasn’t Abbey’s first trip on a boat, nor was it her first trip on a ferry, though I think it was her first car ferry. She’s a well-traveled dog. I almost went into shock when the woman told me the ferry was $125. I recovered when she said that was the roundtrip price. Anyways, it was a cloudy, overcast, cool day, but it was one of the few of those we’ve had recently. It did manage to clear up later in the day after we made it to Moran State Park, our home for the next 5 nights. Moran is a beautiful park with many hiking trails and a couple of lakes, but I did have one complaint. The campsites are quite close to each other. Luckily, no one ever took the spot on one side of us and on the other side they set up their tents back in the woods so it wasn’t so bad. Abbey wasn’t crazy about the campground either, because it was quite loud. Orcas is a fairly rural island with lots of farms and it is also quite mountainous. One day I hiked up to the top of Mt. Constitution, the highest point in the San Juans at just over 2400 ft. That may not sound that high, but when you start close to sea level it is a bit of a climb. Unfortunately, when I did it, it was still a bit cloudy so I didn’t get great views of the mountains in the distance. Ironically, I got the best view of Mt. Baker, a glaciated peak just south of the Canadian border, when I went on a kayaking tour. The kayak tour was pretty nice though not nearly as rough as I thought it might be. The one I chose was in the least protected waters, but the water was still bathtub water, except for the temperature. It turns out that the islands are quite well-protected and you don’t get big surf unless there is a big storm I guess. We didn’t see a lot of wildlife, but we did see a seal that came quite close to a couple of the kayaks and a bunch of starfish.

One problem I had on the island was parking. It is quite limited except for in Eastsound, the main village on the island, so I was a bit limited as to where I could go. It kind of reminded me of Ireland with the narrow, winding roads. The other thing about Orcas is that there isn’t a lot of public access to the water. Luckily, the state park had a couple of lakes so I managed to get Abbey in those most mornings and there was a place to get in the sound down in town. While Abbey was entertaining the tourists with her fishing routine one day, I noticed something really strange. Every so often I would see a stream of water shoot out of the ground anywhere from a few inches to a few feet in the air. It seemed to happen close to the water’s edge, but when I dug in the sand and rocks I couldn’t find anything there. Unfortunately, there were no locals around to ask what it was from. Sometimes the squirts would come one right after the other. While I was there I never found out where the water was coming from, but I did eventually solve the mystery later on. Stay tuned.

I think next time I might try San Juan Island. It’s supposed to be more commercial, which is why I stayed away from it, but it is also supposed to have more to do and more public beach access. In any case, I enjoyed my stay on Orcas, though I probably could have cut it short by a day with no real loss. It is a very scenic island and not too built up so it does have its advantages. I’d love to do the San Juans in a sailboat sometime. On the 11th we got up early, took the ferry back to the mainland and headed south to catch another ferry across Puget Sound. In case you haven’t been up this way, northwest Washington has water everywhere. The ferries make getting around a little easier, even though they are pretty expensive if you have an RV. I put my RV in storage in Bremerton, picked up a rental car and headed south to meet up with Mary Beth’s brother Bob, and his kids in San Diego. We’re all spending the week at Bob’s cousin, Andy’s house. It’s a bit of a drive but the kids asked me to come so I couldn’t say no.

Posted by Ed at 3:18 PM | Permalink

I got a late start from Cottage Grove on Saturday because I decided to get some cleaning done while I still had hookups. I also had to make a stop at Camping World and Trader Joe’s on my way past Eugene up to the mountains. Then I really got delayed when I got my second flat tire in 2 weeks. There was a patch of loose gravel in the road where they were doing some construction and I didn’t slow down fast enough. There was a pretty rough bump and it jarred one of the tires a bit too hard. It didn’t blow out, but the valve got knocked loose. I thought I was OK because it seemed to hold air when I hooked up the compressor, but just like last time it only held pressure to about 60 psi before it gave way again. Luckily, at the suggestion of my buddy Lurch from my last flat, I had bought a lug nut set and breaker bar at Harbor Freight Tools in Eugene. So, I was able to loosen the lug nuts this time. But….I ran into another problem. I turned the release valve on the jack (Lurch had left it open) the wrong way and out popped oil, and unbeknownst to me, a little steel ball that is critical to the operation of the jack. So I drove back 25 miles, very slowly I might add, to the nearest town, bought some oil and filled the jack back up. Of course, without that little steel ball the jack still didn’t work. After reading the instructions (should’ve thought of that before I started) I figured out I was missing that little steel ball. So I gave in once again and called the emergency road service. The only problem was that it was Saturday on a holiday weekend so they had a hard time finding someone to come out. Finally about 9:00 the guy showed up and put the spare on. By this time I was pretty tired and too hungry to cook so I grabbed something at an A&W drive-in, only I had to walk up. I don’t think I’ve been to an A&W for about 30 years. I remember we used to go to them in Massachusetts when we were kids. Anyways, I drove back up the mountain and found that little steel ball sitting in the middle of the oil slick I had left when the oil leaked out of the jack. Sure enough, when I stuck it back in the jack the next day, the jack worked fine.

Being the Fourth of July weekend and it was now close to 11pm, I had a little trouble finding a campground with open space so I ended up parking off of a forest service road in a snow park area. At least it was free. After a hike in the morning we found a much nicer campground on Clear Lake. I had thoughts of joining Abbey for a swim in the lake but quickly changed my mind. A few minutes standing in the water and my toes went numb. Which was probably a good thing because Abbey mistook them for something else in the water and she bit them. The thanks I get. Unfortunately, it’s mosquito season up here and they have been out in full force most places we’ve been, especially on our hikes. Yesterday we started out on what was going to be a lake bonanza for Abbey – 5 or 6 lakes in 6 miles. We stopped at Big Lake first so she could get cooled off before having to hike a mile or more to the next set of lakes. The mosquitoes would eat me alive if I stopped so I just kept moving until we reached the next lake. After tolerating all I could we moved on to one of the bigger lakes which Abbey really seemed to enjoy. Luckily, the bugs weren’t quite as bad there so I just hung out and watched her. Then a group of 4 women rode up on horseback and stopped to water their horses and eat lunch. They got a big kick out of watching Abbey. Then the fun began. I heard some rumblings in the distance and at first Abbey didn’t seem to notice. That was until there was a loud crack of thunder much closer to us. So much for swimming. She went into the bushes though and didn’t want to leave. I knew it was only going to get worse so I forced her to go. One of the ladies wondered if she was the same dog that was in the water because she didn’t look so happy anymore. Soon after, the rain came. And then, the hail. When it finally stopped raining after 15 minutes or so, I wished it hadn’t. The mosquitoes went on a rampage once the sun came out, not to mention the river of mud that the path had become. I knew I should have gotten gore-tex hiking shoes! At least Abbey kept moving most of the time. I didn’t dare stop for fear that she wouldn’t start up again or there would be nothing left of our bodies after the mosquitoes got done with them.

This morning I wasn’t surprised when I couldn’t get Abbey out of the RV for another hike, so I just went myself. Her day wasn’t so great today and now we are camped in a park listening to the fireworks going off all around us. Not in the park since it’s not allowed, but I think everyone is lined up right outside the park firing away. I’ve got Kenny G blasting on the stereo to try to block out the noise but it’s not really working. She’ll be a wreck by the time this is through. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us tomorrow so at least she can catch up on her sleep.

BearGrass - this stuff is everywhere up here

Posted by Ed at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On the 18th of June I arrived at the Village Green RV Park in Cottage Grove, which is about 20 miles south of Eugene, OR. Less than a week earlier I had received a call from the RV Care-A-Vanner desk asking if I could take the place of someone who cancelled. After checking my busy schedule, I decided that I could squeeze it in. I’m real happy I did. The RV Care-A-Vanner program of Habitat for Humanity sponsors builds with local affiliates across the US where the volunteers are all RVers who stay in their own RVs near the jobsite for 2 weeks while working on a house. As you may guess the people are usually retirees so I was the youngster of the group. But they were more than happy to have me there since this was a two story house and I don’t mind climbing up high on ladders or scaffolding. The first night we had an introductory meeting and I jumped up on a railing to help hang a sign up. A little while later during the meeting when the construction supervisor, Lee, said we would need some people to work up on the scaffolding a lot they all looked at me. Well, it wasn’t rock climbing, but it helped satisfy my penchant for climbing nonetheless. Someday I’ll take that rock climbing course. Since we only had a limited amount of scaffolding it also meant it had to be torn down and rebuilt a lot. You never know when “scaffold building” will come in handy on my resume. Plus, I made the front page of the Cottage Grove Sentinel. So what if you can’t tell from the picture that it’s me. They even mentioned my name, but when we made the local news out of Eugene I didn’t get on TV. Several of us did and it was good publicity for the habitat affiliate.

The house was not your typical Habitat house which presented a lot of “challenges” as they used to say in IBM. I have a new appreciation for what builders and contractors go through, but I enjoyed this more than having my own house built. On this house, I didn’t have to make any decisions. I just did what I was told, or tried to anyways. And, for us volunteers at least, after 2 weeks we got to move on whether the house was done or not. Unfortunately for the local affiliate and the volunteers, this house has been dragging on for nearly a year. It has gone much better since they hired Lee to be the construction supervisor a few months ago. He is working on a degree in construction management and this counts towards his credits. Lee was great to work with. Anyone who can supervise a bunch of volunteers, not to mention senior citizens (sorry guys!), with not a whole lot of experience has got to have a lot of patience. And he did. He soon learned that half the time we were yanking his chain with crazy suggestions so after a while I think he learned not to ask us what we thought. But he was real easy going and stayed on top of things, and he actually did listen to us.

There were five couples besides me on the build and all were retired except for one woman. The first couple of days they kept asking me what it felt like to work with a bunch of seniors. They were a lot of fun though, and every night we would have happy hour back at the park. Two couples really enjoyed their wine with one of them even bringing some of their own homemade stock, which was quite good. One couple has the same kind of RV as I do, only bigger, so it was great getting tips and ideas from them. The winemaking couple also does a lot of boondocking so I tried to pick their brains as well. Believe it or not two of the ladies, not the men mind you, had tool fetishes. They would drool over the power tools that they didn’t have one of themselves and show off their favorites that they brought along. I was quite amazed. I don’t think I ever met any women with a tool fetish before.

They would all help me look after Abbey, especially when she started to wander off. At times I felt like I had a few sets of my parents around, but in a good way. Abbey didn’t have much excitement during the day, however. She would be locked in the RV from 8-3 except when I let her out for our morning and lunch breaks. I tried to keep her from begging too much but everyone was good about telling her “No” when she started to beg. They got a kick out of her eating peanut shells. I figured they couldn’t hurt her and it kept her occupied instead of eating other worse things. It got very hot at the end of the first week so most days after work was done I took her to the lake for a swim. A few days it was so hot I went in myself. On the worst days the thermometer was pushing 100. That’s pretty brutal when you’re putting insulation up or when you’re working up against a white Tyvek wall with the sun bouncing off of it. Besides most of us weren’t use to manual labor 5 days a week so we got pretty tired. We did manage to have some fun, though. Saturday night we went out to dinner and then to a play. The play was written by women, performed by 2 actresses and was pretty much for women. But the guys went anyways and we had to admit that most of it was pretty funny even if it was a bit one-sided. Another night we went out to dinner at the King Estate, Oregon’s largest winery. They had a great new wine tasting room and restaurant and the views were beautiful. The food was excellent and the wine wasn’t too shabby either. On our days off Abbey and I found some trails that had creeks and waterfalls (seems like that’s been a theme lately) that weren’t too long since it was so hot. I also took her for a walk every morning (though they seemed to get shorter as the time wore on). Since we had a section of the RV park all to ourselves, I would let Abbey off the leash most of the time so she could roam a little. I tried to make up for all the time she got locked inside while I was working.

All in all it was a great experience and I learned some useful construction skills. I’ve already signed up for another one in Jackson, WY at the end of September. I figure that even if the build isn’t too good, the location is great. I also found out, thanks to one of the couples, that Habitat does a Care-A-Vanner build every May in New Zealand. You work five days the first week on the South Island, get 2 weeks to travel up to the North Island, and then work five days the last week. They rent RVs over there for you. I’m planning on signing up but it would be better to have someone to double up with. Anyone want to join me?!! I just have to figure out something to do with Abbey for the month. New Zealand quarantines dogs for 6 months ‘cause they don’t have rabies down there and want to keep it that way.

We cleaned up pretty nice, eh?

Posted by Ed at 3:53 PM | Permalink