Letter 17 Columbia Gorge to Seattle

Thursday, July 3, as we were preparing to move into Washington State, we discovered our slide-out wasn't operating properly.
We located a local repairman from the Hood River area who did road calls. He came late and confirmed what we suspected. One of the two mounting bolts holding the "room" to one of the two rams was broken in half or sheared. The rams are the parts that hold the room of our slide-out. The rams also do the sliding in and out. As a result of the lost bolt the room was not aligned to allow it to return to the correct position when moved in. One end had fallen about 2 inches.
He was very nice and very competent. After "jacking" up the room so that it was aligned right, he was able to drill the sheared bolt out of the hole and replace it with a new bolt. We were good to go, it is fixed.
Since it was July 4th weekend and camp sites are hard to come by, decided to stay here for a few more days. This is the same spot as when Blaire left us. It isn't a choice spot - hot with many trains passing on tracks about fifty feet from rear of trailer. Weather is cooler today. The highs in the lower 80s. We are behind on our schedule (not written or firm) so we will move as soon as possible and get to Canada as soon as we can.
We really enjoyed Blaire's visit and hope (we think she did) she enjoyed it also.
While we waited we took advantage of the time to clean house, then, at the last minute, invited Jack and Renee to bring a steak for them and join us for supper. It was nice to have someone with which to be spontaneous.
Friday, July 4, Happy 4th of July. We again took advantage of the layover time to get groceries/supplies and to wash.
Then we experienced a neat local activity of Hood River - 1st Friday. They blocked the main street and all the stores were open, some had street sales, groups sold their wares, groups participated by dancing, acrobatics, wine tasting, several had small bands or music in their stores. One even had a big hit with a group of three 10 year olds with their combo. Some of the restaurants had sliding windows/doors that allowed the restaurant to be like an open air sidewalk café. It was quite an experience, one that Waxahachie could easily do. This town is smaller than Waxahachie and all ages enjoyed this event.


The skies have been hazy from the California forest fires smoke. As we left town, we saw for the first time Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood.
Saturday, July 5, we stayed at the trailer until about 3:00 pm then headed into Hood River just to prowl. We saw two stands with cherries and asked if they knew of any u-pick. They gave us directions and we found the orchard and picked 10 lbs. of Bings.
This created the job of canning, after which we had 8 pints canned and a big bowl to eat. Fred chose to sit outside at the picnic table to pit the cherries and watch the trains go by.

Sunday, July 6, What a day! We left the park after a week of hearing the train ever hour or so. We have been in beautiful Oregon for 6 weeks, June 28-July 6. My, we are behind schedule, but this country is just too beautiful to skim over. Oregon is a wonderful state. Its people live a slower life than in California. It’s parks are VERY good. It was a wonderful experience.

We stopped in Vancouver, Washington at the Mill Plain UMC for a very inspiring service and sermon of “Thank God I’m a United Methodist”. This was the new pastor’s first Sunday and he sounded good to us. Their past one had retired after 20 years at that church. They like several churches we have visited all held hands at the end of the service and sang their standard closing hymn. When they passed the registration book around they asked for prayer requests to be handed to the ushers. At the end of the service there was a slip of Daily Study Guide on one side and the prayer list on the other. We guess someone was busy typing and copying during the service. This church had about 250 average attendance.

After church we headed north with plans to visit Mt St. Helen's and stay at the local state park, but the sky was totally overcast and even if we drove to the highest part possible we still wouldn’t be able to see the mountain and the devastation. It was only 1:30 so we headed to another state park about 20 miles north.
On this road we went through the community of Humptulips and crossed Kirkpatrick Road, please tell Lorene Kirkpatrick we thought of her in Humptulips! We think she will get the gist of this. This road was very narrow and instead of a shoulder there were beautiful flower beds of foxglove and yellow and white daisies.

The first state park we found was not desirable so we looked for another one called Rainbow Falls. It is on HWY 6 west of Chehalis, WA. We started seeing little state park signs and after following them we came to a VERY narrow bridge. 11’ wide and a sharp turn at each end. This stopped us short, so we started back to HWY 6 and at the turn, they had a little bitty sign telling RV’s to take another road. Well, we followed those directions about 20 miles around and around till we finally found the park. Sure enough last December the river and park had flooded and park access bridges were washed out creating the long detour. We finally camped about 7:00 pm, exhausted and hungry. We are actually only 40 miles from the Mt St Helen information center. Master Gardner’s: They had a flier about their Fuchsia Garden telling about all the varieties. What are they? We never found them.

Monday, July 6, We headed back to Hwy 101 traveling through little towns to Aberdeen. This was a very unusual town and we finally found gas for $4.31. Then on to the coast to Kalaloch National beaches and park. We stopped in the forest camp of

South beach. The wind was so strong we used the trailer for a wind break,

With trees to our back. While Fred cooked hamburgers an eagle flew right over the trailer and a few minutes later back along the beach. He was so close to us it would have made a great picture. Too bad the camera wasn’t ready either time.

We walked on the beach and found lots of nice size agates.

There is a whole lot of drift wood too.

Fred stayed up to see the sunset at 9:30. It didn’t get dark until 10:30 and it was daylight at 4:30 AM.


Tuesday, July 8, What a glorious clear day. We departed South beach stopping at Ruby Beach. We found large agates, but no rubies.

We headed into

the Hoh Rain Forest

and enjoyed all the mosses on the trees

the licorice moss that is close to a fern and looks a lot like our Spanish Moss.

There were many nurse logs and Olivia took Blaire’s photography lessons to heart and

Shot these pictures from the tree itself.

There was a lovely little pond with water plants

From there we followed Hwy 101 near the top of the Olympia peninsula to

Crescent Lake.

The road followed the lake on the south side about 10’ above the water.

The water was turquoise near the edge and so clear.

The trees came right down to the sparkling water.

The camera was clicking through the roof of the car as there were no pull outs.

One time we were able to stop and Olivia found another Blaire shot of daisy’s with the lake through the trees. This would be a great destination spot and we passed a resort on the north side as we headed to

Sand Creek Recreation Park on a bluff over looking the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Vancouver Island. During this drive we crossed a creek named “Uptha”.

The waves were breaking on the bluff and rocks as we walked along to

The Tongue point to look into

Crescent beach (not on Crescent Lake).
The owners of this motor home really wanted to have this spot with the view of the water.

We watched the sun set from the trailer. As the sun set the fog rolled in over the water.

Wednesday, July 9, Olivia was awake at 4:30. It was already daylight and

she arose to take a picture of the sun rise at 5:00 am. The trailer is headed north and the sun set to the NW and came up on the NE. We could see both out our front windows. Strange!

We drove Hurricane Ridge Drive about 18 miles south of Port Angeles and viewed the whole Olympic Range. We wished for a panoramic camera,

but settled for a close up of Mt Olympus with bluebonnets in the foreground. They are actually mountain lupine, but they sure look like our bluebonnets.

We priced the ferry to Victoria British Columbia, browsed the down town, then came back to camp and walked on the beach finding lots of driftwood, families playing and building forts, other strollers and some more agates.

Thursday, July 10 we were up and at’m early to be at the ferry by 7:30. We chose to ride the 1 hour ferry instead of the 1.5 hr one. About 15 minutes into the ride Olivia started feeling sea sick and spent the rest of the trip on the back of the boat. Her tummy really didn’t feel good the rest of the day.

On the way around the harbor in Victoria we walked

by vendors with their sidewalk tables. Going down the stairs Olivia missed the last step and went to her knees. She is ok, but is bruised and skinned. This was not her day, but it got better.

We took a 1.5 hour ride around the town of Victoria to see the high-lights of the city. It was a clear beautiful day. The guide told us about the extravagant cost of houses there. It is a beautiful city, so clean and

Flowers blooming everywhere, including the harbor.

We saw the Parliament Building

The Empress Hotel with funny trees in front

and a very tall totem pole.

And ate lunch at the floating restaurant the Black ?. Being the seat of government for British Columbia there were a lot of people dressed in suits eating in this restaurant. It was also the flight terminal for commuter biplanes with floats. They ate lunch with the tourists while waiting on their flight.

We chose to take the slow boat back since it was also much bigger. It also carried cars and even huge trucks loaded with lumber. This trip was much smoother and there were booths on each side and we took one so Olivia could lie down.

Friday, July 11 we moved to Sequim (like Swim with a Q) and the Dungeness Recreation Area. On the way we stopped and bought a new tire on the trailer. Earlier Fred noticed the tire was misshapen. Sure enough it had a broken belt – it was a blowout in the making. It was good we caught it at the right time. While waiting we called both health insurances and found they would cover us in Canada, and Sprint to see what they would do in Canada. It will cost a lot more for us to have internet on our air card, so we are discussing whether to forgo the internet while we are there. (we decided not to and were glad as our phones only had roaming and would cost extra). After parking we drove around looking for u-pick farms then into town for a new cordless drill. The batteries for the old drill just wouldn’t hold a charge. One replacement battery was as much as this new drill (including 2 batteries). The drill is very helpful in lowering the four trailer stabilizers. We called the Friday night group to say hello and enjoyed their bantering! You know you could follow us so you won’t be so jealous!

Saturday, July 12 we went to the Sequim library to use their power and internet and visited their book sale. Our neighbors Richard & Ellen Thane had recommended the “3 Crabs” for supper and it was very good. We brought home 2 slices of their pie, Chocolate Almond and Lemon 5” tall refrigerator moose pies.

They also had a "craft idea" in the front for flower planters. The Thanes photograph and write articles for Trailer Life and other magazines. You may want to visit their web site at http://www.photosbythane.com/ to see their pictures and read their articles. We are impressed.

We walked on Dungeness spit and saw lots of agates. It’s a good thing the rules say leave shells, rocks, driftwood on the beach for others to enjoy or Olivia would have filled the car and trailer!

There were 2 eagles in trees just above the beach.

Sunday, July 13, Four months on the road and we are not tired of it. We miss every one at home, but this is the life.

We attended the Trinity United Methodist Church of Sequim, WA. It’s pronounced like swim. Also a family from Ft. Worth was visitors. We met retiree Phil Ford (a church member) and his wife, formerly of Granbury, Texas. They moved to Sequim for the lower temperatures. Several years ago Sequim was listed by Money Magazine as the best place to retire. It rains 200 inches nearby, but only 13 inches in this town of about 7,000 – lots of sunshine. Before the magazine article it was about 1,000 population. They had their church directories in every pew and we thought that a nice thing to do. Their Call to Worship says it all for our trip.

With no words at all,
God’s glory is seen:
In the blueness of the sky,
In the green forest canopies,
On the wings of soaring eagles,
And the contentment of grazing deer.
If you have eyes to see and ears to hear,
God speaks in sunsets, whispers on sea breezes, laughs in orca leaps.
The heavens are telling the glory of God,
And all creation sings for joy!
And We Say AMEN!

We moved to Bainbridge Island and Fay Bainbridge State Park and are ready for Seattle.

Love to all,
Fred & Olivia