Sunday, headed home.

One last look at LaPush and more whales greeted us this morning. This is a totum outside the LaPush Restaurant. Our local friend told us that a group from California bought the restuarant last winter. I wish them well.

Our trip home was beautiful, and we really took the long way home. We kept south on Hwy 101 until we got to the town of Raymond and then turned east on Hwy 6. Raymond was deserted and then suddenly we came to the town park and it looked like the whole community was there in mass. Isn't that cool.
We drove thru one farming community after another and I would have pulled over to take pictures but the road was narrow and no place for poor Casita to park. She did get a lot of bugs in her teeth, we we got home we were amazed at how many bugs had ended their short lives on our grill.

We are really ancious to get on the road again. Gas is nearly $3.00 a gallon and I am boycotting Exxon, who is taking a lot of flax right now for giving their retired CEO 400 million dollars, but I learned on the news today that Exxon is the one comp
any that is really looking and exploring for more gas/oil reserves so maybe I will boycott Chevron instead. Had to laugh, there is a local Mom and Pop gas station that sells Chevron flying a jolly roger flag over their business. What does that tell you.
I don't think we will be going anywhere in May as I am going to help out at the Red Cross at Madigan, Sumo is on and have a few medical appointments. In June we are going back to the coast, but this time, we are going to Ocean Shores area. Maybe after that, we can take off again

Aka'lat Island, La Push, WA

Today it is know as James Island, but since ancient times it was known as Aka'Lat, (Top of the Rock) in the language of the Quileute people. It was a burial gound for chiefs, a fortress in times of defence and considered a resting place for the ancestors.
The waters just to the left of the Island are were the whales feed and the town of La Push is just to the right.
We stayed at Lonesome Creek RV park and its rated right at the top of our list of best spots to RV. 

Derelict Boat, La Push Harbor, WA

We woke up on Saturday morning to a glorious day, the wind had died out, the clouds had all disappeared and we were left with only sparkling sun and surf. Quickly we made a pot of coffee and took our cups out to the beach.
OMG, the first thing we noticed was that it was full of surfers, and they were all camped at the other end of the beach, so that is what the folks meant by quiet. But what really excited us, was there were whales about a 100 yards out, feeding, playing, blowing.. and when I looked at my guide book it said that this was an area where folks came to whale watch. Here we thought we would see nothing worth writing about, and we find whales. We counted about 3 of them, but water spouts were everywhere so there may have been more.
After breakfast, we walked along the beach to the town of La Push, and came first to the harbor where we found this delelict boat. There was just something beautiful and sad about her and Roy dreamed of restoration. The town itself was pretty small, maybe 100 or so homes, but it does have a Coast Guard Station and restaurant and a small school.
As we walked around I just happened to notice an eagle sitting in the top of an old pine tree. We stopped to take some pictures and met a local gentleman who told us the eagle had a nest in the tree but the winter storms had knocked it out.
He also told us about the Fisherman's Memorial, a Coast Guard boat went out to rescue a sailboat and a huge wave picked it up and tossed it on the rocks of James Island, killing all on board. The sailboat was also lost. He told us about 80 MPH winds and how the surf has killer logs that folks have to be so careful of. We weren't surprized, there are tons of logs littering the beach.

Another cool thing is we have now visited our second Indian Nation. This area is mostly Quileute country.
We continued to walk around, enjoying the sun, the surf and more whales. As it turned out Saturday was the warmest day of the year, Sunday would be even more beautiful.

La Push, Washington

Fate sometimes lends a little twist to our adventures. We departed Neah Bay on a bright sunny morning, sunny but windy. The drive out was more spectacular than the one in with glimpes of great beaches and views of Canada and the Straits of Juan De Fuca. Our plan was to drive to Forks and spend the night, but fortunately, as it turned out, the park was closed for the winter. Flipping a coin, we decided to try La Push, Washington as we knew it had two RV parks and one was on the ocean.
The RV park was nice, a little pricey, but it had electricity and water and thats all we needed. They suggest that we take Space 1 since it would be quiet? I wasn't sure what noise was going to bother us, but we took Space 1 and set up.
We were a little disappointed. The beach was mostly black rocks, and since the wind was really rippin' by this time, we didn't spend a lot of time out doors.The only birds we saw were crows and gulls and while I have nothing against either crows or gulls, I didn't think I was going to have a lot to write about. Rocky beach, no wildlife!!
Played a couple games of backgammon with Roy, who decided that I was making up the rules as I went along since I was winning, but then he gammoned me, and changed his mind. Went to bed listening to the wind rock the RV.

Neah Bay

Neah Bay http://www.northolympic.com/makah/##b
Woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of rain on the rig and in the morning, we were sitting in puddles. We hoped it would clears, but neither the weatherman nor the sky look very promising. Undaunted, we unhooked the rig and followed the signs out of town to ShiShi. I had wanted to go to Cape Flattery but I read that the trail was steep and RVs were not recommended. So we headed to ShiShi, another beach and another trail. It started out easy enough, we walked on a boardwalk and bridges over the little creeks, but the further we went, the more muddy the route became, and we had to start climbing over trees that blew down in recent winter storms. Roy would stop often to cut little trenches to drain off some of the water, but I walked on. By this time, the mud was getting ankle deep and I decided, I just didn’t think that I needed to see the beach that much. I turned around knowing Roy was behind me.

Well, he wasn’t. He had climbed up above to miss the mud and we passed each other. Suddenly, I know something is very wrong, he was not behind me. I called. Nothing, I yelled. Nothing. I knew that I should turn around, but I just couldn’t do any more mud. Roy would have to fend for himself. I figured he either fell off a cliff, and if that was the case, I couldn’t help him anyway, cause I never saw a cliff, or we had passed and he would figure out I wasn’t there. Another hiker passed me and I told him I was returning to the car and if he saw my husband to please tell him. I went back to the rig and decided that if he didn’t come back in an hour I would call 911. He retuned just about an hour later, mad and wet.

I don’t think we will be doing much more hiking at least not in the rain.

19 Apr Heading to Neah Bay

While the forecast was for rain, when we woke, the skies were gray but the tops of the Olympics were clear, a good sign. It really wouldn’t have mattered, if you let the rain stop you in Washington, you would never get anywhere. After a leisurely breakfast, we pulled out from our now, new favorite RV park, Rainbows End RV in Sequim. If you want a place that has a tad bit more room than a normal parking lot RV park, and some mighty friendly staff, this is the place. I highly recommend it. The only one complaint that I might have is that they did ask the age of our rig and a gentleman who lives there on a monthly basis said they didn’t allow older rigs….but the neighboring rig was a beautiful retro (probably mid 70ies) Silver Streak 5th Wheel that was very cool looking. Wish we had taken a picture of it as it had so much character.

The trip to Neah Bay was more exciting for DH who was sitting on the passenger side looking over the high cliffs, praying that I would stay off the edge. Hwy 112 is narrow and there were places that looked and felt torn up and signs warning of slides and washouts, (didn’t help Roy’s attitude at all). We averaged about 30 MPH as we switch-backed around one hairpin curve after another. Lucky the traffic was light and there were places to pull over for folks to pass. I will be darned if I know how those big rigs negotiate those curves…Wow

We arrived about noon and found our destination; The Cove Motel and RV Park. There were a number of places listed on the internet and the Cove was the third place I called and the first to answered the phone. Turned out to be the best of the bunch, the park looked just like a park and it was nearly empty, another RV and some tenter;s who were packing up to go were our only neighbors.

Neah Bay is on the Makah Reservation and we paid a $10 annual fee to be there. That was fine, we didn’t mind as long as the money went to help this sad little town. The Makah’s land takes up most of the corner of the Olympic Peninsula, but it is about a 1/10 of what once was. Smallpox nearly wiped the tribe out and they got the short end of the treaty ‘stick’ also, both thanks to the white man’s westward march.

The rain was just beginning, so we downed our raincoats and walk the half mile to the Makah Museum. What a great museum, it had artifacts from two archeological sites, a 3000 year old village they found near Clallam Bay, (east of Neah Bay) and Ozette, another village found in 1977. It had been built against a cliff on the beach and a wall of mud triggered by an ancient earthquake, destroying it. A great storm uncovered it and archeologists have been there ever since. Those artifacts are now at the Makah Museum and also a replica of the longhouses they built and lived in. It’s a great museum and one which I would highly recommend if you brave the road that is.


Tomorrow, we explore more of Neah Bay.

Dungeness Spit

Had a great trip to the Dungeness Spit, a 5 mile long 'spit' of land that protrudes into the Straits of Juan De Fuca. At the end of the 5 miles is a lighthouse, but we didn't venture that far out, actually we didn't venture out at all since we only had a hour to explore.
Dungeness is off Kitchen-Dick road which is off Hwy 101. Roy kept calling it Chicken Dick road, but its not, its Kitchen Dick and don't you forget that.
Remember the woodpecker at our last stop, rat-ta-tat-tating, well this time far in the distance we heard some geese honking and the sound got closer and closer until finally we saw them coming in right over our heads. It was a pair, and they honked until they finally landed about 100 yards from us.
My birding friends probably expect some name for these geese, but all I can tell them is they were dark in color. I wouldn't call them Canadian, but then what do I know. They honked, they were geese and thats all I know. There are tons of birds in the area, and we saw a sign about Black Brants which are numerous in the area. Brants belong to the goose family I think, so maybe that is what I saw. On the drive in, I noticed there were ducks in the pond, again, what kinda duck, Im clueless.
Walking thru the woods was nice also. The berrys are all in flower, and the new ferns are starting to curl up into new leaves and there are lots of windfalls from our long winter. A little chipmuck came and said hello and a deer stood about 10 yards from us, looked at us and chose to ignore us. They can take horses down to the spit so we met a couple of riders coming up. They stopped to chat a minute. I wish they had offered me a lift up the steep hill. LOL

FINALLY got to stop at the Museum in Sequim and it was worth the wait. In 1977 a farmer was digging a pond and found a bone, which was so large, he knew that it had to be something bigger than todays animals. It turned out to be a Mastadon and that is the prime exhibit at the museum. They found the tusks, a piece of jawbone with tooth which identified it and they also found a rib bone that had a rock point in it from some ancient mans spear. Very cool.

Tomorrow we head west.

Had a King Dome put on Casita

So we could get satellite TV and of course, we are having trouble connecting with the Internet. We drive the 150 miles to Eric's RV because the guys there are the best. John is honest and helpful, Buster is the best, even if he acts a tad grumpy and Spud has become a blessing. If you ever need RV help, try Erics. You won't be sorry.
And while your having your rig worked on, go next door to the Mexican Restaurant for lunch. Bests salas that I have tasted in a long time. Yum
Tonight we are staying at a nice RV Park called Rainbow's End RV Park. It is very special, well landscaped, with helpful and friendly staff. Its not like the normal parking lot that I so object to.
Day 3, back to Erics to see if we can get this thing fixed.....

Back to Sequim

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1841989

We paid $138.00 for a tank of gas yesterday and now I know why. You can believe that! We won't be buying Exxon gas. What in the heck is Mr Raymond going to do with $400. million dollars, the man is old as snot and couldn't spend it all even if he hired me to help him. Lets boycott Exxon cause its such a slap in the face to hear where our money is going. Besides getting 400 million, he is also going to get a million or so a year for consulting fees. Poor guy. I'll be he's one of George's buddies.
So back to our little trip. We decided that we would bypass the interstates and it was fun to go through a bunch of little towns, Raymond, Elma, McCleary and ended up staying at Sequim Bay State Park. What a pretty park, tall trees, surrounded by forest. We heard, but didn't see, a woodpecker rat-ta-tat-tating high in one of the trees, but there were really few birds to enjoy on the bay.
We found Trillium growing in the woods below us. Trillium is one of the first flowers of spring and they are so beautiful. I understand that they are nearly extint in Michigan because they are preferred food for the white tail deer. Here in Washington, they are also on the verge of extinction but mostly because our forests are disappearing. They come in reds and pinks and even a deep wine color, but all I have seen are the white ones.
Dinner was delicious. If you like Mexican and spicy, try this soup. It is so easy and soooo good. Take two cans of black beans, one can of beef broth, and about a cup (or a small jar) of chunky salsa into a pot with a couple teaspoons of cumin. Heat and serve with sour cream and chopped green onions. (I put some of the beans in my food processor so I would have more broth and less bean.
Buy the way, neither Roy nor I were visited by my son's ghost friend. I even woke up a few times and waited to see if anything would make itself known, but nothing. Maybe we lost them on the road someplace.

Haunted !!!

I can't believe that its been almost two months since I have posted!! Sorry about that, I have been very busy. I volunteer for the Red Cross again doing casework and have been taking care of some worrisome medical problems that have developed and three times a week I have been going to water arobics. I nearly had a heart attack two weeks ago when the IRS sent us a bill for $17,000, but so far our CPA said that while we do owe, we don't owe that much. Thank goodness, I don't want to pay for this horrible war or give one cent to G. Bush....

Yes, alas, according to my son, our poor little Casita is haunted, and not by a playful ghost, but by mean poltergeist who held him down and poked the pillow behind him. For those of you who know my son, he is normally a pretty level headed person, but this isn't the first time that he has been "haunted" by spirits. Some day, remind me to tell you the Mr Herzhog ghost story that both my daughter and son experienced.

Haunted or no, we are off again tomorrow for a small adventure back to the Olympic National Park. I am really excited for as I have been there before, this time we are going to spend some time there and just enjoy the ocean, etc. Watch this spot. Gas prices what they are, my plans to check out Nevada are currenly on hold and instead we are going to check out Washington State...

So, what have I been doing? We got a dish, actually we got three dishes, one for the Motorhome, and one for normal TV and the last one to get Japanese channel so we can watch Sumo. LOL, you know I love my sumo and I am really looking forward to that. The next basho starts in May, so we will be home for then, for sure.