2008 - Week 10

Tuesday, July 1, 2008:
It was a great sleeping night, and we awoke at 7:00am. I took Daisy for a walk and on the way back waved to the people in the adjacent parking spot. They were from Wyoming. Susie noticed that her dogs were wet and found that there was a place beneath the bridge where there was no current and was safe for swimming. Daisy came back wet and happy. We put away the rest of our clothes and cleaned the RV while waiting or a call from Brian and Kimberly about the status of Sophie who was undergoing an operation to remove the tumor. When we got the call, it was bad news. Sophie had passed away during the operation. This was crushing news to Susie and I, but now-where as crushing to Brian and Kimberly. Sophie was 11 years old, and Brian and she had become best friends during the last few years always greeting him when he came home from work. We are all sad at the loss. On the positive side, it was Meredith’s birthday today. She and Michael Ray were taking mini-vacation before she leaves for Taiwan for a week, the result of her award in an international ceramics exhibition. We saw an Etchells in a gas station in Ellensburg, probably going back home after the Etchells Worlds in Chicago. For a moment I thought it might be my cousin where has a boat delivery business. No such luck. We went shopping for food and filled the RV with gas before heading north and east on US97 to Wenachee and then north on Alt US97 to the town on Entiat, passed Earthquake Point (never saw it) and into the town of Chelan. All the time we were driving along this body of water than was named Lake Entiat. We turned northwest on WA971 and drove for about 4 miles before coming to Lake Chelan State Park where we stayed for the night. Lake Chelan is 50 miles long and narrow and was created by a dam on the Stehekin River near the town of Chelan. More hydroelectric power. The only access to the camps on the river is by boat. There are no roads. If we had the time, we would consider taking the boat tour up and down the lake. We had a very late lunch or an early dinner before working on the blogs. While taking Daisy for an exploratory walk, we saw the couple from Wyoming with the 2 Golden Retrievers. We had almost pulled into the spot next to theirs when looking for a site. Already they had found a spot to let the dogs swim so we went there later in the day for Daisy to take a swim and get tired. This water was beautifully clear and a bit cold, but Daisy didn’t mind that. There were some kids swimming, but the cries of surprise as they entered the water were long and loud. We talked to some of the campers near us and generally had a good time. Susie was interested in Lake Entiat, which was also formed by a dam, and what the water source was. It turned out to be our old friend the Columbia River. The temperature has dropped and a thunderstorm threatened, but only lighting. It should be a good night for sleeping. As a matter of fact, Daisy was probably asleep even before the sun went down.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008:
This was another beautiful morning, and Daisy started the day with a swim. We are going to drive to the North Cascades NP today, a distance of approximately 130 miles. We wandered around the campground and said good by to our neighbors and the couple who owned the Golden Retrievers. They were headed west and then south to their home in Jackson WY. By telling them some of the spots we had seen in the area convinced them that we had really been there. We left the SP at 10:00am and while driving to town Susie found some interesting facts about Lake Chelan. Its maximum depth is 1,500 feet, and the bottom is 400 feet below sea level. It was created by glacier action. We drove into the town of Chelan looking for the Post Office and discovered a great downtown. The buildings are generally old, and the storefronts are mostly original, with a few repairs and coats of paint. We continued north on US97 until we reached the town of Pateos where we turned NW and followed WA153 until we reached the town of Twisp (what a great name!) where we headed west on WA20. This road runs through the middle of the North Cascades NP and then to Anacortes WA. The next town was Winthrop WA, and it is a small tourist town with the buildings modeled after those in the early years. The buildings are all wood planks covered without any paint. It is easy to tell the new from the old, but the effect is great. In another decade, they’ll all be weathered black. We went into an art gallery with animal sculpture, drawings, paintings and all. The Owner was bemoaning the fact that pedestrian traffic was down. He said that at this time of the year, the streets should be jammed. They were not! From there we wandered down the street and came to a glass shop where there produce original art on premises. We talked to the Owner’s wife, and she said they had moved there from Estes Park CO about a year ago. They lived in a truck side-in camper last winter. We think they may be back to the earth types. Anyway they asked if we had heard about the power failure last night. It shit down the furnace in which they were making glass, and it had not yet reached proper temperature so they were pretty much sitting on their hands. They did tell us that last winter there was an avalanche that closed the road for several days. Winter temperatures were in the minus 20’s and 30’s. We continued down the street to get some lunch. We wanted to eat outside but there was only one place that had outside seating and it was full. We wandered some more, and when we returned there was an empty table so we sat down. The service was awful, but the food was good. The waitress’s vocabulary focused on the word “fabulous”. After lunch we purchased ice cream cones: Susie’s was lemon custard and mine was coffee. We managed to get back to the RV before the cones melted and continued west on US20. The hills became mountains and brown became green. We climbed through the Washington Peak Pass at 5,477 feet and the Rainy Pass at 4,855 feet before heading downhill for 30 miles before reaching Ross Dam at the east edge of the NCNP. The 65-mile drive from Winthrop was magnificent! I suspect it was not as good as Glacier NP, but we haven’t seen that park in the sun, so we’ll rank this drive as one of the top 5 we have taken. Rugged mountains, fast flowing rivers, numerous waterfalls and signs of avalanches were everywhere.
There were bicyclists, but not as many. One sign that caught our fancy was “Report Slides Call 911”. We assumed that they sign referred to both rock and snow slides, both of which we have seen. The other is that there is no cell phone service in many of these areas. Oh, well! We saw a wonderful set of peaks named “Crater Mountain” It was 2 peaks of about equal height with a saddle between with an unseen glacier behind. We checked into the Colonial Creek Campground in the NP and are paying $6/night. We selected a campsite on the lake, but it turns out the bottom is very muddy. Daisy went swimming anyway! My idyllic setting has just been disturbed by an outboard fishing boat that is trying to get to the shore, but it turns out the area in front of us is very shallow, and the boat turned back, but it sounds as if it is coming back or a second try. I think he put 5 years of wear and tear on the engine in a 15-minute period. There are numerous deer in the campground, and Daisy wants to chase them all. We had a baby crow nearby screaming for its mother, as only a crow can do. A mother duck and 6 babies just swam across the front of our campsite. The babies are really funny when they swim, lots of paddling and a big wake (for that size animal). Later a family of Canadian Geese swam by, looking a bit disgruntled that we were in their territory. We noticed that as the evening came, we would get a shot of cold air lasting about 30 seconds every 5-10 minutes. I thought it was refreshing, Susie thought it was too cold. We’ll be here for 3 nights before heading to the San Juan Islands.

Thursday, July 3, 2008:
It started to rain last night, very unexpected, and we had left our chairs, tablecloth, mats and a few other things unprotected. Lots of low hanging clouds so we’re not sure when or if it will clear. We noticed that the lake is about 2 feet lower than it was last night. We decided to catch up on administrative things, and so stayed in the RV until just before noon. We then drove west on WA20 to the North Cascades NP Visitor Center. It is small but the exhibits are excellent. There are numerous videos showing life in the park over a 12-month period. We learned that WA20 was not opened until 1968 (a year after we were married) so it is a young road. It is the only through road in the park. The Skagit River has its start in Canada, flows south then west through the Park finally discharging into Puget Sound which discharges into the Pacific Ocean. The City of Seattle, which seems to own the electric company, built dams at 3 locations on this river within what is now the North Cascades NP (established in 1968). Two of the dams (Ross and Diablo) are originals and historic structures, but the Gorge Dam, which was the first one built, has had 3 structures in the same general area. The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act was also passed in 1968. We left the Visitors Center thinking we would take a few walks to finish up the dam but thunder made us rethink our plans. We decided to drive back to our Campground, stopping at all the scenic views. Probably the best was the Gorge Creek Falls.
While this is not a free-fall waterfall, from the top to the bottom is about 400 feet. This is just one of the numerous waterfalls in the Cascade Mountains, and all are impressive. We noticed at the Gorge Dam, there were at least 2 capture devices to prevent downed trees floating in the river from going through the electric turbines. Susie and I wondered how and how often they removed the trees from the river. The views driving along WA20 are wonderful, as I’ve probably said before. The vertical cliffs with moss and lighten growing all over them is colorful. It should be noted that the further west we drove, the more growth there was. The color of the river water is that wonderful blue-green that comes from having “glacial flour”, a very fine rock dust caused by the glaciers grinding through the valleys. We first noticed this color in Canada when we were traveling through the Canadian Rockies in 2006. As we drove east, we noticed fog on the river. The campground showed signs of heavy rain. Around 6:00pm the temperature dropped and the fog came in. By 6:10pm it was gone, and the pavement was steaming. The saying “if you don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes” is really true here. We change clothes as the weather changes. Hard to keep track of what is clean, partially clean or just plain dirty (well not to hard for the last). It has been a good day and we hope that the weather will cooperate tomorrow so we can go on a few hikes. We need to get some


Friday, July 4, 2008:
Happy Fourth of July to all! We spent the morning trying to figure out how we’ll travel through Oregon. There are many wonderful areas from the “high desert” to the seacoast. At 11:30am we started our hike for the day. The great news was that we could take Daisy, and she was beside herself with joy. Completely out of control! She swam twice on the way out, and the same on the way back, not that she didn’t try many more times. There is a mountain pass nearby known as “The Fourth of July” and many people were on their way to visit it. It is a bit more difficult of a climb than we wanted to do so we followed “Thunder Brook Trail” making a round trip of 4 hours, including Daisy swimming and sniffing and marking everything she could. We think it was about 7 miles total. It seemed to be impossible to dress properly; too hot when the sun came out and too cold when it went in. Some of the biggest mosquitoes I’ve ever seen. The vegetation was lush, as we expected with downed trees, moos, ferns, small flowers, and wonderful old cedar trees. Thunder Creek was not blue-green as was the Skagit, but a light brown with granular sediment. We saw evidence of snow slides and rockslides that must have been fearful to see or hear. There took down trees 3-4 feet in diameter. There were numerous trees down and signs that the walking bridge across the Creek was relatively new and in a different location than shown on the map. There were several new wilderness camping sites. As we were walking, I happened to hear some small noise and turned around to check. Not 10 feet behind me were 3 girls, with fully loaded backpacks and they were headed into the wilderness for a few days. They apologized for surprising us, but as long as they were not brown, wooly and 600 pounds it was OK. We came back to the RV where I took a sponge bath and then washed my hair under an outside faucet. Ah, to be clean again. Susie and Daisy went down to the shore and relaxed. I started the generator to recharge the battery so we can see tonight. The lake is up this afternoon, and the tree stumps are completely covered.


Saturday, July 5, 2008:
It was a bit colder this morning, and we have decided that it is always overcast in the morning, often clears during the day and then the clouds come back in the evening. On our walk this morning, the water management team for the power plants lowered the water and now the stumps are fully exposed. Almost everything that was wet from the overnight rain a few days ago has dried out. We rolled up the awning, loaded the RV and headed west for one more walk before heading to Anacortes. This walk was through old growth trees and underbrush. We learned about Oregon Grapes, Big Leaf and Vine Maple Trees plus Western Red Cedar Trees. The walk was along the Skagit River but it was flowing too fast to let Daisy swim even though she wanted to. At the halfway point on the walk we came across a small hydroelectric generating plant used to provide power for the construction of the dams, including the worker housing, along Yakima River. It is still operating and is used to power the operating center for the dams. The name of the company town is Newhalen. We drove west and came out of the mountains to large plain that was full of farms, but looked as if suburbia was slowly advancing. The land is absolutely flat, a change from the last week. We drove a bit out of our way to visit Deception Pass, a very fast flowing cut between Whidbey and Fildalgo Islands. The Deception Pass was discovered by the English Sea Captain Vancouver and Whidbey Island is named after the officer who first made the passed through in a small boat. Captain Vancouver also discovered the outfall of the Columbia River but the conditions were too rough to enter. It was the American Captain Gray of Boston who passed over the Columbia Bar a few years later.
The Deception Pass Bridge is a structural steel truss bridge. It has sidewalks on both sides and stairs beneath that allow people to view from both sides of the bridge. The information plaques say the water flows between 5-8 knots and the depth maximum depth of about 250 feet. The current was flowing in, and it was interesting to watch powerboats coming and going. Numerous eddies and current rips that made the boat handling a bit challenging. We went to the KOA Campground, refilled with propane, took showers, washed our laundry and dumped wastewater so that tomorrow we’ll be ready to go. This campground is awfully small and is packed with vehicles. Hope it quiets down before it gets too late. The rain has started and the fireworks scheduled for 9:00pm seems to have been cancelled (it’s now 9:30pm) and the campground is quiet. The most noise we’ve heard was when we were hanging out at the laundry room. Oops, the fireworks just started, and Daisy is cowering under the table.

Sunday, July 6, 2008:
Up at 6:45am to take Daisy for a walk and prepare the RV. We left the KOA at 7:30am for the 11:00am ferry to Friday Harbor. There are no reservations for the ferry so you just get in line and hope for the best. We topped off the gas tank, stopped at Safeway to restock and drove on to Anacortes to wait for the ferry. We noticed a large Shell Refinery on Puget Sound as we were driving to Anacortes. That must explain the large number of Shell gasoline stations in the area.
We had plenty of time when we reached the terminal, but if we had missed the 11:05am ferry the next was at 3:10pm. Well, stuff happens! When we were loading the RV on the ferry, the loadmaster kept telling us to keep right, further right. There was a horrendous crash as we hit the guardrail on the edge of the 2-lane ramp leading into the 3-lane ferry. As we passed by the loadmaster hew said “You should watch where you drive.” The result was the bottom brackets that support the awning were ripped off the RV and the aluminum supports severely bent. The top brackets rotated and crushed the fiberglass. An attendant appeared right away assuring us that the safety officer would be there in about 5 minutes to take a report. He took the report and pictures, and my comments about the direction of the loadmaster, but said that Washington Ferries regulations prevented him from giving me a copy. He gave me the contact info in case we wanted to make a claim, but, in his experience, we wouldn’t hear anything back for at least 5-6 weeks. The report taking took almost an hour, and so we couldn’t enjoy the view as we traveled through the San Juans. As we left the ferry, we saw the loadmaster, and I stopped and asked him for his name. He said “NO, move on”. Luckily we had bungee cords and line, and we can drive the RV at slower speeds than we’d like. We drove across San Juan Island to the County Park and claimed our campsite. The Park is on the west coast of the island and overlooks Haro Strait. Next bit of land is Vancouver Island in Canada. I call our insurance company and work is in progress. We spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how to travel around the island. We are trying not to drive the RV everywhere, but there may be no choice. There is a shuttle, but the schedule is difficult to understand. There are kayak tours that leave from the park, and we’ll take advantage of that. We saw 2 whales in mid-afternoon and maybe we’ll see more as the tide floods. One interesting story about the San Juan Islands is the “PIG WAR”. When the boundary between Canada was established in 1846, the ownership of the islands was never confirmed so both the British and the Americans. An American named Lyman Cutlar arrived on San Juan Island in April 1859 and stated farming. A boar owned by the British kept wandering into Cutlar’s potato patch and on June 15, 1859 he shot the pig. The next thing was a budding military conflict with the British sending troops and 3 warships and the Americans countering they would fight to the last man. The British decided not to land and a few days later a British Admiral arrived and told the British Governor, who had ordered the invasion, that he would not “involve two great nations in a war over a squabble about a pig”. Eventually the issue went to arbitration and Kaiser Wilhem I of Germany awarded the island to the US. We are sitting at the picnic table looking out to the west and watching the sun go down. We spotted 2 then another orca swimming north with the tide and noticed than a good portion of the campground residents were sitting on the small bluff overlooking the water. We went down to join them and were rewarded with a view of another half dozen or more, some mothers with babies, swimming north. Everyone started talking about what a wonderful sight. We mentioned that we were from the Maryland and didn’t have the opportunity to see such sights and thus these were very special to us. The locals said that they never tired of the sightings of the wild animals. Susie took Daisy for a walk, and I went back to the RV to clean up. When she didn’t return, I went back to the water and there she was talking with a family. That time we saw 3 orcas swimming south, but much closer to shore than earlier. One was very large and then a mother and baby (we think). There were just swimming slowing, not making much headway against the tide which by then was almost high. We were then rewarded by a bald eagle diving from the sky and snatching a fish from the water. There were 3 kayaks with 30 feet, and we surmised that they kayaks stirred up the fish, and the eagle got him. Just as the sun went down, we saw a harbor seal in the water among the kelp near shore. He was fishing and then would come over to view the humans and make sure we had seen what he was doing. The sun went down, but we stayed some more.
Finally at 9:45pm the lights on Vancouver Island started to come on, and we left for the night.

Monday, July 7, 2008:
Woke up at 7:00am and looked out the window. There wasn’t a breath of air on the water so I rolled over for a bit and then slide out of bed at 7:30am to take Daisy for a walk. By the time we returned, the breeze had started to fill. There are people sitting on the bluff overlooking the water eating breakfast or just looking. The tide is coming in and maybe we’ll see more sea life. Nothing appeared so we decided to go to Friday Harbor to get cell phone service and start calling about getting the RV repaired. However, on our way to town we stopped at Lime Kiln SP to learn more about whales and to visit the lighthouse where they track whales and listen for their sounds. We also saw a Pacific Madrone tree that is only found in a narrow strip along the Pacific Coast between Mexico and Canada. There was an exhibit about lighthouses, the Fresnel lens used and the size of the light bulb. The light bulb was 12 volt, 3 watt and could be seen 13 miles away on a clear night. In town, we found a parking spot in town (eventually) and started calling about the RV. After several dead ends, I called Winnebago and they gave me the name of several dealers in the area. We have connected with one so the process has started. I wish I could say the same for the Nationwide Claim Rep. I called 3 times and was unable to get a return call. More work on that tomorrow. We picked up an Express Mail package at the Post Office and then wandered around town, stopping in a sandwich shop that Diana recommended after she and Paul spent a week here for their wedding anniversary. It was really good, thanks Diana. We visited the kayak touring companies, went to the used bookstore. Later, we made a commitment for Wednesday and are keeping our fingers crossed for a good day. We also stopped by Susie’s Mopeds to check out the funny looking vehicles that have been buzzing around the island, some single seaters and some two seaters. Some of them had training wheels, or so it seemed. Susie found a haircutting salon, and now she is beautiful and ready to go. We came back to the campground, had dinner and walked down to the bluff to watch for wildlife. We saw the bald eagles again, but nothing else. Lots of kids, dogs and parents were there playing games. Susie brushed Daisy, and Susie has all of Daisy extra hair. We watched as a ship came down the channel, probably from Vancouver BC, and make the turn at Discovery Island towards the Pacific Ocean. The aids to navigation started coming on, and all of a sudden a large steady red light appeared in the middle of Discovery Island. It was impossible to discern if this light was on Discovery Island or the American shore beyond. We did find out that when the sun went down, the red light went off. It must have been a very large reflective surface with the proper orientation for us to see the bright light. It was 9:30pm before we came back to the RV. Tomorrow to Roche Harbor at the north end of San Juan Island to look at the stuff up there including the quarters used by the British during The Pig War. We’ll also go after the insurance adjuster since we’ll have cell phone service.