Another Month Gone By

Oh my, this is going to be a long one with LOTS of pictures. Boy, I can't believe another month has gone by. My blog posting will get better pretty soon. We're leaving Port Angeles on the 8th of this month. We're not real sure where we're going yet but I guess we're going to have to come up with something pretty soon.

The last time I wrote we had just had a visit with Paul & Mary and that seems like it was so long ago. We have more friends in the area now and they've been here for about 2 weeks. We've been spending lots of time with Mark & Dortha and Ellie & Jim since they've been here. First, we went over to Chimacum when we got some free time. We've missed them all so much and it's really good to have friends around when we're out here isolated in Port Angeles. We had "Happy Hour" with them and then headed off to 7 Cedars Casino for dinner and gambling. I made a little deposit and Rod broke even. A few days later Jim called and said they were cooking up some brats they got from someplace in Montana and invited us over. Again, a great evening!


Last Thursday Dortha called and said they were in town and were going to do the waterfall tour in the area and wanted to know if we were interested in joining them. Well, of course we were!! Rod was outside weeding the yard so I told him to go get cleaned up because he was done for the day. We were going to go play!! We met them at the 8th Street Bridges Grille (our favorite burger place) for lunch then we dropped the truck off and ALL of us piled into Mark's jeep for our trip to Marymere Falls. It was a short mile and a half hike round trip to the falls but really a beautiful hike. The weather here has been pretty cool (upper 60's) so it's great for hiking.

The trees here are really tall


And some are really big around


Some of the bridges were questionable for crossing


And there were LOTS of stairs to climb


But we all made it


Our reward


We left there and went on to Madison Creek Falls. This hike was quite a bit shorter with no change in elevation.


Saturday we had everybody over for dinner for Italian Beef sandwiches, Caesar salad, corn on the cob and strawberry shortcake for dessert. Nobody took any pictures so you'll just have to take my word for it that we had a really good time.

Monday was truck maintenance day. We took the truck in for an oil change and as we were leaving Safeway Dortha called and asked if we wanted to meet for Mexican food for lunch in Sequim. Well, of course we do!! After lunch we headed for the casino again. This time I came out the winner. I covered my losses from last time plus Rod's loss too and still came out ahead. There's something about those penny machines that I never knew. They pay!! It's a little bit at a time but they still pay.

Tuesday we decided to trek out on our own. Since Mark, Dortha, Jim & Ellie had already gone out to Cape Flattery we wanted to go also. It is the farthest most Northwestern point in the lower U.S. I have been to the farthest Southwestern point and the farthest Southeastern point so I only have one more to do.


Interesting tree along the trail


Gorgeous views everywhere!


See?? I really was there. That's Tatoosh Island in the background


Sea caves


That brings us up to yesterday and our trip to Victoria, Canada. We were planning on taking the Victoria Express Ferry which is only a passenger ferry and a 55 minute trip but somebody ran into a ferry dock somewhere else so they are using those ferries over in Seattle. The other ferry here is a car and passenger ferry and takes almost 2 hours to get up to Victoria. When you only have a day in Victoria it sucks that you have to spend 4 hours on a ferry. It was cold and VERY, VERY early as we waited to board the 8:20 ferry. As the day went on we were cursing the fact that we had on jeans and shoes and socks. By time we were ready to leave on the 7:30 pm ferry we were glad we had on jeans and shoes and socks.


Mark & Dortha on the bus to The Butchart Gardens


Ellie & Jim


Yesterday was Mark & Dortha's 42nd wedding anniversary so we treated them to lunch. LOL, what big spenders we are.


The Butchart Gardens was started in 1904 by Jennie Butchart who started planting flowers in the used up limestone quarry her husband had operated. Then she made a Japanese Garden and then an Italian Garden and then the Rose Garden. This place is absolutely gorgeous.


What used to be the limestone quarry


Beautiful flowers EVERYWHERE!








On our way home


So that brings us to today. I'm doing laundry because tomorrow is another ferry ride to Seattle. We have to get all our site seeing done in the next few days because we don't know when we'll be back here again. Next summer we'll be in Alaska hopefully so if we do come through here it will be a quick trip. My blogging should be getting better once we get back out on the road again.