Hoh Rain Forest

Yesterday we all loaded up in Mark & Dortha's Jeep and headed for the Hoh Rain Forest. It was only about a 20 mile drive from our RV park in Forks. This place was absolutely gorgeous. The rainfall is 140 to 170 inches per year! It was quite appropriate that it was raining the day we went. Because of the canopy and the rainfall the things that grow here grow to unbelievable sizes. The ferns alone are pretty amazing but there is also the moss that covers the huge trees.







By the time we came out of the rain forest it had stopped raining. We got out of our wet jackets and drove just a few miles down the road to the world's largest Western Red Cedar tree. It was a gravel road to get there but pretty easy.




We left Forks this morning at 10:00 and headed south on 101 to the little town of Hoquiam. We're staying at the Hoquiam River RV Park and we're at a site right on the river. It's really pretty here but not a whole lot to see so after we got all set up we piled into Mark's Jeep and headed for the ocean to the town of Westport. The beach here is really nice with sand and some rocks.


We left the beach to find the lighthouse that we had passed. It had just closed right as we pulled up so we didn't get to go inside. I think that was okay because they charge you $4 for the pleasure of climbing up to the top.



There are LOTS of fishing charters out of Westport for Tuna and Salmon. If we were going to be here longer I think Rod and Jim would love to go out on one of the many charters in town. Instead they had to settle for a fish & chips dinner at the Half Moon Bay Bar & Grill. I had one of their "World Famous" bloody mary's and let me tell you, it had so many garnishes with it that it would have been a meal in itself. It came with a skewer of shrimp, cheese, olive, onion (yuk), sausage, tomato and pepperoncini.




Since there's not a lot to do in Hoquiam we're headed out to Ocean Shores tomorrow where Ellie found out there is a Casino with a seafood buffet. Sounds like a fun trip to me. What can be better than seafood and a casino??

On Saturday there will be a Logger Days "festival" in town where there is going to be a parade right down the main street in town which is the only way in or out of town. We were told the logging trucks start lining up by 9:00 in the morning for the parade so we plan on leaving here by 8:00. Ugghhhh, that's going to make quite an early morning for us. We're headed for Kelso for four days so at least we can rest up a bit.

Catching Up

This morning we're in Forks, Washington. Yes, we're finally out of the driveway!! More on that later.

Friday we drove to Chimacum, loaded up in Mark & Dortha's Jeep and along with Jim & Ellie headed for Bainbridge Island and caught the ferry to Seattle. We had a great day of shopping and of course eating. We were on a mission to find some halibut. We've been looking while we were in Port Angeles but it was nowhere to be found. Well, we found it at Pike Place Market and bought LOTS of it. We have our supply of salmon and halibut now. We also bought some fruit and of course Rod had to buy some jam. Seems like everywhere we go Rod needs to buy either jam or hot sauce.





Ivar's has a special menu from 3:00 until 5:00 that included soup, entree and ice cream so that's where we decided to have a late lunch/early dinner. We all ended up having something different but everybody had the clam chowder. That's what Ivar's is famous for.



Labor Day was spent in Chimacum at a potluck at the Escapees park that Mark, Dortha, Jim & Ellie are staying. For $5 per person we got burgers, potato salad, carrot salad, chips and various other things. There were trays of cookies set out but some of us decided not to have any because we were told about a cafe in Chimacum that served wonderful pie. We ended up heading there after letting our dinner digest. I can't remember the last time I had a piece of coconut pie but that's what sounded really good to me. Mark, Jim and I all had the coconut, Ellie had marionberry, Dortha had chocolate and Rod had blackberry. Boy, was that pie yummy!!

The Potluck


Chimacum Cafe


Where's Ellie??


There she is!!


Rod's pie with one to go


So, on Tuesday we finally made it out of the driveway of Rod's mom's house. YAHOO!!! We're back on the road!! We decided to follow along with our friends since we've been having such a good time with them. Our drive was only one hour long!! We're now in Forks at the Forks 101 RV Park and will be here for a few days. We've already driven around so they could do the Twilight tour for their family and friends. We did this trip last year so I'm not going to write about it again. We've also been to the beach. The Pacific Ocean!! It was so nice seeing it again. We spent a little bit of time at Rialto Beach but I think we could have stayed there ALL day. The waves are so mesmerizing.



Does he look like he's losing weight??



So, today we are headed for the Hoh Rainforest. It's raining so I guess it's appropriate to go there...

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.

Can You Believe It???

Well, it's been over a month since my last update. Rod had some health issues to deal with this summer and we're still here in Port Angeles parked at Rod's mom's house. The house is now our house along with Rod's sister, Sue. Rod's mom suffered a severe stroke and passed away peacefully in her sleep on the 21st of July, one day after our 18th wedding anniversary. We are going to miss her terribly but we find peace knowing that she's in a better place and she's now back together with her husband.

Rod is still painting the inside of the house but is almost done. Sue and her husband, Rich were here for a few weeks getting all the furniture out and doing some major cleaning. Rich was also putting laminate in the entryway, dining room and kitchen. We had a local charity come for a HUGE pick up and will still have some more later. We have contacted a realtor and it should go on the market in the next few days. We won't be staying here until it sells, though. Everything can be done by phone and fax so we plan on leaving here right after Labor Day. It'll be SOOO good to be back on the road. We have saved a lot of money by staying here at the house but this wasn't what we had in mind when we decided to live fulltime in our RV. We're hooked up to 20amp power and water but no sewer. It's a good thing the weather is quite cool here because we can't run the A/C without turning everything off and even then if somebody turns on something in the house it will trip the circuit.]

We had been contemplating replacing the carpet in our rig with laminate flooring but we weren't too sure on how to go about doing it ourselves. We've never done anything like that before. Rich had purchased the laminate to go in the house so we asked him if he'd like to tackle the 5th wheel too. He said his son-in-law, Joe was coming to help him and Joe knew A LOT about installing it. So, we went to Home Depot and purchased the laminate and when Joe came to help Rich we enlisted him to do the rig too. It turned out really nice and we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!! Thank you SO much, Joe! Hopefully we can get the stairs done too.

Here's Joe hard at work

Rich was helping by cutting the "planks"


The finished product, isn't it beautiful???


We got to meet another one of my RV chatroom buddies Paul & Mary (aka Boris & Natasha) who sold their home in the Oakland area in four days and have now joined the ranks of us fulltimers. They've been on the road for about 3 weeks now and are loving every minute of it. I recommended a park to them by Salt Creek which is the park where we camphosted last year. Salt Creek doesn't have sewer hookups and that was something Mary really wanted (I have to say, I don't blame her). It's right across the street from the water and they could see Canada across the Straight out their front window. We went out to meet them and as we were driving into the park we were stopped by someone who told us that we needed to register at the office. Okay then. I went inside to register and told them we were just going to meet somebody and were leaving to go to dinner. I still had to pay $10 to do that!! What a ripoff. I sure won't recommend that park to anybody again. Sorry Dortha and Ellie but we won't be coming out to see you much if you're staying there, we'll have to meet you somewhere else. We ended up going into town to Gordy's pizza after getting our $10 worth of visiting. LOL We invited them to our place for dinner on Friday night so we could spend some more time together before they left for the Seattle area. We had such a nice time and hope we can get together again one day down the road.

Mary & Paul



We still don't have a whole lot going on here besides getting the house ready to sell. Rod is back to painting full time. We had three windows that had to be replaced because they are double pane windows and had lost their seal. That was done today so Rod has to sand the window sills and repaint those. Other than that our excitement is driving to Sequim to buy more paint.