Blather

Dungeness

September 25, 2019 By drpaddle 1 Comment

You haven’t been to the Olympic Peninsula until you have been to a slew of veterinarian appointments. It seems.

After we became assured that Wally would survive another year (or month, or week, or something), we got back out to complete our planned jaunt around the aforementioned peninsula. This involved a visit to Dungeness Recreation Area, a county park in the rain-shadow of the Olympic mountains way up there near Canada and other exotic foreign places.

This place abuts Dungeness Spit, a long sand spit with a lot of, uh, sand, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca on one side, and a protected bay on the other side, and a whole bunch of sand. Did I mention sand? It’s also a National Wildlife Refuge. There’s an historic lighthouse (is there any other kind?) near the end of the spit, but that is an 11-mile round-trip jaunt that we declined to attempt on this particular trip. Because, for instance, we didn’t have enough hot water to bathe afterward.

Back there beyond the sand spit are some islands and whatnot. I think they are the San Juan Islands, part of Washington, the State. There might be a small bit of Vancouver Island closer in, but I’m not sure. It’s sad that I’m not sure. But look, there is a lot of sadness in the world. War. Disease. Idiocy. So really, how important is it that I’m not sure about the islands? Still, I’m sorry.

So let’s get into the specifics of camping at Dungeness. No hookups. Lotsa trees. Solar panels not all that happy, on account of the trees. Narrow parking pad. Whatever.

It’s really nice at Dungeness, but remember: though it’s right on the Strait, it’s in the woods, and there are no hookups, so electricity is in short supply. No problem! We were careful about lights and fans and heat, and it was just for three nights, so we were going to be okay. And we had propane for cooking and hot water and the furnace. But.

The morning after we arrived, the water heater stopped working. WHAT???? I did some troubleshooting and determined that the propane supply was working just fine… but there was no spark to ignite it to make the water heater do its heating thing.

We survived. We heated water on the stove, didn’t take any long showers, and read a lot of online stuff about the general unreliability of RV water heaters.

When your water heater has no spark, you get one of these. It’s an ignitor board that works better than the ones that come with RV water heaters, perhaps because those people (the water heater manufacturers) are profit-focused, not quality-focused. I think. Anyway this one works better. I am not saying that water heater manufacturers are bad companies, or staffed by bad people. But the ignitor boards they use as original equipment do seem to have a bad reputation on the various interwebs. Hmmm. Note: the countertop seen here is not in The Toto—it’s at home. I don’t especially like this countertop—it was chosen by our home’s previous owner—but it’s paid for, which is more than we can say for the ignitor board, which is lost somewhere in this month’s not-yet-due credit card balance.

When you’re not swearing at water heaters, you can walk around this park and see some attractive sights.

At Dungeness you can stroll along blufftop trails and stare at passing ships, sinking suns and the occasional bit of bull kelp. A fellow came by and admired my lens. I didn’t know what to say.

And then you could return to your campsite (or, in this case, our campsite) and hang. Our site didn’t feel especially private, but a lot of them did seem to be.

This campsite had an odd layout, but it was just fine.

At some point there was some cooking outside, and the boys hung out and watched.

Wally and Tyler supervise the dinner cook.

It was a fine visit. I’m sure we’ll be back. Maybe. But we will probably try for a sunnier campsite.

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The Olympic Peninsula Strikes Again

September 14, 2019 By drpaddle Leave a Comment

I follow all sorts of great forums and social media groups focused on camping and glamping, so I get to see a lot of appealing camping venues and RV parks. They’re everywhere! However, the most appealing ones often seem to be unreasonably distant, in areas with names like Florida (3k miles), Maine (about the same), or possibly Croatia (more).

We have nothing against long trips, except, well, Sooz doesn’t like the idea. What if the plants wilt? What if we miss a bill and our payment is late? What if the Big One (earthquake) hits home and we’re not there to react? (I am thinking I’d rather react from a distance. Maybe just point the other direction and keep going.)

Yellowstone looks great, and it’s not too far. Devil’s Tower draws me in a not-quite-right sort of way. The Smoky Mountains… wow. Florida Keys. Acadia National Park. Why not Newfoundland? But they are out there a bit. Lotsa towing.

I ponder the relationship between distance-from-home and campground appeal, fully aware that there are hundreds of locations, only a few hours from home, that we’ve never seen. And some of them might merit an 11 or 12 on the old one-to-ten yardstick, if we would summon up the gumption to go.

Case in point: Salt Creek Recreation Area, a county park near Port Angeles, in Washington the State.

Gumption, rewarded. Less than a minute’s stroll from our pull-through RV site at Salt Creek, we got to soak in this view. That’s Vancouver Island over there across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

This place, Salt Creek Recreation Area, looks about as good as you’d want it to. We meant to come here once before but something happened (weather, family, important football game, who can remember?). This time we made the reservations and actually showed up. Note: A recent post erroneously told of a terrier illness that forced us to head home instead of elsewhere. We did have to head home, but not until we were at this Salt Creek place. This is the place where Wally (or was it Tyler?) got really sick. We love the terriers, but they were more fun when their warranties were still in effect.

Here are some highly desirable sites at Salt Creek. Not much privacy, but the views, and the all-around natural feeling of the larger setting, make it all worthwhile. You will note that The Toto is not in this picture; that’s because we didn’t reserve at the earliest moment and were lucky just to get a site at all. When we come back, we want one of these sites, please.

Just uphill from those prime RV spots is a spacious meadow, suitable for kite-flying, dog-walking or deer-watching.

Obligatory wildlife shot. Likely a blacktail deer, but not yet confirmed by anyone knowledgeable.

Now please take a moment to enjoy the spaciousness.

This part of the Olympic Peninsula is, I think, in a “Rain Shadow” area that automatically limits rainfall without the need for government intervention. So one doesn’t see a lot of overly irrigated lawns like one might see in other, nearby regions. It’s okay, though, isn’t it?

Wandering around this large park led us to Crescent Bay, defined by Tongue Point on the east end and Crescent Rock on the west. The place is crawling with tidepools, which you can explore if you’re willing to traipse down some fairly long stairways with the knowledge that you will have to traipse back up. Note: the tidepools don’t disappear at high tide, but they are underwater and so not very interesting at that time.

Crescent Bay sports two large geological features, known as “rocks” on nautical charts, and, as far as I can tell, unnamed. At low tide you can walk to them (bring rubber boots), and at high tide they become islands. Just behind and to the left of this temporary island is a white, crescent-shaped (surprise!) beach, where we saw actual people actually wading. Maybe the shallows warm up a bit on sunny days. I’ll never know.

We reserved ahead of time, but not ahead enough, and so our site was less than perfect. But not much less.

See those bikes on The Toto’s rear end? We didn’t use them on this trip. They were just hanging there, feeling disused. Our site was long enough for the biggest of big rigs, and we felt small enough, and that was okay, feeling that way.

There’s much more to say about Salt Creek Recreation Area. For instance:

It was once Camp Hayden, a military fort set up during World War II in honor of potentially invading Japanese forces. Well, not in honor of… more like in order to repel. The guns could fire shells 28 miles, but were only tested once, and then no one attacked, and the war ended, and the feds gave the land to Clallam County for use as a park. One can hike around and see where the old guns were.
It is popular with locals, and half the sites are first-come-first-serve, so the locals come out during the week and stake claims. Invaders (like us) from other parts of the region make reservations.
After our stay, we decided it was really nice, and so we recommend you don’t come, so we will be able to secure those coveted spots we like.
Wally really did get sick here, and we had to go home instead of onward to La Push, where our friends awaited our arrival by forgetting we were coming. But before he got sick, he guarded our site—one of his favorite RVing activities. Good job, Wally.

A happy moment, before all the panting started.

We got ourselves out to another park along the Strait a few days later. Watch this space for rambling commentary.

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Squeezing maximum fun out of an ultra-slim site

September 3, 2019 By drpaddle Leave a Comment

We were here, in this tight space, in Port Townsend, Washington the State, because of penguins.

Our spacious site at Point Hudson Marina and RV Park. Somewhere in here is a peek of Admiralty Inlet, Whidbey Island, someone’s late-model coupe, and a motor home from British Columbia that houses (among others) two highly attractive Cairn Terriers. (!!!)

Just about everyone I know has gone through a penguin phase. There’s just something about them (penguins, I mean) that draws people in. Consider: when is the last time you were thinking about penguins? Probably in the last few seconds. I rest my case.

For me, it was, more precisely, about photographing penguins, because photography is my temporary passion. I say temporary because I have had other passions in my life, but some of them passed, and others were wrenched from me (cue violins), and so I think of them as temporary, except no, not you Sooz, of course not you.

Anyway, I looked into it. Photographing penguins in the wild means traveling to the higher latitudes of the southern hemisphere. Bucket-list items aren’t supposed to be all that easily attainable, but this is kind of an extreme case. Easier than achieving low orbit, perhaps, but still a long flight and a chunk of change. I haven’t crossed it off my list yet, but I did start casting about for some kind of intermediate step.

Possibly the only penguin I have ever photographed.

And so I learned about puffins, known by some (not by me) as the penguins of the north. Almost as odd-looking, similar color scheme, suitably avian, and, it turns out, also difficult to photograph, because they are not your regular yardbird. You have to go find them at specific places.

One of which is Protection Island, which guards the mouth of Discovery Bay, which is around the back side of Port Townsend, or perhaps the front side, depending on your perspective.

Months ago, I read of a viewing opportunity: a naturalist-led cruise on a whale-watching boat to see, maybe, some puffins. The cruise departs out of the Point Hudson Marina in Port Townsend, so I tried to find a cruise date on which the Marina’s partner RV park could accommodate us. I succeeded, nabbing the last available site in the park.

Once we arrived for our three-day stay, the reason for the site’s lingering availability became clear. The site was (and is) a little tight. Fabulous location, just a little cozy.

On the plus side, our site, labeled a back-in, abutted a curb-less street, so it functioned as a pull-through. That really helped.

You know what, we know people. People who live in Port Townsend, and people who live near Port Townsend, and people who know the people who live in and near Port Townsend. We know them all from either living near them or camping near them or both. We took advantage of this trip to invite ’em over to our spacious digs for a delectable meal of delivery pizza. It was great to see them all, but they are not pictured here… Witness Protection Program, etc.

The next day was puffin cruise day, but the weather service posted a small craft advisory for five-foot wind waves for the very area of Protection Island. I decided to ditch the cruise, stay at the marina and enjoy the company of the team. I don’t know how the weather turned out on the cruise, but I had fun anyway. On the other hand, I still don’t have any puffin photographs.

Have you ever been to this place? It has some things to offer.

The marina is appealing. They have a big Wooden Boat Festival here every September (they throw all the RVs out and park vendors and exhibitors and the like instead).

This is an old commander’s cottage that’s been turned into a B&B. Adjoining the RV park’s “cozy loop” (ours), it’s called “The Commander’s Cottage.”

One afternoon I took a stroll on the beach and got strafed, seemingly, by a raptor of some kind. I watched it land in a tree at the end of the loop, and, camera in hand, sidled innocently in the tree’s direction, hoping to get a shot of the creature.

It was, I later learned, a Cooper’s Hawk. It hung around for a long time, then swept away to harass other campers.

Our next planned destination, at La Push on the Pacific Coast, didn’t work out, because Wally took ill. When one of the boys takes ill, it is the custom to crawl up between our pillows and pant all night long, usually after barfing in a few places. Wally kept up the tradition, so we reversed course and headed home the next day for a pair of overpriced veterinarian visits.

Wally improved after draining our checking account, and we headed back out for a short dry-camping trip, where we learned that (a) solar power doesn’t work so well in a heavily wooded campground, and (b) RV water heater manufacturers are prone to using the cheapest, least reliable components they can find. Details to follow.

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Guilt and Breakfast at the Blue Buoy

September 2, 2019 By drpaddle Leave a Comment

I just now noticed the buoy above the sign. Huh.

When you’re parked at Champoeg State Park, after dark, a thing you can do with your time is research your next destination. We combed the interwebs for attractions near Grayland Beach State Park, and learned of a restaurant in Westport, Washington. Great breakfasts, said the many discerning folk who frequent Yelp and TripAdvisor. We put The Blue Buoy on our to-do list.

Getting to Grayland involved driving over a the very high bridge between Astoria, Oregon and the Columbia River’s north shore in Washington the State. It’s perfectly safe, as long as it’s not windy, but it’s something of a steering wheel-gripper. We did not fall off.

It seems steeper and narrower in our rig. And, because, I didn’t take a photo: Photo by Ron Reiring – originally posted to Flickr as Hollywood Freeway in Astoria, OR, CC BY 2.0, Link

Aaaaand then we got to Grayland, finding a surprisingly pleasant site, but also surprised to learn that it didn’t have a sewer hookup. No big deal, just a four-night stay, and conveniently located.

This pull-through site was a late find… we must have found it online right after someone cancelled their visit. Right across from a restroom, but quite private regardless. Score!

We’ve been coming to Grayland for five years (!), but this is the first time we had one of these few pull-through sites. We’ll try to get one of these again sometime. Nice.

90-foot parking pad, but somehow there was only one best place to park. How does that happen?

Grayland is good for walks on the beach, but it does not provide awe-inspiring sea stacks or historic lighthouses or any of that. All you really need here is a kite.

A short walk over the dunes left only a five-mile stroll to the ocean. Not really. Also, when you get out near the water, there are clams under there. And they’re alive.

Oh, the Blue Buoy. Remember how Tyler and Wally stayed home for this trip (against their will)? This meant we could drive somewhere and not be sure when we would return, without guilt. (I recently saw a bumper sticker that said “SCREW GUILT.” I kind-of liked it.) At any rate we headed into Westport for a good breakfast. After some dissonance between Google Maps and Westport’s one-way streets, we found the place, got a nice table with a view and… I invested in some guilt, in the form of a #3 (I think) that involved French toast, eggs, bacon and some other stuff.

I am not supposed to eat French toast, or anything else I really enjoy. And I usually don’t. But this day I did.

I’m trying it out: Screw guilt.

Late-day view available to campers slumped in their chairs, mulling the meaning and utility of guilt.

Possibly because of a record-breaking number of changes to this trip, we got home one day after our house-sitter expected us. Embarrassment ensured, but we got over it—because, well, you know.

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Taking the Ace Hardware Route to Champoeg

August 31, 2019 By drpaddle Leave a Comment

A field in between crops (I think) at Champoeg State Park in Oregon. It took four Ace Hardware store stops to get here.

Team Toto has had some culinary issues, for quite some time. No, not the too-many-chips-and-pizza-diet issue–we have that issue, but that’s not the one I mean. This one is about the portable grill we take on trips.

I should say grills. We began this generation of our recreational travel lives, in 2014, with an aged, propane-powered Weber Go-Anywhere Grill. It was small, generally reliable, and not very hot. Want to sear a steak or veggie? Forget about it.

I don’t mean to cast shade on Weber or its Go-Anywhere gas grill. It might have been user error. Or maybe there was some maintenance thing I was supposed, but failed, to do. In any case the grill was convenient, lightweight, durable, paid-for, and not hot enough.

So, after considerable research on forums and online retailer user reviews, I put another grill, branded Cuisinart, on my wish list. This table-top grill had two burners (so we could cook something indirectly if we wanted) got very hot, and was stainless steel (very helpful in our damp climate). Handy closure snaps on either side, folding legs and a carry-handle made for easy, if bloody, travel. (The blood issue came from the handy folding legs, which could double as chef’s knives, and which attracted my delicate fingers and palms with admirable consistency).

I learned all this after my Mom generously gave me this grill as a Christmas gift. We, Team Toto, also learned that this plenty-hot appliance was, generally, too hot. A lot of overcooked, dried-out meals ensued. User error? Almost certainly. Would a less clumsy person have bled less? Sure. The product is solid. But Team Toto suffered starvation at times, and the low platelets that run in my family posed an additional risk.

So there we were, a couple of years (and pints of blood) (okay ounces) later, at Camping World, ready to cash in our $20 coupon earned by renewing our Good Sam membership. Another grill called to me. Yeah, okay, I apparently have grill issues. Could be worse things.

The new grill was affordable, easy to carry, and, as soon as the warranty expired, would. not. stay. lit. Or even light, half the time.

You will recall, if you’re still awake, that a dumpster at Seven Feathers RV Resort in southern Oregon recently claimed a portable grill from our team. This was that grill. A better person would have found a way to nurse it to health. However, no better people (in this one sense) are available in Team Toto, so BBUG (bye bye unreliable grill)!

Which brings us to our trip north from Seven Feathers last month, on our way to the beach in Washington (the state). Our overnight stop was reserved: a pull-through, privacy-free site at northern Oregon’s beloved Champoeg State Park.

We had decided to give in, from a portable grilling standpoint, and become just like everyone else, with a little Weber Q grill. They’re like Beemers used to be, and how Tesla cars seem to be this summer: everybody has them. Try though we might, we’re just regular common people doing commonplace things. It’s a little disappointing.

Who sells those grills? Everyone, except in July, when the stores need to make space for Christmas trees and probably St. Patrick’s Day decor. “Yeah, we have one in back, open box, ignitor missing, we’ll take $5 off.” Sheesh.

So we plotted our course north from Canyonville to stop at any and every Ace Hardware store reasonably close to our route until we found a Q1200 in a color we didn’t hate, which is to say anything not black. (Nothing against black cooking appliances. We just didn’t want one.)

The fourth store (the South Salem store, I think) had what we wanted.

Yeah, okay, it’s mostly black. But the lid is “platinum.” Classy! The Ace Hardware people, anticipating my arrival, set up a display model with optional folding cart. They got me.

And so we grilled something, I think. I’m not sure. It all worked well. This is absolutely the last portable grill we’ll ever need! Hmmmmmm.

Our site at Champoeg. Really quite nice, especially given how late we reserved it. We had a nice night here, and the next day we headed off to the beach. We’ll share details presently, maybe.

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Yellowstone, I mean Oregon

August 30, 2019 By drpaddle 3 Comments

It turns out Belfair—remember Belfair?—was our last outing for a good while. There were many plans, but then right after that there was real life, which giggles at plans. Okay by us! We will try to seize the day and not worry to much about seizing the month or the year.

So, we have seized a bunch of days, but they’re not real until they’re documented somehow, so let’s handle that. It has been so long that the WordPress user interface has been revamped, and I have no idea what I’m doing here. I think I am able to move forward by nudging WordPress backward—we’ll see. Onward.

Instead of our long-planned adventure to and from Yellowstone, we veered south to meet good friends in southern Oregon. This is a good place to meet them because they live in California’s Central Valley, and southern Oregon is roughly halfway between here and there. However, as we learned last year, Central Oregon in July can be warm and smoky. It didn’t disappoint.

Our first stop: Olde Stone Village RV Park in McMinnville, Oregon.

Our site at Olde Stone Village in McMinnville, Oregon

People come to McMinnville because (a) they’re passing through while traveling between Portland and the Oregon coast, (b) they like to do wine-tasting things and eat foodie foods, (c) they want to visit the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum, (d) they want their kids to experience the nearby, aviation-themed water park, or (e) some combination. I expect the town has other endearing qualities, but we didn’t learn about them on this trip.

This field backed up to our site (or did our site back up to it?). There were ample opportunities to wander around, looking for birds and bunnies, but the animals were in sort supply. I did manage to capture images of the first American Kestrels I’ve ever seen… but the pix are blurry. Like so many things.

We spent three glorious nights at the park, which is a combination mobile home community and RV park. Very clean. Lovely in every way. Walking distance to the museum.

Outside the museum. It’s just an empty shell, now—no seats, equipment, people, or anything else.

Inside the museum. Look! It’s a DC-3. When I first rode one of these in the late 1950s I thought it was the largest object in the universe. But I was quite a bit shorter, then.

Yeah, the museum is crawling with flying things—some larger (Spruce Goose!), some smaller (replica of Orville and Wilbur Wright’s first aircraft), some other-worldly (spaceships, even). I had thought it might be fun for photography, but the aircraft are too crowded together to yield really interesting shots (or so it seemed to an amateur).

So I settled for some detail shots.

Another thing about McMinnville: it has a downtown some have called quaint. So because it’s a Thing One Does, we drove to the downtown (10-minute drive in Chief), impressed ourselves by parallel-parking Chief without blamming into anything, and walked up and down the main drag. We were whelmed.

So, enough with McMinnville. It was time to join our friends at the fabulous Seven Feathers Casino, Hotel and RV Resort. Four glorious hours down achingly beautiful I-5 and we were checked in, a day before our friends were to arrive.

By the way, did I mention Wally and Tyler? No. That’s because they weren’t with us on this trip (we missed them the entire time). Remember, we were supposed to be at Yellowstone? And you will probably know that U.S. National Parks are anti-pet (understandable if inconvenient for us). So we left the boys home with the house-sitter, even though our destination changed, because we had to pay her anyway and this would enable us to Go On Dates, Guilt-free. Or so we thought.

(The guilt was there—for having left the terriers behind. At least they were with our longtime house-sitter, whom they adore.)

Anyway, Seven Feathers. Nice landscaping, handy casino, useful for delivering the smoke part of the July tradition (in this case, inside, where all the slot machines live). Side note: a big fire started about two miles south of the resort, but not until two days after we had departed. Timing.

At Seven Feathers you have a manicured, landscaped experience, sandwiched between a sinful casino and a lively shooting range. (Also, usually, sandwiched between giant rigs that make the Toto, which looms over our driveway at home, look like it needs growth hormones). What’s not to love? In this photo: a portable grill about to inhabit a dumpster.

Much as I’d like to, I won’t share pictures of the casino, because (a) they would be smoky and (b) someone probably would have snatched my camera away if I tried to use it in there. I lost $10. I wonder where it is.

Speaking of loss, I also tossed a perfectly lousy portable grill into the dumpster at the RV park. I probably ought not to have done it, and I’m sorry about that. I hope the $10 covers any added dump costs.

It was good to see our friends, but the Washington coast and the Olympic Peninsula (with one more stop along the way) called to us. We will share details—including our efforts to acquire a new grill—soon.

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