Washington State

Deception Pass: Other Bits

June 2, 2015 By drpaddle Leave a Comment

There were other hikes to be scouted. Would any others be Wally-friendly (stroller-able)? The team did some reading and Sudokuing while I checked out one of them.

Lawn, bay, picnic tables, trees, not necessarily in that order.

All the Bowman Bay area hikes start right around here. Tempted to just sit and stare at the water. That structure in the background was built in the 1980s or 90s — an interpretive center for the Civilian Conservation Corps. Too bad it was closed (off-season, I guess) while we were here.

On my way to the trail, I stopped to watch these boats in action. Their “skippers” were up on the pier, running back and forth, gesturing with their remote control units. Looks like fun!

Radio-controlled model yachts as a hobby? Why not? I think it would be fun.

The trail map and guide promised close-up views of Deception Pass and its bridges, at the cost of a mere 100 feet in elevation change. It was about a two-mile walk, much of it vertical. I think I went up and down the same 100 feet about 40 times. Much too steep for Wally and his stroller.

So where are my pix of the view? I saw it, I guess. It was highly filtered by trees and brush, and I was certain I wasn’t “there yet.” By the time I realized that must have been “it,” I had gone up and downhill a few more times and didn’t want to backtrack.

So I stopped at a high point and grabbed this shot instead.

On my way back, a pod of kayakers prepared to head out into the bay. They did stop to ogle the model yachts for a while.

It was, for your reference, the Lottie Point Trail. I liked it. It passes a lagoon in which a few harbor seals frolicked. Those pictures don’t look so good either, so I’ll spare you.

On our last morning before breaking camp, we made our way to the Rosario Beach area for another look at scenery and a short but unsettling hike for me.

Rocks and water far below the top of Rosario Head.

This was the unsettling part. I went up 150 feet on this short trail, past signs warning of high cliffs. They weren’t kidding! I was on my hands and knees to make this picture. My sense of balance and my proximity to ledges enjoy an inverse relationship.

Coming back down the trail I checked out this lovely maiden. It’s a carved “story pole,” created by an artist to capture a Samish Tribe legend about a young woman who, eventually, went to live with a handsome prince of the deep — underwater. Her parents were against the union, but the prince arranged for lousy weather and famine in order to change his mind. I was going to say, again, that you can’t make this stuff up, but in this case I think someone did.

The Maiden of Deception Pass story pole.

And next I saw…

Wally greeted me as I rejoined the Team. As always, he made me smile.

Deception Pass State Park… 5 stars. Every time I return to this part of Washington — around the San Juans — I am newly impressed with its natural beauty. I still haven’t had enough, and the Team seems to agree. We’ll be back.

Sharing is caring!

Following is daring.

Deception Pass: Watch for Crocs

June 1, 2015 By drpaddle Leave a Comment

It was the day after Memorial Day, so the hordes had departed.

Ahhhhhhhhh.

Good thing, too, because this made it easier to hear the roofers. There is nothing like the smell of bacon cooking over an open camp stove, with the sun glistening through dew-laden cedar needles, and the staccato of hammers, mercilessly attacking roofing nails, to complete the scene.

Even with roofing noise, cooking outside can be fun. Just pretend it’s a woodpecker!

What to do? Enjoy breakfast and depart for other environs. We piled into TinMan and made for the park’s West Beach area, which promised an American Disabilities Act-compliant trail gentle enough to accommodate Wally’s stroller. Yes, Wally has a stroller — he was born with a neuro-muscular problem that precludes long walks for him, and I was born with a laziness problem that precludes me carrying him for long distances.

We enjoyed a picnic lunch — and an air show put on by jet fighters from the nearby Whidbey Naval Air Station — at a weathered picnic table right on the white sand. Then, we took off — all of us on foot, at first.

Wally and Tyler prepare to cross leashes.

Wally always leads. Tyler always crosses under Wally’s leash. They are trying to tell us something, but what?

Our walk took us first past a small swimming beach on freshwater Cranberry Lake. There plenty of birds about — we heard kingfishers and spotted some killdeer — and this fellow was there, with plenty of siblings and a parent or two.

Ryan the Gosling. Sorry.

Toward the end of our stroll, a tree was presented for our inspection and edification. A placard informed us that the tree is more than 800 years old (or some big number like that). I swear it doesn’t look a day over 575. But in front of the tree, wait, what’s that?

When we saw this off to the side of our trail, we both thought “crocodile.” Or maybe it was alligator.

By now, both of the boys were gassed.

Tyler is visible in Wally's red stroller.

Wally is in here, but you can’t see him, because Tyler’s in front. Tyler doesn’t really like the idea of Wally riding while he walks. The humanoids bow their heads in despair.

Back at Bowman Bay, the roofers had finished for the day and we poked around. We saw this:

Paddlers, rowers and other drivers of human-powered boats can camp at dozens of sites all over Puget Sound, collectively called the Cascadia Marine Trail. It involves sleeping on the ground, so we don’t do it any more. But it was fun, back in the day.

… and this:

This guy is not, and was not, a real person. He is an imagined person, created by the sculptor to represent the Civilian Conservation Corps workers who built many of the roads and structures in the park. Sooz did not say that I don’t seem to be in this kind of shape any more. But she was thinking it.

If you don’t know about the Civilian Conservation Corps, and I’m not suggesting that you should, you can learn more here.

The next day there was hiking, reading, napping and being puzzled. There was also significant experimentation with our Wilson Electronics Sleek Cellphone Signal Booster, with some further puzzling results. Stay tuned for details.

Sharing is caring!

Following is daring.

Team Toto visits Deception Pass

May 31, 2015 By drpaddle Leave a Comment

Forced by work obligations to forego a planned trip to the annual Escape Trailer Customer Appreciation Rally in British Columbia, we consoled ourselves with an unplanned visit to Deception Pass State Park near Anacortes, Washington.

I found two campsites available at the park’s Bowman Bay campground. It’s a big park, straddling both sides of a bridge over, uh, Deception Pass, a narrow body of water that separates Fidalgo and Whidbey Islands at the southern end of the San Juan archipelago. I always wanted to use that word in a sentence. Anyway Bowman Bay is the smaller campground in the park, on the north (Fidalgo Island) side.

Deception Pass and Deception Pass Bridge

Head for the North Beach portion of the park and you can see both the Pass and its lovely bridges (there’s an island in the middle of the waterway, and technically the other side of the island is called Canoe Pass, but let’s not split hairs).

Bowman Bay is real purty.

The day-use area at Bowman Bay is huge and green. That fog burned off before noon.

Now, about those two campsites. The online reservation site made site 286 look better than 290, even though 290 has hookups and 286 does not. On the site, 286 has a nice water view, and 290 sports a “poor” privacy rating. So we decided to dry-camp and reserved 286.

Two days, 3.5 hours and one expensive ferry ride later, it looked like we had been… Deceived! The shrubs had grown up and eliminated site 286’s view — it was anything but private, with narrow sites hugging it on either side.

There was a lot of noise — I mean a LOT of noise — coming from the nearby day-use area. It was, after all, Memorial Day here in the States, and that’s America’s cue to get out there and display unmitigated gall. Hundreds of people around, making picnic and volleyball noises — really, nothing galling at all, just a lot of people. And noise.

And another lesson to learn: when you dry-camp and you want to fill up with water upon arrival, you might need something other than your hose — because the campground might not have threaded faucets. You might need a Water Bandit, an inexpensive gadget for attaching a hose to a smooth, un-threaded spigot.

We did not have one. (But we have one on order now!). And, not a threaded faucet in sight — EXCEPT at site 290, which was, for the moment, empty.

Befuddled, I pulled TinMan and Toto into 290 to think. Well, hey, we could just grab our water here at 290, I realized, then squeeze ourselves into 286. But then another thing happened. I remembered that 290 had been available for our three-night stay… two days ago. Could I call the park office and switch sites?

No, I couldn’t. 1X service, one bar only, dropped call after dropped call.

By now, of course, Sooz and Wally and Tyler were walking around, stretching their legs and. We huddled. They stayed, and I drove back across the bridge (see above) to the park office to see if I could switch sites. Lucky us! For a mere $15 extra, we got site 290. I returned, heroically, to Bowman Bay. And we made camp.

Close-up view of restrooms from our campsite

Yeah, so, not the best campsite. A tad close to the restrooms.

But hey, look at that architecture! Many of the buildings all around the park were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. They don’t make ’em like this any more. Not often, anyway.

The only other site at Bowman Bay with hookups was back behind us… occupied by the friendly campground host.

Our campsite, number 290 for your future reference, was sort-of okay.

As I say, it was a bit noisy that afternoon, so after all the racing around, we relaxed into a wonderful evening. Gradually, the day-use area emptied out, though I swear the volleyballers were still going when it was surely too dark to see. Whatever. We toddled off to sleep.

I woke up late — around 7:30 — to what I thought was the sound of someone splitting firewood.

Well, no.

Roofer hammering new cedar shake shingles onto a kitchen shelter.

You build a kitchen shelter in the 1930s and at some point the roof gives out. So the State Parks upend their piggy bank, buy the materials, and expand a ranger’s job description to include… roofing. About 70 feet from our campsite.

Yeah, with Memorial Day past, why not do a roofing job before next weekend’s crowds show up? I can tell you why not.

So, not exactly an auspicious beginning to our getaway. Would we have fun anyway? Yup, we did. I’ll return tomorrow with the proof.

Sharing is caring!

Following is daring.

Once again I will try to fill in for Dad.

May 29, 2015 By drpaddle Leave a Comment

I am not trying to stick my nose in here. But I am aware that without Dad’s efforts on the FollowToto Internet thing, there will be no accounts of my antics, and also of Wally’s annoying (but, apparently, endearing) exploits.

So here is the rest of the story about Maryhill State Park on the very big river in Washington, the state where we live.

I have to be careful here. If I get too good at this Dad is just going to think I’ll do it, and then he will spend all day doing Solitaire.

Okay. Here is a picture where I am the main subject. There are some other things in the picture, but I am the one sitting up, like a Good Boy, on the green camping cot. I believe I am sitting up here because I have a special Dog sense that, on the next camping trip, Wally is going to cause beverages to be spilled on the cot, and it will likely never be the same. So I am sitting up.

Sooz, Tyler and Wally posing awkwardly in front of Toto.

Remember the awning that Dad knows how to put? He does know. But also remember Dad said there is wind? There is, or rather was. So the awning is not put. I don’t care. Do you? Sometimes Mom cares.

Do I have a carefree, windblown look? I think not. I think I look concerned. But I don’t remember what it was about, because, as I mentioned, Dad should have made this blog post days ago. I’m really more of an in-the-moment type. But I will try. Oh. Why did I include this picture? It was in case you forgot what I look like. Just so we can really connect. You know.

Many times during our stay at Maryhill, it began snowing, at least I thought it was at first. The white stuff was everywhere in the wind, but it did not make my paw pads hurt like the other white stuff, so I guess this is not snow. Mom and Dad said Cottonwood after consulting the internet thing on their phones.

These things plump up and white stuff comes out. Mom and Dad called it Cotton Stuff. Can you tell Dad got a new camera? Bizarre.

One day while at Maryhill Dad took us to see a stone hinge.

Stonehenge Memorial, Maryhill, Washington

This is a Stonehenge replica created by someone many decades ago. It is a salute to the memory of people who died in a war called the Great War. Wars are kind of stupid, I guess, unless they’re fought over food — that I could see. Especially hot dogs. Still, pretty stupid. Humanoids should figure out a better way to disagree.

If you look really close, in the middle, you can see me, on a leash. Oh and you can probably see Mom and Wally too. But wait till you see what it looked like when we arrived.

Motorcycle Club having fun at the Stonehenge Memorial, Maryhill, WA

That’s right — the stone hinge memorial was surrounded by a motorcycle club. They were having an Outing. They seemed to be having a good time. Dad said that maybe the builders of the original stone hinge wished they had big bikes like these people had. That made no sense to me.

The view from the memorial attracted Dad and his new camera the way hot dogs attract me. For all the work he put in, he said the pictures were Unimpressive. Too bad. Maybe it was all that howling wind. Do you like how I bring Dog words into my work? I do.

Well so finally Dad observed that we were camped in some sort of Transit Hub. Trains, cars, barges and tugs. Here, then, is a Barge Picture I chose from his campsite photos.

Tug pushes barge downstream on the Columbai

Remember I said about the Trains? Or maybe that was Dad. Anywhere there were also Barges and Tugs.

Dad drove us home after this picture. It was a good drive through the Columbia River Gorge, which frankly was prettier than where we camped. But everything is beautiful, everywhere, really. Except maybe Wally.

Sharing is caring!

Following is daring.

Toto meets the Columbia River Gorge

May 24, 2015 By drpaddle Leave a Comment

Hey, have you ever been to the Columbia River Gorge? If not, drop everything and get over there. It’s not just scenic, it’s a Designated Scenic Area, or something like that. Team Toto just spent three glorious nights at the east end of the Gorge, at Maryhill State Park, which is — no kidding — named for one Mary Hill. You can’t make this stuff up.

The park is right on Columbia River’s north (Washington side) bank. We snagged a “waterfront” site (by reserving exactly nine months in advance).

After a long haul over Snoqualmie Pass and some other hills, Toto relaxes by the Columbia.

At site #35, we had a wonderful view of the Columbia and all its whitecaps. Thousands and thousands of whitecaps, and of course lots of fresh air, coming at us at 35 miles per hour, unceasingly. It was the kind of breeze that helps one understand why the organizer of this rally reserved a campsite well away from the shoreline. Ah. Got it.

This saved me the hassle of putting up the awning, which surely would have been ripped apart like a cocktail napkin in a blender.

Good thing I have stakes for the patio mat.

A few steps out to the water (and the full force of the wind).

Does it look like a gorge? No, not here. This is, after all, the east end of the gorge. It gets more gorgelike when you head west. But the gorge has done its job, funneling the wind through from the west side of the Cascades.

Wind is a thing here. Also, lawns. Our fellow rally campers informed us that the park staff takes great pride in the campground lawns; in fact it’s supposed to be one of the real draws for the park. This year, there’s a drought in the west, so the lawns look a little parched. There is no shortage of wind, however.

Beach sign: "Stow Sails to Prevent Lawn Burn"

These signs along the beach warn kite boarders and wind surfers to stow their sails. The park rangers may or may not care if your sail gets blown away or damaged; but they definitely care about their lawns.

This wind is good for more than recreating humanoids in wetsuits. It’s good for making electricity, too. The wind turbines look odd in an otherwise minimally developed area. But then so does everything else that wasn’t here before. Is it progress? I dunno. Visually striking, though, yes, that’s for sure.

Hundreds of these around. If you’re not a bird, you probably like them; they create a lot of electrons, voltrons, etc., without burning fossil fuels and creating hydrocarbons and all that. If you’re a bird, however, you might run into one of these, and then… well, come to think of it, after that you wouldn’t be caring about anything. However your friends and family would be bummed.

Here at Maryhill State Park, it doesn’t hurt to be interested in trains. Because there are lots of them, on both sides of the river, day and night. Most are freight trains, but twice a day there’s an Amtrak Empire Builder train racing through. They’re short — they’re just the Portland-to-Chicago addition to the Seattle-to-Chicago route — but let’s not discriminate against them for that.

Amtrak Empire Builder en route from Chicago to Portland

After a few hours at Maryhill we learned to distinguish the Amtrak train horns from the BNSF (freight line) train horns. And then, having figured that out, I realized I was wrong and couldn’t tell the difference. So I looked up the Empire Builder schedule (train between Portland and Chicago) and went out to try for a shot. Not award-winning, but I got it.

There’s more to see and know about greater metropolitan Maryhill, and I’ll get right on it, tomorrow evening — from our next destination.

Sharing is caring!

Following is daring.

The separation is in the preparation

April 5, 2015 By drpaddle 6 Comments

Tinman and Toto in the driveway, ready to head out. Almost.

TinMan and Toto are positioned to head for California.

We’re preparing for our longest trip ever. 11 days, 10 nights, six different campsites. Yippee!

Around our home turf there is a young NFL quarterback who is just super. Knows his stuff, wins games, goes to Super Bowls, the whole thing. He says The Separation is in the Preparation. He says it a lot. He believes it. It seems to be working, and he is about to get a sizable raise.

Sooz should have been an NFL quarterback. She lives to plan, and then re-plan, and so on. I, too, place a high value on planning, but I don’t so much like to do it. But, as a former IT project manager type, Sooz is always casting about for something to plan. So when a trip is in the offing, I’m really enjoying some fantastic ROI on my life partnership. One of my best investments ever.

Okay, planning. We have been planning our upcoming California trip for many months. We’ve done lots of online research into RV parks and campgrounds, mountain passes, spring weather patterns and some other stuff.

You don’t go to visit people in Granite Bay, California in the middle of summer. It’s too hot. Even they think it’s too hot, and they live there. So you visit in the spring or fall, when it will only be 80 (F) in the daytime and cool at night.

Our trip to California won’t be like, well, your trip to California, assuming you actually want to see the place. We’ve been there (lived there for most of our lives), so, yeah, Yosemite, Marina Del Rey, Hollywood, whatever, who cares. (We will admit to wanting to see certain places in California, but they’re more about special times in our lives and not so much concerned with places tourists, or campers, want to go).

Instead, this strategically planned trip will give us some quality time with family and friends, and some good experience with Toto. What sorts of experiences?

Mountain passes. We’ll be going over six baby ones and one young adult — that one only a little over 4,000 feet– so just challenging enough for us less experienced trailerist types.
Weather. We’ve tried to time this trip to be after most mountain snow in the passes, and after heaviest rain in the northwest, but before it gets too hot in central California. As of this morning’s weather forecasts, we should miss snow in the passes on the way down — but we may have to delay a day while en route. Day 2 of our trip will involve the four highest passes, and the forecast keeps moving back and forth regarding snow for that day. If we know there will be snow in those passes we will delay a day and spend some quality time in our first RV park. We have snow chains for both TinMan and Toto — we’re required to carry them — but we don’t want to use them.
RV parks. We’ve never stayed in one. But we want to get down to our first California destination in just three days, so we’ve found a couple of RV parks to try on the way down, and we have pull-through spaces reserved. We hope they’re sufficiently level that we don’t have to unhitch on these first two overnights. Don’t want to do that. We’ll be staying in two more (different) RV parks on our slightly different route back home.
Dry camping — another first for us. We’ll stay two nights at Doran Regional Park in Bodega Bay, CA… no hookups! We’ll have to fill up our water tank a bit when we arrive, rely on our solar to keep the batteries happy, and use the dump station when we head back north. We paid extra for the higher-capacity, two-battery setup, and for the solar panel and controller, so it’s about time we try ’em out.
Mobile drudgery. Hard as I try, I’m still not retired, and my clients want me to write stuff for them. I’ll have the laptop, the smartphone-with-wifi-hotspot feature, and a spot in the TotoLounge to work. I also picked up a cellular booster and antenna that had just been replaced by a new model, and we’ll see how that works before I go drilling holes in Toto’s roof.I think there’s a white paper wanting me to write it during this trip, and there may be other stuff. If I can focus on the work, it will inform our plans for future travel before the eventual retirement thing happens.

So there. Lots of new experiences to try. Fortunately we’re a strong team, with complementary skills, and I think it will be good. We’ll find out.

Sharing is caring!

Following is daring.