Sequim

That's pronounced Squim.

One of the good things about this place is the variety and quality of food.  We've found a store that sells everything it can from local sources.  That's means the peaches, apples, berries, vegetable, more are fresh and tasty.  They also sell all fresh locally-caught seafood and pasture raised meats, all at reasonable prices.

One day, we traveled over to a nearby town, Port Angeles, and then on to another county park, Salt Creek, where we saw the above.

Sequim, itself, is open dry fields with patches of forests.   The town is not too large: only 6,600 within the borders, with many more on larger patches outside of town.  You see fields of mixed vegetables, fruit orchards and corn, but more than any other crop, you see lavender.

Another day, we drove to Port Townsend, on a point of the pennisula to the east.  It's known as a wooden boat center and for its Victorian architecture.

What we will remember it for is its storm!   It was blowing very hard that day, so hard that this sailboat became unmoored and blew up to the beach.  Many people watched it as it tossed and was tossed.   Probably a total loss, because how would you retrieve something like this?

That afternoon, back in Sequim, although it had been very windy here, the sun came out while it spattered rain.  We saw this rainbow coming down to the water through our trailer window.

Going North

We spent one night in Newport, Oregon, at the marina RV park.  Above was our view.  

After unhooking the trailer we decided to check Newport out.  Generally it seemed very plain, but there is a street by the bay that is filled with fish shops, fish processing plants, fish restaurants and one particular place where the sea lions hang our on floating docks.  They were so fun to watch.  One would swim up, heave himself up on top of the others and flop on top of them all, while they all barked in protest.  Eventually, one of them would have to fall off, into the water.  Some were so anxious to be on the docks that they just hung on to a side and relaxed a while.

Rather than just have a a seafood appetizer and drink, as we had planned, we couldn't help ourselves and had a big dinner each.   Tom had a variety of seafood in a white wine/fish broth while I had Chioppino, a variety of seafood in a tomato based  broth.  So much, I had trouble eating it all - and so good.  We then split a dessert of their local Marion berry (blackberry-like) cobbler and ice cream.  Too good.

I thought my hair looked good next morning, a rare event, so I asked Tom to take a picture. But to no avail.

It was a Wednesday and we had friends reserving us a site in Fort Stevens for Thursday night.  Most  campsites along the Oregon Coast are prebooked in the summer.  Luckily, we found a county park on the Tillamook jetty where we dry camped ( no hookups) for $35 and were  happy. It was very windy there, but very "real."

Next thing we know, we've arrived at Fort Stevens, a park at the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific.  That's where I got to know Tom three years ago and where Pricilla and Roger, Tom's friends and fellow camp volunteers were working.  They had managed to get us a campsite for two nights.  During the one day we were there, we bicycle rode and picked Marion berries.   That evening, we went to dinner with Roger and Priscella and then had some of Priscella's famous Marion berry cobbler.

We had thought we would turn back east after visiting with them, but we're always looking at places with an eye toward moving there and I remembered there's a place in Washington that is called "the blue hole."  Sequim sits in the rain shadow of the Olympics, so has more sunny days that most of western Washington.  Now, we're here, and liking it.  

We stayed three nights in Sequim in Dungeness County Park on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the main way out from Washington State to the Pacific Ocean.    Our campsite was just along the trail along the bluffs above the water.   You can  barely see Victoria, Canada from here, above.

We like Sequim, so we have taken a month at an RV park at John Wayne Marina (of all names, ideas!)  Turns out, John Wayne used to bring a big sailboat here, bought some land and eventually donated it to the town, providing they'd make a marina.  They did.  And here we are.  Strangely, it's very convenient to town, with a bicycle trail passing just through the entrance.

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The marina has a beach and picnic area that we look out to.

Here is our site, just up in the trees above.

Waves and Tides, II

A video in the last post took so much download speed that I wasn't allowed to add any copy without jamming up the post.  So I'll try to remember the pictures and say something about them..

Most of them are of an 8 a.m. tour with a ranger of the tide pools in an Oregon state park just south of Sunset Bay where we camped for two nights.    I was amazed to see and hear about the 23 types of plants and algae growing on a wet rock at the beginning of the tour.   It got better and  better after we climbed out over some big rocks to some clear tidal pools.  There we saw more colorful thinkgs like the sea anemomes, starfish, and more colorful thlings I' ve forgotten the names of.  It was lovely watching a huge field of ball kelp floating, rising and dipping in the waves.  I have a great video of that, but it is too hard to upload to the blog.  

I did take the time to upload a video of the seals and sea lions off the point here.   There were hundreds, covering every rock out in the water within our sight.    There were four kinds, with the noisiest being the brown sea lions up from California.

Two of the pictures are of the beach area at Thunder Rock south of Gold Beach where we spent a week.   We hiked down to the beach and spent an hour sunning.  It got too hot and sunny, so we started back up and noticed the waterfall from a creek above falling just onto the beach.  Very pretty and such a fun place to rinse the sand off our feet.    There's also a picture of me trying the water and finding it too cold to go in to.

I wanted to show us sitting down to the 12 oysters that Tom shucked (his/our first time).   Twas fun to eat them raw on the shell, doubly so since we worked so hard getting them ready.   

He does look serious here, doesn't he?

Now, we're in Newport at the marina.   I'm about to loose the battery on my laptop so I'll post more another time.

Waves and Tides

Oregon! ! !

We needed somewhere to ride, since we've been carrying new bikes (our others got stolen in Vallejo, CA).   So we rode down to the local "small animal" zoo in Eureka.  You can see it was fun.

After spending two nights in Eureka, we headed up the California coast, through state and national redwood parks.

Partly to be sure that we'd have a place to stay in Oregon (we'd heard it is hard to find good campsites because they are all reserved) and partly to just stop traveling for a while, we took a campsite in Gold Beach, Oregon where the Rogue River comes to the Pacific.   Here there are many fishermen in small boats at the mouth of the river, trying to, and catching, salmon as they go up the river.   Already, we have traveled south again to stop at the many parts of a national scenic corridor along the ocean here.

The picture below shows my favorite spot - a group of natural arches of stone in the ocean where water is rushing back and forth through.  Alongside is a beach you can get to.  I hope we get back there before we leave here.

At another beach, where we had a picnic, people were hovering over a seal on the beach, gently trying to cover itself with sand.   We learned from a knowledgeable  person there that it was an old female seal, there to die.   So many of us left it there, we hope, in peace.

Today, Tuesday, the 11th, we drove up to Cape Blanca, the westernmost point in the lower states.  Then stopped back in the "oldest town" on the Oregon coast, Port Orford, established in 1858.  There we had great clam chowder and fish and chips at Crazy Norwegian's, where apparently everybody knew to go. Great good and cheerful people.  We liked the town and plan to learn more about it in the future.

Okay, Okay, back by popular demand!

Actually, not.   But here Tom and I are, traveling again, this time in the U. S. West and I find I'm writing emails and sending pictures and it may be more efficient to write this blog and refer anyone interested to see it.  Plus this has been a great record for us of our doings, so I want to add some of the latest and greatest finds.

We left Fayetteville on June 12 and today, August 8, we are in Eureka, California.    Stops before this were Fort Collins, Salida, Durango, Lake City, Taylor Canyon near Gunnison and Grand Mesa, all in Colorado.  Since then, we've stopped in Utah (Calf Creek, Green River and Cedar City), crossed Nevada to arrive in Big Pine Forest Service campground south of Bishop, California.   In California, we later stayed at Mammoth Lakes, Yosemite, Napa, Lassen and now here.  I want to post some photos from those places, but not today.  Today, only today!

Eureka is an old mining supply and forestry town with a great historic waterfront.  Yesterday we visited the waterfront and two islands out from that.  

Tumbling the best we can

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These are of us recently.   We both are looking chipper.   But our blog's name Tumbleweed Two might not be appropriate just now because one of us is not in the mood to travel much (tumble) or do much else while the other is.   Tom hasn't been feeling very spirited lately.   He's been visiting doctors trying to find why he hasn't had energy to do much.  So far, they've found him fine.  It may just be trying to be with me that has him feeling low:  I find things to do much of the day and he likes things to be a little less busy, more relaxed and less planned.

We still enjoy each other's company and are hoping we can make this work.

In the meantime, Tom says he does not want to plan any travel or participate in anything that is too active or with too many people.   So I am doing some of these things by myself.

One thing we did together last Thursday:  traveled the hour down to Fort Smith to the Arkansas Oklahoma State Fair.  I wanted to go to see the big dogs in an act that I'd seen would be featured there.   While waiting for the show to begin, we visited the animals barns.

Then we got to see the show: eight dogs taken from shelters or worse and settled into this former rodeo clown's act. 

They WERE fun, but not quite as fun as I had anticipated all week.  Trained with praise only and seeming to like their life on the road.

This weekend, I took off on a camping/hiking trip to a place I've been to a couple of times before - the Hurricane Wilderness where the Ozark Highland Trail goes through.    Above is the stream I camped in my van by on Friday night.  On Saturday morning, I walked on rocks across the stream and hiked about 4 miles along the Hurricane River.  This time of year, you don't hear the rush of water and see beautiful white/blue froth, as you do in the spring.

The next night, I drove to a campground along the Buffalo River and found a campsite near the main walk down to the river.   This is what you see there.  Here I hiked the 1.7 miles up to a picnic area along the river and back.   The leaves here that turn red are now turning. Others won't be far behind.   There'll be several weeks now when all the world here will look and feel glorious.  
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When I came home, Tom had kept the recently transplanted shrubs watered and done some other chores.   I think he enjoyed having a couple of days to himself on his own schedule.