Central Washington State

We've been parked in Quincy, Washington for a few days. We're at Crescent Bar Resort, a big sandbar in the Columbia River, on a lake formed by a power dam. This place must really rock in the summer, but now we're the only campers, paying winter rates. We've got electric and water service, so we're happy.

Bluffs along the Columbia River

Besides the campground on the Bar, there's a Thousand Trails RV ownership park, several condo developments, and a huge trailer/RV park. There's a 9 hole golf course, and a 9 ho;e executive course. Docks and hundreds of mooring buoys attest to the summer boating scene. Two public beaches provide swimming and sunning. Swimsuit and quick food shops fill out the venue. All of this closed for the season, except that the golf course has an honor box on the first tee and several golfers were out enjoying the sun on Saturday.

Blue Heron

We stopped out here to visit Wayne and Mary Jo Lohrman, RV friends we've bumped into several times around the US. We both saw some of Canada this summer, so we compared notes on that. We also showed them our scenes of Alaska, since they're headed up that way next year. Wayne has been picking apples here, just about done with that.

The Columbia ha carved a fairly deep canyon through this part of the country, which leaves a fairly high bluff alongside the Bar. Across the river the land tapers down to the water. The land above is high desert, full of scrub and devoid of trees. The exception is the orchards, vineyards and farms that irrigate with river water. Quincy has several large fruit shippers, along with beans and grapes.

Foliage behind Crescent Bar

About 35 miles north of us are the burgs of Wenatchee and East Wenatchee, straddling the river. Consuelo visited a knitting supplier in East Wenatchee to check supplies and get ideas.

Twenty miles east of the Wenatchees on the edge of the Cascade Mountains is the faux German Alpine village of Leavenworth. We took a ride up there with the Lohrmans to shop the town and have some lunch.

Leavenworth has sculpted itself in alpine motif, picked Bavarian designs and names, and filled its shops with Deutchland-like wares. You can buy steins, liederhosen, and european crystal. The food features wursts, German style potato salad, and lots of beer. We enjoyed a good lunch, then visited the stores.

Winter comes here, and it's coming soon. We're out of here later today.

It's Raining... what a surprise!

We've been parked in Hoquiem, WA for 3 nights. It's on the southwest corner of the Olympic Peninsula. I surmise that wood products and/or paper are the major industries here. Hoquiem and her larger sister Aberdeen sit at the inland end of Gray's Harbor, one of the few bumps in the Pacific coastline providing safe shelter for boats. So there's a fishing fleet here, too.

We've been parked in Hoquiem RV Park, a nice campground with good amenities and friendly staff. They have a very good wifi, as campground wifi's go, and I've downloaded some Windows upgrades and checked out some video tutorials on the Adobe site.

Ocean City Beach

It's been raining since before we arrived. Such is the reputation of the Northwest Coast in the US. Right now, the weather forecast has no sun in it for the foreseeable future. The sun came out for a few minutes Wednesday night, so I took off to Ocean City beach, about 20 miles NW of where we're parked. By the time I arrived, the overcast had arrived again. I walked out onto the beach, which I shared with one lonely seagull. IF it had been summer, and IF the sun had been out and IF I got there at noon then it would have been a really great day at a beautiful beach. Only IF.

Consuelo has been busy knitting slippers, preparing to sell a few pair at a flea market in Yuma when we get there. She's had a little trouble with yarn deliveries, as we've been on the move since we left Chimacum. It turned out that the last box she expected arrived the day we left Chimacum, and was returned to the vendor.

I've been busy working on 2010 photo calendars, also to sell in Yuma and online. I've started a web site here for them. I expect to add 3 or 4 more before I finish. I've ordered a new printer from Office Depot to print them, but Office Depot has thoroughly screwed up my order, and may cause me delays before I can deliver. We'll see. I've asked them to refund my money, but I expect a gnat has a better chance of devouring an elephant.

I've also been working on my commercial photo website. Photoshelter offered up a 30 day trial of their custom websites, which I've had up for a couple weeks now. It's a lot nicer than the regular site, but until I sell some photos, I can't really justify the extra cost for style points.

Hoh! Hoh! Hoh!

Hoh Rain Forest

Curt Kraft and I stomped through a section of untouched forest 15 years ago in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota. Actually, we most likely were in the adjacent Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario. It was hard work, as the trees had died and toppled every which way, stacking themselves 3 and 4 trunks high. The trunks were two to four feet in diameter. We picked a route, set off to follow it, hoping not to get lost. In some places we clambered over them, in other crawled under them. After we tired ourselves out, probably not going more than 1/4 mile, we turned back and returned by a slightly different route. Neither of us had ever tried to negotiate such a place before. It gave us an insight into the difficulties that the pioneers had negotiating forested areas when they tried to move west.

Maples and Spruce

Yesterday, Consuelo and I trudged through a section of the Hoh Rain Forest, part of the Olympic National Park near Forks, WA. We had no such difficulties in this forest. While there were many downed trees, the nice forest rangers had cleared a trail among them, even cutting slots in some for the trail to follow. Recalling my Minnesota experience, I realized how easy we had it.

The Hoh is one of the sections of temperate rain forest in Olympic. Because the forest is backed by the Olympic mountains, water laden clouds arriving from the Pacific Ocean are forced up and drop their rain before passing over the mountains, 140 to 167" of rain annually. There is a rain shadow behind the mountains, which get on average, 17" of rain, a mere 40 miles away.

Ferns

My vision of a rain forest was quite different from what I saw there. I think my visions were generated by movies of the Amazon Jungle, rubber trees hundreds of feet high growing in a closed canopy, blocking out the sun, and the forest floor choked with tropical plants and shrubs, making passage virtually impossible.

The Hoh rain forest is dominated by Sitka Spruce and Western Hemlock, which grow up to 300 feet high. Coastal Douglas Fir, Western Red Cedar, Big Leaf Maple, and Red Alder are also prevalent. In mid October, the maples are turning, a few red, but most bright yellow. Since there has been no frost here yet, the colors are not turning uniformly. May maples are still green, while others have lost their leaves.

Clear stream with green bottom

Most of the trees are adorned with mosses and lichens. Consuelo didn't think they were as pretty as the Spanish Moss we see at Jekyll Island, but then she leans toward Spanish things. There was certainly a wide variety of them in the Hoh, along with ferns that covered the forest floor.

We also noted a stream running in the park, nearly full of bright green water plants that looked like the weeds that grew in the lake where I grew up. But unlike other places where we see lots of green vegetation in the water, the water in this stream was crystal clear.

Roosevelt Elk

We took a drive through the campground on our way out, and found several Roosevelt Elk grazing on the mown grass around the campsites, all males, all decked out with big racks. They seemed undisturbed by cars driving by them, but there were warnings on the board that several visitors had been charged by the elk recently, so we kept our distance.

Readers of this blog are reminded that my photos can be purchased on my Photoshelter site. You can get prints, mugs, mouse pads, etc.

The Weather Report in Alaska

Now that fall has arrived, we've just seen our first below 40 degree day where we're parked in northwest Washington state. It's cold enough that our heat pump in the motor home has stopped providing heat, and we've switched to LP.

Meanwhile, back in Alaska, it's 39 degrees in Fairbanks, 34 degrees in Anchorage, and 30 degrees way out in Nome. It's 28 and snowing in Prudhoe Bay, where the ice road truckers will be heading soon if they have not already started for the winter. It's 39 degrees in Valdez, and 36 in Seward. Adak reports in at 41 degrees. Tropical Juneau is a balmy 43 degrees.

The previous paragraph is fairly typical reporting for the average Alaskan weatherman or woman. I was somewhat surprised in watching the weather reports on TV up there, because they report and predict the weather for the entire state, every time. Most of the TV stations in Alaska are in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau. There are a handful of low power TV stations elsewhere, like Homer and Seldovia. For such a big state, that's not a lot of coverage.

From what I can discover, Alaska only has one cable TV provider, GCI. I saw a GCI store in Homer, and could not figure out from the outside what they did. They provide cable TV in many small communities, as well as school links, Internet and long distance phone services, and medical network connections. So many little towns get the Alaska TV stations by cable.

Dish and DirectTV also provide TV service to Alaskans. Most users had 1.5 meter diameter dishes, and they appear to point into the ground when you see them. The satellite providers carry the Alaska TV stations as locals, so the few stations in the big cities are available throughout Alaska.

So, if you live in Alaska and watch TV, you're most likely to be watching a station from Fairbanks, Anchorage and/or Juneau. As a result, "local" news and weather reporting will carry stories for the whole state, not just Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau.

So how big is the territory covered by Alaska? Alaska is about about 3 times the size of Texas. If you overlay a map of Alaska on the lower 48 states, and put the panhandle with Juneau down in Georgia, the Aleutians will stretch to California, and Prudhoe Bay will be in North Dakota.

Now think of the poor weatherman in Alaska. If you overlaid his job on the lower 48, he would be reporting for Jacksonville, Atlanta, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Denver, Chicago and perhaps Los Angeles, all in the same 5 minute forecast. And you know that the weather across that area varies considerably, so a little detail is often required.

And just to add to the problem, and to justify Sarah Palin's remark about "seeing Russia", the extended weather forecast for Alaska often includes noting the current conditions in Siberia, just 50 some odd miles from Alaska, because whatever weather is happening in Siberia today is likely to be in Nome tomorrow, and Anchorage the day after.

To be fair, the weather options are far fewer in Alaska than in the lower 48. Tornadoes are unheard of, as are hurricanes. Blizzards are fairly common. Smoke is often in the forecast, given the number of forest fires that occur up there. Heat is limited. Cold, rain, and snow occur in extreme overabundance. Whereas Fairbanks averages about 11 inches of rain per year (almost a desert), Ketchikan gets 162 inches. Barrow gets 28 inches of snow, and Valdez gets 290. The Harding Ice Field reportedly gets 400 inches of snow, but nobody lives there..

Occasionally, the sun comes out. Alaskans don't have a good handle on dealing with this condition. As they say up there, Alsakans don't tan, they thaw.

More pictures

We're still parked in northwest Washington state for a few more days. Here's another gallery of pictures from our Alaska trip to entertain you. You can also get to these on my photo site:

http://my.photoshelter.com/mahlonstacy

The Alaska Photo Gallery


Alaska - Images by Mahlon Stacy

Time for some pictures

Now that I have stable internet access, I've been using up all my upload bandwidth getting photos up to my photo site:

http://my.photoshelter.com/mahlonstacy

But you can view these photos here in this first gallery. I'll post more galleries here in a few days.


Alaska Highway - Images by Mahlon Stacy

Back in the USA

We've now parked at the Evergreen COHO Escapee park in Chimacum, Washington. We had 2 nice days, but today it's raining. Good weather to add a few paragraphs to the blog.

Desert-like terrain at Spence's Bridge

The trip down through lower BC had a surprise in store for us. As we approached our stopping place at Spence's Bridge, the road began to travel through a valley. The valley got deeper and narrower, and the vegetation began to look more arid. When we arrived, the valley had very few trees, the Thompson River was bounded by railway and roads on both sides.

We spent a peaceful night at Spence's Bridge, named for the bridge builder in the mid 1800s. The bridge is still there, but closed to traffic. It serves as a footbridge, but I was the only person trampling on it that we noticed. A new highway bridge ½ miles south carries all the cars and trucks.

Happy Canadian Sunflowers

We found a little coffee shop that had a limited, but flavorful menu for dinner. The town appears to be shrinking, the last gas station closed 2 years ago. Supposedly there were episodes of big horn sheep invasions from the nearby hills, but they shied away from us. We didn't determine that there were any other attractions nearby.

We left the next morning traveling south and found that the valley got narrower and deeper, reaching a max at Hell's Gate, where a footbridge was installed to scare the visitors out of their wits. The rail lines still followed both sides of the river, now called the Fraser, but they traversed through several tunnels as they clung to the canyon walls. The highway had several tunnels as well, and eventually crossed back over to the west side of the river, where we began a long descent from the canyon walls down to the less rugged valley that delivered us to Surrey, just east of Vancouver.

View of Vancouver Waterfront

We had found a directory of campgrounds near Vancouver and selected one based on location, price, and the availability of wifi. The price and location were as promised, but the wifi was “in the office only”. When I complained that carrying my desktop computer to the office would be difficult, the manager placed us somewhat close to the office. I was able to get intermittent access, and Consuelo got her laptop to work if she leaned out the bedroom window.

We got parked in a really tight site, where the our slides touched the trees on both sides of the RV. We then went off to look for a Chinese place for dinner, and found an excellent one, the Jade Forest, which has the best hot and sour soup we've ever tasted. The orange chicken was outstanding, too. I went back the next night to get some to go, but they were closed on Wednesdays.

Vancouver Tour Bus

During the day Wednesday, we tripped into Vancouver to see what we could see. We decided to take the “Big Bus” tour, which promised 22 stops and we could get on and off where we wanted. We arrived by the Transportation Center, where the cruise ships park in Vancouver, and the railway station is. We bought a combo ticket for the bus and Vancouver Lookout. Like many of our days in the past 2 weeks, it started to rain.

We rode the bus for about ½ hour, noting that many of the 22 stops were at hotels where passengers might be staying. We decided to leave the bus at Granville Island, home of the Market where all sorts of fresh fruits, vegetables, seafood, and prepared foods for lunch could be had. We both tried some pirogis, and had a spinach and cheese croissant. There were also artists, jewelry makers, photographers, and other trades for sale there, so we wandered for an hour or so. We finally made our way back to the bus and finished the tour, going through Stanley Park, China Town, and Gastown, where we got on, where we got off. We shopped some of the interesting stores in the neighborhood and watched the unique steam clock signal the hour.

The Vancouver Lookout is a circular observatory perched atop Harbor Centre, right next to where we parked, so we strolled over there and took the elevator up some 20 odd stories. Despite the gray weather, we got a nice view of the city and the harbor. Numerous twitter like city facts and descriptions were posted under the windows around the turret, and there were some fascinating (to me) panoramic photos form the late 1800's and early 1900's in a gallery area. I was fascinated because the negatives for the images were the same size as the photos, one of which was 8 feet long. There was also an interesting collection of old movie clips of Vancouver playing on a TV, some of which they played side by side against modern clips.

Formal gardens at Stanley Park

We rediscovered the challenge of rush hour traffic on our way back to the camper, something we had not missed in our months of travel. The next morning, after Consuelo took a quick trip to a fabric store to trade in our remaining Canadian dollars, we packed out of Surrey, and in 15 miles had packed our way out of Canada. We drove about 20 miles east, guessing that the border crossing there would be less busy. Crossing into the US with my expired passport turned out not to be an issue, and there was no line at noon.

Our route took us down I5 through Bellingham, where we tripped off to the west onto Whidbey Island. We made our first ever stop at a Northern Lights casino to lunch, and found a great buffet there for $7.77 each. We paid for lunch, and kept the rest of our money on our pockets.

Appropriately named eating place in Vancouver

We had to take a ferry from the end of Whidbey Island to the Olympic Peninsula where we are now staying. We found a phone number for the ferry on the sign that said, “Reservations recommended”, gave them a call, and made a reservation for 9:15 PM. But they said we could wait on standby if we went to the terminal, which we did. As it turned out, we got on the 4:30 ferry for our ½ hour ride across the bay. We chugged through Port Townsend down to Chimacum, and got ourselves parked for a 2 week stay, something we had not enjoyed since Fairbanks.