The skies are gray, the ocean is gray and there’s a definite nip in the air so this seems like a good time to begin blogging. The blog was established over two years ago when Howie attended a Geeks on Tour seminar at an FMCA rally but “establishing” and “writing” are two different critters. Last month I attended the same seminar in Redmond and vowed to get the blog up and running.
We are currently parked a few hundred yards from the ocean. It might even be said that we have an ocean view from our dining room window…if we stand on tip-toe and crane our necks. It was somewhat easier before the big 5th wheel moved in next to us yesterday.
It’s difficult to decide where to pick up the saga of our travels. Going too far back is silly, mostly because dates and places tend to get muddled in our brains. Thank heavens for daily journals and dated photographs….at least we can piece together events if we need to. So let’s start the saga in Prineville, Oregon in mid-August after we wrapped up the FMCA rally in Redmond and chapter rallies in Canyonville and Prineville.
Our friend Betty is a resident of Prineville and she graciously took charge of showing us the sights in central Oregon. One day she drove us up into the Cascades, through the tourist trap known as Sisters and along the Mackenzie River. We hit most of the shops in Sisters but managed to keep control of our charge cards. Because there’s only one road in and out of town, the traffic is dense. My heart went out to those poor souls on the few side roads who wanted to merge onto the main drag…they may still be sitting there waiting for a break in traffic.
Later in the week the Parrs drove up from Sprague Riv
Unfortunately our trip to Smith Rocks State Park got cut a little short when we had to hurry back to Prineville so a new driver’s side window could be installed in the coach. 
It was great to spend time with Betty and the Parrs but eventually it was time to move on. We moseyed on up the road and spent a week in Elma, Washington from whence we explored Olympia, primarily with a visit to the state capitol campus. The Legislative Building dominates the campus and is what most folks would picture if called upon to define a capitol. It’s the one with the dome. We always appreciate having a tour guide for such tours because they inevitably have juicy little stories to tell about the history of the area.
Like so many other cities and towns in the Pacific Northwest, Olympia has a very fine farmers’ market. Prices are generally quite high but there’s always some unique fruit or vegetable to be had. In this case, we purchased some donut nectarines which were very tasty and much neater to eat than the regular round ones. But we still prefer the white donut peaches!
From Elma we drove northeast up U.S. 101 on one of the few rainy days we’ve experienced lately. It was not a comfortable ride for me because the road runs along the shores of the Hood Canal and you all know how I feel about water in large quantities. But we eventually found ourselves in Sequim and settled in for a week’s stay. A sign outside the office touted a bus/ferry tour to Vancouver Island and we signed up almost immediately. There are some days when you just guess correctly…we picked the perfect day for the trip although it was hard to tell that when the bus picked us up at 6:50 in the morning. That’s the first time Howie’s seen 6:50 a.m. since our last ferry trip to Canada back in the olden days when the Fast Ferry was still running between Rochester and Toronto.
The bus was pulled onto the ferry facing a semi which was jack-knifed into his parking spot in the bow of the boat. Watching him extricate himself upon arrival was a miracle in driving expertise. With only inches to maneuver at either end of the rig, he managed to get it jockeyed around enough to exit without so much as a scrape. That was a really good thing because nobody else could get out until he did.
Our first stop in Victoria was at Butchart Gardens, a mecca for any flower fanatic. Usually we end up visiting big-name gardens when nothing much is in bloom but this time we caugh
After tiring our tootsies with two laps around the gardens, we reboarded the bus (we were the only passengers so it was a very private tour) and were taken on a ride to some of the fancier neighborhoods of Victoria then dropped off downtown so we could scout around and have dinner before heading back to the ferry. The Parliament Buildings were sitting right there across from the dock and so we availed ourselves of a guided tour. And, sure enough, one of those juicy stories from “the olden days” became the highlight of the tour. The architect, Francis Mawson Rattenbury (1867-1935) was quite the cad and met a violent end with a croquet mallet upside his head. You can probably read all about it at www.leg.bc.ca
While in Sequim, we also made a foray into Olympia National Park with a stop at Hurricane Ridge for an overview of the Olympic Mountains to the south and the Straits of Juan de Fuca to the north. It was a little odd to be able to “see over” the cloud covering Port Angeles to the Straits and on to Vancouver Island. There were black-tail deer wandering around the parking lot, plenty of tourists but thankfully no bears. We also stopped at Lake Crescent, a beautiful glacial body of water, for a ranger-led hike to Marymere Falls. While not technically a rain forest, it could have fooled me! There’s lots of ferns and moss and very large trees making a dense canopy of shade. And moss. Did I mention the moss? It covers everything.
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