Sunday, October 28, 2018
Hey, Ann, where have you been? We miss you!
Ok, ok, I’m back. Gosh I’ve been gone a long time haven’t I? There are two reasons for my absence. As mentioned a while ago, I moved … and then it snowed while I was moving … and then my truck got hit (only minor damage to the truck but still it was in a body shop for a few days and I had a weird little rental car) … and moving is so time-consuming and distracting!
The second reason that I haven’t been posting here is that the hosting company (Bluehost) for my blog has again had problems and I haven’t been able to write a new blog post for over ten days. This is the third time this has happened. I am not happy and will be changing website host companies soon.
But now that I have access to the blog again, let’s get back to what’s really important … camping!
On my third camping day at Sequim (“skwim”) Bay State Park this past October, my friends who live in the town of Sequim again picked me up at my trailer and drove me all over the place in the opposite direction from Hurricane Ridge and from Dungeness River. We headed east this day, driving through lots of wonderfully wooded areas and on many back roads, with the historic town of Port Townsend as our destination. For more information about the fascinating history of this area, check out the website Jefferson County Historical Society.
In the photo above (which I found on the internet), the downtown area of the town of Port Townsend is immediately off to the left. This photo above shows the Point Hudson Marina and, to the right of it, some white-roofed buildings and then, to the right of that, a whole mess of RVs at the Point Hudson RV Park. From this RV park, you have a smack dab front row seat for a view of the most-used entrance to Puget Sound and to every ship, boat, tug, canoe, sailboat, etc, that cruises by here. There’s a back entrance to Puget Sound too (through the La Conner slough and/or Deception Pass, but probably 98% of the commercial ocean ships and tug boats with large barges that enter Puget Sound heading to Seattle or Tacoma chug right past this point, and hundreds/thousands of recreational boats do as well. Obviously, parked here in your RV, you’d have a terrific view but you’d also be wide open to wind coming in off the Strait of Juan de Fuca. But on a good day (and most summer days here are great days), gosh what a view!
The three of us ate lunch in one of those white-roofed buildings (Doc’s Marina Grill, yum) and then poked around the RV park, deciding which camp sites were our favorites.
Then we jumped in the car again and headed north to check out Fort Worden State Park and its campground. You can see the campground in the very VERY upper right hand corner of the photo above. It’s another peninsula with a lighthouse out at the end of it. This campground was mostly surrounded by a natural berm of land/sand and sea grass so it didn’t have the views that Point Hudson did, but a short hike over the berm brought us to a perfect sandy beach.
We discovered a marine center built out on a pier over the salt water. It seemed designed mostly for families with children and mostly for folks who didn’t know much about Puget Sound. Since all three of us were born/raised hereabouts or have lived here for decades, we didn’t hang out long in the marine center, but it was a nice walk out onto the pier. If you visit this area from somewhere else in North America or the world, this small marine center with its museum and an aquarium would be a great place to visit.
Heading back to the car, the fellow below said hello and wished us well. I believe he is a Harlequin Duck, yes?
And then we drove through more lovely countryside (there are no big cities out here) and eventually we returned to Sequim Bay State Park and my little trailer.
We could see rain coming, and lots of rain was forecast, but we had time to take a stroll through this campground and check out the non-electric campsites near the Sequim Bay waterfront/beach (all with too many trees for good solar charging capability), and then my two good friends headed home in their car.
I thought I might be sitting around this campground doing not much of anything for two or three days, but I sure saw a lot! Friends are the best, aren’t they? 🙂
I’ll hitch up the trailer to the truck this afternoon before the rainstorm hits and then I’ll be heading home tomorrow. I’ll post one more blog post describing tomorrow’s adventure, so stay tuned for that.
Did I miss something? You moved? From your home? I either missed it or I am having a senior moment.
Love the pictures. Sorry to hear your truck had to go in the body shop.
Hi Ginger, oh I think I mentioned “moving” in passing just once a bit ago. You were probably busy being enchanted by photos of Hurricane Ridge or some such. 🙂 For six years, I’ve been living in a gated 55+ community, independent living, 4-plexes, where the neighbor on the shared wall could hear everything I did and I could hear everything she did … in every unit, the bedrooms and bathrooms were right next to the neighbor’s bedroom and bathrooms. It was embarrassing, at the least, and sometimes irritating depending on the neighbor and how courteous they wished to be. I just got tired of paying lots of money for that. I’m now in a rental house (still in Tacoma) paying much less rent, the owner does the yardwork, and it’s quiet! AND, it has a very long, very flat driveway where I can park the trailer and so stop paying for storage for the trailer. I’ll buy a hefty cover for the trailer and move it to the house in April or May this year.
Ha, moving is stressful enough right? Then the big snow happened … then a taxi cab it me from behind (insurance covered it). You know the saying “when it rains, it snows” …. hmmm, or something like that. 🙂 But life is good, and the snow is gone and the truck is fixed and I’m a happy camper.
You are usually the first person to comment here, Ginger. After I couldn’t get into this blog for awhile, it was nice to finally produce a blog post again, and then it was great to see your comment right up front. Thank you for being here!
So glad you found a place you like, and is less money. Fantastic that you can park the RV there and get rid of storage fees. Plus convenient when you need to load and unload, and cleaning.
I love your blog and when you don’t see a comment from me, even if its just “Hi”, you know something is wrong. 🙂
When someone else comments before you do, then I start to wonder and then watch for you. I sure appreciate your support! You’re #1. 🙂
Hooray, you are back. I have been worried and have been bugging my wife incessantly (spelling) about whether you are ok or not and whether I should drive from Montana to Tacoma, Washington or not (though I don’t know where you live so what good would that do me). Please know that you really truly have been missed Ann! I’m glad you are ok, sorry about your truck, but I’d bet you took care of that properly and everything is now ok again. I thank you, and my wife will really thank you. Love the duck, is that real?
Hi Tim, your wife must love you. 🙂 Please buy her some flowers or a new table saw or a night on the town … whatever would please her. I sure would have been surprised to see you at my door, but actually that would have been pretty wonderful. I appreciate the concern and the willingness to help out. Yes, the duck is real. It truly is a Harlequin Duck, check it out on Google “images”. The first time I ever saw one, I swore it couldn’t be a real bird. There sure are some amazing things in this world.
Have to be honest, I wondered about whether that duck was real or not too, but I looked online and there are such things. How beautiful and what a great photo. Your photos are really good! And I’m glad you’re back too. 🙂
Thanks JudyBee. It’s really good to be back! I was pretty cranky during the time that I couldn’t get into the blog. But the up side was that I had more time for the move … to pack and then unpack. I’m still doing the latter, and I’m wondering why I have all this stuff! To my credit, I have taken several boxes full of useful things to donate, and will take more before I’m through. I suppose it would have been wise to do that sorting BEFORE the move, eh?
Missed you lots too…. it’s hard to believe we will all soon begin camping again – they just declared our February up in BC as the coldest on record since the 1950’s. Keep the faith, and thanks for the post.
I haven’t heard whether temps in Washington State have been record cold temps, but they sure feel like it down here too, Robin. It seems like spring and summer are so far away. Thanks for the reminder about camping … I will simply believe that camping weather will happen and will certainly look forward to that. I believe!