Chimacum, Part II

Our time in Chimacum is getting shorter and we have less than a week before we start our long trip thru Canada, New England, down the east coast and over to Texas. We decided not to do any landscaping on our lot here at this time as we will probably be gone for at least a year. We did get involved with the park though from working on the Landscaping Committee on Thursdays to learning to play new games and attending some very delicious meals such as the one given for Memorial Day complete with flag decorations on all the tables. One of the things we like about this spot is that we are living with folks who are either doing what we are doing or have already done what we are doing. Though many of them are in their 70’s and 80’s, they maintain an active lifestyle. The clubhouse is open at all times and consists of a crafts room, workout room, library, laundry, and game room in addition to the central meeting hall and kitchen most chefs would die for. Everyday there are games such as Ponytail Canasta, Mexican Train, Bridge, Poker, Cribbage, etc. that you can participate in. There are also classes such as a beading, Mah Jong, and computer. If none of those meet your fancy, you can work puzzles, read in the library or just sit in an easy chair by the fireplace. George and I decided to learn Mah Jong which is a game that originated in the Far East and is played with a set of 144 basic tiles. We had learned it when we were here six years ago but since we hadn’t played it for a while, we had forgotten how to do it. We had weekly classes of two hours and then weekly playing games of four hours. Many of the folks here are experts at the game so you learn a lot when playing with them.

Anyway, as you can see, we’ve been very busy with things here at the park. In addition, to the structured things, we are always meeting wonderful people and making good friends, such as our neighbors, Jaci and Don who patiently taught us cribbage. One of our friends from our previous visit here was Irene Greening. She had, at one time, owned a Westie named Nugget and she adopted McKenzie from the start. She would come by and take McKenzie for drives, for romps at the Fort with the baby goats and to her trailer, especially if we were going somewhere that we could not take McKenzie with us. She was a lifesaver for us and McKenzie and it got to the point that each time we walked down the road, McKenzie would start pulling to go towards Irene’s home. I know McKenzie, as well as us, are really going to miss her when we take off for our trip.

Martha and Red, George’s sister and brother-in-law flew out to visit with us in early May. Unfortunately, the weather was not great while they were here. It was in the low 50’s, drizzly and foggy, but we still had a good time. They stayed at a hotel in Port Townsend on the waterfront and we drove around looking at the various scenic places within 100 miles of Chimacum. We ate dinner at the John Wayne Marina and breakfast at the Blue Moose, which has very “colorful” patrons. On our trip to show them Sequim, we drove by an area that has many gnomes carved into the trees, fences, and buildings. After Sequim, we drove over to Lake Crescent Lodge. Unfortunately, we were a week too early to be able to go inside the Lodge, but we did get to look at it and the beautiful view of the lake (too bad it was so foggy) but at least they were able to see the deep blue water of the lake. The day they left was very cool and sunny and as they were driving back to Seatac to catch the plane, they were able to see some of the beautiful landscape and the gorgeous flowering shrubs.

A day excursion took George, Brenda, John and me over to Pouslbo which is often called “Little Norway” and is nestled along the quiet shores of Liberty Bay. Here you can experience breathtaking vistas of the Olympic Mountains, Scandinavian hospitality and old world charm. We discovered unique specialty shops and the world-famous bakery, Sluy’s, which is the home of the famous Poulsbo bread and even more delicious pastries. Naturally, we had to sample some of them. The first course was so good, we had to stop by before we left to take home some scones. After a day of shopping, we drove over to Silverdale to eat some halibut and chips at the Silver City Brewery. George tried the Ridgetop Red Amber Ale and I had the Fat Scotch Ale, brewed on site. They also brew their own Root Beer which is absolutely fabulous for those days when you want to be able to walk out of the brewery instead of stumbling out!

On another day, we all decided to take a trip to the Olympic National Park to hike up to Sol duc Falls. It was in the low 50’s when we arrived and got steadily cooler as we walked thru the forest and up to the falls. There was still snow on the ground in places and George and Brenda had a great time having a snowball fight while John and I took pictures. The falls were running fast and there was so much moss on the trees that they looked as if they were covered in green velvet. After spending several hours there, we decided to drive back to Lake Crescent Lodge and eat a late lunch. Since we had missed eating there with Martha and Red, we thought we’d try it this time. Unfortunately, it was not to be! We got there at 2:30 and they quit serving at 2:00. So we just looked around and ended up back at Sequim for lunch. We have so enjoyed our time with Brenda and John, playing games and just wandering around. We weren’t able to see them this past winter as they didn’t get a chance to come to the desert for the winter. We’re hoping that we can all meet in Texas sometime next winter and they can teach us to do rockhounding.

Though our time has been short, we have truly enjoyed every minute that we have spent here. We will miss all our friends as we head out to do our next trip. The diesel prices are killers up here right now (currently $5.04/gallon), but we still want to take our planned trip. We’re not getting any younger and we want to go while we can still enjoy it and won’t feel intimidated about pulling a large rig. If the prices continue to rise, we may have to take much shorter trips in the future and sit for longer in one spot. We will re-evaluate after this year. Our plans are to spend approximately 3 months going across Canada to the Maritime Provinces. Hopefully we’ll be in the New England states in time for the changing of the colors. While we are in Canada we will not have the Broadband card for the computer as we are putting it on “vacation”, while we are there, but we will continue to try to find Wifi spots in order to keep you updated on what we are doing and where we are going. Hope you will continue to travel along with us and enjoy all the sites and experiences that we can share with you. Love and hugs to everyone!!

Our Very Own Piece of Heaven - Chimacum, Washington

Hello once again to all our friends and family. Now that it is about time for us to leave our “home” in Chimacum, Washington and begin another adventure, I figured I’d better get all of you caught up with the blog.

We arrived in Chimacum, which is on the Olympic Pennisula, on March 27th and had planned on spending a couple of months here. On the morning of the 27th, we left Oregon in the pouring rain. As we traveled closer to Washington, the weather changed to sunny, then to cloudy and finally to snow! This was McKenzie’s first experience with that wet, white stuff and she wasn’t sure what to do with it. She wanted to bury her nose in it and push it around. Once her nose and toes got cold, she was ready to head back to the truck.

We pulled onto our site and after a brief few days of rest, we began cleaning out the trailer and truck and deciding what could be left here in the storage building. Once we got everything out that we wanted to leave, we were amazed that we had had any room at all in the trailer. The park looked as beautiful as ever with all the tulips, natural rhodies, and pansies in bloom. Several of the folks who live here several months out of the year or year round, have decided to put “park models” on their lots. They still cannot be over 400 square feet, but many of the folks feel this is a better solution for their way of life. The main road is lined with cherry trees that blossom out in mid May.

During the month of April, it snowed 4 times – usually only a small amount that did not stick to the ground, but on one occasion, we had huge, fluffy snow flakes that came down for about 4 hours and it was truly beautiful to see all the snow in the trees. This past spring has been a very cold and damp spring, not what we had experienced six years ago when we were here as Assistant Managers. The “dry rain” was so soft and gentle that it did not keep us from doing anything that we wanted to do outdoors – nothing like the downpours we have in Texas!!

We spent time with our friends, Brenda and John Haworth who live in Sequim and also are fellow RVers. It was always fun to go to their place and see the wildlife that comes around, raccoons come right up to the porch and the deer are not shy either as they love to munch on Brenda’s flowers and shrubs. Sequim is the lavender capital of North America and has the Olympic Mountains at its back and the Strait of Juan de Fuca in its face. It is located about 23 miles from our park and is a large enough town to have most of the stores and necessities one needs. In May, the mountains were still wearing a lot of snow.

One of our day excursions with Brenda and John was over to Keyport, Washington to visit the Naval Undersea Museum. They had some very interesting displays featuring the history of undersea warfare and exploration. It is an official Navy museum and exhibits torpedos, submarine technology and diving technology. Sub Group 9 commands all the Trident submarines in the Pacific Ocean. The Naval Base Kitsap is the only base for Tridents on the U.S. west coast. Nine Tridents have their homeport at Bangor on the Hood Canal. The Tridents are always on patrol somewhere in the world’s oceans. No one ashore and only a few crew members know where the boat is for security measures. Each Trident has two complete crews – a Blue crew and a Gold crew. The two crews allow the submarine to stay at sea for more than 8 months each year. One crew takes the boat on patrol while the other crew remains at Bangor and conducts pre-deployment training.

An interesting exhibit was the Marine Rescue Chamber which was designed and operated to rescue sailors from sunken submarines. It had the ability to descent to 850 feet. On May 23, 1939, a McCann Rescue Chamber successfully rescued 33 crew members from the USS Squalas, trapped on the bottom at 240 feet. This event was both the first and last time the Navy rescued men from a sub using a rescue chamber.

The latest rescue vehicle is the DSRV (Deep Submarine Rescue Vehicle) which is designed to search out a nuclear submarine in distress, mate itself to the sub’s escape hatch and take up to 25 crew members at a time from a disabled sub. It is capable of diving 5,000 feet and can be transported by air, surface ship, or sub to the rescue location. The museum had a mock up of this vehicle which was built by Paramount Studios and featured in the film “Hunt for Red October”.

Another outing was to the Art Deco Light Museum in Port Townsend. The city is full of Victorian houses that have been restored. Port Townsend was the first in Washington state to establish the Main Street program, encouraging preservation of historical districts, renovation and restoration of buildings. It is one of the few cities nationwide that is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Kelly Art Deco light museum was created by a gentlemen who loved to collect lights. He soon acquired so many that he decided to create a “free museum” in the upstairs of his vintage hardware store so he could share his love of lights. In the museum are rare glimpses of lights from the years of 1928 – 1938. It is the only Art Deco Slip-Shade light museum in the world. The museum contains over 400 fixtures including hanging chandeliers, wall sconces and table lights which graced the homes of the middle and upper classes during the Great Depression. Some lights are so rare that no books have ever documented them and some became obsolete before a catalogue could be made to sell them. We especially enjoyed the vintage hardware store below the light museum as well which sold all types of handles, locks, lights, fasteners, etc.

This state is a very diverse state, having dramatic changes in scenery. Worlds collide in Washington where the sea meets the forest, the forest meets the desert and snow-capped mountains tower above all. In our area, the Olympic Pennisula, we have Indian legends, mineral hot springs, a temperate rain forest, a Victorian Seaport and four-season outdoor recreation. Forts are prolific here and you can literally run yourself ragged trying to see everything and absorb all the history. Two months will only scratch the surface, but we’ll be back here again to do more investigating. It is a wonderful place to absorb Mother Nature. Watch for our next episode of life on the peninsula.