Fall City, WA

Thursday morning we packed up in the rain, pulled out in the rain, drove in the rain, arrived in the rain and set up in the rain. It's ugly out here folks! We moved 140 mile to Fall City just east of Seattle to join Dave & Trich Wood. Nice CG in the woods AND RAIN. It's nice to be with Jeff & Susan Collingwood plus the Dave & Trish.

Friday the women went after hair cuts and shopping while the guys hit one tavern, one brewery, and one bar. We also checked out a train museum, because it was next to the bar. That's Dave & Jeff in front of a snow plow used to keep the railroad passes open. We also stopped at a large waterfall, we know it's there because Dave told us so and we could hear it. But ya can't see it in the rain and mist. Friday night Judy played Bingo at the clubhouse and broke even.

Olympic National Forest

Today we all (Jeff, Susan & us) drove up and into the Olympic National Forest. You can't drive all the way through as there are no through roads. We drove into it as far as we could and saw the worlds largest Sitka Spruce tree which is about 1000 years old, Merriman Falls, the Bunch Creek waterfall, and Washington's oldest tree , a 1200 year old Western Red Cedar. The last tree was only a 1/4 mile hike but it was a tough one, uphill, slippery ground and tree roots, uneven dirt steps and lots of places to trip. The tree was more dead than alive but you could stand inside the trunk and look up into it! This is a rain forest that averages 12 feet of rain a year. We did see a black bear that was casually chowing down in a meadow, that was nifty.

Jeff &Susan Collingwood

Yesterday afternoon Jeff & Susan arrived as expected. They drove up from Oregon where they were camping with other HitchHiker friends. I met Jeff on the HitchHiker forum and they joined us (Ron & Lois, Bill & Judye) this past winter in the Rio Grande Valley on their way to Mexico. We spent yesterday evening and today visiting. We planned to drive to the Olympic National Forest today but it rained all night and this morning so we'll do it tomorrow. It's great to visit with friends!!!

Museum of the North Beach

After church this morning we returned home for lunch then hit the road north. We visited the above museum which was quite small but had lots of local history, the kind of museum we like. The picture showns how excited the locals are about their museum.

Ocean City, WA

We didn't do much Friday, we went for a walk across the bridge over the creek to the CG and into the woods. We don't know what these pine like trees are but if you touch them they spit a very fine powder into the air. We got a picture of one of the local residents out the back window. Late in the afternoon we drove to Ocean Shores (4miles) Judy went to Curves then we had pizza, it was pretty good, then we went to a Gershwin concert put on the the local choir. After that we got to see our first Pacific sunset, very few clouds for a change. While on the beach we met a couple from New Zealand, they have been driving up and down the west coast for 2 months taking advantage of the favorable dollar exchange rate, we had a nice visit with them. Today we drove to Aberdeen (22 miles) on Grey's Harbor. No activity in the harbor. We went to a farmers market but it was more of a craft fair. We also stopped at Walmart, Safeway for groceries and topped off the fuel tank at $4.76/gallon.

Ocean Mist CG

We made a big move today, 3 miles down the road; we couldn't get into this CG over Memorial Day but we're here now. We both agree that we like the open site CGs compared to where we were in the woods. We went for a walk on the beach. They collect all the stuff and junk that washes ashore and pile it up, interesting art form. We are 1/4 mile walk to the beach over the sand dunes and then another 1/4 mile to the waters edge. There are hundreds and hundreds of dead crabs on the shore. Lots of deer here too, one was chewing on the bush next to our site and we saw 3 in the sand dunes on the walk home. I have a theory, all you folks back east, in the mid west and in the Rockies suck up all the sunshine so by the time the sun comes up there's just none left for the OR & WA coast. Good thing these here RVs have good heating systems.

Having fun

I'm not sure what all we've been up to since last Thursday but we have washed the trailer including the roof (Judy did the roof) for the first time; washed the truck; went to an interesting church service Sunday, almost a revival; did laundry; cleaned our home inside; drove south along the coast to Gray's Harbor; went to a nice local museum; went out to eat a couple times; watched lots of racing action on TV; had the trucks oil & filter changed; went for some bike rides, and drove on the beach watching all the action on a cold damp day of which we've had too many.

Saturday evening I tripped over the water hose and broke the spigot off the CG water line. I had a 8 or 10 foot tall geyser of water shooting straight up in the air for 20 minutes until the maintenance man was able to shut the water off. We had several campers walking up to see where all the water was coming from that was flooding them out below us.

Today we traveled to Elma (40 miles) to visit with Gary & Suzanne Tomlinson from MI who we met at two rallies last year. They are passing through on their way north to Alaska. We had a great time catching up with events, having lunch and playing euchre, guys won 2 of 3 games.