Ocean City, WA

Monday was a nice sunny and warm day so we relaxed and enjoyed it. Mistake. Tuesday and Wednesday it was cold and rainy all the time. We did some routine work on the trailer while trying to stay dry. Today we left Randle about 9:30 after having a mom & pop RV shop install a safety recall on the fridge. Another overcast and misty day in the 50s but a short 130 mile trip back to the Pacific arriving at Ocean Shores CG at noon. Nice site, totally surrounded by trees and bushes with a creek right behind us, fortunately the TV dish works! After setting up we discovered the A/C (not that we will need it anytime soon!), heat pump (you bet we'll need that!), and the fridge didn't work. No power. Circuit breakers all OK. I called RV (service managers initials!) at NuWa service and he informed me these A/C powered units needed 12v DC power too. Yep, blown fuse, probably when the mom & pop RV shop installed some metal barriers to eliminate a fire hazard in the fridge. Thank you RV. We went for a drive and stopped at the post office, hardware store, McDonald's and went for a drive on the beach. When we returned we went for a walk and found a small cemetery in the woods about 6 sites down from us. Seems 2 ships (one from Chile and another from England) floundered in the 1880s here. There are 12 British sailors buried there plus an Indian who saved many other sailors, he died many years latter. There are two 17 & 20 year old siblings also buried here. Kind of dark, damp and dreary place.

Mt St Helen

Before I go any further I have to tell you yesterday was a red letter day, the first day since we retired we made money!! Judy won $16.50 playing card bingo. This was significant!!

It was beautiful today, lots of sun and hi 70s. We drove to Mt St Helen, about 120 miles although we are probably about 50 miles, at most, from it. We passed a tulip nursery on the way, checkout the flower I picked for myself. The local short cut passes are still closed due to snow. The local paper said the average snowfall is about 550 inches, they got 890 this winter, that's about 72 FEET of snow. I have seen pictures of the mountain before but really never grasped the significance of the eruption until we saw it ourselves. The top of the crater is 1 1/2 miles across. There is now a glacier that's 500 feet thick inside the crater. Mt Rainier was nothing compared to seeing St Helen today. Today was the 28th anniversary of the eruption so there was a special presentation at the Johnson Ridge Observation across from St Helen where you can look right into the crater. My pictures do not do justice to the mountain and what happened here.

Mt Rainier

We tried the south approach but 2 of 3 passes were still closed due to snow. We returned home and had lunch then tried the western entrance with success. It was a long drive up and not too much traffic. We left home at 94 degrees and it was 49 on Mt Rainier. We both believe that seeing Mt Shasta from 10 and 50 miles away was much more impressive than 14,410 Rainier. You can't see Rainier from a distance (at least not from the direction we arrived) because of the Cascade Mountains surrounding it. On the way we stopped to check out the smallest Lutheran church in the US. Sunday services are at 2:30pm.

Randle, WA

Not much going on today, we stayed put and strolled around the CG. One big change......sunny and hot. Mid 80s, I am remembering that I like the 70s much better. When we got up we saw the mountains, snow and how pretty is is here now that the rain has stopped and clouds cleared.

Randle, WA

Yesterday was a laid back day, R&R, laundry, packing up. To day we got up at the terrible hour of 6:30am and were on the road at 7:45 in the rain. We wanted an early start as we stopped at an RV dealer to have our tires rotated and balanced plus the suspension lubed. We arrived at Maple Grove at 2:30 in the rain. This is another free CG and is also a golf course, it's just north of Mt St Helen and south of Mt Rainer. We're in the boonies and it's very peaceful & quiet. As you see in the picture is wet here, you can't see the hills behind us due to the low wet clouds.

Evergreen Aviation Museum

After Judy's water aerobics we drove to McMinnville (50 miles) to the above museum. Judy discovered Howard Hughes Flying Boat (Spruce Goose) is there so we had to go. If you blowup the interior picture of the Goose you'll see colorful beach balls in the bottom right corner. Howard had lots of them placed inside the Goose in several locations to ensure it wouldn't sink. The museum started as a winery and purchased the Spruce Goose for $1 after winning the contest committing to move it here to a new museum. The building is impressive and chuck full of planes & aviation history stuff. They have a B17, Corsair, WWI Jenny & Sopwith Camel, Spitfire, MIG-15 & 17, ME109, Ford Tri-Motor, Avenger, Hellcat, SR71 Blackbird, Phantom, B-25, P-51, a Russian space capsule, well over 60 planes. There' also a new IMAX theater there and they are opening a new big building this summer housing a Titan ICBM in it's silo and they are quite optimistic they will get a space shuttle when the are retired, scheduled for 2010. We also filled up the truck for over $230, the tanks were a little over half empty. Diesel was cheap, $4.23, at an Indian reservation & casino. The pics are of the Spruce Goose (built out of birch wood), ME109, Spitfire, B17, & Corsair.

Tillamook Air Museum & Cape Mears

Saturday it rained lightly all day. We joined others from the CG for a tacos potluck at the club house and then several of us played Mexican Train (dominoes). When Judy returned from church Sunday morning we went to the Air Museum housed in a WWII blimp hanger. The hanger covers over 7 acres, 1072 feet long, 192 feet tall; the doors are 120 feet tall and open 220 feet. I fit through them. We spent 3 hours checking the planes, WWII artifacts, history, the video hanger history and hanger itself out. Following the museum we drove along the coast and stopped at the Cape Mears lighthouse and overlooks. Check out the picture of the octopus tree.