The Sock Dog

Who knows what goes through our dog's mind. 

We just know that Miss Lily always has to find something new to do to entertain us. 

Her latest "trick" is demanding a pair of socks each morning when I get mine out. 

Here she is trying to reach up to the 3rd shelf by herself. 

So as a good master, I put one pair on the 2nd shelf. 

She grabs them,
runs into the front room shaking them ,
and gets dog saliva all over(ugh). 

Then she is ready for pair two. 

Sometimes she gets picky, and I need to put the box of socks down for her to pick her favorite. 

White wins hands down but teal is a close second.

More Christmas Joy

What a treat it was to go see the preschool Christmas program. 

These teachers did a wonderful job of

making the songs joyful, fun, and short! 
It kept the little kid's attention.
They looked forward to the juice and cookies after!

Boat Parade NW Style: Rain

Paul and Marj invited their friends and neighbors over to watch the parade of boats from Bremerton Yacht Club. 

As much of December is, so was this evening: rainy and windy.  The kids enjoyed it even more than us adults but we all got a great kick out of it.  Many people watched and the nautical Santa called out Merry Christmas to 800 people who had called in to the yacht club to be recognized by a big Santa Ho Ho as the boats passed. 

Besides the decorated boats, we thought our host's deck tree was pretty spectacular.

Flashing lights at 2 AM

It's always eerie to wake up and see flashing lights through the window.  Quietly, the firemen came to fight this house fire across the street from us.  It had started in the garage.  Thankfully, all got out of the house safely.  The home is totaled.

Christmas in the NW

Might be only the third Christmas we have spent in the NW in 15 years.  So we looked around for any Christmas decorations and found lots of boxes up on the shelves.  No Christmas tree, tho.  So we made do with a flat tree which worked out pretty good.  Another bonus: we didn't need to worry about Miss Lily feeling it was necessary to push a free-standing tree over. 

See what I mean?  Our friend Joanne has a free-standing tree and Miss Lily spent a lot of time exploring underneath.

Found Miss Lily's Christmas coat which she wore nicely.  Ain't she cute.

Merry Christmas!

Winter's here already?

Wouldn't you know it?  The day before we needed to be in Seattle at O dark thirty, the snow came, the temperatures dropped, and Seattle became a parking lot.
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As the weatherman kept changing his forecast, we decided it made sense to get to Seattle the day before our appointment.  Luckily our dear friend, Caroline, graciously welcomed us (including Miss Lily) to her home and guest room.  After packing for overnight: toiletries, clothes, and dog stuff, we were off!
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We caught the 3 pm ferry out of Bremerton where there was about 2" of snow with more falling.  By the time the ferry landed in Seattle an hour later, all the roads there were mostly iced up and the snow was still falling.  With Dean's superb driving, we made it up Pill Hill, crossed an icy overpass over I-5, and to our friend's house without spinning out, hitting anybody, or getting in the way of anybody else who was spinning out!  It took us 2 1/2 hours going 4 1/2 miles! 
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And as it turned out, we were one of the lucky ones:  We saw stalled buses and many vehicles spinning their wheels.  And there were news reports of people taking 12 hours to travel 15 miles!
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After we got to Caroline's home, strong winds came up and 6 more inches of snow fell but the power stayed on.

The rest of the car did not look any better!

The next morning, we left plenty early before most cars were out and had no problem except trying to navigate the un-sanded ramp from the underground parking garage.  The roads to the ferry and from the ferry to home were dry where the ice had melted in the sun.  There were just a few fully iced spots on our route and a lot of them had sand to help with traction. 

Glad I wasn't standing here when this "arrow" branch fell!

Not much snow at home.  Our roads hadn't been sanded and there was plenty of ice.  The wind storm had hit here too, as we had lots of broken branches in our yard.  The neighbors told us the power had been out for 12 hours.  

Isn't Nature Wonderful?

This spider web caught my eye this morning.  What a beautiful structure.  Such symmetry. 

Here Birdie, Birdie

We have 8 or 10 birdhouses around our property.  But we noticed only one or two were occupied this year.  So it was time to give them a fall cleaning.  Cleaned out all the old nesting material and then scrubbed them with a little bit of bleach, water, and a wire brush.

Surprise when we got to this special house that some friends of ours made!

Maybe some bird couple did want to build here but with no bottom all the twigs fell out.  Sheesh!

(Not sure when the bottom came off but it was more than a year ago. - Not very observant, were we?)

Frustration

Weren't we surprised to find that the shiny new boat engine is the wrong size: 350 not a 305!  All the right numbers in the wrong order.  Wasted time bolting things on which all now come off. 

What a blessing that we hadn't installed it and then wondered why the performance did not match the other engine. 

New 305 engine coming in next week.  Dean's getting good at finding places to bolt pieces on.

Stay tuned!

Ain't she a beaut!?

The new engine for the boat.  Lots of nice shiny paint. This will do the trick! 

For the moment Dean is bolting marine "stuff" on the engine before he plops it back in the boat. 

I'm hoping a home is found for all these piles of parts!

Traveling the Mount Baker Scenic Byway

We had an enjoyable afternoon visiting our grandson who is attending Western Washington University in Bellingham.  Got to see his new digs and meet one of his roommates.  Nice big apartment and so convenient to campus.  (Do all guys keep their apartments neater than girls?  Or was it specially clean for our visit?  Whatever.  It was nice.)
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So now that we were up in this NW corner of the state AND the fall monsoons hadn't started, we took a day to travel up the Mount Baker Highway.  Great day to travel.  Very nice green drive with big trees. 

We took a side road to Nooksack Falls and enjoyed the scenery and the thick layers of moss in the area. 

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Up, up, up we continued.  The forest was so thick that glimpses of the mountains were rare until we neared the top.  At that point, the trees fall away, the soil becomes rocky, Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan come into view. 

This area is called Heather Meadows

and many of the plants were showing their fall colors. 

At 4250 feet and the end of the road is Artist Point. 

Pretty appropriate name, we think.

Feeder Wars

Now that we are home for a while we are keeping our bird and squirrel feeders full and getting lots of action.  We enjoy watching the antics. 
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Not all is fun and games though as we found when Mr. Merlin, the falcon, came to prey upon our songbirds.  Because he attacks with a dive, we now understand why many of our birds were hanging out under the covered porch where an effective dive cannot be done.  We have seen him around a few times and we are sure he has got a few of our birds but there are still many around.
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Most of the peanut eaters are squirrels and blue jays (Steller's Jays in the northwest).  These are pretty brave jays to tuck their bodies into the hole of the squirrel feeder and enter the gallon jar to steal a peanut.  The squirrel feeder is up there for squirrels so Dean has added a piece of wood with a smaller hole and so far the jays have not been brave enough to squeeze in.  Don't worry.  They aren't starving.  They dig up peanuts the squirrels have buried in the lawn and gardens and the jays have mastered the technique of "bump and scatter" at the bird feeders.  They bump the bowl with birdseed with enough force to tip seed out of the bowl and then the jays eat the seed that has fallen to the ground.
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Most of our squirrels are Eastern gray squirrels.  We've been told that they bully our smaller Douglas squirrels.  Well, as we've seen, those Douglas squirrels are very territorial and they can fight off more than one gray squirrel that is trying to get a meal at the feeder while he is there.  Go Doogie!

Sister Irene's progress

To all our friends who have been joining us in thoughts  and prayers of hope for sister Irene, she has finished all treatments in her fight to cure her throat cancer.  She now needs to work at healing. 
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The accumulated effects of the radiation will continue to cause havoc for at least another two weeks.  As she's finding out, the pain is much worse than it was during the treatments.  According to her doctors, the pain will be very bad for a while longer and then will subside, the blisters in the throat will heal and she can work at weaning off the heavy medications she's been on. 
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Her doctors say she is healing nicely and she needs to be patient, get lots of rest, and try to eat (she's still on a liquid diet).  She's looking forward to a day when her energy level is up and she's able to sit down to eat a meal.
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Throat cancer is nasty and the doctors will continue to check her on a monthly basis to ensure it stays at bay.

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She deserves all the kind thoughts you send her way.

THE BOAT GREMLIN HAS BEEN FOUND

With much straining and cussing, Troob's starboard engine was stripped of more and more pieces, trying to find how the cooling water got into the crankcase oil.  A couple of early possibilities proved not to be the cause.  However, when pressure-testing the exhaust manifolds (which are water-cooled on boats, requiring a double-walled construction ---  one chamber for exhaust gas, surrounded by one for cooling water), a small leak was detected between the chambers.  The technician poked the weeping spot with a screwdriver, and went right through to the other chamber.  Shoot!  New manifolds required.



.Meantime, we had found a quarter-sized rust spot on the side of one of the cylinder walls.  An old spot, quite rough.  More than could be honed smooth.  Now we're looking at a re-bore, new rings and pistons, and we haven't even looked for possible main bearing damage yet. 

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Consensus:  New (or rebuilt) engine.  Double shoot!!

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Troob has given us a lot of pleasure over the 32 years we've had her.  I guess it's pay-back time, so she can give us some more in days to come.

'Round the Mountain - Mt Rainier tour

September weather this has been the pits with record rainfalls.  By September 20th, we had already been drenched by 4 1/2" of rain which was triple the average amount for all of September.  So when the weatherman "promised" a couple nice days at the end of the month, we decided to head on out. 

Laurie's mom went with us on a 'Round the Mountain tour
on a gorgeous fall day. 

Lots of brilliant foliage in oranges and reds. 

DEFINITION OF A BOAT:

A hole in the water in which you pour money.

Ha ha, hee hee?

Oh my, oh no, when it happens to TROOB!

When in an engine, the water goes down and the oil level goes up, we know we've got trouble. 

Our South Sound trip was truncated and we limped home.

Our captain has been busy stripping pieces off the engine searching for the source of the failure. 

Slag Heap

When we were kids there was a copper smelter in Tacoma.  We remembered the ore cars filled with molten red slag and the sizzle when being dumped into the sea.  Buckets and buckets of slag were dumped.  Some had even cooled a bit and you can see the shape of the buckets still. 

A nice large protected moorage was created from the slag heap which is used by Tacoma Yacht Club today.  It's interesting to see the tall slag rock wall alongside the moorage.  For many years the boaters here didn't have to worry about sea creatures covering their boat bottoms.  The water was too full of arsenic.

(We have since learned of all the damage to the waterway and surrounding neighborhoods the smelter caused but that's another story.)

Mega Lake Washington scenes

MegaRain: Ah, another record-setter weekend.  The most rain in one hour in September goes along with the most rain ever in the first half of September.  Aren't we glad our mother's raised us with the taunts: "go play in the rain - you won't melt".  This is hard rain tho!

MegaMansions: We enjoyed touring around Mercer Island. 

Moored in Bellevue where all the beautiful waterfront homes were priced from 2 to 9 million.  That is $2,000,000+! 

Did find an old condo going for only $690k.  That's almost affordable, ha!  Lots of work to make these places look so fine.  Good place for landscaping firms to find business.

Now the family that lives here can't afford to have their home show from the water. 

But all the charter boats know that the Gates family lives here. 

So that's how we know where to aim our camera.

 MegaYachts: Our poor little old boat.  30 some years ago we were a "big" pleasure boat.  Now, and especially in Bellevue, we are teeny.  Ah, well, we can always gloat that we don't need crew to help us run it!  These don't need much crew, either.

The lake even has a mower!

MegaFans: As we headed back toward the sea with beautiful blue skies, many folk and many boats were setting up for an afternoon of college football. 

We were assaulted by purple and red.  Purple for purple and gold University of Washington.  And red for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. 

The Cornhuskers beat the UofW handily which must have thrilled the 15,000 who flew here to see the game!

Die Critters, Die!

One of the reasons for taking our boat through the locks into Lake Washington is to slay the salt water critters who may have claimed a hold onto our boat bottom and intakes. 

 

Figuring it had been a couple months since we had cleaned Troob's bottom, that's where we headed.  With my new "birthday" lock line, I was comfortable in case we had to tie to the big lock wall. 
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As it turned out both lock transits were a piece of cake.  Going into the lake, we didn't need to toss our line up to the lockmasters in the big lock as we tied alongside someone else.  Coming back out we were in the small lock where tying to the wall is simpler than tying to shore.  Hoorah!
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Pray we have left a few salt water critters behind!

Serious stuff

Just last week my sister called to tell me that she has throat cancer.  No she hasn't smoked nor drank (much) which is usually what may cause it.  But she has it all the same. 
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She's having to be brave for 7 weeks of radiation and chemo in a very delicate place starting the 30th. 
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Any and all positive thoughts and prayers during this time will help a lot.

Home Again

We chugged on through Oregon and Washington heading safely home.  We met with traveling friends and stopped at casinos along the way.  Surely not to gamble but to rate their amenities - ha!  Home to chores and repairs and weeding. 
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Recap: 41 days, 3307 miles, average 81 miles per day in the RV (ugh!) - that average does not include 1100 CuRVy miles.  The RV managed 10.6 mpg.

Travels through Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho

Colorado: We expected the Rocky Mountains to look much like the Grand Tetons (rugged) and with a lot more snow than they had.  In the western area of Colorado we saw no snow and lots of brown desert. 
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Once we climbed over the mountains, we did see small patches of snow in the national park but the rest of the mountains were bare.  Where we found trees in the hills, they were mostly pine and easily half are being decimated by the pine bark beetle and have red needles. It was amazing to be able to travel on paved roads to 11,000 feet and higher. 
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Tickled us to see the many medical marijuana shops.  Some looked official like a doctor's office but even more looked like hippie head shops. 
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Wyoming was green!  I thought the prairies would be dry and brown with sage.  But there was a lot of green. 

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And many, many antelope out in the fields.  Read that the antelope are so speedy that they will browse close to a mountain lion or a bear knowing that they can outrun their foes - so no worry. 

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Snow fences.  Lots of them, too.  Even a few "natural" snow fences - instead of cutting up trees, 3 rows of trees and shrubs are planted in place of a snow fence.  Not new technology as the railroads planted nearly 100,000 trees along their tracks by 1909.  Major problem with the natural snow fences is getting the new trees established with little water.

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Idaho is really on a campaign to stop the use of Meth.  Quite a few murals were up on the sides of buildings and barns with messages like:"Don't Meth with me"  "Don't get roped into Meth - not even once" "It's your life, don't Meth it up".  Did read that teen use of meth has slackened off since the campaign started.  Good.

Forest Service camping - this week

Ok, ok, so I gripped about private campgrounds and how unappealing they are - neighbors too close, less wildlife, among other things.  So this week we spent in Forest Service campgrounds and...well, some of our experiences weren't as nice as we've had other times.

Fremont Lake - Forest Service Campground out of Pinedale, WY: Only 7 miles out of town and on a paved road. That's cool. Should have been leary when the turn off the main drag was about like going into a shopping center parking lot...as we turned the corner - yep, it's a street. Off we go on a nice 2 lane road for 3 miles. Then we turn into the forest service land. Still 2 lanes - we can tell because there is a faded yellow line in the center of the 16' road. 4 more miles. Oh, I forgot to say that the roadsides haven't been cleared for many a year and no, there isn't 16' left. Lots of patches for potholes - many more needed - deep potholes! Ah, finally we are to a beautiful wooded campground: lots of aspen!
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Alas, same people who haven't cut back the entrance road haven't been here either. Nice paved sites - 8' wide. Nice pull thru's - 8' wide paving with broken pavement and drop-offs 4-6" - that's where the wheels go - where the side of the rig goes are aspen branches (soft) mostly - the fir boughs weren't. Lookee here, we finally got all 6 wheels on the pavement.
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Oh, I forgot to mention that they have a warning for their speed bumps 4" high - really steep and short - kinda like going over a 4x4.  When we left, it took 20 minutes to go .8 of a mile to get out of the campground.  Many places the cleared path was only 7 1/2' wide - lots of scrapping down the side with the undergrowth...and more potholes...and those speed bumps!  Pretty place.  Saw a buck go thru our site one morning. 

So we decided, we've learned our lesson, we will unhook and go check out the campground first. 
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Well, we didn't at our next stop which was Calamity Campground on the Palisades Reservoir in Idaho.  I think the name of the campground should have been a clue.  I knew we crossed a dam - no problem.  I just didn't realize we'd have to run a one-lane chicane to get to the campground.  Nothing I have read said that.  All the road area in orange is one-lane.  Where the arrow is is a square corner at a natural rock wall that you can't see around.  There is a mirror to see if anybody is coming but we were real glad that nobody was because we can't back up while towing the CRV.  Besides campers coming up this road, there is a boat launch so boats on trailers are part of the heavy traffic.
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This is what the road looked like from the CRV as we went back down to reconnoiter our plan of attack.  I was the pilot car and Dean did not bring the RV through until I turned the 90 degree corner because nobody was out there.  I think that a traffic light limiting it to one way traffic would be good.  Or even a warning horn at the 90 degree. 

We made it but I'm ready to go back to a campground right off the freeway (or maybe not).

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So these were my Forest Service campground stories for the week.