Before heading south for the winter we made a quick trip to Washington. First we traveled to Sequim Washington to visit Judy’s sister, Genaveve, and her family, Karl and Mara and of course Izzy the cat. As luck would have it we arrived on Karl’s birthday, the auspicious 65th birthday. We started the day at the Oak Table Restaurant for a huge breakfast. When we finished, Mara jumped up and bussed our table. You see she works there.
Washington Trip
October 13, 2009
Open Mic
September 27, 2009
Wow what a weekend! As many of you know we enjoy Bluegrass Music. We are spending this weekend in Tygh Valley Oregon, attending a Bluegrass Festival. Best of all we run into old friends in these places. Friday, Dale and Sharon picked us out of a group and introduced themselves again. We originally met them in Goldendale Washington and they have been reading our blog ever since. They tell us they like following our journeys.
Wildlife
September 19, 2009
As usual this is a double entendre. We have been enjoying the wild life at the beach this week. We visited Ocean Park on the Longbeach peninsula in Washington. Long time friend and reader of this blog owns a condo on the beach. We parked Arcturus in the driveway. We had to back and fill several times to stuff all 52 feet of our rig in the space allotted to her condo. The windshield was 4 inches from the eves of the garage. Renee, Neil and Georgia came and Neil’s folks, Jerry and Janene and Neil’s brother Mark also came. The occasion was the celebration of Georgia’s third birthday. You will want to go the web site and see the photos of the birthday girl.
Trip Report
July 14, 2009
At the end of seven days and six nights aboard the Regal Jug, a 23 foot “Pocket Cruiser,” we were still speaking and still friends. Dave and Adrian each took one of the pipe berths and Judy and I had the Vee berth in the bow. Each night was the routine of shuffling the daytime equipment out of the way and laying out the cushions and sleeping bags for night. Several of the nights we were in marinas so we could get showers and use the on-shore restrooms. That does make it a little easier.
San Juan Islands
July 8, 2009
After an almost unbearable hot spell in Hillsboro we have taken our 23 foot sailboat, Regal Jug, to the San Juan Island Archipelago in Washington State. We were immediately rewarded with complete relief from the oppressing heat; perhaps even a bit too much of a good thing. It has been cold and drizzly both days that we have been here
Playing With Airplanes:
May 12, 2009
When I was a boy I built model airplanes and dreamed of flying. As a teenager a buddy and I took over a botched P-38 Lightning, “Comet Really Flies Kit.” It was supposed to be powered by rubber bands. We had to create some of the bulkheads from the plans, since the preprinted wood had been broken and mutilated. We almost finished it when we got a brilliant idea. We each had a small Cox “Thimble Drone, 0.049 cu. in.” gas airplane engine from our multi-crashed trainer airplanes. We would install these engines in this tiny little airplane with 36 inch wingspan. To make a long story short we succeeded even beyond our grandest dreams and flew this airplane on control lines for hours and hours.
Ode to a Pie:
April 26, 2009
O Lemon Meringue Pie, I yearn for your flavor;
‘Tis always a delight, ’tis wondrous to savor;
I wait a whole year for your taste.
Your tart lemon filling, such a rich golden hue;
The meringue peaks and valleys, delightful to view;
Until April each year I must wait.
The tart taste of lemons, an aroma so fine;
A crisp golden shell, so complete and divine;
I get a year older with haste.
Once such a prize, with a friend I did stake;
Play chess; to the winner, a present we’d make.
We’d both win in the end, it was fate.
Mittry Lake
March 15, 2009
Sometimes our life is one long campout. This has been one of those weeks. We joined up with a small group of friends near Yuma, AZ. We were camped on the desert on the shores of a small backwater off of the Colorado River called Mittry Lake. We were almost roughing it. We had no electric, no running water, no cable TV, no cell phone and no internet. We did have sparkling clear skies and a full moon each night. We sang songs around the campfire, had pot luck meals and coyotes yelping right under our windows in the middle of the night.
Matagorda Bay:
February 21, 2009
We have kicked back for a couple slow days at Indianola Park at the edge of Matagorda Bay. This is an estuary that forms the mouth of the Colorado River here in Texas. About 15 miles to our south-west is a line of barrier islands and then the Gulf of Mexico. On the map of Texas this bay is about half way between Galveston and Corpus Christi. The bay is about 350 square miles, and this afternoon when the wind came up we had some pretty impressive surf a hundred feet in front of the coach.
We just finished up a week of work-camping with our friends at Lutherhill, a Lutheran Youth Camp in the summer season. Our friends, Arnie and Mem, care for the grounds during the winter season. We did a few handyman tasks to justify our stay, but mostly we hung out with friends and went to the Opry in La Grange. (See our blog for Feb 20, 2007,(Under construction, link to come) for our last visit to the Opry)
The really nifty part of this location is that we dodged the latest freeze cycle a little further north of here. We woke up to 61 degrees this morning. We rushed out to get in a bicycle ride this morning before the predicted noontime rain. The rain squall caught us about five miles away in Indianola, Texas, a couple hours before predicted. Oh well, We won’t complain, Texas is a couple buckets short for the last two years.
Another advantage for this area is the abundance of birds. We have been logging gulls and terns, shore birds and Sandhill Cranes. We have spotted egrets, herons, pelicans, kingfishers and hawks.
Finally the camping here is free. Now you would think that the place would be overrun, but quite the contrary, it is only sparsely populated. We are “dry camping.” That means no electricity, no water, no wi-fi or cable T.V. There are a few fishermen and also a few full time travelers like us here too. We just met a couple from the Netherlands. They shipped their little European compatible camper over on a ship and they are touring our country for a full year. Just a couple weeks ago we met a family from New Zealand who were doing the same thing.
Meeting interesting new people is one of the rewards of our nomadic style of life. In fact as I sit here humming a few bars of Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville,” I find it hard to even remember what it was like “Workin’ nine to five,” with Dolly.
So Long from South Texas now where did I put that salt shaker?
Gary and Judy
It’s the People:
January 20, 2009
One of the things that we find fascinating about traveling around this great country is the fascinating people we meet. I am going to bring you a few vignettes of some people we have met this last week.
We stopped in a small town, Thibodaux, LA specifically to visit the Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center. We have run into this cultural group twice before in our travels. Once in Nova Scotia, where the Acadian people were expelled by the British at the end of the seven years’ war with France in 1763; (We call it the French and Indian War on this side of the pond.) and again in Maine when we toured Acadia National Park near Bar harbor.
