Saturday, July 19, 2014

Ocean Shores, Washington

We are in Ocean Shores staying at Ocean City State Park.  We are here for four days getting our last look at the Pacific Ocean for a while.  On our first night here we had a wonderful 15th anniversary dinner at Emily's Restaurant, inside Quinault Resort and Casino. Debbie had the Dungeness Crab appetizer with the Salmon for dinner.  I had a rack of St. Louis ribs that I could only get half way through.  We toasted with a bottle of Viognier wine from Australia.  Everything was delicious.  We then took a ride down the beach and then back to the RV to see a movie.  This campground, like many state or federal campgrounds, is remote and we have no TV reception with the antenna. The trees are so high and so thick around us that our satellite can't pick up a signal.
Our second day was shopping and seeing the town of Ocean Shores. Although its mid July, the water is too cold to swim.  The air temps are in the 60's all day.  We'll just relax for our last two days her, snuggling and watching DVD movies.  We start to head south and east after this.

15 years of wedded bliss!


Lots of cars, but no swimmers on the beach
Seagulls enjoy the beach, but no a soul in the water
                               

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

John Wayne's RV Park-Sequim, Washington

We are staying at John Wayne's RV Park, in Sequim.  Yes, that John Wayne, the famous actor. John loved to sail his boat in this area of Puget Sound.  He purchased a large parcel of waterfront property here so that he and his family could spend time here. Prior to his death, he donated the land on the coast to the city of Sequim for the John Wayne Marina.  We are across the street in the campground, still run by his youngest son, Eric.  Sequim (pronounced SKWIM) is know as the Lavender Capital of America.  It is a nicely kept town on the sound, not far from another of our favorite places, Port Angeles.
                                                                                   
Yes, the real John Wayne, "Duke"
Our campsite
The view across the street from the campground
The John Wayne Marina
We ate lunch at Downriggers in Port Angeles, this was our view.



Sunday, July 13, 2014

Deception Pass-Anacortes, Washington

We are staying at Deception Pass State Park, just outside Anacortes, Washington on Whidbey Island.  We are south of the Canadian border, north of Seattle, on one of the many inlets on Puget Sound.  This is a beautiful place, as all of our stays in Washington have been.  The northwest, especially Washington is one beautiful area. Great weather, cool breezes, and everything is green. We spent time in the city of Anacortes and went to the races in Alger at the Skagit Speedway.  We spent the rest of the time relaxing, after a hectic 3 weeks in Canada and Alaska.  We did take a drive over to Coupeville, a nice town on the sound that we visited back in 2012.  We saw a baby seal there and spent time shopping in the many shops, and walked out on the pier.  We also stopped in Oak Harbor for a wine tasting, shopping, and a haircut for Vince.                                          

Our campsite, in the woods at Deception Pass State Park
Deception Pass

Deception Point
The beach was nice, but too cold for a swim, so we had a picnic
Debbie talks a stroll through the bushes
Time for lunch
Coupeville Pier

The baby seal struggles to survive.  Where the heck is it's mother?

Debbie is ready for the races
We saw the Winged Sprint cars race
We saw the late models race
The main attraction was the big rig races
Day is done....that's me at the Whidbey Winery, just relaxing!

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

ALASKA-America's last frontier

What can we say about Alaska? It is majestic, beautiful, nature at its finest. Mountains, fjords, waterfalls, glaciers, minor earthquakes everyday, and wildlife. We had a 15 day cruise and land tour, took over 350 photos, and made lots of friends and memories. We paled around with Jennie & Richard from Singapore, Janet & John from London, and several others. Once on the land tour there were 30 of us from all around the world.
I want to make this statement to everyone who vacations outside the U.S.A. What the heck are you doing? The greatest adventures and place to see are right here. As me meet people from around the world, they all say the same thing, "You Americans are so lucky, we have nothing like this in our country." Think about people from Europe, Latin America, or the Far East. They have no Yellowstone, Yosemite, Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Glaciers, Giant Redwoods, Mt. Rushmore, etc. They say "You Americans are the luckiest people because of the natural wonders you have." 
Their famous places to visits are all man made. We are very lucky that our forefathers have protected our lands and set up National Parks, National Monuments, and lands in the U.S.  So, below are just a small portion of what we saw and did in Alaska. We hope that all of you get a chance to go there some day.  We visited Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Liarsville, Talkeetna, Anchorage, Kenai, Whittier, Wassila, Nenanna, and Fairbanks.

We started our adventure in Vancouver, British Columbia
Our ship was the "Love Boat", the Crown Princess
The Crown Princess docked at our first stop, Ketchikan, Alaska
Native dancers performing at the Saxman Village
Debbie in the rain, next to a totem pole
The Three Bears totem pole
Main Street Ketchikan, Alaska-Salmon Capital of the World
Debra is ready to row out to Mendenhall Glacier
Our canoe, 12 rowers, 1 guide, 5 miles round-trip
At our rest stop after visiting the glacier
Our guide, Mike, originally from Vermont
One of many icebergs we had to avoid
Our view from The Hanger at the Wharf Restaurant in Juneau
We took the tram up to the top of Roberts Mountain
The ship from atop the mountain
Juneau from above
Looking up river from atop the tram ride
The White River & Yukon RR into Canada, on to Liarsville, & back to Juneau


Beautiful views, streams and waterfalls in the mountains
Going over a 1908 bridge & into a tunnel we go!
Debbie and our host at Liarsville
Debbie is ready for the Salmon Bake
Our entertainers where all from Florida (Terry on the left went to UCF)
Skagway
Our host for the tour of the Red Onion brothel
Heading to the glaciers in Glacier Bay and College Fjord 
One of the many glaciers in Glacier Bay National Park
Blue Ice walls, hundreds of feet high
A cold Debbie out looking at glaciers
Blue Ice
A stream flows fast, out from under a glacier
Majestic Landscapes
The tale of a whale
Huge glaciers coming together at College Fjord
A Massive Glacier
Our waiter POM from Thailand and assistant IRENA from the Ukraine
A women walking her pet reindeer (Caribou)  in Whittier
Off the ship & on the land tour-1st stop Kenai
Now we have nice weather for lunch on the deck


Debbie enjoys a hot tub soak
Debbie & new friend Janet from London, get ready for a rafting adventure
Floating down the Chena River
A mature Bald Eagle sits atop a tree, ready to eat some salmon
Young Eagles eat salmon.  It takes 3 years to get brown feathers & the white crown
A Bald Eagle in the trees
Merganser Duck Mom with week old chicks
The end of our 3 hour rafting journey
At the Iditarod Headquarters in Wasilla-the race is 1000 miles
A typical dog sled
The dogs a bred to run and they love it
The Iditarod Trophy
You must keep all food (for man or dog) where bears can't reach it.
Next stop, The McKinley Princess Lodge
On a morning walk in little Talkeetna, food, tourist stuff and not much more
Debbie says "Buy & ride a Polaris"
"Hello" from Talkeetna
Debbie says, :"It's too cloudy to see Mt. McKinley 70% of the time."
Finally we can see Mt. McKinley, 20,320 feet high, America's tallest mountain
Time to board the train to Denali National Park
"All Aboard"
It's cozy inside the glass domed rail car
It's time for lunch
Fast flowing rivers from the snow melt
Debbie spotted a beaver dam, just behind that tree
It is all so beautiful
Snow capped mountains, billions of  green trees
Next stop, Denali Princess Lodge
Dinner Theatre (food & fun in Denali)
Our waiter and performer is Walter
We start an 8 hour Tundra Tour by bus inside Denali National Park
Tall mountains
Rivers that constantly change channels
Many different colors of rock
Caribou are wild.  Reindeer are Caribou that have been domesticated.
This big guy is starting to molt.
A female Moose on the run
A ground squirrel poses for a photo
1 1/2 miles across the mountain, a bear sleeps( I zoomed in as best I could)
Debbie struggles with one moose horn
We are at the Alaska Pipeline, another American achievement
This section floats above the permafrost, some is underground
Our train to Gold Dredge # 8
We're in Alaska on an 80 degree day
Gold Dredge # 8 churns up dirt, looking for gold
A conveyor used to dump dirt
Large buckets pull up the dirt and gold
Debbie panned enough gold to make a nice necklace
This nugget is worth $75,000 (we didn't fine this)
Time to ride a riverboat
This pilot took off and landed so that we could see how short a takeoff is.
Tekla Butcher
Tekla's mother was the famous Susan Butcher.  Men said that no woman could win the 1000 mile Iditarod.  Susan came to Alaska, trained her own dogs a won the Iditarod 4 times, 1987, 1988, 1989, and 1990.  Susan passed away at age 54 in 2006. Tekla has taken over the business and raises dogs for the big race. We got to see the dogs in their environment and saw them do a mile or so practice run.

They train by pulling a motor-less quad
After a run, the dogs cool off in the river

We learned the proper way to filet a salmon
We learned about Indian culture and their beautiful clothes
The menu for our Farewell dinner
Our last dessert, Banana's Foster
Our tour guide, Terry Ready of Aiken, S.C.