Oysterville...north Island on Willapa Bay

We took a pleasant drive up to the north end of Long Beach to see lots of new housing going in. The locals aren't happy about all the developement. Something like 350 new houses all ready to move into. The prices were still pretty high for hoses not on the beach and what you would call a basic bungalow.Also there were timeshares and townhouses-and apartments to purchase...all could be managed andd rented out when you weren't there. There was even a golf course or two!
We turned east and drove the five miles across the penninsula to Oysterville, where we loaded up on fresh oysters to take back for our dinner. Just dipped them in egg and rolled them in cracker crumbs, then fried them up to perfection in a couple of minutes. Oyster farming and Cranberry farming are two of the mainstays, besides fishing and tourism.All we could see was mountains of oyster shells. Don't ask if they reused them all, but it was clear that some were reused to "Seed" the oyster beds.

Oysters Are Cool

Oysters Are Cool
Much information about Washington Oysters.Click on the link "an Oyster's Life" to learn how the oystrers are grown and harvested...and who would have known there are several varieties of Oysters out there. Clams are also plentiful, but I didn't know enough about cleaning them and getting them out of the shells etc.Shucked oysters were easy to prepare.mmm! As well, we had a little crab feed with Tillamook butter. Yum!
Ok..time for some breakfast.. I only took about 200 photos,so this story will go on for a few days!

Danger !

I guess this batch of photos depict the area around the lodge a little better. We had the corner suite on the left. Neat and tidy with a separate bedroom and a fireplace that burned Presto Logs. They left us a new log evey day,and we bought a few at Jack's General store. You might see in one photo, the downed tree. Well, there were lots of trees all along the penninsula that had been blown over with their last storm. the park, in front, had many flooded areas from all the rains. The nice thing is that they had a hot-tub and sauna room at the park for everyone to enjoy. I think we may have been the only ones at the resort, so we didn't have to fight for a turn in the tubs! It was just nice to relax and enjoy the ocean and knowing that one didn't have a thing to do.

The Dunes and Pacific Ocean

 

 

 

 

The wind has blown the sand all up into the dunes. The shot was looking back down the trail towards Sunset Lodge. We didn't know we had a view of the occean from our room until day two, when the mist and clouds rose!

Silky ,having a ball on the beach.

 

 

 

 

A huge flock of seabirds flew in front of my camera...too bad I wasn't focussed on at least one of them. You can see thqat Silky was smiling! I think that she would have run for a mile if she had been off the leash! We had to watch for the occasional vehicle taking a drive down the beach. We became too chicken in our new Vue to attempt it. Also, it seemed to be high tide,every time we drove down to the beach. Less space between you and that angry ocean! For some reason, it was a lot more do-able with our big 4x4 truck! I recalled seeing lots of tow-truck operators in Ocean Park!

Long Beach Photos

 

This was a huge wave that crept right up onto shore. Amazingly, the birds always keep to the edge of it.

Our Mini Trip Con't

So here we are at a rest stop about half way down from Port Angeles to Olympia. The highway travels alongside Hood Canal where crabbing is a big way of life at all the little communities along the way. You can see the crabbing pier going out into the canal that separates the mainland from what appears to be an island you see from Seattle, looking westward.Although it looks like an island, it really is a long irregular pennisula that connects to the mainland at Shelton, a city north of Olympia. The Canal curls around the base of the pennisula where a body of land five miles wide, keeps that piece of pennisula from being an island. (Click on the map at the link above to make it larger. )
The drive was an eyeopener to another way of life...one of fishing, crabbing and oyster farming. We stopped at a roadside cafe and settled for fresh shrimp and fries and a delicious Oyster burger...Yum! That got us started on fresh Oysters for the remainder of the trip!
We skirted around Olympia in a blink of the eye and took the I-5 south to Longview and then westward over to Astoria. The bridge photos are of the amazingly long bridge and causeway that crosses the Columbia river at Astoria, and also serves as the division between Oregon and Washington State. We crossed that mighty Columbia,so many times on our journey, that the styles of bridges became more and more fascinating -almost as much as where the next bridge might actually be located! The river is so wide that any bridge is an engineering feat,as all must be high enough to allow freighters and ships to pass beneath them.
On my map, it shows the bridge at Astoria to be 4 miles long. It felt like it when you came to the crest of the bridge and could see the long stretch of causeway joining the main structure to the other side of the river... Not to mention, it was a beast to cross on the snowy morning of our return! I'll have to continue the saga tomorrow when I am awake.
have a great week-end...Remember...it is Hockey Day in Canada and all of the focus will be on Nelson! Tune into CBC all day tomorrow for coverage of the big event.
"The Creator"

Quick note from Long Beach

Ity is so nice that Internet service is available everywhere.. I am at the local library, only a a half block from our Inn, the Sunset Lodge, north of Long Beach at Klipsan beach. We have a lovely room with a view of gardens and walking area and hot tub area, witht he dunes in behind. This afternoon, we'll walk on the beach as the weather is decent. We had a beautiful drive down the penninsula,after crossing on the Cojho. That was a little rocky-rolly alright.
We made it to Astoria,just as it grew dark. All the way down, from Port Angeles we could see serious evedince of major storms..lots of downed trees and even power lines. We were happy to get out of the Park areas.
Ok, my time is nearly up on my puter...so we will talk to you all again. We are here for three more nights.
Have a good one! No snow here yet!


"The Creator"

Quick note from Long Beach

Ity is so nice that Internet service is available everywhere.. I am at the local library, only a a half block from our Inn, the Sunset Lodge, north of Long Beach at Klipsan beach. We have a lovely room with a view of gardens and walking area and hot tub area, witht he dunes in behind. This afternoon, we'll walk on the beach as the weather is decent. We had a beautiful drive down the penninsula,after crossing on the Cojho. That was a little rocky-rolly alright.
We made it to Astoria,just as it grew dark. All the way down, from Port Angeles we could see serious evedince of major storms..lots of downed trees and even power lines. We were happy to get out of the Park areas.
Ok, my time is nearly up on my puter...so we will talk to you all again. We are here for three more nights.
Have a good one! No snow here yet!


"The Creator"

More Adventures in Victoria

The photos arrived in back-assward mode here,as I have to use a rather awkward system to upload them, so pardon the random confused mess.
Last night started off fairly normal, until Annette noticed a small patch of wet on her bedroom rug. Yes, it was pouring rain out,and yes, it was windy as ever, but who would have thought after all of these dry years in this house, that the tiny wet spot was the result of water pouring into Annette's bedroom from under the wall. The only option was to rip out the carpetting to see where it was originating from. Under the carpet was the underlay...soaking up the water like a huge sponge. Out it came in pieces and straight to a garbage bag.

The water was streaming in from under the baseboard. Sonia brought down towels and a mop and Steve brought in the shop vac. We cleared all of the bedroom out, that Annette had so nicely set up only days ago. She was clearly upset, given that it has taken weeks to get everything out of boxes. Her bed ended up in the rec room, along with the majority of everything in her bedroom.

Steve headed outdoors in the downpour to see what was what with the drains. The problem was that they were filled with mud and overflowing with water. When he stuck his hand down the drain,all he could feel was roots from the nearby ceders and shrubs.
Fortunately, he cleared the drain enuf to get it to take water again,and at about the same time,the rain stopped. Within another hour or two, we had no more water to mop. Meanwhile Sonia had called all of the Roto-rooter guys in town,and they were so swamped with calls, they said it would be next week until they could come out.

Steve did the job himself this morning,when he dug up all of the weeping tiles alongside the house and pulled out what seemed to be one large tangle of roots and muck ( the sideways photo). By the end of today, he had replaced all of the old tiles with new drainage pipe. The bedroom has a fan going in it to dry it out,and Annette is camping in the rec room.

Emil and I took our grandaughters up to Eileen and Austin's for a little post Christmas visit. It was great to see them again. Eileen called up her son to bring her grandkids over so they could all have a visit. Robin and Michael came upstairs for a hello...hadn't seen them in an age also. Eileen put out all kinds of appies and best of all was a lovely cheese ball, essentially made from a carton of Imperial cheese, a large package of cream cheese and a half cup of real butter...all mixed together with a dash of Worchester sauce.You line a bowl with saran wrap, turn the cheese mixture into the bowl and let it set overnight, then turn it out of the bowl when rready to use,and decorate it with slivered almonds. Serve with crackers. Other herbs or smoked salmon could be added to the cheese mixture, but this was delicious as is. I had to have several helpings! Thanks to Eileen and Robin for the recipe!

We returned home just as Steve's load of gravel arrived and then the phone rang. It was Nadine to say that her and Dick were in the neighbourhood and would pop in with little Georgia before they went out for dinner to his sister's. The timing was perfect and little Georgia was a sweetie, chasing the "Ruff-Ruff" and playing the piano with Maddie. We had a short but sweet visit...again it was nice they made the effort and gave us all a chance to see their little cutie.

After they left, we returned to our plans to go out for dinner at Jason and Richard's new Fish and Chip restaurant out in Langford... YUMMMMMMEEEY!!!!! Emil and I had the captain's plate with scallops and oysters and shrimp and halibut done to perfection! Everyone else had variations on the halibut theme and we all came away totally in fishy heaven!

The night wasn't over until we engaged the kids in a wild game of Train. Maddie has to be commended for her wits as she ended the game by lying down her whole deal of tiles and made the rest of us count up a bunch. Lets just say , I was in the losing end of the game points...
Tomorrow, Sonia is off to day shift and Emil and I are off to the States. We'll try to catch the Coho which will take us to Port Angeles. From there we hope to go to Astoria, then toodle up to Long Beach Washington the next day for a few nights. They were under a severe weather watch that we hope will be over by the time we arrive.

So that will be about all the blogging I can do until we return home at the end of the week....unless I happen upon a computer!
In the meantime, we are having the time of our life...so much fun with our grandkids and so nice to see Sonia and Steve and Annette...all under one roof. Silky hates little Spike, so we keep them separated. Like Co-Co, Spike wants to be a close friend to old Silky, and she wants nothing to do with him. Snappy old B*tch!

"The Creator"

We Made it!

As you might imagine ,it was a trip of many adventures...mostly having to do with snow. Our first challenge was to make to Kelowna with our all season tires. Yep. it pretty much snowed or was snowy the whole way with the worst being over the Blueberry Paulson and the entire road from Rock Creek to Beaverdale. We just took it easy and for the most part,there was very little traffic which at least gave you peace of mind that someone wasn't going to plow into you,should you spin out. Our new Saturn did well, with very little slipslidey going on, and we didn't really notice the all wheel drive feature kicking in. I think driving at less than normal speeds was the key factor.
We left at eight,and made a few stops along the way and by 1:00 we were crusing into Kelowna, in time for our appointment at 1:30 to get the new winter tires put on. The dealership is so good there, they had a car waiting for us to borrow while they did a complimentary first oil change and also put on the new winter tires.(not complimentary)
We took advantage of the hour and a half to go visit our dear neighbour, Heavy Duty Bill, who just underwent a serious operation for cancer, where the doctors removed 2/3rds of his stomach and his spleen and part of his Pancreas.
Amazingly, he looked very good for just five days after his big surgery, and he was so pleased to see us. We spent some quality time visiting and assuring him that all he was missing was a big dump of snow.
He was greatful to have good neighbour support and family support during this ordeal. Us too, as now Peter will be doing snow removal for three houses and we were lucky enough to have Emil's co-worker, Janice, house sit and watch the cat for us.

Once we had the winter tires on, we had a laugh, because the sun was out and the roads were bare!
We drove up to Vernon to John and Rondas. They were all ready for us with a lovely dinner and a toast to our upcoming anniversary, complete with chocolates and a Trojan on our bed pillow that night...(mmmm...I wonder where that came from!)
Yep, January 4th was our 38th year of being married. Seems like a long time in numbers, but it all went by so quick, that our memory recalls the best and the worst times and forgets many of those "moments" that floated by as though it was a wave in an ocean of happenings.
We had a few laughs on the drive up...glad we didn't invest in a dry cleaning business one time, nor chose not to sell Redkin products for Maureen, and pretty happy that we didn't buy that huge truck with the dual wheels on back. We did say we loved the amount of happiness our tent trailer brought us, with every so many camping trips to all the little lakes around in the Kootenays,as well as a many a summer spent at Shuswap, or in Saskatchewan. Like a turtle,we had our home with us wherever we went.And so we reminisced.

Back to John and Rondas...we played a new game,called Sequence. Wow! It kept us amused and nearly blinded for hours. A great game for many or few players, involving cards in a Pente like game where you use tokens to get five in a row. Two fives and your team wins. Simple, but hard on the eyes as you san the board over and over for a place to play your token that will improve your row of five tokens, or block the opponents chances. Good Game...Highly reccommended!
The next morning, John Suggested that we take the road to Vernon, then the bypass that goes to Merrit. Probably less chance of snowy roads,than taking 97c...the coneector, from Kelowna. He was right and those roads were frosty, but snow free. Yippee.
The situation changed when we crwled up the Coquilhalla. At first, there was no snow, than one snowfree lane,and pretty soon,after the big Larson hill, snow and snowing and general whiteout. First vehicle off the road was a large van that hit the corner too fast and slid into the snowy lane and flipped when it hit the snowbank. No one appeared top be hurt. We kept motoring along, thankful for the new winter tires as the roads got worse and worse as we neared the toll booth.
That is the photo that is all white.
On the other side of the toll booth,the slush was a foot deep and traffic was dense and both lanes were not good. Before you know it, we were heading downhill. Emil paseed one slow poke and another,and then were alone on the road. Again, thanks to good snowtires, we could travel along, just being careful as one lane was shear ice and the other a half foot of slop. We chose to drive in the slop lane after a rock smacked our windsheild from oncoming cars close to the shear ice lane.
Just before the first tunnel, we could see two guys hopping around near the road trying to keep warm,as their budget Rent a truck was overturned on the side of the road. No stopping as it was ttoo dangerous. The roads were a mess and we were heading into the first snowshed. The ambulance and police were screaming up the other side of the hill to attende one or both of the overturns.
By now, I could have kissed the winter tires.
As we got down in elevastion,t he snow flakes turned to rain and the roads went from ice to slop to bare roads...Yippeee.
We left John and Rondas at 8:00 am and here it was noon, and we were filling up with gas in Hope. I don't recommend driving the Coq in winter, but if you have to, take it slow and have good tires.
We took the shortcut from Costco in Aldergrove,along Vye and turning onto 16th which takes you into Whiterock. In an hour we were at the LAdner and Highway 10 intersection. Great shortcut,thanks to Annette and Trina. It cuts off over an hour to get to the ferries.

We were at the ferry terminal before 2:30 and easiily made the three ferry.
Ok...time to eat breakfast. We had an eventful day at Sonia dn Steves, plus I got my hair done yesterday and visited Annette at her new job. I'll try to post a few more pics before we depart tomorrow morning for Astoria and then to Long Beach.


We
"The Creator"

Happy New Year!

As you can see, a fun time was had by all on New Year's eve and for our Polar Beer Dip on New Year's Day.
We started the pre party at our house with linda and Peter and Elli and her mom and Gord and Janice. We checked out the music on the new Sirius radio and had a toast or two to the new year before proceeding over to Anne and Dick's house. The music was blasting and the table was full of munchies. We added our efforts to the array of foods and before we could hardly get dancing, everyone dug into the yummies and sampled the wings and sausage rolls and crackers and cheese and dips and veggies and so on. A whole table full. It is always hard to walk away from something that grand!
However, Dick had satellite radio playing, and alternated between that and his collection of a hundred cd's,all in one player.
Witht he tunes going, everyone got into the swing of things and started to dance up a storm. Anne organized four winter boots in the middle of the floor for us to dance around, when a scottish tune came on,complete with bagpipews playing. That was Anne dancing in the photo with her dress hoisted up!
T'wasn't long before Anne donned her New Years Butt shorts and wrapped a scarf around her head and put on the shades. We all roared as she pranced around showing off her "Sweet Cheeks!"
All was in good fun as we counted down the seconds and watched the big ball drop ,in Times Square..then we all hugged and gave each other our colds and flu.
Anne was a little under the weather at this point,and had to make a departure to bed, and Emil and Dick and Richard, shut the party down at some wee hour in the morning. I came home before that and hit the hay as I was pooped and my sinuses have been giving me hell,thus a Sudafed was in order.

On New Year's Day ,the crew re-assembled for the big Polar Beer Dip. At first it was to be Lynn B. showing the way with Anne and I following and at one point, Dick and his son Richard were all aboard. By 2:00 on dipping day, the only one sporting a bathing suit was Lynn...and it was snowing like crazy. Emil dutifully made the hot rums and was ready for her to emerge from the lake. I was ready with the camera and towels and in less than a minute, Brave Lynn was in, dipping, and out again. Her feet were freezing and she was all ashiver! We wrapped her up and got her boots on and led her back up to the hot tub, with her hot rum toddy! I have the best video of her whole dip, so I will try try try to upload it to YouTube so we can see it on the blog. So, I will try to do that now. If it doesn't work, then I will have to figure it all out when we return from our little vacation. So no more emails or jokes for a week or so,and I shall return with tall tales...take er easy.
Fancy that ...we have to drive to Kelowna to get our winter tires...keep your fingers crossed.According to the highway cams, the rest of the roads in the province looked bare. I have a link to highway cameras on my sidebar after recipes.
"The Creator"