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August 7-10, 2014: Camp Watson

We got to go to sleepover camp again this summer up at Hood Canal, Washington. We hadn't been up there for a year or two. Our friends and neighbors, the Watsons, have a place up there and we were invited, along with the Lees, for the long weekend. I had my eye set for some merit badges: primarily cooking, photography and alcohol consumption.

We were responsible for Friday breakfast; I had a Cooks Country recipe for maple-sausage featherbed eggs. The ingredients sound positively delicious: broken up corn bread, sausage links, cheese, and a custard of eggs and whole milk. Unfortunately it wasn't all that. We didn't want to be prepping too much the night before or the morning of so we made the cornbread Wednesday night and prepped most of the other ingredients at home before leaving Thursday morning. We got up to the canal just as the sun was over the yard-arm. We assembled the egg dish, stashed in the refrigerator and headed out to the deck to enjoy the evening.

View of Camp Watson from the dock

View of the Olympic Mountains beyond Hood Canal from Camp Watson

 The Watson's sail boat, The Equanimity, ties up at the dock. When the tide goes out it is left high and dry. The wind sock on the left side of the picture shows the location of a long spit that reaches out into the canal. About halfway between the the dock and the spit are some oyster mounds that are well out of the water at low tide. Before we arrived, some campers gathered oysters appetizers.

The Equanimity at the Camp Watson dock

We had a "super moon" while we were there which means we had very high and very low tides. I learned that "sea level" is measured as the mean, lower low tide. There are two low and two high tides each day; on the west coast there is a relatively large difference between the two low tides. An average is taken of the lower low tides; this average is sea level. They use the low tide  as the base in order to assist navigation: ships need to know when they can navigate to port.  A neighbor's boat, The Barnacle has to anchor in deeper water because ti can't sit on the mud during low tide, like the smaller sailboats can.

A neighbors boat, The Barnacle at anchor in Hood Canal

Jay, our camp counselor, AKA Ace grilled some oysters for us. We had them with a dollop of cocktail sauce, horseradish, and a splash of fresh lemon.

Our camp counselor serves up Oysters on the half shell for appetizers

Elaine, Karen, Jay, Carla and Mary Ann enjoying dinner at Camp Watson

Even though I had a beer and a vodka tonic, it was time to work on my photography merit badge. I set up my tripod and took a series of pictures as the sun went down.

Looking north on Hood Canal

Looking southwest on Hood Canal as the sun sets behind the Olympic Mountains

Night time on Hood Canal.

I discovered that it is best to work on photography and alcohol consumption on different evenings. Actually, I'm a light weight; one beer and one mixed drink left me feeling not so great the next day. I went tea-totaller style on Friday.

Nevertheless, I woke up early Friday to get some pictures in the morning light. We popped the egg dish in the oven drank coffee and I took some early morning pictures.You can see the tide is ebbing.

Morning light on Hood Canal

Living on Hood Canal means water sports. Every house has a ramp and dock. The boat with the orange life jackets in the middle of this picture is the "oyster barge".  A local company made a deal with the home owners to harvest some of the oysters for local restaurants. They bag them up at low tide then go back at high tide to pick up the bags according to restaurant orders.

Dock ramps on Hood Canal, Washington

As the tide goes out, the oyster beds are exposed; here a great blue heron hunts through the beds for various aquatic animals living on the beds. A sailboat is lowering down to the ground as the tide goes out.

A Great Blue Heron is hunting for breakfast on the oyster mounds.

It took a while for our breakfast to cook; it should have been done in 50 minutes but took about 1:20. The top got a little crusty before the custard in the middle reached temp. It was okay; not great. I was a little disappointed after sitting on this recipe for a few years waiting for an occasion like this. Oh well.

Maple-sausage featherbed eggs.

Camp Watson is located on an estuary where the Union River meets the ocean bay. Eighty years ago,  a large dike was built to keep the ocean out. At first the farmers tried to raise cows in the reclaimed land; later they raised wheat. A few years ago the Hood Canal Salmon Restoration Group worked with the Johnson family (which owns the farm) and the US  and Washington state Fish and Wildlife Services to reclaim the area. Last year two large holes were punched in the dike and ocean water made its way north.

New walkway across the breached dike in the estuary.

Another of the holes in the dike

I'm looking forward to going back in the next few years to see the flora change.

Along the dike there is a nice wooded area.

Berries in the wetlands.

Girls and boys took separate cars for the hike; on the way back the guys decided to head over to Allyn for burgers at Big Bubba's, a popular walk up burger joint on the Case Inlet just east of Hood Canal.

Big Bubba's in Allyn, Washington

A cute kid checks me out while his dad orders lunch at Big Bubba's in Allyn, Washington.

Our order taker at Big Bubba's in Allyn, Washington

Bacon cheeseburger! My standard burger order. From Big Bubba's in Allyn, Washington

A drive of a couple of miles by car would take a full day or more by boat. You'd travel north up Hood Canal up to Puget Sound north of Seattle, then south past Seattle and Bremerton to Gig Harbor and Tacoma. You can see the difference between overland and by water routes in the map below.

On Saturday morning we went on an outing to Port Orchard and Bremerton. We first headed to the farmers' market in Port Orchard. A nice '55 (I think) Chevy wagon pulled up. Nice car; but if I were doing it, I'd leave the bumpers chrome and wouldn't put those flames on it  - more stock in other words.

'55 Chevy wagon in Port Orchard, Washington

John picked up some bees' wax to add to his tool box when he's driving screws and what-not. 

Then we took the foot ferry from the dock near the market over to Bremerton. We walked about at Bremerton a little but there wasn't much to do other than grab an iced coffee or some ice cream. There is a park near the waterfront but it was reserved for an event. You can see the location on the map above.

Boat slips in Bremerton, Washington

We grabbed some pictures of  our fellow campers on the ferry back to Port Orchard

Elaine and Karen on the ferry ride from Bremerton to Port Orchard, Washington

Howard aboard the Admiral Pete ferry between Bremerton and Port Orchard, Washington

Camp counselors Mary Ann and Jay Watson aboard the foot ferry from Bremerton to Port Orchard, Washington

Elaine and Carla enjoying the ride from Bremerton to Port Orchard, Washington

Cormorants on the pilings alongside a large ferry at Bremerton, Washington

When we got back the tide was up and the water warm so we went swimming. The water here is perfect for swimming; salty so you can easily float, no waves, and very warm. The Lees were responsible for dinner on Saturday night; we had some nice grilled steaks and perfectly grilled small potatoes.

Sunday morning we had some blueberry pancakes and sausage thanks to John and Karen; then we packed up. The tide was out and Carla grabbed a picture to compare with the high tide pictures above. Notice The Barnacle in the upper right is still in deep water while the smaller sailboats are grounded. You can also see some oyster beds in the center left of the pictures

The tide is out at Hood Canal, Washington exposing oyster mounds and grounding sailboats.

We had a great time, as usual, at Camp Watson but we had to go back home.

Road Trip 2014 - Showing Jeanette Northwest Oregon

July 7-9, 2014

We returned home from our epic road trip on Sunday July 6. But the fun and travel was far from over. We only had her in town a short time before she was headed back to Chicago to see the kids and Jurgen.  I was back at work but that didn't stop Carla and her sisters, Linda and Starr. They 

showed her Portland one day; then Carla took her out to the Columbia Gorge another day and the Oregon coast another. In the midst of all that we had a little gathering at home to introduce her to our friends. 

 No tour of Portland is complete without a visit to Pioneer Square, Portland's Living Room. Jeanette posed with the "Allow Me" statue.

Jeanette with "Allow Me" the iconic man with an umbrella statue in Pioneer Square Portland, Oregon. 

The sisters and Jeanette then headed up to the West Hills to see the Rose Garden and the  Japanese Garden The garden is up in the West Hills 

West Portland and suburbs showing the Japanese Garden

The Japanese Garden takes up about 5 acres and has a few distinct types of gardens you'll find in Japan. Portland has an annual Rose Festival in June with a queen, princesses, at least 3 parades, a fun center and musical events. The rose test garden up in the West Hills has row after row of beautiful roses. By July they are a little past their prime; but still a must-see place for the out of town visitor.

Starr, Linda, Jeanette, and Carla at the Japanese Garden in Portland, Oregon

On our road trip we debated different routes from the Grand Canyon to home. A very beautiful route is up through Utah and Idaho and down the Columbia Gorge in Oregon. Because we spent the night after the Grand Canyon in Williams, Arizona it made more sense to drive up through California. But it goes without saying Jeanette had to see the gorge. The gorge has been evolving over the past 17 million years but its big transformation came thanks to the Missoula Floods at the end of the last ice age. Enormous ice dams were created up in the Rocky Mountains in the area that is now Montana. 

Map view of the Columbia Gorge

The dam gave way periodically over a few thousand years and the resulting floods carved the gorge. We have the floods to thank for our beautiful soil in the Williamette Valley which give us superb, world-class wines. The Palouse in Washington was also formed by the Missoula Floods. There is great land for wheat and the high flat area is littered with enormous boulders. You've noticed I've used the word "big, huge, enormous" here. It's hard to get an idea of the grandeur and size of this area from words alone. 

Looking east up the Columbia Gorge

We were up in the Columbia Gorge in March; you can read the account and see some more pictures here.

On Jeanette's final day Carla took her 60 miles west of Portland to the Pacific Ocean.

Carla and Jeanette visited Canon Beach; just south of Seaside on the map.

You can see the Williamette Valley in the map above, carved out between the Cascade Mountains on the west and the Coast Range on the east. 

Jeanette, north of Canon Beach looking toward Haystack Rock

Jeanette in front of Haystack Rock in Canon Beach, Oregon.

You can see our weather in Portland is very different from the areas we passed through on our trip. So much of the American west is arid. The area from Eugene, Oregon (100 miles south of Portland) up through Tacoma, Seattle Washington and into Vancouver British Columbia is an idyllic green and fertile oasis. We do get our hot days here (it's 90˚ F as I write this today) but the heat waves don't last long. Winters are cool with maybe one snow storm a year. We can get out and walk virtually every day of the year. I can't imagine living anywhere else.

 

Road Trip 2014: Travel Statistics

From our driveway to Chicago and back again we drove 5,758.5 miles. We averaged just under 8 hour days in the car and covered about 442 miles for an overall average speed of 58 mph. Of course you know what they say about averages: put your head on a block of ice and your feet in a fire and you are pretty comfortable, on average. Our longest day was the drive from Rock Springs, Wyoming to Grand Island, Nebraska. We covered 629 miles that day in 10:32. Our fastest day was Joplin, Missouri to Tucumcari, New Mexico; we were determined to get through Oklahoma and Texas. We succeeded by averaging over 66 mph. Carla and I will spend more time in that area when we do our full on Route 66 trip.

The biggest surprise to me was that we averaged less than 60 miles per hour. Stopping for gas and lunch is a big leveler from driving 70-80 MPH.

My biggest complaint with my blogging service (Google's Blogspot) is the inability to easily manage tables. The data below came from a Google Docs spreadsheet but it was nigh on impossible to convert it for use on the blog. So, I had to take a picture of the screen. If anyone has tips on managing tables in Blogspot, I'd love for you to drop me a note in the comments section.

Here are the statistics for our three sections:

We are home and are itching to get out on the road again. Looking back, our Route 66 trip from Los Angeles to Gallup, New Mexico was seven years ago! We need to get out and do the whole drive.