Whoa!!! Shortest of Posts!!!

Okay... so this will be really, really quick!!!! We have a few minutes of internet and not a French keyboard!!! As we are at the mooring ball outside the Bloody Mary Yacht Club and headed to dinner soon I will just say that I don't expect much connectivity for a very long time and forget about pictures for a bit!!! Every few seconds this will all go astray anyway and shut down while I try to post SOMETHING!!! Anyway, lots of pictures are being taken and lots of stories collected about this cruise!!! See you all soon I think!!! It's really beautiful here and the people are great.

Be good until we get back to the internet zone. Lots of scooters here BTW.

The Hoh in the Rain

Wandering around the Hoh Rain Forest was like nothing I have ever seen before. As I mentioned earlier the place is green covering green everywhere you look. We took two trails on the same day; one was Park Ranger led and the other was just us walking through the forest after reading everything at the information center. Both were fun in their own ways but I preferred the self tour to the Ranger’s musings because we actually looked harder for things on our own. The whole thing was great from so many perspectives though. The few pictures we got before the camera batteries were depleted were the frosting for this cake.

We had some rain (very little really) while we were there too. The Hoh river was interesting in that the color of the water is that pale teal color that glacier fed water has. It was cold to the max and there was a fantastic pull-in for the motorhome at the water’s edge. This meant that we had the water sound all night… there is nothing like that while-noised pebble rolling water for a transcendental moment or two.

We stopped just outside of Port Angeles where a small RV park is near a dam. That was good for a short hike and a few pictures as well but really could not compete with the deep in the forest feeling from the previous two days! Port Angeles is where Sandy grew up so there was a motorhome foray into some smaller neighborhoods to spice the visit up. Let’s see, can we squeeze this puppy though that little opening? Yikes!!! The next stop was Port Townsend where I had been for the first time only three weeks before. If at all possible we will come back for more of Port Townsend next year… it is like the sixties got stuck in some sort of retro vortex and walking around the small downtown area is something to be repeated.

Now we are back in Portland and getting ready for the next big bit of traveling. We need to pack very carefully and have no more than is really necessary for the Polynesian excursion!! My snorkel fins are the first thing to cause some rethinking but we did pick up some inexpensive larger bags to tote our stuff in so this might be easier than it seems at this early stage. Dietmar and Suzanne have made reasonable requests for things we need to bring as well so we will be off to track down some coffee and such as soon as the office at this RV park opens and we can check in (they were closed when we got here last night).

Shores, Forests & Music

Putumayo has some Great music.

While we have been charging around the Olympic Peninsula here in the greener than green Northwest I have been taking care of a music organization task that started when we were in Mazatlan, Mexico. We had taken the hike into the artsy district of old Mazatlan and there was a book and music street fair going on. We browsed the selections and I found a vendor with Putumayo items covering the table!! Oh, gosh, I think I need a few of those. Well, when I loaded them onto the computer to put into the iPod it seems they were missing the titles and details needed to keep them organized and recognizable. Hmmm, after some trial and error I finally came up with a way to get that accomplished without having to reload everything. Now that it's done I can happily listen and know what it is I am listening to. I had already known of this lable from the "Music from the Coffee Lands" CD I had heard some few years ago but had not realized the connection until I saw it at this fair. (The link is above).

Otherwise, we have spent time in the Hoh Rain Forest, a temperate area of western Washington state. This is as close to "magical" as it gets for me. The deep greens in so many shades and textures are amazing. Simply as shocking to the senses as the barreness of coastal Baja California must have been for Sandy. We have taken time, too, to explore the area where Sandy grew up and as a tour guide she has been finding ways to bring her childhood memories to the front. This would have been very different from the ways and places of my youth. It's about as different from Tucson, Arizona as you can get!!

Overall we have had a lot of fun checking all this out. No internet much of the time and spending time with family and friends along the way. Another thing we have done as we go is to read (together) a book about aging... that is, Sandy reads to me as I drive to the next stopping place. The book is, "You Staying Younger, The Owners Manual For Extending Your Warranty" by Dr.'s Michael F. Roizen & Mehmet C. Oz. It is well written and updates a lot of facts and myths about the aging process. This is between my current regular read, "The Wauchula Woods Accord" by Charles Siebert, which as the subtitle says, is "Toward A New Understanding of Animals". Today or tomorrow I am hoping to stop at the same bookstore in Port Townsend where I got Siebert's book to pick up a slightly related book that I should have gotten when I was there. We had helped a friend (Sue... maybe that's Surfer Sue) move her boat there. Anyway, the long and the now of it all is that we are having a bunch of fun while avoiding traffic accidents (like the guy in a motorhome, yesterday, who came around a corner waaay too fast in our lane). So there has been a bit of adrenalin from time to time but nothing worse than the old commute to work a few years back!! The rest of the day passes without nearly the stress that I was under at that time. The back drop of total "green out" makes this a reality I have never known before. The thing that makes all this so incredible is the amount of water there is here. Remembering that I am a desert person at heart, there is more water here for me to see than I have seen in my lifetime to date (that is by rough calculation a fact)!!

NOW... We Tell Those Stories

So, again, we stopped in Las Vegas on the way to Portland and saw Ster, Julie & Vivian. It was just a quick overnighter thing that was a lot of fun too. The BBQ got exercised and we shared the slide show of Mexico and related stuff.


We were a long way from Portland still and passed some great sights. One was the Shoe Tree... unfortunately we did not stop to grab a picture of that, perhaps next time!


Then there is the stop in Reno, Nevada at the Nugget. Hmmm, just a few miles from the California border and it was time to call it a day. The Nugget has this Golden Rooster in the lobby and there is a history of this objet 'd art in the room as well as in front of the case. The short history I found to be monsterously hilarious for the simplistic reason that it exemplifies foolishness in so many ways. It seems that in May of 1958 the management of the Nugget were casting about for something (a focal point) to use as a claim to fame. They got permission from the U.S. Treasury to commission this Rooster because it was to weigh more than the amount legal for an individual to own of 50 ounces of gold. In fact when all was said and done it weighed in at 206.3 troy ounces of 18-karat gold!!! That's when the fun started. About early 1959 the Treasury Department started its quest to seize the Bird through law suits and such harrassments as they thought appropriate... the Nugget pleaded its case and things went silent for awhile. Then again in 1960 the Treasury grabbed the Bird and made off with it for a further two years of continuous litigation. In the end the chosen jury said this was all nonsense and awarded the Bird back to its owners and it has resided happily in various places in the casino ever since. One of the things that struck me as funny in reading the story was the claim by the Treasury that this was not art... as if they know?!?! Anyway, the long and the short of it is that here is a little peice of Americana that I would never have guessed when I saw this Polished Brass looking creature!! So, in a way, the Treasury still got the Bird!!

Stories Untold... Yet

While poking along the path north we DID stop in Las Vegas to see Sterling and family; Julie & Vivian are doing quite well too!! The visit was all too brief but at least we got there in between work shifts and spent a bit with everyone. The BBQ was fired up and the ribs were a hit!! The time was short but most enjoyable. (Pictures to follow here)

There is ALSO the story of the Golden Rooster from the Nugget in Reno on our way through. An example of Zealots in Government!!! Also to follow is the picture with story... stay tuned for the full, enhanced version!!!