We've also added some more pics to our photo album.
On Monday we continued north along the Oregon coast.
Before leaving Tillamook we stopped in at the Tillamook Air Museum. This is a must see place. What a fabulous collection of planes and a wonderful museum telling the story of building the massive wooden hangars (said to be the largest free span wooden structure in the world) where blimps were built and housed during WW2. We have lots of pics, from here, in our picasa album.
Our good weather mojo finally fizzled. For the first time since way back in Austin Texas in early May, it started raining just south of Cannon Beach. We had planned to stop for a while in Cannon Beach but, despite the rain, the weekend crowds were quite heavy and we couldn't find a place to park with the wee trailer in tow. So we continued on up the coast, stopping for yet another "on the dock" late afternoon dinner in Ilwaco, Washington where we once again feasted on terrific fish tacos. The dock and marina in Ilwaco is a beautiful little setting.
By that time the rain had ceased (aka weather mojo back on track) and we stayed the night in the KOA at Bay Center where we feel they win the innovation award for encouraging people to recycle. They had a faux basketball net set up into which you threw your empty aluminum cans. The cans fell through into a collection box. Cool...
Other than being a very nice KOA, in a nice wooded location and having a nice walk on the beach, there is bugger all around the KOA. The KOA store does stock some basics but... bring food and drink from afar!
Tuesday and Wednesday were Seattle days. Unfortunately our planning close to the end of this part of our trip did not take into account the Mariners being out of town until next week. So we decided to give them a miss on this trip and will try to take in a game at Safeco Field later in the summer when we come down back this way again. The game of the Humboldt Crabs ends up being the last of this trip. Final score... home teams 8 wins, visiting teams 2 wins. On the good side, although we miss seeing the Mariners, our weather mojo was back in action and we had two fine days in Seattle for sightseeing and shopping.
Thursday we drove up to Anacortes as we had a reservation for the Friday morning ferry sailing from Anacortes Washington to Sidney BC. Anacortes is quite a spiffy little town and we thought we had struck a good end to our time in the states when we found a brewery that served "fish tacos"... yeah! Unfortunately, their cook/chef found a way to turn the flour tortilla into a bit of a soggy, drippy mess.
After arriving in Anacortes and looking at the WSF (Washington State Ferry) website which had alerts regarding anticipated heavy traffic for the July 4th long weekend, we took a drive to the ferry terminal to find a very long lineup Thursday evening. Although we had a reservation we decided to avoid any lineup issues on Friday morning. We got up ultra early, stopped for a large Americano (with lots of cream) coffee, and arrived at the ferry terminal 2 and a half hours early, since the website suggested 90 minutes to 2 hours arrival time. There was only a couple of cars ahead of us at the terminal entrance and the agent seemed surprised that someone would arrive that early for the crossing to Sidney. We told her about the lineup the previous day and the alerts on their own website and she laughed and said, that was really only for the afternoon ferry.... ha ha ha! Anyway we were first in line...
... had a good coffee, listened to CBC radio, read the paper and made the trip. Better waaay early than even a minute late, even if the ferry ended up being only about half full!
The crossing provided a bonus when shortly after leaving the Anacortes terminal Kris exclaimed "ORCAS", to which Brian suggested they might be porpoises but Kris was proven right minutes later when the ferry guy announced "...Orcas off the starboard side..."... of course it took folks a few minutes to figure out which side was starboard but we did luck out and ended up seeing the pod a few more times.
Clearing customs was pretty easy. We made our declaration, they charged us a nominal GST fee and we went on our way.
We visited for awhile with our friends, Andy and Donna, then left them to continue on with their most excellent reno job. We had a reservation at the West Victoria KOA up the Malahat highway north of Victoria. We set up the wee trailer then set off in search of something for dinner. We drove north and as we approached Mill Bay, Kris says "hey, we could jump on the Brentwood Bay ferry and have dinner at the Brentwood Bay Lodge, on their wonderful deck"... so we turned down the ferry road and arrived just as they were completeing the loading for that trip. They pulled back the gate and waved us on...sweet... Great little ferry ride. Holds all of about 10 cars. Had a smooth as glass ferry ride over to Brentwood Bay with great scenery. Had an excellent combination of appy's, pizza and wine on lodge's deck overlooking the bay. Wonderful welcome back home to Canada. We sat on the deck long enough that we ended up missing the last ferry of the day back to Mill Bay, so we just had to do the drive around again.
Saturday we drove up Vancouver Island to Comox Lake where we had reservations. Always a good thing to have on any long weekend. Just as we arrived at the Cumberland Lake Park campground, all hell was breaking loose. Apparently a boat had suffered an explosion at their dock. Something about a gas line leak. The campground caretaker just waved us through with a "you're in spot H1, we'll see you later!". Spot H1 turned out to be a tiny spot to squeeze into and the area around it was packed with more cars than you can think of. After attempting to get the wee trailer turned around in a cramped space between cars and the eaves of a very near by shelter, we finally had to get others to move their cars from the middle of the traffic area. Another long weekend and another chaotic campground. We might have to develop a different strategy for long weekends. Although there were lots of kids at this one, loose dogs were more of a problem. Even thought "the rules" (hah!) stated that all pets must be on leashes, must be under owner's control and must stay off the beach, we had to track down the owner of one dog who decided a spot in front of our trailer was a good place to take a dump! "Hey buddy, stoop and scoop clean up time!". Then it was a steady stream of folks who walked right past the rather huge sign "NO DOGS ON BEACH OR IN THE WATER", with their dogs, because the signs clearly did not mean "them"... You can't blame folks for wanting to have a complete family camping vacation but...
Sunday morning the masses started to clear out. We left for the day and when we came back later in the day, the place was practically deserted. All the weekend crowd had departed. Just the longer stay vacationers left. Much more peaceful.
Sunday we drove around the Comox area. Driving between Courtenay and Comox, we spotted a tree with 3 bald eagles sitting high up in it. Eagles are regularly seen in this tree. Must be a good place to look for food etc...
We ended up the week having a great dinner with our friends Sabina and Stan (and their little guy Owen) out at Seal Bay, north of Comox, where they were staying for the next week. Hopefully our good weather mojo kept up for them. They were staying in an absolutely beautiful spot.
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