May, a "Gap" month, Part 2

    After leaving our visit with daughter Erin in the Santa Cruz area we headed north on Tuesday, May 19, stopping in  San Rafael at Kaiser for an eye appointment for me, and in Santa Rosa at the VA clinic for a routine dental visit for Rob, and then on to Potter Valley to spend the night with my sister Elizabeth and her husband Bill. We had a nice visit there and then headed north to Eureka where we would spend the night with Rob's sister Dolores and her husband Jerome. After Eureka, where I consider the Pacific Northwest to begin, we began our planned Pacific Northwest road trip with the next stop being in Bandon, Oregon where by luck we found truly lovely lodging for the night.

Rob walking in Founders' Grove before arriving in Eureka.

I always insist on stopping here to walk the beautiful 1/2 mile nature trail.

Wood Ducks in the pond at Sequoia Park in Eureka.

A tropical looking scene on the other end of the pond.

Sunset Ocean Front Lodging, Bandon, Oregon.

We were on the top floor, street level.

The view that greeted us as we entered our room.

The room was quite large, complete with a table and chairs to eat at, or play a game.

The price was so reasonable, and we learned that summer rates began the day we left.

It would have been $100 more per night if we'd checked in on the 22nd instead of the 21.

Definitely a spot to return to!

And this was the view from our balcony.

On the beach, where I of course went for more than one walk.

A washed up root in front of the rocks.

Me with the rock over my left shoulder.

One of the holes/tunnels through the rock.

Seagulls and beach scene.

More of the beautiful sea stacks.

Evening from our balcony.

And the sun about to set.

Can you see the profile of the "princess" facing up.

We read the legend of this, but I've forgotten the details.

And a tunnel I walked through at low tide.

    

     After leaving Bandon on Friday, May 22, we headed to Portland, Oregon to meet up with niece Emily and my sister Theresa. Emily works and lives in Portland and Theresa lives across the border in Washington State in the town of Camas. We would stay in Theresa's apartment building in Camas for two nights and explore the area that has been her home for the past several years, but first Emily took us hiking in the Columbia River Gorge. It was late in the day when we started the hike so we didn't make it to the top of the chosen trail, but we did have a nice hike before following Theresa to Camas.

    Theresa's apartment is in a 55 and older building where she has found a lovely community, with good walking and hiking nearby. It was our first time to visit her there and to see where she lives. It was a good reintroduction to the beauty of Washington State that we enjoyed at the beginning of our cross country trip in 2020. It's really neat to see one volcano after another in the Cascade Range as we traveled through Washington and back down through Oregon.

Theresa and me on a bridge on the trail we hiked.

Emily, me and Theresa

A beautiful view of the Columbia River Gorge at our turn around point.

Dame's-violet on a trail I walked Saturday morning right across the street from Theresa's.

It was a short, but lovely trail.

A view of the base of Mt. Hood from a park not too far from Theresa's.

And we found Big Foot!

Beautiful, lush Lupine!

In the same park with Big Foot.

A water fall walking distance from Theresa's apartment.

She and I walked there on Sunday morning, May 24.

Mt. St. Helens

    On our way out of town on Sunday we followed Theresa about an hour north to the park that she was a  camp host a couple of years ago. It had a wonderful interpretive center about the history of Mt. St. Helens. 

A Pond-lily near the visitor center.

    After saying good-bye to Theresa we drove further north to Lacey, Washington where friends Janie and Todd Stover live and where we would stay with them on Sunday night. Janie used to live in Colfax when our children were growing up and we knew her as a fellow member of the Colfax United Methodist Church. She is originally from West Virginia, the place where a large part of her heart will always be. We had been Facebook friends for many years, and in 2020 when Janie learned that we would be traveling across the country after I retired she encouraged us to stop in Lacey for a visit where she arranged for us to park our RV in the Lacey United Methodist Church parking lot. It was fun to reconnect in person, and since then we've visited her and Todd in West Virginia in 2022 when they traveled there to celebrate Janie's 60th birthday and several times in Colfax when they come to visit Todd's twin brother who lives in Roseville. Another connection we have is that a nephew and niece of Todd's were students of mine when I was a teacher in Chicago Park. Janie is amazing at keeping lots of people connected!

And they know how to welcome company!

An occupied bird nest by their garage.

Janie preparing a scrumptious dinner for us.

The gated lake park that is a part of Janie's neighborhood.

Allison, Janie's pastor, Janie and me at the lake.

    Janie invited Allison to join us for dinner. Allison was in Truckee during the time I was in Kings Beach, and we met once during that time.

Behind the puzzle we did together.

Todd worked on it too, but managed to not get in the picture.

    On Monday morning, May 25, Janie and I headed to nearby Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge to walk on the beautiful board walk trail there. We were rewarded with lots of wildlife viewings!

 

Including this bunny near the start of our walk.

A big barn on the grounds.

A big group of Blue Herons we saw from the boardwalk.

Me and Janie on the boardwalk.

Lots of Bald Eagles on the ground.

And one posing in a tree.

And a Red Winged Blackbird.

    Later on Monday morning we said goodbye to Janie and Todd and headed further north to Glacier, Washington to visit friends Sue and Steve who have a cabin in Glacier and a house near Smith River in Del Norte County in California. They split their time between the two homes since retiring in Eureka about 15 years ago. 

On our way to Glacier we stopped in Arlington at this landmark.

Enlarge the picture to read the unusual history of the stump in the following picture.

Remnants of an old 20 foot diameter Western Red Cedar!

The beautiful fireplace in the cabin Steve built in Glacier.

For your information, the "trophy" head was acquired second hand.

Our bedroom for the night.

    We truly appreciated Steve and Sue's hospitality in housing and feeding us for our stay, especially since Sue was newly recovering from knee replacement surgery. The bunk beds were very comfortable to sleep in. I slept on top and had no problem getting up there, but getting down was more of a challenge and I had to have Rob spot me on my descent. One more challenge in the aging process - lol!

And another jigsaw puzzle, this one done by Steve, Rob and me.

    We first met Steve and Sue in Eureka and participated in many Volunteer in Mission projects with them helping to rehabilitate and build houses following natural disasters in the U.S. and building houses in Mexico. A favorite evening activity after our work was done was to do jigsaw puzzles, an activity Steve and I especially appreciate. 

    After saying goodbye to Steve and Sue we headed south to begin our trip back to Eureka for a meeting I needed to attend on Saturday, May 30. 

First stop - Les Schwab in Sedro-Woolley to fix a slow leak in a tire.

Killdeer, performing a broken-wing display.

While waiting for the tire repair I went for a walk and saw this interesting bird.

Also seen on my walk was this animal shaped tree at a Veterinarian Office.

And this bunny.

Bigfoot and Rob near where we ate lunch in Sedro-Woolley.

    

    The tire repair took a lot longer than we anticipated so we were off to a late start for our journey south. We were planning to drive through Leavenworth, Washington, a unique Bavarian themed town, and then find lodging further south. Instead we ended up spending the night in Leavenworth which turned out to be a nice Serendipity. But first we stopped in Sultan to stretch our legs and walked by several beautiful gardens.

Lovely!

Each garden seemed to be trying to out do the others!

Arrived in Leavenworth.

View of the mountains from Leavenworth.

A clock striking time.

Hotel Leavenworth where we spent the night.

It was an excellent location right in town and reasonably priced.

With some beautiful art on the walls.

What to do with old skis!

    We had many cross country skis just like these with three pin bindings. They were stored on the rafters of our shed until the shed burned three years ago. Not sure what we were saving them for, but here at Hotel Leavenworth they put some old skis like ours to use decorating their walls.

And here's a really old ski!

    The first time I ever tried skiing was on skis like this when I was a teenager and there were a few inches of snow in Grass Valley. The skis were in an old shed on our property left by a previous owner. As I recall it was a less than thrilling first ski adventure - old wooden skis, no wax, and no experience. But it was fun to see this ski on the wall and remember.

The view from our room.

We were warned there was no view, but this was extreme.

But the sun deck on the back of the hotel more than made up for it.

We sat out here at sunset, and I wrote in my journal on the deck in the morning.

The view looking down to the river below from the sun deck.

Looking down the iconic Leavenworth main street where I started my morning walk.

River Front Park was a short distance away.

Some Canada Geese in the river.

Looking at the mountains from the river bank.

I assumed there were only Black Bears in the area, but this is a Grizzly silhouette.

    

    We left Leavenworth on the late morning of Wednesday, May 27. My original thought when planning this trip was that we would get to explore more of eastern Washington and Oregon than we have experienced before, but alas our time was running short so we would need to pretty much just drive south with short breaks in order to be in Eureka again on Friday, May 29, in time for the meeting I needed to attend on Saturday.

Mount Rainier as viewed from near Yakima.

At a roadside rest I appreciated this Mountain identifier.

We loved catching glimpses of the Cascade Range's Volcanos as we drove south.

And looked forward to seeing Shasta when back in California, but alas it was in clouds!

    We stopped for lunch in the the town of Toppenish on Wednesday and strolled around looking at many, many murals that depict the history of the area. Below is just a sampling of the murals we saw.

Old Timers Plaza where we began and ended our walk.

    Wednesday night we made it to The Dalles in the Columbia River Gorge. I wasn't too impressed with the motel we chose for the night, nor the adjacent diner for dinner, but I did get a nice walk in the morning walking up through neighborhoods toward the picturesque ridge above.

Our motel with a western theme look to attract attention.

They even had a tractor inside.

This is about as close as I could get to the ridge.

I kept running into No Trespassing signs.

Looking down toward the Columbia River Gorge.

Another view of the Columbia Gorge.

One of The Cascade volcanoes on our way south through Oregon.

And a better view of it.

And another mountain identifier.

Near Bend we stopped at this very interesting Volcanic Cone.

It was at this park that I'd wished we'd had more time to explore.

    On Thursday, May 28, we found lodging in Weed. We should have had grand views of Mt. Shasta, but it was raining. I still had an interesting walk in the morning.

This Mountain Bluebird was near Montague, before we arrived in Weed.

And this Penstemon is the only thing I took a picture of on my morning walk in Weed.

Looking toward the Pacific Ocean, afternoon, Friday, May 29.

We stopped at Berry Summit on Hwy 299 before descending to Eureka.

    Friday, May 30, and Saturday, May 31, we spent the night again with Rob's sister and brother-in-law - some time I'll get a picture! I attended my meeting on Saturday and Sunday morning we attended worship at Eureka First UMC, had lunch with friends and then headed south to Potter Valley to spend the night with my sister Elizabeth.

What I saw on my walk on Saturday morning, May 30.

Baby Wood Ducks on the gravel near the pond in Sequoia Park.

Rob, Shirley, Dick and me at Founders Grove.

    We stopped for our usual walk in Founders Grove south of Eureka on our way down Hwy 101 and were delighted to see and talk with Shirley and Dick, State Park Volunteers. We first met Shirley and Dick on June 30, 2020 when we were leaving Eureka after I retired. We were inspired then by their experience as California State Park volunteers in two parks - Humboldt Redwoods State Park and San Onofre State Beach in southern California. They have lived full time in their class c motor home for close to 30 years and have been rotating between the two parks with travels in between. They were a real inspiration to us as we began our own journey traveling and camp hosting. They continued to inspire us on our serendipitous encounter with them on May 31, 2026. Dick is now 90 years old and they have no plans to leave their life style.

    In my previous blog I showed a picture of Scotch (or French) or some other kind of Broom on our property and mentioned a remedy for the overgrowth of this invasive species. The remedy, we hope, is a Kubota Tractor delivered to our property while we were touring the Pacific North West. 

Ruth at the wheel of the Kubota, removing some thistle on June 1.

    That's all for now! I write this on August 8, and there have been many adventures since that will need to wait for future posts. And once again, no pet pictures - maybe next time!