A Life Cut Short

My funny , loving, smart, mad Irishman died in the early hours this morning.  The photos in the last post were taken yesterday.

There will be no more posts.  Without Mike, RVing holds no charm.

Gig Harbor

We packed up yesterday (Tuesday, 6/24), under gray skies beginning to mist.  By 11:00 we were on our way out of the park and headed north.

We are pleasantly surprised at our RV park, as it is much roomier and nicer than we had expected. Nice to have an upside surprise for a change.  We called our friends in Port Orchard, Joan and Jerry, and arranged a dinner at Tides, a great tavern on the water.  Their granddaughter Lauren also joined us and a good time was had by all.  Tomorrow Joan, Lauren, Tara (Lauren's mother-in-law) and I are having a little all-female time in the harbor.  Should be fun.

Today we just wandered around the harbor.  There was a small farmers' market in the park and we examined all the flowers/honey/strawberries/etc.  See photos.

Farmers' Market

Entertainment for the Farmers' Market.  Young lady seemed to know three chords.

Lots of kayakers, paddle boarders, boaters all the time in the harbor.  

This young man wants to kayak but is afraid of the water?

Another sign for my collection.

Muppet and Lola meet Echo.

Memorial to lost fisherman from Gig Harbor.

We have been in and out of beach towns all the way up the California/Oregon/Washington coast and this is my favorite so far.

We had a delightful dinner last night with our grand-niece and grand-nephew Brandy and Justin Downey and Brandy's fiance Derek Porritt.  Took us a while to find their house.  The neighborhood has few street signs, the streets don't run in a nice grid, and Brandy said even the pizza delivery guys have trouble.  But we got there.

Iguanaville

In addition to the two dogs, Buddy the golden retriever and Marley (don't know her breed), they have two exotic lizards.  Derek built this impressive multi-level home for their two iguanas.  One was up for the photo op, the other decided to hide in a corner.

Brandy, our hostess

Justin

Justin with Buddy

Mike, Justin, Brandy and Mary Anne

Justin, Derek and Brandy

Getting to see them all was a real pleasure, as we haven't seen them for a couple of years.  We will see them again at Brandy and Derek's wedding in August, as we are staying in the Pacific Northwest to be able to attend.  

We will hang out here in Kelso until Tuesday next week and then head north again for Gig Harbor.

Crater Lake and Southwest Oregon

We are happy to be out of the Portland area with its daunting traffic.  On Saturday June 7 we headed south to Myrtle Creek OR, our staging point to visit Crater Lake National Park.  Sunday was cloudy but Monday was better.  It took 2.5 hours to drive up to the visitor center and another two hours (we went back a different way) to return to Myrtle Creek.  Absolutely worth it.  The drive down followed the Umpqua River, another of the beautiful, clear rivers here in the mountain west.

 Crater Lake National Park

Crater Lake is deep sapphire blue.  It's what remains of a major volcano which blew off 6,000 feet of its top about 7000 years ago.  It is still fairly high, 6,600 feet.  Since we have been at sea level or close to it for months, the altitude made me light-headed for a few minutes. Fortunately I didn't have to do any strenuous exertion.  The dogs, of course were fine.  And so was Mike.

The lake is mesmerizing in its intensity.  We were somewhat surprised that the east rim road is still closed due to snow and there were large swaths of snow falling away from the west rim road. The dogs happily rolled around in a snowbank.

 We stayed at a small park with many permanent residents in Myrtle Creek .  One of the rigs had this sign hanging on the front:

We have no plans for further sight-seeing for the next couple of weeks.  We are now in Kelso WA and will be having dinner tomorrow with Brandy Downey (my grand-niece) and her fiance Derek Porritt.

Portland

We found our park in Portland with no difficulty.  In fact, we were at the park at 1:00 pm, which is a new record for us.  The drive from Newport wasn't as slow as we had thought it would be.  We set up the rig and chilled for the remainder of the day.  The weather was overcast and rainy.

Friday's forecast was clear, sunny and warm, with the upcoming week cloudy, partly cloudy, and showers.  Sounds like the day to do the outdoor stuff.  We went east from the park along the Columbia River to Multnomah Falls.  Breathtaking.  Note the red ribbon on the footbridge:  a large boulder broke loose in January and plummeted to the bridge, damaging it.  The official re-opening of the bridge was last weekend, Memorial Day.

Old US 30 Highway is the route through this area.  Next stop was Bridal Veil Falls.  It was a hike down to the falls and a tougher hike back up but the dogs were very brave.  At least as beautiful as Multnomah Falls and far fewer people.

As we were driving out to Multnomah Falls, we saw a sign for Vista House.  No explanation so we kept going.  As we finished at Bridal Veil Falls, we decided to continue west on Old US 30, as it led back to I-84 and Portland.  We passed Vista House on the way.  See photos.  According to the volunteer I talked with, it was built with a budget of $18,000 and actual of $100,000 after US 30 was completed in 1915.  And worth every cent.  It's a magnificent structure which nearly disappeared, as no maintenance was done for years and it was rapidly deteriorating.  

It is situated on a point above the Columbia River gorge and the views are magnificent.

Last fall we attended my 50th high school reunion and renewed acquaintances.  One of my classmates,Gary Schaub and his wife Connie, live in a southern suburb of Portland.  We plan to meet them tonight for dinner.

Later:
Had a great time with Connie and Gary.  They own property in Kansas and we may see them again in Coffeyville when we are through there in October.

It's been a quiet few days, as Mike has gone to Kansas City to check in with the eye surgeon.  The dogs can't figure out where he is, even though I have explained it to them.  He is picking up his free Samsung phone and can't wait to play with it.  Samsung offered it to him as a test model, since he is an unusually knowledgeable user and he travels all the time.  I get Mike's old (last December) phone.

We will pack up Friday and move to Myrtle Creek OR on Saturday.  Crater Lake National Park next week.