Another Critter Page

Sea Otters, A fistful of toads, a mouthful of weeds, puffins?, Rocky

More Washington Pictures

James & Aunt Yvonne, Roche Harbor, Fecal Freak, Dacus Family, Pike Street Market

Olympic Penninsula/ Seattle

Greetings from the pacific northwest! We made our way out of Canada and into the Olympic Penninsula. It was cloudy and rainy so we decided what better place to go than to the rainforest! We found a campsite close to the beach and walked down to see some seals and maybe dolphins playing in the water. I thought they were dolphins, James thought I was hallucinating. We then headed over to the Hoh Rainforest to do a little exploring. The temperate rainforest is a unique ecosystem that only occurs in a few places in the world. The Hoh rainforest was an amazing place with huge Douglas Fir, Spruce and Cedar trees, covered with moss and giant mushrooms. We really enjoyed hiking around, but headed straight for clam chowder to warm us up after being out in the cold rain all morning. Sorry to those of you in Arkansas who are still suffering under 80 degree temperatures. We found a great lodge right on the beach, Klaloch (i think) and filled our bellies. So far we have decided they have the best clam chowder, this is high praise trust me we are sampling several.

We headed back up to Port Angeles (where we had come across on the ferry) to do laundry and hope the fog had cleared enough so we could see the Olympic mountain range. We found a nice RV park right on the water and headed up to Hurricane Ridge. James' Uncle Tom had told us it was an amazing place to get a view of the Olympics, I am sure this is true 20 to 30 days a year. We had missed the sunny window so we rode up the mountian engulfed in fog taking Tom's word for the fact that there were mountains around us. We did see some pictures at the visitor center at the top so we knew that Tom wasn't crazy. Figuring we had put it off long enough we headed back to town to find a laundry mat. We found a clean enough looking place with, surprise surprise, an espresso shack nearby. For those of you who have never been to the northwest you do not understand how dependent they are on their caffeine. In Port Angeles, a town of about 20,000 people they have 3 Starbucks and 50 other espresso shacks. Jeff, you would be in heaven. We loaded up with the best white chocolate latte I have ever had and then I made some phone calls and James spent the time being harassed by the local paranoid schizophrenic. If you haven't been to a laundromat lately you are really missing out.

The next day we headed to Seattle to spend a few days with James' family. We stayed with his Uncle Tom & his wife Sissy and also spent some time with his Grandma and Aunt Yvonne. Tom & Sissy were very gracious hosts and had an awesome dinner waiting for us when we arrived Tuesday night. The next day was gorgeous and we took the ferry to San Juan Island and rode our bikes almost all around the island, about 30 miles. It was a great day and a beautiful place to ride bikes. We stopped several places along the way, Roche Harbor for lunch ( good clam chowder), and two state parks right on the beach, one with a lighthouse.

Kim instructed me to finish this blog. She is eating breakfast after running several miles on the beach. She was looking in the mirror last night and made the comment "I'm getting fat!" Me, being the practical sort, responded with "indeed." I am holding steady on my weight, but Kim is trying the 'when in Rome' philosophy and when Rome has a 300 lb. fat bastard in it, you are going to gain weight. Anyway, I am finishing this blog.

Either the ran is good for your complexion or they are huffing formaldahyde in Seattle. My grandma is 90 and looks 70. She is going to be upset that I said anything more than 30 if she reads this. My uncle looks like he could be my brother and my aunts both have smooth, pretty faces.

My uncle Tom took us to the Boeing factory after having lunch with my Grandma.

Boeing fun facts: 1. 86 acres under one roof. 2. kick out 19 twin aisle planes a month. 3. The new 787 Dreamliner is made of composite material instead of steel and gets 20% better fuel mileage.

We took a day with Yvonne to check out Seattle. We toured the underground, which shows just how screwed up Seattle's founding fathers were. We went to the aquarium, Pike St. Market and Iver's on the wharf for lunch. The next day we toured the University of Washington campus with Tom and Sissy and checked out the flagship REI store. We ended the day at a Greek festival where we ate several greek foods and felt like we were on the set of My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2.

We had a wonderful visit and headed out Sunday morning for a visit with Kim's cousin Drew, his wife Irene, and their two little girls. They toured us around Fort Lewis where Drew works as an Army Major in the chemical abatement area. They fed us snacks, wine and dinner, which was very nice of them and sent us on our way to Mt. St. Helens.

We will talk to you soon, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to critique my writing or how boring all of this #$%! is. I have to reel in my foul language, I have been informed that not just my brother is reading this blog!

More Pics Just for Max and Zachary

Ferry Leaving port

Sea Plane Landing
Lazy Daze on Ferry

Salmon in salmon run

Aunt Kimby next to very tall tree

Vancouver Island

B.C. is HUGE! It is amazing to think that we have driven for 4 days and have only explored the southern portion of the province. Canadians seem to take their parks seriously. They are well organized and the campsites are clean, maintained and big. We could spend a whole summer here and not even see it all, so it is hard to decide what to do and where to go. We decided that we should trek over to Vancouver Island. Vancouver Island looks small in comparison to the B.C. mainland, but it is 400 miles long and 100 miles wide. We got up at 7:00 a.m. to get from our campsite at Porteau Cove to the fairly launch at Horseshoe Bay north of Vancouer by the 8:30 departure. We got in the relatively short line and made our way to the toll booth. The lady asked "how long are you?" "Err, uh, ahem, I...." "I'll get my measuring tape" she says and pulls out a rolling spool on a stick. "Oh, you wont need that, OH, OH, the r.v. and car." I am embellishing of course. She measured the whole assemblage to be 43 feet long, goes back to the booth and punches the figures into the computer/register and says "one hundred and seventy dollars." HELLO! Rickin' Frankin' R.V. towbar, car combo blues again. She said " you can go get coffee in the village, but make sure you are back here by 8:15." Kim looked at me and said "I thought it was 8:15". I had set the clock an hour later than it really was, so we were actually there an hour ahead of time. Robbing Kim of an hour of sleep is one thing that could sway her sunny disposition, but she forgave me when we got back and saw the long line that we would have been at the end of if we had indeed showed up at 8:15. There are only a few spots for big rigs, so we probably wouldn't have made the 8:15 ferry without my mistake. We were entertained by the German polka troop on the 90 minute ferry ride to the landing at Nanaimo Bay on Vancouver Island . They had two accordian players and 8 couples dancing in perfect sync. It was fun, I want to learn to polka. We drove off the ferry, gassed up and headed up the coast. We were headed to Campbell River where I heard the salmon were running. We stopped in town and talked to the local fishing store. The kid behind the counter said the rivers were full of Pink and Spring Salmon and loaded me up with the proper flies to catch them. At this point I could have run to the river without regard to anything else in life, but to catch fish. Unfortunately I had retrieve the r.v., find a campsite and get my fishing gear together. I finally got on the river by 4:00 p.m. I had no luck for about 2 hours, then one of the locals told me "if you don't have enough weight to get to the bottom, you will never get a bite." I put on a couple of small sinkers and fished for another hour. Kim came to visit and within 5 minutes I had a bite. It lasted for 2 seconds, but I could tell it was bigger than anything I had ever hooked on my flyrod. Kim left one minute later. This is proof that she gives not a hoot about fishing. Gentlemen, I ask "would you leave a fishing spot as soon as you saw someone get a bite?" Go figure. Thirty minutes went by and then I thought my line had caught on a rock again. I gave a small tug, and the rock bolted! I didn't want to lose this one so I gave the hook a double set. The fish shot out to the middle of the river and hovered in the current. I pulled as hard as I could and could only budge it a little. It then shot up river faster than any fish I had ever hooked. Of course the whole time I am having a silent dialogue with myself that went something like "wholy @#$% please, mother of god have mercy, let the boy land the salmon, I'm a good guy, I deserve to at least see the salmon." Nothin' doin'. The fish shot down river using fin and current power to strip line so fast I couldn't hang on and the hook popped. I didn't stand a chance. The Brit next to me said "you don't stand a chance against a big spring with a small rig like that!" The French Canadian on the other side of me gave me a good hole to go to up river where I could catch pink salmon on my little flyrod. I went up river and within 10 minutes had a great fight with a 5 lb. Pink salmon that was still very siver in color, which meant good eating. I caught another fish and headed back to camp. The second fish was darker in color and the flesh wasn't that good, so we didn't eat it, but the first fish was delicious. The next day I convinced Kim to come with me up the Quinsam River, where I caught several fish and spent a few moments within 50 feet of a blackbear and her two cubs. Kim caught the whole thing on video. It was a true B.C. moment.

I hated to leave good fishing waters and go sightseeing in Victoria, but we had a pseudo schedule to keep. We stayed at a campsite outside of Victoria and ventured in the next day to tour the city on our bicycles. Bike touring is such a good way to see things. You go at a great pace, cover quite a bit of territory and burn off calories, so you can gorge yourself on local fare! Being mister preparidness, I had to check with the ferry operators to see when we needed to be in line in the morning to get on the 10:30 ferry. I asked the guy at the entrance booth "what time in the morning do we need to get here to catch the 10:30 ferry?" He answered "about 7:30 tonight." I hate r.v.'s "7:30 tonight? For Tomorrow?" "Yup." "Can we stay in our r.v. inside the fence here?" "yup." Free camping on Victoria Harbour, I love's the r.v. We tooled around Victoria, biked around the point and across the city on the Galloping Goose bike trail, it was cool. We went back to the campground, loaded up the r.v. and drove back to the ferry line by 7:30 sharp only to find another 30 cars ahead of us for the 10:30 a.m. sailing. When we got to the entrance booth, the two young guys running the show started shaking their heads. "Any room for an American pig in an r.v. trailering a car?" I says. They either liked my candid humor or couldn't stand to see a huge be-bearded dude with puppy dog eyes. The asked "can you separate your vehicles quickly?" "yes, we can." "O.k. park the r.v. in lane two, the car at the head of lane 3, we aren't supposed to have room for you, so if someone asks, you had reservations." Those guys were awesome. They were real friendly and hooked us up. I told them they represented Canada well. We were allowed to come and go from the fenced confines of the ferry line for the evening, so we went back into Victoria and did some shopping and had a few beers. We had a nice long conversation with the German man in the little Fiat r.v. ahead of us in lane 2. He was on a four month trek of the U.S. with his two kids and wife. The Euro is strong against the dollar, so he said travelling the U.S. is relatively cheap. The next morning we made our way onto the ferry without a hitch, witnessing the poor stiffs that were already filling the 3:30 p.m. ferry line. Good bye to B.C. and all it's beauty, but thank god for the U.S. and it's lower prices.

Vancouver Pics

Beautiful British Columbia

One week into Canada and my wallet has almost reached 29.92 inches of mercury, in Refrigeration talk that is a perfect vacuum. Schnikies! $8.00 for a beer, $13.00 for a hamburger, $7.00 for a pack of sliced cheese, $4.00 to do a load of wash not including the $2.50 for the dryer. The U.S. dollar has become weak and is now about 1 for 1 to Canadian. For you beer drinkers, a six pack in Banff was $11. I sound Jewish, I get it from my mother apparently. I take that back, she bought a very expensive tank of gas (5o gal. at $4.80 a gallon).

Despite the high prices, Canada is beautiful! We trucked out of the tourist havens of Jasper and Banff on to the nearby National Parks of Revelstoke and Glacier. These parks are neverending glacier capped granite peaks. The glaciel streams run all summer and get swifter with the heat of the day, most of the mid to late summer Canadian water comes from the glaciers, which are going to be gone in about 100 years or less. Scary! We camped right alongside one of these amazing streams in the Canadian Glacier National Park. The campsite was on the Illicillewaet River in the old growth forest. There were grizzly bear trail closings abound, but we took a short walk to The Meeting of the Waters (picture included) and along the old Canadian Railroad track. We took a short hike in Revelstoke to the top of the mountain where there was virtually a 360 degree panorama of Canadian Rockies. The next two days the four of us traveled through the valley country, which was full of farmland. Peaches, apples, honey, milk, cherries, corn and much more offered at dozens upon dozens of roadside fruit stands. We stopped in Penticton where we waited about an hour and fifteen minutes for our lunch, I guess the 6 patrons in the restaurant was more than they were used to. The stop in Penticton did afford us the chance to get a picture next to a HUGE peach. As we drove by I said "James and the Giant Peach!" my favorite kids story that my mommy read me. I miss my Mommy! Kim misses her too. She defends Kim to the hilt and keeps me in check. I believe one dialogue went as follows: I said to Kim "sometimes you can be such a dingbat!" Mom says to me "no she's not, she is sweet and you are lucky she puts up with you, you stupid #$%@!" That's my mother. Our friend Kata from Hungary said her mother would cuss her for five minutes straight and not use the same word twice, 'cause they had so many cuss words in Hungary. My mom was Hungarian in a former life. She is taming down, due to Grandmothering, but occasionally she can floor you. Kim doesn't particulary like cussing, but when my mom is directing it at me it is just fine.

We stayed outside of Vernon in an R.V. type campground overlooking Kalamalka Lake. The lake was crystal clear, which is the theme in B.C. Kim and I swam in the cool water and we all took hot showers in the morning. Free dump station too. We like dumping our sewage for free, I need to remember not to wear my sandals when dumping sheite, maybe none has ever got on my toesies, but I always feel like it does and worry about it for the next few hours. I am an anal geek in bluecollar bearded guy clothing. I almost got a good ol' Huber full moon on video camera and the timing would have been one for the record books, but alas Huber is a damn Grandpa and held back from the actual drawer droppage and just faked it as he climed into the upper bunk of the Lazy Daze. I have to hand it to the old farts, they loaded up into the bunk every night, didn't get up to pee and actually seemed like they enjoyed the cramped confines. It is nice to have parents that you can hang out with in a small r.v. for a week and actually regret sending them off to their airport hotel when it was over. We spent another night alongside a creek in Manning Park which is back into the mountains from the fertile Okanagan Valley. We cruised into Golden Ears Provincial Park the next day, so that we would be close to the Vancouver airport. We took a short hike to the Alloutte Lake then drove Mom and Bill to their hotel. Bill treated us to a very nice seafood dinner and we said our goodbyes. We went back to our lonely R.V. The next day I put up the souvenir coffee cup my mother had bought at a bakery near Lake Louise and I missed her already. I love you, you Moomy!

Kim allowed me to fish in the Alloutte Lake the next day. I didn't get my act together until 5:00, but I actually caught a nice trout and a couple of other weird fish. The bites were getting more frequent close to dark, so I pushed it right to dark. If you think the old growth B.C. forest is dark in the day, try finding your way back in the night with a l.e.d. flashlight that is operating on .002 volts of dead batteryage. I'm a big, tough, mountain man dude, but the dark woods doesn't give a shit about that. I made a few wrong turns and the panic was about to turn severe when I finally found an old rotted bridge that marked the trail to the campground. Trying to find your way around a 400 site Hobbit Village in the pitch black with nothing but campfire lights, trees and the odd laugh or two was a bit freaky too. When I finally made it back to the R.V. with my one pathetic trout and my headlamp putting out no more light than a ripe zit, kim was so full of genuine hugs of relief that I realized she really must love me.

We went towards Whistler the next day. Whistler is where the 2010 winter Olympics will be held. They are frantically trying to complete a huge road enlargement project, so the construction was continual for about 30 miles. We stayed at Alice Lake Provincial Campground, which was a smaller version of the Hobbit Woods of Golden Ears. It was nice, but the fishing sucked, so I voted for a move to the Porteau Cove campground that we had seen along the way. It was right on the ocean sound. We scored a primo spot on the beach there. The next day we went to Vancouver and rode our bikes around the town. It was a spectacular day of tourism. We went to the Grandville Island Market and around Stanley Park and to the treetop suspension bridges of Capilano Park. We had one of the best days I have to recommend a trip to Vancouver.

I have rambled and Kim is long asleep, so I will sign off and tell you about Vancouver Island in the morning.

Love to all, and yes, we kind of miss Arkansas and all of our buddies. Fall is a great time to be in the Ozarks suck it up cause those hardwood forests kick butt when it comes to color, these forests have size, but not the color.

Bye for now, James

Canada-eh (Banff & Jasper)

Well Banff & Jasper National Parks in Canada were as beautiful as we thought they would be. Unfortunately we were not the only people who had heard of their beauty. We knew it was going to be crowded when we barely got a reservation at the 1,000 site campsite in Banff. It was packed! Thankfully the parking lot campsite wasn't as bad as we thought it would be, we actually had a nice view and some good neighbors. We were only about a mile from downtown, again their weird park/city system may be something we could get used to, so we were able to walk around and battle the crowds without having to have fought for a parking space as well. James finally broke out in hives so we decided to head back to our patch of asphalt. The next day we went on a hike and a bike ride and ended up kicking both of our booties. I realized that I may be able to beat James up a mountain on foot but put him on a bike and it is I who eat his dust. We were barely able to drag out early enough the next morning to get to Calgary and pick up Bill & Mary, we were actually a few minutes late but we quickly found them a Tim Horton's (a coffee chain in Canada) and all was forgiven. We toured them around Banff a little and showed them their new deluxe accommodations. I have to say they handled the ladder to the bunk like pros and I only heard one head conk all week. Sunday we put on our battle gear and went to Johnston Falls and Moraine Lake. At Johnston Falls we were actually able to score a parking place, but at Moraine Lake we added about 3 miles to the .5 mile hike around the lake by parking so far away. It was insane. There were cars and people everywhere. We quickly oohed & aah ed at the glacial lake and raced back to the safety of the RV for rum & cokes and Mary's yummy chicken parmigiana. The next day was Monday and we assumed alot of the people would be leaving since it was the end of the holiday. Apparently the park assumes this same thing because about 1/2 of the campgrounds closed promptly at 11:00 that morning. Thankfully we were on the road headed up to Lake Louise & Jasper at this time so we didn't have to suffer the shame of being kicked out of our campsite. Lake Louise was as gorgeous as we had heard, it is a glacial lake so the color is this amazing blue or green, depending on where the sun is hitting it and reflecting off the 'rock flour' in the lake. We drove up towards Jasper and dropped off the RV in the Columbia Icefields parking lot because we had the brilliant idea that we would go just a little way up the road and secure a campsite. We were not aware of the parks labor day shut out system and ended up driving all the way to Jasper without spotting an open campsite. We made the most of it and toured Jasper stopping at a yummy pizza place along the way. We came back to the icefields parking lot and realized it was also an overflow camping spot. So for the low price of $10.00 we spent the evening playing cards at the base of a glacier with the place all to ourselves. The next day we headed out of the Banff/Jasper area in search of beautiful, but perhaps a bit more peaceful places.

Waterton-Glacier

Well James finally decided to let me take a turn again so I will try to be as witty and entertaining as he is. (I know that's bad grammar, sorry Jeff & Mary). We just got back from Canada but I am going to back track a little first and write more about Glacier, which even after all the amazing places in Canada is still at the top of our list. Before I get too far into our adventure update I would like to say thank you to those who are reading this and leaving comments. We love to hear from people back home and it has been great to hear from friends and coworkers. I am not sure about blog etiquitte so I don't know if we are supposed to comment on your comments about our comments. Anyway, we love hearing from everyone.

Back to the task at hand.........................Waterton-Glacier was the first international peace park (I think it might still be the only one actually) because it encompasses land both in the US & Canada. I think about 2 million acres in the US and 30,000 in Canada. I know its petty but I think since more of the land is in the us it should be Glacier-Waterton, oh well. what kind of an ambassador would I make. We spent most of our time in Glacier because we realized in Wateron Canadians have a strange habit of having towns in the middle of their national parks. It can be conveinent but also a little annoying. We already posted some pictures of Many Glacier which is on the east side of Glacier but for my mothers sake as well as anyone else who has a fear of heights I have to post some of the "Going to the Sun" road. When we first got to the park they told us we couldn't take our RV all the way over this infamous road and we were a little annoyed because it meant to get to the other side we had to drive an extra 60 miles. When you are barely getting 10 miles a gallon this is a big deal. After we drove the narrow, windy, road we would have driven 600 miles out of the way. The road was barely as wide as our RV and had a sheer drop off almost the whole way. We drove it once and then opted for the shuttle the rest of the time. We did have a nice big campsite in Glacier and I got to attend a church service right on the lake. We rode our bikes some and James got to do some fishing. On the drive up along Flathead Lake in Montana we passed about 100 cherry stands and finally found one we could pull our huge load through, so I also ate myself sick on cherries in amidst all of our hiking. I know James has commented on the amount of hiking we have been doing but we have also been doing our fair share of eating & drinking.

We made it across the border easily enough with Mr. Roboto as our appointed customs agent. It was one of the few times James has not been on the verge of getting strip searched when going through customs so we were very polite and didn't comment on the agents lack of personality. Waterton was nice enough, as I said there was a town in the middle of the park so it wasn't quite what we were used to. We did see about 20 big horn sheep parade through town, I guess they think its silly to have a town in the middle of a park too. We rode our bikes up to their big fancy hotel and almost tortured the tour bus group by joining them for high tea. We decided we were a bit too unkempt (the wind had blown my hair into something akin to Medusa) and went back to town for ice cream, see I told you there was lots of eating.