Napa and Sonoma

On our way back to the Pacific Northwest, we stopped by California Wine Country.

 Along much of the way, and especially in the Napa and Sonoma area, we were greeted by beautiful California Poppies.

 There were enough golf courses in the Napa/Sonoma area to satisfy even the most avid duffer.  The vineyard forms the rough?

 This, of course was the main attraction.  We got there a little before the vines leafed out, but the setting was still gorgeous.  This was the famous Stag's Leap district.

 One of the must go places is Gott's Roadside Burgers.  This is probably the only roadside burger place we've ever seen that had a wine list, and a pretty good one at that.  The burgers and shakes were excellent, but at a cost of $40 for two burgers and two shakes, a tad expensive.

 Across the road, these professional offices were faced by spectacular wisterias.

 We saw several of these water towers like this one to the right of the yellow house throughout the valley.

We loved the whimsey of this truck/sculpture outside the Calistoga Water bottling plant.

 Our favorite town in the area was Sonoma.  We spent quite a while wandering through her streets and looking at shops.

One of of the less publicized features of the area is the excellent cheeses that are available here.  This is the Cowgirl Creamery, one of our favorites.  Their Mt. Tam goat cheese is excellent.

These, I suppose, are some of the contented California cows, of TV commercial fame, from which they get the milk to make their outstanding cheeses.

Not too far from our campground in Vacaville (which, of course translates to cow town, a well deserved name) was the Jelly Belly factory.  Of course, we had to stop by and pick up some treats for grandkids.  The white spots in the foreground are the remains of sleet that had blanketed the area earlier.

This was a fun little stop, full of school bus loads of kids, there on field trips.  Penny speculated on what state standard would be met by this outing.

At Home

While we were on the road, we looked at each place we visited as a potential place to put down our roots.  Many places were very attractive and inviting.  Still, we finally decided that there was no place quite like the Pacific Northwest.  While we're nowhere near ready to come completely off the road, we've thoroughly enjoyed living a large part of our year here.  All of these photos were taken from our back deck.

 We always have a great view of the beautiful Columbia River.

 Mt. Hood, in her many moods never ceases to stir our souls.

 Here she is with an interesting lenticular cloud over her.

 We have many avian visitors like this kildeer.  Our resident pair raised at least two broods this year.

 Particularly during the fall, there are many ducks that visit the pond below us like these Northern Shovelers.

We have a resident Red Tailed Hawk who makes sure we don't have too large a rodent population.

While they do some damage to our plants in the winter, we still enjoy our small herd of Black Tailed Deer.  We've named this fellow "The Prince" after Bambi's father.

And, of course, here's Filene.

We also have lots of man-made attractions.  Here, the Queen of the West heads out into the Columbia Gorge. This cruise ship provides a luxury trip at luxury prices. 

A log raft heads downriver to the sawmill.

We awoke one morning to see the mighty 4449 Daylight steaming out with her vintage passenger cars.  For those of you who aren't train aficionados, a daylight engine is one that has decorative shrouding and a paint scheme similar to this one.

We had to go no further than our deck to see an excellent fireworks show put on by the port of Camas/Washougal.  Note all of the fireworks across the river in Oregon (where they're illegal).  The port is also the site of one of the landing points encampments of Lewis and Clark.

Even on the nights when there are no fireworks, we enjoy the lights of Gresham and Troutdale across the river.  These are small towns that are part of the greater Portland, OR area.

We always enjoy our travels and miss the road when we're at home, but when we're on the road, we always look forward to returning home. 

The Hood Canal

From the Northern Olympic Peninsula, we went to one of our favorite RV parks in the small town of Potlatch, Washington on the beautiful Hood Canal.  For those of you who are not Northwesterners, the Hood Canal is not a canal at all, but rather a fjord.  It was named Hood's Channel by Captain George Vancouver, but he spelled it "Hood's Canal".

The sites are only few feet away from the water, and there are pretty little streams on either side of the park. 

Not far from the RV park is Mt. Walker.  To get to the top, it is necessary to drive up a one lane road with numerous switchbacks.  You must try to look two or three turns ahead to be able to find a pullout so you can yield to downhill traffic.  Still, it is well worth the trip.  When we first arrived at the viewpoint, fog and low clouds obscured the view.

Eventually, the clouds cleared sufficiently to allow a good view of the canal.

Finally, clearing was sufficient to allow a wonderful view across the canal to Mt. Ranier.

From Mt. Walker, we saw a small lagoon, so went down to investigate.  The lagoon turned out to be a marine research area adjacent to Dabob Bay.  This pier had extended out into the bay.  Think that we should send this photo to Jay Leno?

Not far from here is Naval submarine base Bangor.  In the bay are a series of buoys with warning lights.  This sign warns boaters to watch the lights and get out of the bay if they are signaling that a torpedo test is about to take place.

One day, we looked out our window and saw this big guy.

He made several passes by the front of the coach.  This photo was taken through the windshield.  We later discovered that the remains of a dead salmon had washed up onto the shore below.

He was constantly being harassed by several crows who also wanted the salmon.  When we had been here earlier in the year, we had seen several crows roiling up over a group of trees.  It turned out that our eagle was raiding their nests.

From Potlatch, we turned back toward home.  We love being out in our coach, but we also love being in our home with its beautiful views of the Columbia River and Mt. Hood.

The Hoh Rain Forest

No trip to the Olympic Peninsula would be complete without a visit to the Hoh rain forest.  It is named for the Hoh tribe of Native Americans.  It is also somewhat ironic that HOH is the chemical symbol often used to designate water.  This area receives around 140 inches of rain a year.

 As you might imagine, there are many huge trees here, like this big Sitka Spruce.

 Witches hair grows everywhere.

 Often the witches hair is joined by moss and ferns such as these growing on a living tree.

 This area was full of large big-leaf maples.  It was so green it was almost surreal.  You almost expected an elf, wood nymph, or vampire to spring out of the bushes. Parts of the Twilight movies were filmed near here.

 Here, a huge Sitka Spruce has fallen.  We were able to walk off 190 feet before the tree was cut to accommodate the trail.  It was still at least three feet in diameter at that point. 

 Trees such as the one above become nurse trees as they decay.  The abundance of rain in these areas quickly leaches nutrients from the upper soil layers, thus the importance of the nurse trees.

 Here are some larger trees that started on a nurse log years earlier.  You often see more or less straight rows of trees that give evidence of the contribution of a nurse tree to the flora (and fauna) of the area.  These rows are know as collonades.

 Eventually, the nurse tree decays away.  Here a goose pen straddles the last remains of what must have been a much larger nurse tree.

Eventually, the nurse tree decays completely away leaving large trees such as this one.

Old trees also fall across living trees causing them to form unusual shapes.  It appears that a tree that has since largely decayed away fell across this maple when it was young causing it to form an arch.

Coming and going we passed through Forks, Washington where some of the movie "Twilight" was filmed.  Sadly, the View House, where the prom scenes were shot, burned this summer.  It was across the Columbia River from our house.  It was also the scene of the retirement party for Mike and Penny.  We watched the fire from our back deck.

Cape Flattery

This summer, we had the opportunity to go to the Olympic Peninsula with friends Mike and Karen.  One of the first trips we took was to Cape Flattery.  

 The trip down is through old growth forest full of interestingly shaped trees.

The walk down is easy and beautiful.

 

 The Cape is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places you could ever hope to see.

 The cliffs are undercut by numerous sea caves.

 The lighthouse is across the strait on Taloosh Island.  It was built in 1834 at the exorbitant cost of $39,000.  At the time it was the northernmost point in the United States. 

 There are interesting shore birds like the harlequin ducks,

 and these oyster catchers.

 This starfish appears to be hanging onto the cliff side for dear life.

 Even the decay organisms offer their own kind of beauty.

 Then, after you've spent a while drinking in the beauty of the Cape, you have to walk back up to the parking lot.

It's still a fun and interesting trail, but it is up.

This is one of those places that once you visit, you'll never completely leave.