Adventures Of Tripping Sister!: July 2012

DAY 1

My husband's birthday and our 4th wedding anniversary is coming up pretty quick. So....we decided that since we didn't have a large budget and a lot of time, we would "slab it" to the main destinations and then RIDE, RIDE, RIDE, once we got to them! We purchased a trailer to get us there quicker and would use our scooters to get around everywhere else once we set up camp!

So, we pulled out and headed for the border on July 27th. Getting through the border was relatively painless....this time!

The ride was very nice and it was good to be able to sit in the car and think of all the places we would go on our scooters after we got all set up...:-)

Our tent is a 4 person tent with has two twin air mattresses in it. Which kinda makes it a KING bed in a....well...medium size tent. But there was enough room for us to sleep without bumping into each other or tearing the thing down if we turned over in the middle of the night. We had to get the bikes off the rack first though. No small feat!

Sooo, we have finally spent two nights in the "wilderness" in our tent. I just about froze my butt off! haha...My beloved was cool as a cumcumber having been raised in rainy, wet British Columbia.

But I gott admit, the down comfortor was a big plus. Along with the egg crate, Duvete cover, and ....well....ME! ha..

We checked in with the Habour Master who told us to just pick a spot anywhere we wanted to and pay in the morning. It was slim pickens, but we found a spot between the huge RV's. Then we set out to see what we could see on our scooters!

Anacotes is such a lovely place. But it is chilly at night!

Dinner at KFC!

We took a short drive into a camp that told us they had room, but was full when we got there! :-(

this is Gladys...the lady who rescued by freezing butt with the sale of her sleeping bags for a buck each!

There seemed to be an overabundance of deer! The sad thing was they were not that afraid of people!

Then after a long day and running to the store to get a lantern for our site, we got a camp fire ready where I tried to suck up as much heat as I could befor heading for bed! haha. No repeats of the night before for me!

Good night!!

DAY 2

We were in Cap Sante and took a ride on the island and to the Farmers Market that was across the way from where we were camped. The scenery along the way was breath taking...:-). This is just one shot as I have a lot more stuff to show you!

Then we decided to stop just outside the Farmers Market and eat lunch at a restuarant/church/storage building thingee to have some Croatian food!. Sorry the pictures are not in order. I haven't figured that part out yet...:-(.

It was pretty un-remarkable food as it consisted of three little sausage link things. One beef, chicken, lamb and topped with "onion sauce" which was really just sauted onions on a roll. The drink was limonade with fresh strawberries chopped and mixed in. It wasn't bad...it just wasn't GREAT!.

Then we decided we had better find an internet cafe' to try to catch up on e-mail and my blog and ride report!

After catching up on things...or at least for the first day or so....I took all of my riding gear off and put on some comfortable walking shoes. We parked the bikes and had a stroll around the market.

THEN....we spotted this! So, we grabbed some on our way out of the market...:-)

It was pretty crowded and there was some guy and gal croaking away on a Kararoke...dressed in dreppression era clothing. I got a picture of them, but can't find it now....sorry....:-(.

That was pretty much our day! We rode back to the campsite and started setting up for dinner. Dinner consisted of Polish Kilbasa sausage which we roasted on a grill that our "neighbors" in the RV next to us left on our trailer for us to use. We had also stopped at the store on the way back and got more ice, potatoe salad and greek salad. Chris (Scootard) made a fire and we talked and watched it until it almost burned out. Got ready for bed and slept in our new sleeping bags....:-). I was STILL COLD!..haha

Our trailer neighbors - Steven and Dennise...:-). Thanks for the use of your grill and your Dad's table!

Showered and went to bed after the fire went out. Tried to get pics of the fire, but couldn't get it to come out right. Chris looked like a ghost! haha

good night!

DAY 3

So, it was time to go and leave our nice RV neighbors behind. We stayed at the marina and were the ONLY tent in the whole place. haha. Our campsite was actually two, but nobody else came to stay to our immediate left. Maybe they looked at our little tent and was afraid they would squash us like bugs if they tried to set up?? Anyway, it was time to go to our next anniversary adventure!

Next stop was South Whidbey state park with running water and electricity! YAY!

Gotta have "some" of the comforts of home!

Yeah, baby....music too! No WI-FI though....I guess the idea is to "unplug"....:-)

We got set up and went out on the hunt for a store were we could find some lunch to eat while we were out, and lantern and some dinner to bring back to the camp.

Yeah, it taste better than it looks! That is fried chicken, onion rings, and some Chinese veggies. The egg rolls sucked really bad! We gave them to the Sea gulls! haha Then we headed back to camp.

I was estatic about my new (old) sleeping bag! Mine is the red and blue Ozarka trail one on the left...:-).

I forgot to mention that on the way back from the store and lunch, we saw this fire wood for sale. $5.00 a bundle! So, we took a bundle, left our money in the can and decided to give it a whirl at the whole campfire thingee later that evening.

But trying to cook on a campfire was a little past my "skill level".....So, we used our new Coleman stove like we did the other two nights and days. Dinner was steak, broccoli and some left over Chinese stuff from lunch!

I of course was still freezing and decided to use a blanket until Scootard could get a fire going!

Scootard got the fire going. FINALLY! But it took me forever to warm up......:-(.

ahhhhhhh........Now, that I got a little heat in me, I can go to bed without feeling like I have to go to the bathroom every 30 minutes! The cold does that to me for some reason....:-(.

Good night!

DAY 4

This morning, we got up and had breakfast which consisted of boiled eggs and sausage patties....:-). It sure beat the instant oatmeal that Scootard had developed a love relationship with....(yuck)!... After having my REAL breakfast for a change....we headed for the ferry on our bikes and rode over to Port Townsend to see what was there.....:-). uhhhhh, NO! We didn't eat all of those for breakfast...haha.

My towels were wet from my morning shower and I hung them on the tree. Wow, talk about roughin it! ha

So, we waited for our turn to ride onto the ferry to Port Townsend....

It was a little brisk. So, of course I had to.....well you know...glad they have a bathroom on these things. Looking at all that water didn't help either!

I like the idea of going to the head of the pack on ferries....:-). This was just my second time taking my bike on one. I was pretty nervous as it seems that all of the bikes are riding so close together when we have to come off. I usually wait to see what Scootard does and then do "that".

We got over to Port Townsend and decided to take off our gear and walk around the town to see what was what. It was good to get out of the gear. The parking spaces were only for 2 hours, so we had to watch our time and picture taking.

stopped for some coffee in a cafe and tried to catch up on mail and ride reports!

The buildings were very old. some of them had been there since the 1800's. I love old architecture....:-).

this was the oldest independent record shop in Washington.

This is an old Ferry dock that Scootard says he came in through when he was 7 or 8 years old. It was the last time he was here! Kinda bitter sweet I guess....??

I'm not sure what this blue building is/was. but it had a date stamped on it of 1885 I believe with some very strange art work at the end of it. I didn't get pics of the art work....sorry.

We love antique shops and decided to check out a few. Scootard spotted this dog outside of one. Her name was "Emily"...she was made of metal, so I guess you could say she was a bit hard headed...? ha

There were lots of little galleries and shops along the roads and it was very busy with traffic most of the time. we were glad that we decided to park the bikes outside of the coffee shop! We reached out two hour parking limited and decided it was best to go back and move them to "another" two hour spot rather than risk the chance of being towed so far from Canada!

the "new" parking spot! ha Well, then we decided to get back on the bikes and head over to Fort Worden which was only about 3 miles away. But the roads sucked if I must say so myself....:-(.

So.... off we went!

There were very old buildings on the Fort and it seemed to be very spread out as well as a tourist attraction......"Us"!

You cannot tell from these pictures, but these houses were all .........wait for it..........

PINK! Every last one of them! haha. I'm not into pink, but they were very nicely done...very old too! and HUGE. But I think they were for more than one family to occupy at a time.

We were both getting tired and I kept thinking that we'd better head back to the ferry since they had a sign posted that it could be canceled at any time without notice! WHAT!? We snapped a couple of more pics on the fly!

Got back to the Ferry dock and waited for it come for us.

When we finally got back to the campsite I was exhausted! But still needed to cook dinner for us before settling in for the evening.

I quickly discovered that a "forrest friend" had found my black licorice and tried to carry the bag away without success. I guess they just settled on two or three pieces....:-)

Goodnight!

DAY 5

I got dinner cooked and we feasted on the enchilades that our RV friends had given to us, our last steak and the last of the broccoli. All of which has been waiting for us in our cooler! You gotta love scootering with a trailer in the plans. It gives you much more space to work with and keeps you from having to do so much "survival" work. You can really spend more time enjoying your adventure!

We ran back in here at the beginning of our riding day to return an extra lantern that we didn't need.

And we stopped here to update our reports and to get something to eat. The coffee was cold.....:-(

Lunch for me was a pulled pork sandwhich with cole slaw and Scootard had a BLT with some really crispy french fries.

Before we left Canada, we heard about these "Pacsafe" thingees and found a new one for 40.00 bucks!

So, we took it with us and were able to put all of our riding gear including boots and greenies in this one bag. It has a lock too so that we were able to just leave it and walk around and see what Langley had to offer....:-)

First stop was the fire department which was really an art gallery of sorts.

Langely also had a lot of flowers everywhere you looked! and even these strange looking green grape thingees that weren't grapes...ha

and lots of interesting alley ways and paths. I like doors as they often speak of "new opportunities" to me...:-).

or "transition" of some sort.

And just when you think you have escaped the trials of life........

Well..... you know.........

Somebody had to be the best muffin.....:-)

I left this half for Scootard as I found it a bit dense. I would have need a stick of dynamite to get that out of me later!

After leaving the coffee shop, we decided to see what else the little town had to offer.....:-). Afterall, it was Scootard's birthday!

And he was filling his head with all of the beautiful sights......:-)

Looks like it leads to somewhere peacful, doesn't it.....:-)

Then we stumbled across a real live clock maker! He had been in the business for 15 years...but was going out of business soon.

It was a very sad story in that he had no one to leave his business to when he passes away. He was telling us his story and insisted that we take a look around and then sit with him for a while....:-). As he shared his story, we learned that he used to sell all kinds of motorcycles years ago. He showed us a picture of him wearing a pony tail and side burns that had to be 40 years old! Then he showed us more pictures of when he closed that business and hauled everything in his left over inventory to the junk yard where he sold all of his bikes for scrap metal. It was a massive haul of bikes too! I started to ask him if I could take a picture of his pictures...but somehow it just didn't seem right. So, I didn't.....:-( His name is Herb Helsel. Very nice man. His wife came in later and she was a lovely lady. But i didn't get a picture of her. sorry.

We sat and visited and he told us about two clocks that were sitting on the shelf that were over 150 years old. then a customer walked in and we decided to make our escape. We snapped a picture and made our way out the door....thanking him for his time....:-)

And we pushed on to see what else was waiting for us....:-)

We saw this Moped rental store and only saw one scooter. I guess the others were already rented.

yep... that is somebody's private entrance......They must be on weight watchers to get through there!

We visited this jewelry shop since I have an interest in Scootard's "Norwegian" background. I am interested in all things "Vicking"! However, there aren't any "Celtic Vikings"...ha. And the people who owned the shop were Danes! haha So, there was a little friendly sparing people them and Scootard...ha

Scootard took a picture of me petting the bronze dog. The "owner" didn't seem to mind...:-)

THEN, we found this starway and decided to park our tired feet on a bench for a rest and a good long smell of the ocean

ahhhhh, that sweet and salty ocean air.....:-)

See, our tired feet!

After a rest of about 30 minutes, we decided to get going and heading back to the cafe where we parked our bikes.

But not before a couple more snaps of the camera

So, it's time to go from Langely and back to the campsite for our last night at South Whidbey State Park.

took a couple quick shots before gearing back up for the ride back to camp.

We thought about our supply of fire wood dwindeling down and thought we'd better get some more on the way back to camp!

Scootard decided to carry it this way..... I was not too sure of his methods and was praying that he didn't have some slip off on the way back into the site.

We finally reached the campsite......

got ready to load the bikes and shower for the evening....

And light these things which served us WELL.....let me tell ya!

Got "Ms Vickey" loaded first.....

sorted out the money for showers....

Loaded the Majesty......and packed up all that we didn't need for morning...

Cooked out last meal for that campsite which consisted of some Polish Kielbasa sausage, four scrambled eggs which I cooked on our fry pan that we picked up at a thrift shop on the way back and tortillas with apple juice as you can see.....:-).

after getting our showers........sorry ...no pics! haha

We tried to get a good fire going so that we could use up all of our wood before we left.....when it was all gone......so were we!

Goodnight! Stay Tuned.....

DAY 6

This morning we got up early (about 6:45am) and began to break camp. It took us about 1 1/2 hours to get the tent dried off and the ground cover swept and cleaned off. There was a lot of condensation on our tent. I was glad we water proofed it before we left Canada!

We decided to head back to Oak Harbor and find a place to catch up on our ride reports and get some breakfast. Remember we ate breakfast last night for dinner! ha

We found this beach along the way. I think it is the beginning of the Pugent Sound.....(?)

And then we went over to Camp Casey.....

Sorry about the previous smaller pics. I kept getting a error message when I tried to make them larger. I decided to ignor the warnings and see if they would post.

These are all old Navel barracks. Seems that they are having a kids soccer camp there right now. I don't know what else they use it for. But they do have a conference center as well.

We decided on Starbucks to update the reports.....this is a far as we have gotten today. Stay tuned! Tonight we are supposed to set tent in the yard of an ADV rider. But we have not had contact with them since we left. So, we will see how that works out.

We are headed toward Sedro Wooley, Washington where we hope to spend the night and get some much needed rest....at least for me! ha. Tomorrow, we head to the Okanogan in BC, Canada where we will spend the next three days before heading home. We found this antique shop along the way. I resisted the erge to buy anything as our car was already full of the comforts of home....:-).

We decided to stop at a Fred Meyer store to get gas and take some food to ADV rider- K7TBT's house for dinner. All the while hoping that it was still alright to come since we hadn't heard otherwise!

Finally, we arrive at Sedro - Wooley....what a strange name....and began our ride around the town to see what was there!

The town was having a farmer's market, but we didn't stop to see anything since we were already running a little late for our meet up with our ADV hosts.

The town was full of murals and carvings of all sorts.....

I this was the main street. Very small town it seemed...but nice.....:-)

After seeing the sites, we decided to get going to our next destination with our scooters in tow....:-)

Snapped this one on the way out.....:-)

Then the REAL excietment began! We rode around and discovered that there was a road "detour" to our destination.....sooo, we drove....

And drove...........

AND FINALLY, after an hour and a half of driving in a circle of sorts and asking direction........

And met up with Ron and Deena.......

Ron ("K7TB2") rides a KLR650......

While Scootard and Ron had a chin wagg, I decided to go in and meet the Mrs....:-) "Deena"

We added the Bar-b-Que Chicken that we'd purchased at Fred Meyer along with some potatoe salad, hummus, and Naan bread; which Deena added green beans, corn on the cob, and corn bread.

After dinner, Scootard and I decided to get the tent up since we packed it a little damp when we left Whidbey earlier in the day. After we got our tent up and our beds set in place, Ron wanted to share his pics of his ride to Alaska with friends.

Their dog "Pokie" was enjoying some of our snacks of cheese twist....ha.

After a night of story telling and pictures of Alaska, we headed for bed. Thank you, Ron and Deena for the use of your lawn and the added food for dinner...:-)

We got up early the next morning, broke camp and headed for the Okanogan in BC, Canada where Chris's mom and some hot showers awaited us!

The drive was breath taking and the water was an emerald green color all the way there!

The wildflowers were very much in bloom and lovely as ever!

All the water .......well you know what happens to me!...haha

The Porta potties where interesting in that they said this on the back:

And I might add, it lived up to its name QUITE WELL..........:-(........YUCK!!!!

After escaping the "ooz".....we came into a little spot in the road called Concrete. This is the police department which had recently closed down because of a lack of funds. The whole town seemed to be dying......it was quite sad.....:-(.