Kite Festival

We headed to Keystone, on Whidbey Island, Friday afternoon. After dinner we went for a walk and look at the sunset we saw! We often have beautiful sunsets there, but we are thinking this was the most amazing one so far. I wish I had a panorama camera, so you could see how the whole sky was lit up.This was the weekend for the Whidbey Island Kite Festival. Sunshine and wind are 2 things that are needed for this event. Well, we had the sun, but the wind was blowing around in circles. Occasionally it would just stop all together, which caused all kinds of problems for the kites. We saw several events just paused in hopes that the wind would pick up again.

This is a team from Canada flying their multi-line kites. Imagine keeping all these strings untangled!

Nate came camping with Brad and Robin for the weekend. They took him to the Kids Kite Making tent and he made a blue kite that he was pretty excited about.
This kite was probably 8 feet across and was beautiful. It was flown at the Mass Ascension that they have each day at 12:30. Anyone who signs up can participate. It's beautiful to see all the kites and colors, but I didn't get a very good picture this year as the wind died down before all the kites got up. :-(

Some of the festival color

From a beautiful Saturday we moved to a very foggy and rainy Sunday with no wind. No colorful flags out today and very few people in attendance. Only about 6 cars in the parking lot. The weather was predicted to clear with some sun by afternoon, so they were hopeful. However, by the time we left it still looked like this. I see one kite up, but it may not have stayed there for long.

We went to Keystone for the Kite Festival, but we had a pretty exciting surprise when the new ferry Chetzemoka pulled in. It was supposed to begin service at the end pf August, but it was having a vibration problem. They still are not sure when it's first trip will be. They were just doing some testing and training on this day. The ferry actually came in and went back out about 6 times, so we had a great time watching it.

The Chetzemoka is quite a bit bigger than the little Pierce County ferry they have been using for this run to Port Townsend.

Cowlitz Shores Work Party

We spent last week at the Cowlitz River getting our lot ready for camping. Skeet and Jan were also there doing some work on their lots. Their friends Stan and Bonnie came down for an overnight stay so they could see the campground. We had a great time working and then making s'mores with the GIANT marshmallows. Here are Bonnie and Jan cooking theirs. The fire was perfect and as you can see their marshmallows are getting a nice golden brown.

It's time for the work to begin! Skeet and Jan's son Wes, his wife Erin and children Elliott and Edith came down for our first day there. The men got busy measuring and putting in the boards in preparation for the gravel. Since Skeet is a building contractor and Wes is an engineer they brought their tools and knowledge to make sure measurements were right, elevations correct, and structure sound. It's sure nice to have friends.

Before the gravel was put in Ron needed to move the electrical and sewer to the other side of our lot. Keith was helping with this and it looks like they are about finished with the job.

George, our gravel man, told us where to get the cloth to lay down under the gravel. We had a fun trip into Longview with Keith and Sheral. We stopped for a lunch and picked up a few groceries. Ron really enjoys exploring the area. Ah, this was the trip where Keith had us driving on the side of the railroad tracks, Yup, no road for cars. Life is an adventure.

George did a great job spreading the gravel.
Ken, a neighbor, must be supervising, while Keith, George and Ron are moving the gravel.
My job was to paint our little shed. We are not sure we will ever put anything in it as we always carry what we need in the motorhome. However, it was in pretty bad shape so I wanted to clean it up and make it look nice.

Finished! We put new trim boards around the roof and a new latch. The roof keeps the rain out, but we will put on a new one another time so we can get rid of the green plastic.

Home Sweet Home! The basics are done and we can finally park on our own lot. As you can see we have a beautiful view of the river.

We planted new grass in the dirt area, so hopefully the next time we are there it will be green.

I stepped out of the motorhome to get a picture of the morning fog along the river. It was a beautiful morning. The fog eventually burned off we had a sunny warm day.

Labor Day Weekend

We had another wonderful camping outing at Keystone on Whidbey Island. Jennie and Will were with us again, as well as Brad and Robin, and their grandson Nate. Emma and Adrian, Nate's parents, were also able to spend a couple nights in camp. The bad weather held off and we had some beautiful days to be outside.

We did some more Geocaching, which has proven to be quite fun. We have been camping on Whidbey Island for almost 40 years and are finding that there are many places we have not been. It's fun to explore and learn a little more about the history of the area.

This cache took us off the trail and winding through the woods. Definitely no "muggles" (non geocaching people) around this site.

The cache box was filled with goodies. We checked out what was there, but took nothing. We signed the log book and replaced the cache.

Look at this cute little slug. I won't tell you where he is, but he was well hidden as the rock was in front of him. It's once again pretty clever as "slug" was part of the cache name and so appropriate for it's location.Look how the capsule was tucked up inside the slug. It's another tiny little log book.It's always fun to look at the log and see who has been there before us. We began recognizing several names. It's almost as if we were following right behind them.
This is an "earth cache" called an "erratic", because the rock is different from others in the area. It is believed to have traveled here on glacial ice and is one of the more famous glacial field boulders on Whidbey Island. Now, there's a little geology lesson for you.This was a pretty easy cache to find as we could see it before we even got out of the car. Some are like that, which is good. Sometimes the caches require a long hike to find, or just lots of time to look, and we occasionally like an easy one to keep us motivated. It's also nice to have some of these easy ones for families with young children. They need to be able to find the cache quickly before the little ones loose interest.We discovered a new beach that we had never been to before. As you can see my "caching party" was down on their hands and knees looking for this one. We spent a great deal of time and never did find it. Later that night I was logging my finds and saw that this one had been crossed off the list. That told me there was something wrong with it. The next day as I was looking at the caches log I saw that the owner had posted that the cache had been taken. Evidently it happens every year about this time as the beach is being cleaned up. The owner said they will replace the cache ASAP.This cache took us for a walk along another beach we have never visited. Here we found a mailbox with boards attached that had been painted camouflage. It was a great find, well, almost a great find.We had a clue which was suppose to let us open the lock on the mailbox. However, we couldn't get it open. As we read the logs that others had written we found that we were not the only ones that could not open the lock. Maybe it just needs some WD 40. We could tell there was something in the box, but couldn't get to it. We weren't able to sign the log, so may have to visit this site again.Brad and Nate put a bird house together and Nate is giving it a coat of paint to make it beautiful for the birds.
We enjoy visiting the Farmer's Markets. This time we went to Coupeville, but were busy with other things, so didn't get to Langley or Greenbank.We always enjoy watching the cruise ships come by around dinner time. We usually see 3. When you consider these ships leave almost every day of the week, and how many people are on them, it's amazing how many people are leaving Seattle to go on a cruise.This is the Holland American ship Amsterdam. I have been on this ship when we went to see my cousin Karen in Vancouver, Canada. She was just beginning her 67 day cruise of the South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand. The ship docked in Vancouver for a day and we were able to spend some time with her. That was pretty fun for us. I'm sure I blogged the adventure, so you may remember reading about it already.We brought back some of the HUGE marshmallows from Mexico. Some were pink and some were white. We haven't always had nice enough weather for a fire, but this time we did. Ah, somemores with lots of marshmallow! I'm sorry to tell you it didn't work out very well. The marshmallows didn't roast very well and they didn't even taste very good. Lots of disappointment, but we had a good laugh. They did roast "peeps" though they were pretty good. Guess we'll have to remember to buy some of those for another time. While sitting around the campfire we played the nail game. We use a small hammer and each person gets a turn to hit the nail just once as the hammer goes around the circle. The first person to get the nail pounded ALL the way in is the winner. Nate got to use the bigger hammer and occasionally took more than one hit, though he reminded the rest of us that we got "only one hit".A glass of wine before the game begins.

Hmmm, empty glasses and no nails. This must mean the game is over and the fun evening has come to an end.