This month's calendar                         Archives                            Our Google Calendar                   

August 14, 2009

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!! :0)

As you may recall from last week's journal, we left for the annual steam meet in Blaine, Washington last Thursday.

We headed north on Highway 101 for our 6-hour journey with a stop in Kingston, Washington for the night. We stayed at the Blue Water Inn (formerly Curly's Motel) that is near the ferry that we were going to board the next morning. Our room was adequate, a lot of ferry traffic during the night and the bed was too short for both Dave and I, but the price was right. Since an East Indian owns the Blue Water Inn, I guess we were lucky that they didn't have nails in the beds! We got up the next morning and after breakfast we headed for the ferry. The ferries are scheduled every 45 minutes so we were expecting to wait awhile, but this time, the ferry was still waiting to leave and so we paid our fare and drove right on. That is really unheard of and we felt very lucky. And not only were we able to drive right on, the toll lady miscalculated our total length and we were able to cross for about $20 less than we had budgeted. Still a spendy trip...about a dollar a minute, but less than we thought it would be.

After the 45-minute ferry ride, we arrived at Edmonds and took the remaining two-hour drive up to Blaine. We didn't have any problems along the way except that Dave had noticed a slow leak in one of the trailer tires so we stopped at Les Schwab and had it fixed. Good thing we did as they found a large bolt embedded in the tire!

Blaine is the last city before you cross into Canada and so there are a lot of Canadians going back and forth. Our motel was about a half-mile from the city harbor where we docked our boat, so that was the only inconvenience. The last time we were there - in 2003 - we had the motor home and were able to stay right near the dock. It was a little different having to drive back and forth, but it was nice to have our own transportation too. The last time we had to do a lot of walking. There were 27 other steamboats at the meet and we had a great time visiting with friends we hadn't seen in a while. Even with the long trailer ride, the Captain Bell ran pretty well. It is always so hard on the boats to have to trailer them for any long distance and you never know what may have jarred loose on the ride. The hosts for the meet had lots of activities planned for our group so there was always something to do. We had two parades where the boats all went up and down past the visitor's dock and then out into Semiahmoo Bay. It was fun being out in the open water with all the other boats - tooting our whistles at anything that moved!

We also went out on the local tour boat, the "Plover". That ride took us by a breakwater with several sea lions looking for some sun! One of the other things we did was for the ladies to take a tour of the city of Blaine and then visit one member's home where he has rooms and rooms full of antique pianos and organs. This is the same man who was entertaining visitors on a steam calliope at the marina! That's something to see! While the ladies were entertained, the men were off visiting another member's home where he had an awesome display of steam engines and other steam gadgets. He even had a miniature train for them to ride and enjoy.

We were planning to go to go to a mini meet at Lake Whatcom in Bellingham on Monday, but after our beautiful weekend, the weather turned wet and windy. So we canceled that stop and instead stayed with friends on Bainbridge Island on our way back home. Tom and Marge live right on Puget Sound and ferries constantly run by their place on their way to and from Bremerton. They have a fascinating place too - with steam and maritime memorabilia all over the place. We left there fairly early on Tuesday and got back home by mid afternoon - just in time for a two-day downpour of rain. Not that we didn't need the rain, but it kept us inside for most of the time.

Looking back on the trip, we were pretty lucky. Dave is notorious for finding cheap motels for us to stay in, and we have wound up with some bad experiences as a result. This time, with the exception of the short bed in Kingston, we did OK. None of them were the Ritz...but then all we wanted was a decent night's sleep for a decent price.

We were excited to look out our window on Wednesday to see a herd of elk on the island. There must have been over 50 of them. The cars passing on the highway by our house even stopped to watch. A couple of the bulls were sparring and so that was fun to watch. The next morning, while the tide was low, they crossed over to the far side and have been grazing on grass most of the time. Speaking of elk, on our trip north, we had an elk cross the highway right in front of us. When you see one elk, there is usually a herd following, but thankfully, this guy was all alone.

Speaking of critters, the deer have been grazing in my flower garden while I was gone! When we got back, most of the Geraniums, Roses and Hostas were nipped away. This is the first year that I have had any problems with the deer. I just got rid of the raccoons and now I seem to have traded them for deer. I just can't win!

The Dewey's are coming down this weekend so I will get my grandma fix. Lara and Greg plan to go crabbing with the girls, so Dave has been getting the outboard boat ready for them to use. It looks like we will have good weather, so the granddaughters will want to spend a lot of time on the beach. We also plan on getting the Captain Bell back into the bay and taking them all for a steamboat ride as well.