On Whidbey Island

The weekend of May 22nd-23rd we spent visiting one of Vicki's high school classmates, Lynn B. and her husband Ken, at their beautiful home in Oak Harbor, on a bluff overlooking the water back to the mainland. We were wined and dined and wined some more, given a great tour of the island, Lynn and Vicki catching up, and Ken, a retired USN captain, bringing my knowledge of naval aviation up past the gasoline era (c. 1945). He was an Intruder pilot, XO on a couple of the super-carriers, commanded a base, and administered a war college, among other things. It was a great weekend.

From their bluff, looking back toward Mt. Baker

One of our outings was to Penn Cove; the marine museum there

So if you know mussels, you know Penn Cove mussels...

Dinner consisted mostly of a huge pot of steamed mussels and
then salmon grilled on a cedar plank; I was in heaven

Lynn and Vicki at Fort Casey

We were missing the Rhodo riot we love in England, but got to
see a pretty good one in Washington

At the Captain Whidbey Inn

Back at the house, a resident eagle surveys his domain 

An A-6 Intruder, subsonic, long range, low altitude, carrier-based; Ken
flew one of these and was XO on the carrier Independence during the
filming of Flight of the Intruder, which we watched one evening; not
your daddy's navy, as one might say

Interim Update

We are in York, UK, staying at the Lighthorseman Pub, a drunken chorus of "God Save the Queen" still resounding from the floor below after England's 2-0 defeat of Germany in the European Cup football series. It promises to get quieter with Sweden playing Ukraine in the evening match. 

How we got here is a longer story, mostly about Vicki's ingenuity and persistence. Long story short is that the UK recognizes Iceland as a "green" country--the US is still "amber"--and Iceland will let anyone in who has had both COVID-19 vaccinations. So we ventured to Iceland, not exactly on our bucket list but nonetheless well worth seeing, and spent 11 days in a very small rental van camper, touring the island, the Golden Circle, the Ring Road, Reykjavik, etc. And then, after the required pre-flight COVID tests, passenger locator forms, and such, we flew on to Heathrow, more tests, and a rental car ride here, en route to Edinburgh, to collect our belongings from the camper (Le Duc) we sold last summer. It's still in storage. The longer story will appear on the website, in due course, under the heading of "Vicki's Practical Guides to World Travel." It's quite a story.

It's been a few weeks since I posted anything on the blog, and even then I was a couple weeks behind. There are a dozen or so posts recounting our May and June travels in the US and then a dozen or so more recounting our visit to Iceland. And now England is underway. We spent today walking old York and touring the Minster, which we'd not seen since 2009. Lots more pix to select, edit, caption, and so on. But I promise to get better. Next week we'll begin two months in a London (Bloomsbury) apartment, and there should be some time then when we are not in motion. Stay tuned.

In the main room at the Lighthorseman; there were 2 or 3 other rooms, plus the
beer garden, all celebrating...we were in Croatia for much of the recent World
Cup series, and so are not unfamiliar with world football culture...

Steelhead Park

Unlike some other parts of the world, county parks in the US rarely include campgrounds, especially campgrounds with full amenities. The Howard Miller Steelhead Park, in Rockport, WA, on the beautiful Skagit River, is a stupendous exception: sixty-some river-front campsites, miles of trails, and a variety of historical structures and signage of interest. Miller was a fishing guide of note and later four-term county commissioner. 

Excellent signage

And artifacts...

Best trailhead signage ever, so far

Hiking the riparian trails

Beautiful Skagit River

Campsite

OK, rotate your screen clockwise 90 degrees: innovative use of
actual boulder for bouldering; in the kiddie park

Azaleas...

And rhododendrons in bloom all over western Washington

Even the bird-house tree was blooming

North Cascades

Despite living in western Montana 13 years and having traveled much of the Northwest, we had never been to the North Cascades. (The Bitterroots, the Tetons and Winds were much closer). And so, having elected a more westerly return to Menlo Park over the next month, we decided to cross the Cascades, not once but twice, doing the Cascade Loop, which consists mostly of Washington route 20 and US route 2. With a long stop to see friends in Oak Harbor, Whidbey Island, this took several days. Below are pix from the westbound crossing of the range. We thought we might stop for a short hike along the way, but the snow level--route 20 had just been opened--convinced us to stay in the RV.

Approaching the North Cascades, Roosevelt (as in FDR) Lake
and Grand Coulee Dam

At 555 feet, the highest of US dams

Crossing the Depression-era bridge

Excellent signage on the bridge

Passing through Winthrop, WA, a cute, westernized New England town

Now at 4,000-5,000 feet, in the middle of the Cascades

Lots of peaks and pinnacles, though the altitude isn't that much

We stopped for lunch at a turn-out at just over 5,000 feet

At Rainy Pass, about midway between Winthrop and Newhalem

Now on the downward side, at an overlook above Diablo Lake;
helpful map

Diablo Lake and North Cascades

Return To Missoula; 2021

April 29 we decamped, said our farewells, and left Menlo Park, again, for Missoula, our former home. Interstates 5 and 80, then US routes 95 and 12, mostly, our direct route to Montana. We've done it many times. The only major change we're seeing is the proliferation of hops farms in the region west of Boise: 45 degrees latitude, + or -, as hops seem to require. A good thing, the proliferation, which I attribute to the increased world-wide demand for IPA beers. We lucked out getting a campsite on the Lochsa at the USFS Wilderness Gateway campground on route 12, took some pix of our favorite wild and scenic river, did a short morning hike, and then headed on to Missoula and our time there. 

We were busy in Missoula, seeing friends, doing the usual reorganization/thinning out of our storage unit, and helping the Kim and Dave move from their home in the heights to their home in the flats, along with a massive garage sale. Too busy to take pix. Our last afternoon there, just before winter returned and we got out, we did walk a bit of the downtown, noting that a) much has changed and b) much has stayed the same (thankfully), and visiting Missoula's impressive new public library. "Impressive" is a major understatement, as is "state of the art." "Future of the art" is more fitting. Missoula deserves it. Another jewel for its crown of civic, recreational, literary, historical, and educational treasures. Now if they could only do something about the weather....

Hops; someone else's photo; just add barley, and water, and...

Driving through a major bug hatch on the Salmon River

The Lochsa, spring melt, 25 class IVs in 24 miles...the place 
loaded with rafters and kayakers

But we found a place at the Wilderness Gateway USFS campground

Driving higher and higher on route 12 toward the pass, patches of
snow started appearing at about 3,000 feet

Thus

Lolo Pass visitor center, pretty well dug-out, but the back roads
were still very snowbound

A bit of our storage unit, all covered against the 

inevitable dust and grit of the canyon winds

The view from a reading room at Missoula Public Library

Seed library

Laptop loan center

Part of the self-publishing array (?)

And ever more; not pictured: the library gift shoppe