HAPPY NAUTICAL WANDERERS–PART 3/LAST

To those of you persistent souls still with me, welcome back and thanks for your interest. Our saga is up to June now and it’s late July as I write, so bear with me!!


We stopped over in Kitchener for a ‘baby-fix’ for a couple of days, getting to know Jamie again!  Perhaps we played a bit too much?? Tired him right out!! Then Tanya put us on the train to Kingston in the midst of some absolutely filthy weather and zilch visibility- just made it on time.




We had hardly got home and said Hi to the Mother and family, when we dashed off to the Canadian reception for cousins living in Australia, Clint and Meg; they’d gotten married in Vegas and then threw a BBQ for those here who couldn’t make it. They had a amazing cake with poker cards, chips and little bride and groom kangaroos; and they cut it in their own non-traditional fashion!! At the party we met heaps of ‘cousins’ of various degrees, some of whom I’d known 100 years ago and some I just knew of, as well as a couple of school mates and their wives, whom we’ve been able to see since then, which has been great.

Since then we’ve settled in to our summer routine. Mum comes out most Thursdays and goes home most Mondays. She absolutely loves it out here by the water. Sundays the whole mob usually come out in the afternoon for a barbeque potluck. Summer here this year has been exceptionally hot and dry this year. Wonderful for us, but drought conditions make the lawns and fields look distinctly Australian!We’ve welcomed back our usual assortment of chipmunks, squirrels and many types of birds to our feeders. We have also seen the annual trek of the big old mother snapping turtle, pictured. She goes up the hill behind us to  lay her eggs, then returns past us/ around us/ over us- she doesn’t much care,- to the water. This year she decided to catch her breath on the roadway just by a curve, and I had to ‘talk’ her out of it. You don’t dare try to pick her up; she has a surprisingly long neck that can reach right round and teeth and jaws that can take chunks from the plank I was using to ‘persuade’ her.
We haven’t used the RV this year and have decided to sell Old Faithful. Kind of sad, but it’s time. Anyone want to buy a most reliable old van?
Of course we need a holiday from our rough lifestyle, so we headed out to the 1000 Islands for about 8 days, camping on the boat. We got as far as the Ivy Lea international bridge this year; in fact one night we camped on an island right under the bridge. We spent a night in Kingston marina and 2 nights in Gananoque marina, but mostly we stayed by locks or on islands. Maureen and friend Don visited us one day for a boat tour and island swim, followed by dinner and an evening at theatre. Very posh!.
We had signed up for dancing classes in Gananoque, so we walked up from the marina on our very first evening. Mind, by the time we’d walked up and around a substantial hill, then danced an hour or more, we could hardly walk, and had to catch a lift back to the boat!!
  We had a great trip and perfect weather. We met people from all over, some of whom spend the whole 
season on their boats, instead of a summer cottage. All very laid-back. You pretty much have to stop for the night by noon to get a space on the island docks. So all you can do or the afternoon and evening is sleep, read, swim, visit. Everyone sits out on the dock until 8:50pm sharp. Then it’s time to get to the boats and close up before mosquito time –9 pm!!



We came home to  a series of social occasions. We hosted a group of Mum’s friends from their South Mountain days, and one of them, Mavis, stayed over for a visit.
The summer round of family birthdays has started. Happy Birthday Holly!
Our dancing classes continue, as well as frequent forays to various local clubs and dances.
Tanya, Cristina and family will be at their cottage this weekend for most of August, so we should get in some serious grandchild time. 
And the upcoming news is that Anne is off to England on Tuesday for 8 days to catch up with friends and family, and to meet her new little great-great nephew.  Mum and I will be ‘batching it’ out here at the lake much of that time. More on that next time.
Guess that’s (finally, do I hear you say?) it for this mammoth blog!! Hope it finds you all well! Take care of yourselves and be happy.
THE HAPPY WANDERERS
ANNE AND KATHIE

HAPPY NAUTICAL WANDERERS -PART 2

From Portland, we headed inland, following the Columbia River gorge valley. For much of this part of our trip we stayed with ATC (Affordable Travel Club) hosts; this worked so well! We were in different homes, sometimes in out-of–the-way places we’d never have stumbled on by ourselves. Our hosts were a wide range of people who all not only looked after us well, but helped us plan each following day, so again we found places we would probably have driven right by!! We stopped at Multnomah Falls and an excellent museum of the area at The Dalles, on our way to Kennewick; went to Palouse Falls and through Palouse on our way up to Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls, near Spokane. We were surprised at how
many different landscapes we went through; we’d more or less expected mountains and mountains. We drove through rich rolling farmland, gorges, and ‘badlands’ before we finally got into the mountains at around Coeur D’Alene and through to Yellowstone Park (not Jellystone, kids -that came later) Yellowstone was amazing; most of it was open, with just one pass still closed from winter. We had two days in the actual park area, but that only scratched the surface. It was extremely slow travelling;- drive 2-300 metres then ‘Stop!-there’s another buffalo, elk, deer, bear, hotspring, geyser……’   or whatever! It was of course spring and all the little and not so little bubs were out. Do you remember the song ‘..….I’m bigger when I’m little, than you are when you’re big!’  Baby bison are big and bouffy, and yet frolic like little lambs!
 
Although 2 days wasn’t long enough, I’m glad we couldn’t stay longer; they had a snowstorm just after we left.!! Heading back westward toward Seattle, we drove through badlands areas and visited an excellent museum, The Museum of the Rockies, possibly the worlds most extensive collection of dinosaurs and related exhibits. 
Then, by total good luck, we stumbled across Jellystone Park. So much for trying to tell the kids it didn’t exist off television. We had a fun visit with Yogi and friends!! He said to say Hiya to all the kids!!


On the advice of our ATC hosts, we stopped at  Leavenworth, a very German town in Washington and just caught a street festival, lots of oompah and good fellowship!!
We also detoured slightly to the Grand Coulee Dam; we had been undecided whether or not to detour, but were pleased to not only see the immensity of it still today, never mind when it was conceived and built, but also as good luck would have it, to meet the last surviving worker from that project!! For his 95th?? birthday, his son had driven him to see ‘his dam’ again; he was a real character and it was a privilege to meet a part of history .
 
All of our ATC visits were great, but one in particular was remarkable. They had  a huge log house set in the middle of the forest and bordering state parkland, so more forest. We had our choice of luxurious accommodation in the main house or this fully appointed two-storey treehouse, with its own dunny. We reluctantly stayed in the house, but were sorely tempted; had we not been just recovering from our colds we’d have grabbed it! One of the other impressive features of this place was that our host took us for a before-breakfast bush-walk and was so informative and enthusiastic, we actually enjoyed it!! I know;- most unlike us!!
We bypassed Seattle on the return loop and went up into the islands of Puget Sound, getting close to Canada, and then spent a  day getting ready for the next stage of our trip,- shopping, hair, etc.,- as you do.
In Vancouver, we spent a most enjoyable evening with our niece, Lauren, who’s just finishing her studies and is working there. We seldom get to spend that kind of time with her as we usually see her briefly among the whole family mob.Her sister Tamara was also in Vancouver, but sadly had to work that night. 
Now, lest I run into those problems again, I’m going to cut this one off here and go to Part 3 !!! Groans all round:-- stay with me faithful readers!!??
Kathie

HAPPY NAUTICAL WANDERERS -PART 1

Well here it is probably 4 1/2 months since I last sat down to update this!! And what a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, both literally and figuratively!!!! I’ll go back to March and proceed in an orderly fashion, but first let me tell you that as I‘m writing, we’re camped on the boat at an island in the 1000 Islands, and the weather has been absolutely gorgeous!!!! We’ve been 4 nights getting here, through fascinating views; and as I write this, here’s Anne’s view! –I’m draped so that I can see the screen, not to hide from her!

OK, I couldn’t resist showing you that, but now I’ll go back to W.A. and pick up roughly where I left off!There were family birthdays, gatherings, Easter, and an early Yule dinner in our honour before we left, a month early this year. Mif and the kids moved in end-Nov last year for three weeks before they went off to Queensland to join Nick over the school holidays, came back,- and they’re still there !! Actually, and anyone who reads this, ssshhh, don’t let on to them, but it worked out quite well .

This years trip to Canada was TOTALLY different, and it’s all Alison and Graham’s fault! (or credit). Anyway, listening to their cruise plans gave Anne ideas (what’s new, I hear??), and we ended up on two back-to-back repositioning cruises from Sydney to Vancouver, leaving home a month earlier than we usually do. We had a great crossing as far as Hawaii, with stops at Vanuatu, Isle of Pines, Fiji, Samoa (x2) and I may have missed one somewhere??, before we reached Honolulu. It was great to make all the little South Pacific stops that we’ll probably never go to as destinations in their own right. And we love the cruise lifestyle;- do as much or as little as we like, meet people from all compass points, ----and we won’t even talk about the fffoooood! We caught up with Alison and Graham and other friends at intervals, met for dinner and/or theatre, but did our own thing much of the time, so we weren’t in each others pockets. And I tried a new skill –got through the first two levels of difficulty on the climbing wall!!! –(Applause!!!) The second half of the cruise from Hawaii to Vancouver had stops on Mauii and the Big Island before the long hop across the more northern Pacific. Sadly, we weren’t able to enjoy all it had to offer, as we both got severe colds which became bronchitis and didn’t fully clear until after we reached Ontario, but we still got out and enjoyed the evening shows most nights.

Then what a change sailing into Vancouver and seeing the snow-capped mountains behind the harbour! After a too-brief but excellent city tour that transferred us to the airport hire-car office we headed straight into the U.S. for a 17 day tour which touched on parts of 5 N.Western states.

 

 

 

We thoroughly enjoyed Seattle, even though we were ‘sleepless’ for different reasons than the movie,- still coughing and hacking at night,- so much so that we gave our Travel club hosts the option and they declined to have us stay. That was understandable, but a disappointment, as they live in a floating house;- more than a conventional houseboat,- an actual complete floating house. There’s a whole community of them along the lake in inner Seattle, and we were quite looking forward to the experience. However, despite all, we toured inner Seattle and its harbour, and enjoyed it, especially the remnant underground city and all the history of gold rushes, smuggling and ‘seamstresses’. It was spring and Mothers Day, and the city was alight with every type and colour of flowers!!

Our next stop was Anne’s cousin Edna, in Aloha Oregon, just south of Portland. She toured us to the Pacific coast, to Cannon Beach and Seaside, and briefly into Portland. But more importantly she made us feel at home, fussed over us a bit, sent us to her doctor and generally helped us rally for the trip ahead. Nothing like family when you need support.  Thanks Edna!

 

  Now,don’t go ‘way folks;- there’s lots more to tell!! But this is my umpteenth try at this blog and someone has suggested (thanks Ted) that the blogspot may not cope well with too much content per blog. So I’ll take a break here and try to post this first half. Wish me luck!!

Kathie