December in E & S Texas

 

 

I’ve been absolutely terrible about updating this blog for the past month or so! It comes from not really doing anything much at all since I left my appendix in Del Rio just after Thanksgiving. Having had three really huge back surgeries I didn’t expect this to kick my rear so much but kick my behind it did. Most of my time was spent storing up energy and healing so that I could make it to the Gladys-Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas on Christmas Day, and I’m happy to say it helped get me through half the day before I needed a wheel chair to finish. I wanted to remark on the temperatures so later on you’ll understand why so many animals were in full lounge and sleep mode. We know now that 2015 is the hottest year on record and there was no exception here and it stands as the hottest Christmas I’ve ever spent on this planet at 86F that day with a humidity level that pushed it up into the 90s. Luckily for me a nice breeze came up later in the day but that first half was grueling for me, and I don’t wear a fur coat like the animals do.

 

 

 

This is a Chinese Silk Floss Tree and it’s an incredible specimen. I’m told they have them in San Jose and I’d love to see them in bloom. From the single bloom left in the first and third photos, it’s a pinkish orchid looking bloom.

 

A

Whitehead Museum

Having just gotten out from the hospital from an emergency appendectomy, I have a lot of time on my hands while I recuperate. I thought I’d post an entry of the local museum in Del Rio, Texas.

The main claim to fame is being the burial place of Judge Roy Bean. The rest of the 2.5 acres is a marvelous spread of life of that time period from the local doctor’s office to the original Val Verde Winery equipment. It’s set up as a frontier village might have looked back in the day.

This nativity scene and creche was started many years ago by a local resident and the entire family helped look for and obtain the items over at least a 60 year span of time. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

World’s largest creche: done by a local family, and took place over years and years of collecting.

He tried to get in without paying.

My favorite area in the compound is the Native America section. They’ve recreated ancient cave heiroglyphics found nearby in Val Verde Countyand enclosed a lot of artifacts brought back from the prehistoric age of the cave. There are also several items belonging to other ancient tribes such as this Aztec necklace.

And this item. There was no information on this, however. It’s striking and unforgettable.

Southern Oregon Coast

We spent a month at Bandon By The Sea RV park, not to be confused with Bandon RV Park. The latter is in town right on the highway and not much more than a gravel parking lot.
The former, BBTS, has very roomy sites and if you get in the back, you can rarely hear the highway noise. It’s about 2 miles south of the town of Bandon and within 1/2 mile of no less than 6 beach and ocean access points.

Coquille Lighthouse, Bandon Oregon looking east

Coquille Lighthouse, Bandon Oregon standing east looking west.

Lots and lots of room

If you travel north of Bandon, just over the Coquille River bridge is Bullard’s beach, an enormous state park that allows free day use and has huge set ups for boat launching & overflow access parking, horse trails with staging areas and horse camping, and around 100 campsites both tenting and RVs but I can’t vouch as to whether they all have dumps and or power or if they’re dry camping spots.
If you follow the road out to the ocean there, about 2 miles,  you’ll run into the old Coquille Lighthouse. Tours are offered during certain times of the year and it’s also a popular salmon fishing spot. The salmon were running while were were there so the Coquille River that runs to the ocean between the south and north jetty was full of boats. Occasionally we could watch the fight between angler and salmon which was pretty fun. Some of the salmon didn’t fit entirely into the nets.

Elephant Rock [Yeah, me neither]

Just one of the many carved artworks on the Bandon Boardwalk.

There are many benches at the trailhead set for perfect viewing just past the city park in Bandon. There is no fee.

This is the jetty on the south side of the river and we walked out there on a day with low tide and calm seas.
That was the only time we were able to get that far out.

Jetty on Coquille River

In old restored Bandon are so many excellent restaurants I couldn’t possible list them all, but for the best fish and chips we’ve ever had, we went to Bandon Fish Market and Chowder House.  http://www.yelp.com/biz/bandon-fish-market-bandon They offer them with either halibut of cod, and your order doesn’t begin cooking until you’re placed it so you get extremely fresh and delicious fish. We went back three more times during our visit, they were so good.

We tried hard to visit a museum/art gallery that features art made from sea junk but it was never open when we went so we gave up.
There are also enough tourist trap stores to browse all day long and a Farmer’s/Flea/Craft Market every weekend. More importantly, there’s a sweet shop that sells home made fudge. We needed a couple of visits there to be sure we liked it.
I’ve seen many different dog and cat breeds traveling on the road with their owners, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen someone traveling with a capuchin  monkey. This is Celeste, two years old and she
belonged to the teenager of the rig behind us.  We did get to hold her but she preferred men, so she bee lined it over to my husband and stuck her head under his chin. She loved to hang out in the window and drop all her toys outside on the ground and lives with her cat and dog.

Celeste

Trying to dismantle the cook stove.

Bandon Boardwalk

West Coast Game Park Safari in Bandon Oregon

Bandon, Oregon has been home to a very unique animal park since around 1978 and we’ve been coming here for over 25 years. They’re just south of Bandon right on Highway 101 and you can’t miss them. They started out as a breeding facility for endangered animals and from there added animals over the years and now include breeding for zoos as well as exchanges. The unique aspect of this park is their Nursery department of calm & young animals when they’re young, such as this skunk, ground hog, fox and possum to  whatever animals that were born that spring such as the bear cubs, tigers, lions, Russian Lynx and the sable cat. These young are socialized to humans by both the handlers who take them home at night for feeding when they need it, to the public themselves, who are allowed into an enclosed area to put hands on the animals. I don’t know of any other place in the country that does this, and it’s always been such an incredible treat for us, and later on, for our grandchildren.

In addition to that, there are lots of free roaming donkeys, goats, llamas, deer and sheep that you can feed by hand from treats offered for sale inside the facility. Be warned though, once you start feeding one, they all know it and you’re suddenly surrounded by cute animals all looking for a handout!

Modeling Head Shot-right side

Modeling head shot-Left Side

Modeling head shot-Front View

Surprisingly, the admission fees have managed to stay pretty reasonable over the years, nothing like the big parks in California and Florida, and you can get in for a very reasonable price.

It’s open year round except for Xmas and Thanksgiving Day, with reduced hours in the winter.
When you leave, they’ve installed a nice washing facility for both your hands and shoes.

Incidentally, there is a review online from someone professing to be a travel writer calling herself “Anna B. who was annoyed at the facility for not getting with her for an interview, so she wrote a childish and scathing report about the place, ending her rant with the fact that the cages were too small, she noticed, while driving past. So not only is she unprofessional and immature, she’s also a liar because there is an 8 foot high fence completely around the facility and you can’t see anything from the road.

I can’t recommend this place enough if you like animals.

Russian Serval Cat- 7 months old-That focus of hers is on a goat that was wandering around outside the enclosed area.

Princess Peach-She is about 2 years old. I didn’t realize this, but a possum’s life span is very short, about 4 years. And apparently when they do get older than this, they age very rapidly. So Princess Peach here was already considered fairly middle aged. Never have I held a sweeter animal. She’s here sharing her secrets and staring into the human’s eyes just before snuggling in under the chin for snuggles.

Holding Princess Peach

This cub was about 4 months old.

Port Townsend and Wooden Boat Festival

Port Townsend has always been one of my favorite places, the reason being that unlike so many other cities, they’ve retained their buildings of Victorian vintage instead of tearing them down. You just can’t replicate this kind of work these days so to see practically an entire town reflecting the old era is unique and very special. They’ve even kept up the painted advertising that used to be painted on the outside brickwork!

City Hall-

Post Office

Gorgeous Wooden Boat

More Boats

Hand Painted Canoe

Hand made canoes and kayaks

In addition to being a the backdrop to the movie “An Officer and a Gentleman”, it also has an annual Wooden Boat Festival, which showcases some of the most beautiful wooden boats in the country. Some of these were finished with Brazilian mahogany and teaks from various other exotic places.

“The Floating Head Shop”

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Downtown

Whidbey Island in the distance

Closeup of the Post Office

Unknown building

This building was on the way out of Port Townsend, back to Highway 20 to Highway 101. We don’t know what is actually is but had to take a photo of it, it was just so beautiful.

Victoria , Vancouver Island-Canada

Taking the Black Ball ferry “Coho” from Port Angeles to Victoria is a fun 90 minute trip to take. There are no senior discounts until October so it runs $18.00 per head, each way for going as a walk on with no car.
The last ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles leaves at 7:30 pm Pacific Time, so if you miss that one you’re stuck until the next day.

On board the Black Ball Coho.

Forward passenger area near bow.

The Fairmont-Empress Hotel opened in 1908 with 477 rooms.

The Parliament Building

Ancient Ivy

Inside the Empress- Shopping

Inside the Empress Conservatory

Roof top garden

Empress

Victoria-in front of the Parliament Building

Victoria-in front of the Parliament Building

Inside the parliament building.

Part of the rotunda of the parliament building.

Not currently in session

Gorgeous ceiling work-parliament building

One of the many, many water taxis

Leaving Vancouver Island

It was a perfect day in the 70s so we ate outside and walked around to the Empress-Fairmont Hotel, the government Parliament building and all around the water front.
For some reason I was having a tough back day so we didn’t get to do as much as we would have liked but even just sitting around the bay in Victoria and people watching is fun as they really go all out with flowers hanging everywhere, beautiful flowering plants everywhere you look.

Hurricane Ridge-Olympic National Park

In the middle of Port Angeles, Washington is the beginning of a road that twists and winds its way up the mountain to the furthest road into the Olympic National Park. It goes a few thousand feet up to a lodge, which is the only single road for automobiles into the park. In the winter it’s kept fairly clear and has a ski resort with lifts.

All other ways into the park are strictly on foot or by animal, there are no motorized vehicles permitted and its this which keeps the park in the pristine condition that is enjoys. Hikers are required to check in at Port Angeles, then show their permits and intended route to the park rangers posted at the entrance before driving up.

A chart in the lodge with the names of each peak.

Three visible glaciers-August

Mountains Majesty

Parking lot

It’s not that these mountains are exceptionally high ones, the highest point isn’t much about 7,000up from Port Angeles which is at about 32 feet ASL. It’s just so steep and rugged because of the fact that it rises so quickly. These are three glaciers still in existence that were visible the day we were up there, which is about 10-14 days from the date of this entry.

And the deer are so used to people they’re in the parking lot, and stay within a few feet of the humans, disregarding us.

If you’ve got an America the Beautiful card you can see this part for half price which is $10/car. The views are stunning on a clear day and on your way up or down there are viewpoints to stop at that, on a clear day, will show you Mt Rainer in the far distance, the entire Strait of San Juan de Fuca, Vancouver Island the the city of Victoria. Highs have remained in the upper 70s at the most this August with a couple of days in the 80s. There is a micro-climate here and in Sequim, a city just 15 miles from Port Angeles, they call a Rain Shadow, and it’s what keeps the rain here and in Sequim relatively bearable at between 16-27 inches per year. Get outside of that, say into Sekui and Clallam Bay, and you start getting into the annual rainfalls the Hoh Rain Forest and Forks are famous for, somewhere between 100 up to over 200 inches a year.

Extremely steep terrain.

It’s definitely gorgeous up there on the ridge and we took plenty of photos.

Port Angeles and Olympic Game Farm

I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful it feels to breathe invisible air and have sane August temperatures! When we left Idaho it was in the triple digits and fires were just beginning to become out of control. I read yesterday they had declared an emergency for the fire around Homedale and the big one in Baker City took out a family member’s 2500 acres and their three homes.

My mom and son were both born in Port Angeles so the first order of business was to see if the grandparent’s house and my grandfather’s barber shop were still in existence. We got lucky on the house, but all that’s left of Grandpa’s barber shop is the painted pole on the outside of the building he used to occupy. The entire building is now Zak’s Bar, and to read Yelp, it’s one of the worst waterfront dives in town. Grandpa’s shop was called “Wallace’s Tonsorial Parlor”.

After that we took a day to go visit the Olympic Game Farm outside of Sequim. I’d never been there before despite having lived here briefly for a few years. We had more fun than should be legal! You stay in your car and can’t have any open parts in your car, such as the sun roof, etc. The animals are well training to come and eat treats out of your hand and in many cases we had the entire head of the animal  inside with us, searching for hand outs. Some of these animals are retired and current movie “stars” in some Disney movies. They used to have the bear “Gentle Ben” from the old tv series “Grizzly Adams”.  It goes without saying that the grizzly bears are behind fences and you don’t feed them. I suspect at least two were actually Kodiak bears as they were quite a bit larger than the usual grizzly, but then again they’re not in the wild and regularly fed, so that could account for their size also. All of these photos were taken without a zoom lens  so the distance you see is the actual distance.

Painted pole-all that’s left of Wallace’s Tonsorial Parlor.

William and Alta Wallace original home. Port Angeles, Washington

The bison were intimidating, to be honest. Mellow? Oh yes, but when you’re sitting in a car and are looking eye to eye with an animal that weighs 2-3 tons and could smash your car door in just by accidentally bumping up against it, it makes you think. Which is why: A] you have to sign a waiver just before entering holding the farm for any auto damage and 2] you’re supposed to keep moving and not stop. The reason is pretty simple. They’ll box you in and you’ll get stuck in the middle of a bunch of jostling behemoths all vying for treats. And you really don’t want to be there when that happens. As it was, I had to put on a bit of speed to keep the bison from running after us,as well as toss food out and away from us to gain some distance. I was also really mindful of the tourists this past year in Yellowstone who were gored by a wild bison. If I went back, I don’t think I’d drive in that portion of the park again.

There were several wolves, racoons, tigers, a coyote or two, cougar and bobcat but they were behind no less than 3 wired fences and seeing them was difficult and the camera had a hard time focusing on anything other than the wires. After we left though, there is a small petting area with goats and I watched someone go into a wolf cage and handed the wolf something, while he pet it. So these are by no means true wild animals and I understand why they keep them so securely. A lot of reviews on Yelp, etc talk about how horrible the cages were. Yes, they are securely behind fences but they also have a shaded, secure box area to get into for shade and privacy, and the cages are almost 1/4 of an acre in size. They’re not pretty, they don’t have trees, babbling brooks or other amenities but this isn’t a zoo, it’s a game farm and again, these animals are as domesticated as one can expect from a wild animal. I don’t like to judge the park on this issue as everything else in the park is stunning, green and manicured. They’ve also been in operation for well over 40 years so if there were animal abuse going on, they’d have been out of business a long time ago. Every animal we saw had access to fresh water and looked well fed, with glossy coats.

There were a couple of people who didn’t keep moving in the bison enclosure and ended up with a few scratches from horns and one car had a dent in the door most likely from a huge head that was tossed sideways.

Sequim West Inn, Washington- NO SOUP FOR YOU!

After traveling from the Florida Keys to Alaska and over 30,000 miles, we’ve finally ran across a place that refused to rent a space to us based upon the age of the bus. She didn’t even want to see a photo of it.  The hilarious part though, was the area was full of extremely old, very messy RVs, lots of junk and the grass was completely dead and brown. Gilgals down the road has the same policy but were okay with our beautifully restored bus after they saw a photo of it. We checked on that one in case the ones we wanted into were full and needed to stay for a day or so in the area. If you look at their website it shows green grass and new rigs. I’m not sure where that photo came from because it’s not what we saw, so I suspect there might also be deliberate misleading on on their part. Here’s their claim on the brochure in the Visitor’s Center: http://sequimwestinn.com/rv-park/

I don’t know what/where/when the above is but it’s sure not what we saw today.

So there you go, our first failure based upon poverty perception based upon how one looks or *thinks* one looks. I haven’t seen that sort of attitude since Jr High!

Other RV parks in the area we looked at that are very nice, and I’d definitely recommend them are Gilgals, very small but extremely well kept and green, and down the road just a bit on 101N out of Sequim is Rainbow’s End, also lovely and well kept but also small and not made for a rig our size [35 feet] which is small compared to some RVs today. There are also a lot of RV parks up 101 and we’ve stayed two nights in Hoodsport at Glen Ayr, a nice little clean park right across the street from the water which you can see well since the RV area is slightly elevated up the hill.

Here’s their website: http://glenayr.com/rv-park/

And here we are:

They’ve got a nice covered gazebo, BBQs and crab boiling pot on site to use, as well as diving equipment.

Oregon

I’ve always loved Oregon, especially the coast, and we’re here now for a couple of months before the rainy season. We’d originally planned on wintering here but that’s turning out to be somewhat of a problem in a way we’ve never run into before.

We’re around McMinnville on the outskirts of Portland and while there are several RV Parks around the area, all of them do a background check! It’s not that I mind a background check, but I really wonder how that came about.  It might be that they’re not used to snow birds wintering around the area but I don’t know for sure. The background check is fine but some of them also want financial information and at least one wanted to see our bank account. That is NOT going to happen. I don’t hand out my SS number, nor my bank account number to someone to stay in an RV park. That’s ridiculous, especially in this day and age with identity theft.  We’ve been from the Keys to Alaska and this is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this. We found one we liked and completed their background check since that’s all they asked for, but the woman who owns the park, Mulkey Rv Park, refuses to let anyone who has 50 amp in any other space than right in front of the office and wedged in between a rig on each side. I can’t stand fish bowl living and we talked to her about using 30 amp in another space with more privacy since we have 30 amp also, and have used it many times  and it doesn’t exceed the wattage that will harm her hookups but she was adamant about it so we said so long and found another place we like better anyway.

Every time we’ve gone to the ocean we’ve been lucky enough to be treated to a display from the local animals. Whale watching at Boiler Bay is huge and just down from Depoe Bay where you can rent a space on a whale watching boat. There is a pod of California Gray Whales here that don’t migrate and you can see them feed in the rich kelp beds that are in that area.  We’ve heard that last week, further out, the fishermen were being entertained by a Blue Whale! I can’t imagine how exciting it would be to see one of those. The other place we found in Lincoln City has a beach with a passage called the “Jaws of Death” and is the outlet of the Siletz River, extremely popular right now for salmon fishing. There is a group of Harbor Seals there that stay in the area and we got some pretty good photos of them while we were there.

The Jaws of Death passage. This is an extremely fast current.

Siletz Bay-Salmon Migratory Path

 

And some photos of around the area from Newport to Lincoln City: