Summer in the Pacific Northwest

Wow!  Summer sure has flown by this year!  August was spent mostly with Paula's parents as her father recovered from colon surgery.

Dad up and smiling on the day after surgery!  He stayed only 6 days in the hospital.  All is going well at the moment.  He is now driving (short trips) and walking up and down stairs.











Here's a shot of the full moon:

Can't you just hear the howling??












We were able to sneak a hike in the Mt. Baker - Snoqualmie National Forest.  The rugged trail took us up to Barlow Point.



Lots of colors, textures, and the wonderful smell of moss and pines along the trail!












 Lots of fungi, too!





           Catch the color of these guys!!

There used to be a fire lookout at the top but no more; just the footings are left.  They made handy seats for our picnic.  Great scenery all around us.

We've certainly enjoyed our stay at Lake Pleasant; watching ducks, osprey, belted kingfisher, black capped chickadees, etc.

We took a quick trip over to Sequim to check on our rental house.  One of the footings in the back of the house settled down and unfortunately, pulled on the house.  This action created a crack down the house.  So, we're having new footings put into place plus replacing both decks and a portion of the sidewalk.




Lower deck removed.






                     Close up of one of the footings.

Upper deck removed

Major work needs to be done in the front of the house, too.  Removal of one large cedar tree (encroaching on neighbor's property), clean up of bushes, re-doing the driveway island to something very low maintenance (river rock and trees only) and trimming the hedges so they are the same height.  Hopefully that will be less work for the renters and keep the Home Owners Association happy.

"Before" picture

That about sums up August!  September will be bring more adventures....

Family & Friends in the Pacific Northwest

End of June to July - Spent some time with Paula's brother, Bill, and his lovely wife, Terry.  Shared some good laughs and meals together.

Bill, The Master Meat Burner, hasn't met any meat or veggie that he can't grill!









Went to Sequim for the 4th of July.  Had a great walk on Hurricane Ridge.  Lots of wild flowers, animals and the glorious Olympic mountains!  It was one of those spectacular days.  Remember the opening scenes of "The Sound of Music," where the green rolling hills and mountains and blue sky and the music just overwhelmed you?  That's what kept playing in Paula's head all day!  Kept looking for Julie Andrews but she was a no-show.  Oh well.

Avalanche Lily

This is my trail!

            Above the clouds!!                                                                     Hey, Wait for me!

We wandered over to Port Townsend for a wonderful walk at Fort Worden State Park.

Adding just one more

Lots of visitors!

                                                Ahhh....the sound of surf!

Went to the Sharick family picnic in Enumclaw, WA.  Had a wonderful time catching up with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins!

Paula sharing!!

Most of the Sharick family








Rick's 50th High School Reunion in Idaho Falls, ID was the end of July to August 2nd.  We were able to attend since the event was inbetween all the appointments for Paula's father.  We had a wonderful meander down memory lane with Rick's classmates.

Hey, that's my class!

Rick & Paula with
Roger & Carol (Rick's best friend from the 6th grade)
Who invited all the OLD people?? Cuz, we're not OLD!!

We did a river walk every morning and enjoyed seeing all the different benches along the walkway. Some were blended with the surrounding nature, while others were whimsical.

The day before we left Idaho, we drove out to EBR-1.  This is a plutonium reactor that successfully generated electricity in 1951 then was de-commissioned in 1964.  It is now a National Historic Landmark.

Names in chalk of the men who worked on this project.

This is the surviving light bulb, which was returned from President LBJ's library.








For most of the summer, we've been helping Paula's parents as Paula's father underwent colon surgery due to cancer.  We certainly appreciate all the support and well wishes from family and friends.  Life has a way of waking us up at times; to ensure that we live each day with deep appreciation and respect for each other.

Fists of Fury, Missiles, & Caverns

As we made our quick exit from Mankato, we stopped at a couple of places in South Dakota.  The Badlands are amazing!




Look at all the textures & colors!

                          Roadside geology!









Of course, a trip to South Dakota means stopping in the town of Wall and gawking at the famous drugstore, Wall Drug.  Amazing!  The best things were the freshly made donuts!

Being the history buffs, we had to make a stop in Rapid City and visit the museum at Ellsworth AFB.  Nice collection of aircraft; however, the really interesting part was going into the missile training center.

This is a B-52 doing a touch & go with a B-29 posing on the ground.

This is inside the missile silo.  Yes, we went down several flights of stairs to the training center.  Many, many hours of boredom with surges of sheer adrenlin during drills!













We spent a fast week-end with some karate friends in Billings, MT.  We were able to help with his karate tournament.  Watching the young competitors was simply inspiring!

On our trek back to the Pacific Northwest, we stopped at the Bozeman Museum of the Rockies.  We promptly lost 2 hours looking at the exhibits. This museum is well known for its on-going dinosaur research.





Catch that dino with feathers!!








Our next stop that was at Lewis & Clark Caverns. Mother Nature does some wonderful things with a bit of water and minerals and lots of time!

Virginia City, MT is an historic hoot!  Over 90 percent of the buildings are original!  Had a blast on the History Tour which was conducted on an antique fire truck that drove us around the area.

Of course, not to be outdone by Virginia City, Nevada City (not too far away) has a very unique outhouse.  Check this out!

It's a 2 story outhouse!!  YIKES!!!









From the caverns, our next stop was Missoula, MT.  Took a really interesting tour of the Smoke Jumpers Base & Aerial Fire Depot.  We didn't realize that most of the smoke jumpers are seasonal employees!

This is a parachute folding table - not a bowling alley!  Each smoke jumper is responsible for packing their own chutes.








We had a real roadside treat on our drive from Missoula to Coeur D'Alene - a moose (cow) was running alongside the road heading towards the trees!  Unfortunately, no photo!  Just a memory!  We "glamped" (that's glamour camping) at Blackwell Island RV Resort to celebrate our anniversary.  Even had the RV washed!  Of course, it rained after the RV was all clean!  Who says Mother Nature doesn't have a sense of humor?  After a very indulgent dinner at Beverly's, we planned our escape from Coeur D'Alene.  The Iron Man competition was scheduled for that week-end; lots of competitors and sponsors and people, people, people!!  Time to leave!! What about the rain??  It followed us all the back from Idaho to Spanaway, WA!

Hammers, Flood, & Escape

Arrived in Mankato, MN on the 8th of June for a Habitat Care-A-Vanners build.  Lovely park with the Blue Earth and Minnesota rivers meeting in an oxbow.  The crew (7 of us) worked on 2 houses putting on vinyl siding.  First week the weather was pretty nice.

Then the week-end began with the rain.  Of course, we went into the Twin Cities anyway.  Rain stopped by Monday - the job site was just soggy enough for the boots to collect 10 pounds of mud within 10 steps!  That night brought no rest for any of us.  The thunder and lightning and heavy rain kept us all awake.  It was like trying to sleep inside of a kettle drum!  Tuesday brought no relief - more thunder storms and heavy rain.  We were awakened on Wednesday at 3 AM by the local police and ordered to evacuate the campground.  Everyone packed up and ready to roll within the hour!  Drove to Wal-Mart and parked the rigs.  Gathered everyone together and had a breakfast meeting to discuss whether we finish the build or terminate 2 days early. Since no one had really rested, we were looking at a real safety issue; a muddy construction site with very tired crew.  Didn't take long to make that decision.






Our camp sites in the daylight!






We went to the job site and cleaned up the site and after lunch, we all said our good-byes.  One couple decided to stay in Mankato and were evacuated again!  Another went north towards the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and found the road blocked by a fallen tree.  They had to back track many miles.  One couple gave up on camping altogether and got a hotel room for the night.  We drove that afternoon all the way to South Dakota to Al's Oasis! First night of sound sleep in two nights! Skies were dark and threatening but nothing like Minnesota!  Next night, we stayed near Sturgis.  We saw antelope, deer, and turkeys along the road.  What an adventure!!

Above and Below Ground Tours

Arrived at Sherwood Forest Campground in Gilbert, MN.  Thought we might find Lake Woebegone of Garrison Keillor's wonderful tales; however, we did find Lake Orebegone (Ore-be-gone)!  Evidently, the miners dug out the ore and now, the hole has filled in with amazing clear water.  It is quite a popular diving spot!

Our below ground tours started at the Soudan Underground Mine with the Physics Lab tour first.  The mine is no longer active with mining but is very active with scientific research.  There are two studies going on currently.  One is on neutrinos; the Fermilab in Chicago shoots neutrinos at the Soudan Physics Lab.  The only way the scientists are able to examine the neutrino is when it collides into something and explodes.  The other study is on dark matter and most of this went way beyond our smidgen of science knowledge.

This is our guide for Lab; he is a Physicist.  The next picture is one of the screens that captures the neutrino!

After being brain boggled, our next tour was the Historical Mine Tour.  Our guide talked about life in the mines in the late 1800's.  Pretty hard life; very little in the way of safety equipment (if you were lucky, you received a candle), the company made it very clear that if you didn't work, you didn't get paid.  Injuries and deaths were commonplace in the mines with no compensation from the company.  In fact, widows and their families had to move out of company housing pretty quickly if the miner died.










This is our Historic tour guide and our "ride" down into the bowels of the earth!

This is Paula's happy face because we're going back to the surface!  We were where the sun don't shine!

After lunch, we continued with our above ground tour.  Biwabik is the home of Honk the Moose; a children's story about two boys who find a moose in their town.  The statue is life size!

Eveleth's claim to fame is the world's largest hockey stick and puck; so, of course, we had to see that for ourselves.

Hibbing was our next stop.  What's so grand about Hibbing?  It's the origin of Greyhound Bus!  We enjoyed the museum - lost almost 2 hours there.

Back to the rig and prep for departure to Bemidji!