All the Final Details

Today, we left the park early again. Doug drove the van and I followed in the Jeep. Our first stop was Doug's mom's house to pick up our mail. Then we took the van to a consignment lot to be sold.



Then we went back to Glenn's Welding and hooray! The correct bracket inserts had arrived and they were installed in minutes. We had a nice visit with Jorge and he was very apologetic about the wrong order. Life happens and all is well now.

From there, we went to the bank to get some paperwork notarized and then the post office to mail it to the South Dakota DMV. One more detail out of the way. Since we were right near the storage unit, we dropped off a couple of things, hit the grocery store and headed north.

In Burlington, we stopped at Camping World to find a handle for the bathroom fan and some leveling blocks.

For anyone who has ever tried pointing a tv satellite dish, you might enjoy these pictures of our current dish position. Doug climbed into the bushes and found a small window amongst the trees
to access the satellite. We have tv!

Another shot of the dish.

We're Tired!!!

We left the park early this morning with Doug driving the coach and me following in the Jeep. The plan was to take them both to Glenn's Welding where the tow equipment that we ordered yesterday should be waiting. Guess what? They accidentally ordered the wrong brackets and inserts.

They did fix the wiring on the back of the coach and showed Doug how to install the tow bar. It looks nice and will be easy to use once we get the rest of it. So, we paid the bill and most of the day was wasted. It's exhausting just sitting around waiting for work to be done. And frustrating when it can't be finished. They will reorder and we will go back tomorrow.

A New (to us) Car

We picked up our Jeep today! We purchased it from an individual in Woodinville and headed to Glenn's Welding in Lynnwood for a tow bar. The car isn't the color that we wanted but the price and condition were perfect for us. Besides, it matches the interior of our coach instead of the exterior.

When we arrived at Glenn's Welding, we found out that having the tow brackets on the front is not enough. So, we ordered the inserts that go into the brackets and the tow bar and we will return tomorrow to install them. That was a bit of a disappointment, but we will bring the coach with us to ensure that the wiring is correct. Towing a car is a lot more complicated than I thought.

We returned to our site at LaConner and had a quiet evening.

Back to LaConner

Clam cleaning was done in record time this morning so we followed it with an impromptu lunch. Today was checkout for most of us, so we dispersed to ready our coaches and followed with lots of handshakes, hugs, waves and promises to meet again soon.

We got on the road around 1:30 pm and had a safe, uneventful trip back to the LaConner Thousand Trails. It was just getting dark when we arrived, but we found a nice site and settled in for the night.

More Clammin'

Again, we spent a couple hours in the morning cleaning clams. We are getting better but it is still time consuming.

Afterwards we took a walk to the overlook at the park. It was incredibly windy and beautiful. This is the view from the park overlooking the beach. Then we spent a quiet afternoon in the coach. I baked an apple crisp with some free apples (thanks, Aaron) and caught up on some work on the computer.

In the evening, we headed for the beach again. The low tide wasn't until 10:30 pm but we didn't wait that long. Still, it was pitch black when we started clammin'. Here's a picture of the whole, motley crew. Left to right: Linda & Doug, Linda E & (her honey Jay E. is taking the picture), Larry S. and Carol & Fred R. The evening was mild and we did very well. Everyone limited within an hour and soon we were back at the park sitting around a campfire swapping lies and laughs. Our friends Mike & Charlotte G. joined us too.

A Lesson in Clam Cleaning

As much fun as clam digging is, the cleaning part isn't. (I know, I know, that's horrendous English.) Amongst us, we had ninety clams. It took a little over an hour to dig them and two and a half hours to clean and pack them. Thank goodness we had Larry Smith to teach us the easiest method. He set up a pot of boiling water and several buckets and bowls of ice water. The bags of clams were dunked in the boiling water for 10 seconds and then plunged into the ice water. This caused the shells to open and the clams to be easily plucked from the shells.

Then Larry had the fun job of teaching us how to clean the clams without mangling them beyond recognition. Poor Larry repeated the instructions over and over and I still manged to make a mess.

Everyone got in the act. From left to right, we have Fred, Doug, Carol, Jay and Linda. This Linda was taking the picture. It was cold, windy and drizzly, but we had a great time laughing at ourselves and each other. Such a nice group.

After two hours of dunking and cleaning, we dried the clam steaks on towels and then packaged them. However, we saved out enough for a dinner get-together.

Larry set up a sealing section in the basement of Jay & Linda's Alpine coach and sealed individual packages for each of us to take home.

We met again in the evening for a potluck dinner. The guys cooked the clams outside on the propane burners and we had salad, corn on the cob, macaroni & cheese, garlic bread and clams. It was all delicious! After visiting a little while, we piled into two cars and headed back to the beach. Low tide was about 9:30, so we hit the beach around 7:30 and within an hour, dug another 90 clams. That means another clam cleaning session in the morning.!

Beachcombing and Clamming

Here we are at Oceana Leisure Time Park near Ocean City. It's not fancy, but it is close to the ocean.

So, of course, we needed to find the beach. A short trail across the sand dunes opened onto the water.


And, it was a perfect day to beachcomb. The surf was pounding, the wind was whipping, the sky was gray and there was no rain. Nature at it's best.

All along the beach, in the dunes, we found these monuments to man's garbage. We walked the beach for a couple of hours, picking up sand dollars and garbage.

Here's Doug tying a couple of plastic jugs to the mess. We found everything from plastic bottles, rope and bits of nets to a chair cushion.

At noon, we left the park across this narrow bridge. I'm sure glad we aren't any wider than we are.


We drove 13 miles north along the coast enjoying the spectacular scenery.


And, arrived at Pacific Coast Resort, where we are meeting friends. This is a military base but we are allowed to stay since our friends are military. The RV park sits atop a bluff one hundred feet above the ocean.


The road to the beach is quite steep and long. Going down was easy, but coming back up took a little longer.


Later in the evening, we journeyed back to the beack to dig clams. This is the sight that greeting us. Both directions on the beach were hundreds of people and cars.


Doug immediately got into the action, while I held the bag for the clams. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. We had a blast until it got dark. Then finding the clams got a little tougher. But we did get Doug's limit of 15.


Here comes my might hunter with another razor clam. What a great day!

Ocean City

We left Mount Vernon about noon heading for Ocean City on the coast. First, we picked up Doug's memory card at the Verizon store where it was left the day before. The Cascade Mall has a huge, open parking lot so we figured there would be no problem parking the motorhome. Wrong!! There was a parking lot sale for an auto dealer going on and hundreds of cars taking up most of the parking spots. It made for some interesting driving with a 40 foot coach.

But, we continued to American Distributors to get propane. The sign read $2.49 gal. and we were thrilled that the price is finally coming back down. When I went to the office to pay the bill, the price was only $2.39 gal. The price had come down overnight and they hadn't even had a chance to change the sign yet. Hooray!

As we got closer to the coast, the weather became more and more gray. The drizzle started about Hoquiam and it was raining by the time we arrived at the Oceana Thousand Trails/Leisure Time Park. So Doug got to set up the utilities in the rain.

This is an older park with 52 camping sites and several rentals. But, the manager couldn't be any nicer and the park is clean and well kept. Tomorrow, in the daylight, I will get some pictures of the park and we will walk down to the beach. The park has beach access but it was too wet, cold and windy this evening to look for it.

All in all, another fine day on the road.

Honesty Reigns!

My faith in humanity has been restored. Today, we had to get a replacement for Doug's new cellphone. During the transfer process, Doug laid his 1G mini memory card on the counter and in the confusion of juggling several items, it was left behind. Several hours later, Doug discovered it was missing and immediately called the store. They had already found it and put it in the safe, hoping we would call. Mind you, this wasn't just a Verizon store, but a kiosk in the middle of the mall. Wow, honest people still exist! Kudos to Verizon for hiring decent employees.

We did get to the storage unit finally today. Everything we are taking is now aboard the coach and everything we are leaving is back in storage.

And, we have tv again tonight. Our Directv dish is a 5 LNB dish and is almost impossible to center on 5 satellites. So, we ran into a guy here in the park that services Directv products. As a favor, he sold us (at a bargain) a small, single LNB dish and set it up for us. We made another new friend. What a great life.

We Found Our Jeep

We started out with a trip to the storage unit and that was quickly usurped by a phone call from some friends inviting us to Pacific Beach for clamming on Thursday. Since these are friends that we see only occasionally, we immediately agreed.

Continuing towards the storage, we stopped to visit with some dear friends, Doug & Diane. The visit was too short and we barely got started before we had to leave. Big thanks to Doug & Diane for the use of their laptop to look up the ad for a Grand Cherokee that I had spotted earlier in the day but hadn't written down the information. Back on the road, we called about the car. It was the wrong color and didn't have all of the options we thought we would like. But, the price was right. So, we drove right past the storage place and straight to Woodinville where the car was located.

What a nice car! It's satin gold and immaculate. The owner works at home and drives it infrequently and kept it garaged all of the time. We took it for a test drive and really liked it. We made a counter offer and he accepted it. But, he is waiting for the clean title and we will be at the ocean for a few days. So, he agreed to hold it until next week when we can close the deal. So now we just need a tow bar and we are good to go!

By the time all of this was accomplished, it was almost 6 pm and we were tired. So, instead of the storage unit, we came home. Maybe tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Mick!!!

Happy Birthday to my favorite 30 year old goofball! (The good looking one is Adrianna.) Thirty years ago, I never dreamed of the lifestyle we are enjoying now. Here's to you, Mick. I hope that you don't wait thirty years for your dreams. Live them every day!

Loop to La Conner

Well, we're back in La Conner again. Until we find a jeep that we like and that is in our price range, we are stuck here. Fortunately, we really like the Thousand Trails park system. We are in a different site this time. And, the tires are not as near to a drop off as the picture indicates.

This is the view from our site. It is spacious and open, but very private. And the view of the water is lovely. It was so enticing, we headed for the beach as soon as we got settled.


We climbed over tons of logs like these to get to the water's edge. I got to practice my balance beam techniques and those of you who are aware of my balance shortcomings are probably rolling your eyes in dismay. But, with a little help, we made it to the water. This is all Swinomish reservation and we are not allowed to pick up anything. It was still refreshing and calming (and cold!).



We took turns posing on the cool pieces of driftwood. A beachcomber would have a field day.

That's me! Notice both feet are on the grassy ground.

And, this is the trail we used to get back and forth (or is that forth and back) to the beach. We love challenges!

Not Much New

Not much to report the last couple of days. We've been talking and talking to car dealers and have taken a few rides. We drove through Birch Bay State Park, Lynden and Blaine. And, spent some time just relaxing in the park. The weather is getting cold and we are anxious to move south.

Car Shopping

Today was spent shopping for a Jeep Grand Cherokee. We drove through Blaine but didn't find any car lots and so headed to Bellingham. The Custer Post Office was on the way and I had some stuff to mail, so I took a picture. I didn't even know there was a town called Custer in Washington!

We spent several hours in Bellingham and found a black jeep that will be perfect if we can get the saleman to bargain with us a little bit. His price was pretty unreasonable when we were at the car lot. But when we got home we checked the website and the same car was almost $4000 less online. So, Doug called him back and made an offer. With any luck, we will make a deal.

On our way home, we drove along one end of Birch Bay. The tide was out and it smelled very ripe. But it's alway nice to see something different.

Birch Bay Thousand Trails

We have moved again! We decided to drive north to Blaine to the Birch Bay Thousand Trails/Naco park. At first glance, it seemed to be a small, quiet, older park. We stopped at the main gate where the above store and office is located. We registered and got some good advice on where to park.

So, this is our new site. We have a fifth wheel directly behind us, but no one on the side. This park is only about a third full and very quiet.

Here's the coach from a different angle.

To our surprise, we discovered that the park has a Phase Two. A short walk along a gravel road brought us to a new area for camping. There are almost 200 sites in this part of the park and all are much bigger. Unfortunately for us, this part of the park closes on October 1 and reopens on May 1. They must not get much business in the winter.

You can definitely see that fall has arrived. The colors of the trees are gorgeous. And Doug and Buddy (the dog) are enjoying the crisp air.


And speaking of gorgeous, this park is full of black squirrels. We were told they are from Canada and they don't seem to be afraid of anything!