A doe living in the neighborhood has her tongue constantly hanging out like it has a wire holding it in that position.  She seems healthy but a friend said she wouldn’t live long. Locals claim she has lived in this neighborhood for years and always has babies tagging along.  A whole herd came by the window last night, a four point buck, a two point buck, a couple of does and two sets of twin fawns.  The fawns are losing their spots.  Time is marching on.

            You haven’t lived until you’ve walked the Uptown Street Fair and listened to the Pt. Townsend Summer Band.  Tents were filled with unusual crafts, paintings and photography. Fish tacos, sausage, and biscuit hamburgers tempted the palate.  While tourists attended, I felt that most of them were neighbors just out for the day enjoying the sunshine and laughter.  The kids loved the on-site craft creating and sidewalk pastel sketching.

            From itty-bitty babies to grandmaw and grandpaw, people were dressed up in outlandish clothes and wigs of bright green, purple, and pink.  Their eclectic and colorful parade was two blocks long and included a huge unicycle and a group of belly dancers shimmying their way along with bangles and beads  Everyone marched in front of the Uptown Theatre which is less than a half block from my room. 

            I went to this historic 1897 theatre the next afternoon to see Eat, Pray, Love, with Julia Roberts.  I couldn’t say a whole lot for the story line but everybody should have a delightful belly laugh like Julia Roberts.  That may have been worth the entire fee.

            An “Edible Seaweed” program was presented at the Fort Worden Marine Science Center this week.  I’m not sure Grace went, but she did peruse the shoreline for edible seaweed last week, cleaned it, soaked it, and prepared it for eating.  It didn’t taste too bad but I’m not planning to add it to my diet anytime soon.

            And I forgot to tell you about seeing a booth with wind chimes at the Coupville Arts and Crafts Fair a week ago.  The host looked very familiar.  It was the Tinkler Winkler man I mentioned in the third blog of my 2009 tent/car loop around the country.  We met at an ocean-front campground in California where he was collecting driftwood to make the Tinkler Winkler wind chimes.  It’s a small….

            Lynn’s little boat is still awaiting repairs so we might not get to experience navigating the waves but I could see the memories it held.  Lynn and her guy were full-time boaters for many years, then full-time RVers.  Lynn and Grace and Chris, have lived full and interesting lives seeing the world from a different angle than most of us only dream of.  And I have no regrets either.  God Bless until next time.

Web site:  www.full-time-rver.com

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It was Jefferson County Fair time last week.  Grace and I wandered through the photo display for inspiration, talked to the horses in the barn, ate a yummy Elephant Ear (Almost as good as the Berrien County Fair in Michigan, and listened to the great music and singing of the group, Dukes of Dabob.  I love fair time and it brought back a lot of good memories.

            You do not go much of anywhere from Pt. Townsend without running into water so your life is scheduled around ferries.  Saturday Grace and Lynn and I caught the 9:30 ferry to Whidbey Island for the huge amount of $1.30 each as walk-ons.  On the other side, we caught the free shuttle that dropped us at the Coupville Arts and Crafts Festival, a great combination of interesting 170+ artisan booths, a variety of entertainment, and of course, the inevitable food vendors. We welcomed the warm, sunny day.  We haven’t had all that many of them and this one was perfect. 

            Lynn and I went scrounging through three of the local second-hand stores yesterday.  I hadn’t intended to buy anything but you know how that goes, I bought a huge vase I’m going to have to wrap VERY carefully to get it back to AZ in tact.  In the process we saw this very interesting truck with all kinds of “stuff” glued to it including a whole lot of bottle caps.  Each to his own I guess.  God bless until next time.

Web site:  www.full-time-rver.com

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Bouncing between three friends to do things with, and with close proximity to a wide variety of restaurants, I have eaten out more way more than I usually do.  Great for the variety but terrible on the budget.  I met Grace and a friend of hers at the Khu Larb Thai Restaurant on Adams St. for lunch.  One part of the restaurant is a regular eat-inside kind of place.  Another smaller part is take out.  Between 11 and 3, you can take your own dish and utensils and they will give you a choice of white or brown rice and add three choices of eight entrées.  You either buy a drink or bring your own.  This scrumptious and more than adequate “green” lunch is $5.

            At the end of the street and right on the water is a small public picnic area.  I always carry a red and white checkered plastic tablecloth in the van so we set up in short order and enjoyed conversations with crows, gulls, and each other.

            Judith is a world-traveler far more than I have been but not any more than Grace who has back-packed the world, and later RVed it, so we all had interesting stories.  Grace met Judy when she was squiring a family group to various tourist destinations and invited Grace to go along. Judith left and I waved to a mother and daughter from California that I had met the previous Saturday while eating breakfast at the Farmer’s Market near my rental.  They came over with their Burmese Mountain Dog who is absolutely beautiful and has a loving personality.  As I introduced them to Grace, someone at the picnic table next to us said, “Is that you, Grace?” and former neighbors of hers from Seattle were introduced all around.  What fun.

            Now having said all that, only two out of the eight of us are or were RVers, but it was the same kind of connectedness that you find in the RV community.  It is indeed a small world.  I have always found that when you travel by RV, you meet people for the first time and it is nice.  You exchange names which you may or may not remember ten miles down the road.  When you meet them ten days later in another place, that connection becomes a little stronger.  It may be a year or two before you see them again but then (after you prompt your memory a bit), you feel like it is old home week.  Again, what fun.

            I have many times over the years been asked, “How do you meet people?”  Open your mouth, say hello with a smile in your voice and on your face and go from there. 

            These Victorian houses are part of the charm of Pt. Townsend.  God bless until next time.

Web site:  www.full-time-rver.com

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Port Townsend has an Art Walk the first Saturday evening of each month.  I joined friends Lydia and Lynn tromping through the rainy streets.  This is one of the very few cool parts of the country this summer so combining the rain with the cool, we wore sweatshirts and jackets. Waterfront PT is basically one main street with a few side streets attached, lots of trees, hanging and street-side pots of flowers.  It was fun ducking into the many art galleries, snacking on their hors d’oeuvres and getting ideas, especially from the one that had a small garden right on the water.
Afterward Lynn and I went to the Nifty Fifties soda fountain shop for black cows.  You do remember those don’t you – a scoop of ice cream drown in root beer and turned into foamy delight.  We were more than a little silly looking at the old fifties songs on the Jukebox and singing Sh-boom Sh-boom on our way out.

Friend Chris, who has owned boats in the past, loved to spend time down on the wharf reminiscing of days on the Inland Passage to Alaska and owning another boat at some future time.  We took the free tour of the sailboat, Merrie Ellen, and Chris slurped up every detail of how they had salvaged and rebuilt it, dreaming ahead to that day…And with less interest in building boats, I looked beyond to the magnificent sunset and mountain ranges all around, some with still a hint of snow lodged in their crevasses.

We went to the Pizza Factory to celebrate Chris having been here for the past two months.  He left the next day for warmer climes.  The pizza is good but it was so noisy that we couldn’t carry on a conversation so there will not be a third time there.  Part of it was the building and the TV and the other factor was children who are allowed to scream and run without benefit of parental or shop-owner guidelines.  Does it sound like we spend a lot of time eating…hmmm.   God bless until next time.

Web site:  www.full-time-rver.com

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With the Pt. Townsend Wednesday afternoon Farmer’s Market within a block of me, this is a fun place to be.  I ordered hot chocolate but it was so thick that I asked them to put more hot water with it.  Is “organic” hot chocolate supposed to be so thick you have to eat it with a spoon?  It needed company.  I bought two huge doughnut holes (The doughnuts must have been the size of tractor tires!).  They were delicious and brought back memories of family time at the Farmer’s Market in South Bend, IN when the kids were little.  The fellow assured me there was no extra charge for the memories.  Hmmm.

A young fellow gave a cooking demonstration and y’all know how I need that.  I wouldn’t question his expertise for anything but I did wonder a bit when he referred to goat cheese and various fruits and vegetables as “sexy.”  Maybe he had been sampling his cooking wine.  Or maybe he didn’t get out any more than I do!

Have you ever noticed if someone says, “Mom!” in public, twenty female heads swivel in response?  When I picked up on a late night cell phone call recently, the voice said, “Mom?”  I said, “Yes.”  She explained her predicament about getting locked out of the house and with one daughter in VA and one in eastern WA, I was pretty sure she wasn’t mine.  We both concluded at the same time that she had dialed the wrong number.

I’ve been house-sitting for ten days.  Duties included caring for two cats.  I have often said that if I were to get a pet again, it would probably be a cat since dogs tend to keep you on a schedule.  After receiving gifts of one regurgitation, one bird, two mice, one questionable rat, thankfully all dead and hopefully all drug in from the outside, I’ve finally concluded there will be no more pets in my lifetime.  Life is interesting.  God bless until next time.

Web site:  www.full-time-rver.com

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The winner of the bands contest won’t be announced for a couple of weeks but I went down to hear them.  A young fellow was off by himself playing a guitar and I asked, “How come you aren’t up there?”  He said he would be shortly.  Now he didn’t look like no band to me but who am I to question.  He was the only single player scheduled and he was obviously nervous because he asked me if I would listen to a couple of songs and give me an opinion and I did.  What he didn’t know was that my knowledge of his type of music was right up there with my knowledge of cooking.  I told him to just play with his heart and he did.

            Friend Chris and I drove up to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park.  You have to choose your days wisely because it is usually foggy.  Sunday it was clear as a bell out over the Strait of San Juan de Fuca. Nice for hiking and viewing.

            The Saturday market here in the neighborhood was colorful.  We had sausage sandwiches, sharing a table with a lady visiting from Kentucky.  The music was lively. The fellow played his dulcimer like it was a guitar.  He could make it sing and his feet dance, a nice combination.

            I apologize for the lack of pictures last week.  It is no secret that I am not 21 and teething on computer technology.  Time will tell if the problem I was having is solved so I can upload photos this week.  With that, I will say so long and God bless until next time.

Web site:  www.full-time-rver.com

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Way too many things to do here!  Lynn and I drove to Sequim for shopping and visiting the magnificent lavender farms, specifically this picture was taken at the Purple Haze Lavender Farm.  The gift shop had everything you ever wanted, fragranced with lavender, including some bread with dip.  All the farms were gearing up for the next-day start of the Sequim Lavender Festival.

            The weekly free “Concerts-on-the-dock” continue.  I’ll let you know who wins the “Battle of the Bands” this Thursday. Friend Chris and I did a little hiking and beachcombing at Ft. Flagler on Marrowstone Island.  Sunday afternoon found Lynn, Chris, and I at Grace’s apartment that looks over the Sound and Whidbey Island.  We each contributed to a lip-smacking salmon dinner.  We all met at one time or other at North Ranch and it is really fun having friends to do things with. 

            The most colorful event this week was the arrival of many, many huge canoes from all directions, including Canada.  The Makah Tribe is hosting the entire group of Native Americans at Neah Bay for this 2010 Tribal Journey, by the end of August.  In the meantime, they arrived here on the beach at Ft. Worden, and other ports along the way at various other times.   The canoers asked permission to land and they were welcomed in the language of their people, then in English.  It was quite a sight as bystanders rushed to help hoist the canoes on their shoulders and bring them on to the sand.  The Ft. Worden Commons was filled with tents and ceremonies were held throughout the evening.  By 6 a.m. the next morning, the canoes were on their way to the next port of call.

            My kids and I rented one of the Officer’s Quarter houses for a family reunion a few years ago and it was great fun.  Ft. Worden also has all kinds of activities.  Grace and I went to a free Writer’s Conference seminar yesterday afternoon.  He thought we should all know, “Why am I a writer.”  The closest excuse I could give is that I like to eat but I don’t think he wanted answers quite that simple.  He was just too deep for me but when he started on “Navel gazing” I figured we finally connected.  I do a lot of that.

            The fawns continue to grow and Mt. Baker continues to watch over all.  God bless until next time.

Web site:  www.full-time-rver.com

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If you haven’t visited Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, you have missed a whole bunch.  I have explored it many times but I can never get enough; thus, my decision to spend the summer in Port Townsend and once again explore the delights of the lower 48’s far NW. From the kitchen window and back deck of the studio apartment of Friend Lynn, I can see the ferry making its way across the waters of Puget Sound from PT to Keystone on Whidbey Island.  The gulls flying overhead carry the message that I am no longer in the desert.  Aaaaah, water!  How did this silver gypsy whose feet dabbled in Lake Michigan for half a century, ever wind up sifting sand in the heated desert.  Ah fate.

            The weather has mostly been fantastic.  While I get e-mails from friends and family who are sweltering in the heat, I am back in sweatshirts and evening heat and loving it.

            On Thursday nights there are free “Concerts on the Dock” and along with Friends Lynn and Grace, we sat and listened to Tony LaStella’s Wise Guys for a couple of hours.  Sandwiches and drinks, both soft and interesting, were available but I didn’t partake because I would have wound up dancing on the top of the nearby NW Maritime Center.  It was a wonderful atmosphere.  People-watching was at the max with vintage and contemporary, both in people and clothes.  For once, the delightful music was not blasting the eardrums and we could listen as well as engage in quiet conversation.  Those who felt so moved, entertained us with their gyrations and joy of the dance.   Once again I wished I had learned to dance many decades ago…maybe one of those hard drinks would have accomplished the same thing.  Hmmm.

            I missed the Zydeco music that was at the Upstage on the same night.  Some day I’ll find out what that is all about.   I rarely miss the local farmers markets and the PTFM in uptown PT was delightful with fresh produce, unusual area arts and crafts, and live music.  Taking Grace’s place as a volunteer handing out programs at the Key City Playhouse, since she couldn’t be two places at once and she was needed otherwise, I had a free “in” to see Neil Simon’s comedy, “The Prisoner of Second Avenue.”  It is going to be an interesting summer.

            Maybe next week I’ll finally be able to send you some pictures of the past few weeks. God bless until next time.

Web site:  www.full-time-rver.com

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Last year on my tenting trip around the country, I stopped to visit with friend Marie for a few days.  We had such a good time; I contacted her again and expected to have lunch in Twisp, WA.  I stopped briefly at Chief St. Joseph Dam, and Astro started only under great protest. After passing a sign that said, “Weeds are a pain in the grass,” I decided that wasn’t the only thing that was a pain.  At Brewster, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a Les Schwab store.

            They replaced the battery which I knew was impending, but when I tried to get back into the Astro, the key wouldn’t work.  Somehow someone had screwed up the lock.  JM at Brewster Car Care took the panel off and somehow managed to get all the cylinders in sync and made the lock work again to the tune of 88.63.  I was furious.  Mistakes can be made but if they are admitted, they are a whole lot easier to forgive.  I went back to Les Schwab. Altho he didn’t key in on any guilt, the manager said he didn’t want unsatisfied customers so he paid me the cost of the lock repair.  I feel a whole lot better about Les Schwab now.

            I finally arrived at Marie’s about four and a lunch appointment turned into dinner, exploring more of her area back roads, a fun Sat morning market in downtown Twisp, and lots of conversation to get caught up.  Boomer, the pint-sized Pomeranian, remembered me and again slept at the foot of my bed. Marie’s view of the still snow-covered North Cascades from her living room is spectacular and she has constantly-visiting deer.  I guess they like the view, too.  In the afternoon, two adorable fawns munched their way across the lawn. 

            Route #20 through the North Cascades was spectacular as usual.  When I pulled off the road in the scenic areas, sometimes I drove through snow.  The Astro is comfortable but after a few weeks of traveling and living in it, I know where to do some tweaking this summer.

            From Port Townsend, WA, where a spotted fawn is lunching on someone’s flowers as we speak, God bless until next time.

Web site:  www.full-time-rver.com

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So much has happened in this past week that I'll have to give you an overview first, and then fill you in over time.  I arrived at my daughter’s in WA late yesterday and between getting caught up on all their family news, washing clothes, opening mail sent to her address, and dealing with problems that came with it, e-mail, and ”stuff” in general, by bedtime, I was exhausted!

            It was my privilege Tuesday through Saturday last week to be part of a guided trip covering a major loop within Wyoming’s considerable scenery, friendly people, and business owners trying to let you all in on what they do.  As time goes on, I’ll be writing articles and eventually columns, on what they do in Wyoming to feed, entertain, and encourage their visitors to enjoy the state.  And if all this seems a bit vague, it is because it is 3 a.m. and I need to get this uploaded but all my information is in the Astro in their garage.  To get it, would wake up the whole neighborhood!  But you’ll get the whole picture eventually.

            Once that trip was over, I began to make the usual circuitous route to my daughter's house.  Until a few hours before I hit their prairie town, I was surrounded by magnificent snow-covered, jagged-peaked mountains of various ranges.  Yesss!  I do love the mountains.  Along the way, I stopped to visit my kayaking buddy, Art, with whom I have shared many happy memories over the RVing years but whom I had not seen or corresponded with for several years.  Consequently, the hour or two I had planned to chat, turned into dinner, an overnight Astro stay in his yard at Kamiah, ID, breakfast, and almost non-stop reminiscing.

            Our history includes a lot of laughter, brief periods of almost killing each other, and kayaking in Mexico, AZ, WA, WY, and British Columbia among other places I’ve probably forgotten.  We continued our adventures in one of his two Porsche’s.  He has a 1971 and a 1974.  All the wiring was dangling under the dash (He’s still restoring it) but it took off much faster than a herd of turtles and before long we were flying along the mountainous countryside.  I didn’t want to know how fast we were going so I didn’t pick up the speedometer off the floor and look at it!  Then he took the top off and we REALLY felt like a couple of teenagers.

            Just thought I’d let you in on a couple of these things just so you’ll know that life doesn’t stop when you hit your 70’s!  God bless until next time.

Web site:  www.full-time-rver.com

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