Tag Archives: Volunteering

Our Saturday hike…

Pauline and I pretty much hiked the entire park on Saturday. Of course the GPS went from full to dead 2.24 miles into it, but I think we did just over 6 miles total. We was both feeling it later that night.

We saw a garter snake on the trail, I also had it focused in when he bolted into the bush, I found it again and once again almost got a good shot when he bolted completely.

*sigh

Sunday we took both cats outside. We now have new cat harness’s for both, and I feel much more comfortable using these over the old “strap” ones.

Drew is really starting to enjoy being outside. He is still cautious, he makes sure I am still near him after every few steps, but he walks with his tail up and purrs like mad at times. He will come to Pauline or me and put his front paws on our knees with the look of “I’m going to jump up any second, be ready” and will usually walk around us a few times. When I walk with him, he goes a pretty good pace, and he walks with confidence, and he always walks towards the RV…

He has no idea what to do when he gets to the RV, he just knows that this is his box and he should be in it. He doesn’t seem to want to use the metal stairs, last time he jumped over them both, yesterday I picked him up and put him on them and he wasn’t too cool with that, so I find that interesting.

Sakura still hates the big wide world. She lays as low as she can get, and if she is being held, she will dig in with her claws to make sure she is still being held. But she is getting better. She tucks her tail for the most part, but if we sit or lay down on the grass, she uses us as a cover, and will eat the grass some, and at times, her tail will come out. She enjoys the sun and grass and flowers, she just would rather not go outside to have them.

We will continue taking them out when the weather cooperates and when there isn’t much park activity, no need to give them too much over load of humans.

I used my iPhone on these pics, and honestly, I am so not impressed. I think we will start using our Pentax’s again, I have been too disappointed with pics off the iPhone lately. Tired of the front camera being such a low quality, and even in perfect lighting, they look bad.

Today! Just 5 days later…

I really had planned to post these pictures the day we took them, but… you know… Stuff happens…

Pauline and I went to South Whidbey Island State Park to meet with a local volunteer, we got to look over our soon to be home a little better, we have 42′ of space and Ackbar is 35′ long.

Sweet!

Pauline and I are trying to get into the habit of taking a camera out when we do our park work, the iPhone just is not a good enough camera.

I’ll discuss this more in another post…

We came across 2 large Immature Bald Eagles on the beach on April 9, I got fairly close to them before one took off, and was able to get a few more pictures using Pauline’s “hiking camera” (Pentax point and shoot) I thought I had it zoomed in all the way, but when I realized I didn’t, the last of the birds flew off, hence the blurry pics…

Dinner time, more later…

Last Monday Today!

Pauline and I went birding Monday, while the weather was still amazing when we saw the forecast was calling for a week plus of rain and wind, we knew we had to get outside while we still could.

It was sunny with a slight wind and low 50’s so we grabbed the camera and binoculars and ended up doing 4 miles in about 3.5 hours. It’s amazing how far you will not go when you stop and stare at birds.

We walked mostly in the forested trails where it was peaceful, but not too birding friendly. The few birds we see move too fast to get a decent look at.

However we did get some good pics of a Bald Eagle as well as 2 new birds for our list, the Red-breasted Merganser and the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. The Kinglet was a bear to get a decent shot of, and the only reason I got these two pics was due to taking about 50 pics of blurred tree’s as it jumped from one spot to another and then another…

We have walked a lot of beach trails since we been here, that it has been a few months since we walked in the woods. Again, so peaceful. Could use more birds. Saw a few deer. A salamander. Heard some tree frogs and a few birds we never saw, even when it sounded like they was 10′ from us.

This week was suppose to be a nasty mess, but so far, we’ve had little rain, some winds, but much more sun then we expected. It still says this week is going to be a bad one weather wise, but at least we got this good weather.

We was going to go to Whidbey Island to meet some people we are going to work with this Summer, I just forgot to set it up, and when I thought about setting something up, I was never near my Mac to send a email, so that will need to be doe next week.

We are expecting neighbors this weekend. We finally was forced to give up our perfect water view and park like everyone else, in your own limited parking pad. We moved Ackbar yesterday and spread about 10 bucket loads of new gravel on both of these pads since they had some major low points with too many ponds. It took us about 3 hours to get it, but even I am impressed how well it turned out. Much better then expected.

Got our new MiFi today. Still having issues. Need to park facing East and not West. Miss facing South. Need another 10′ worth of sewer hose to be able to park with the hose going under the RV to the other side. Not happy about that. But we gotta do what we gotta do.

Feeling lucky to have had such a great view and appreciating it much more now that I no longer have it… Until next Fall.

Just updating

We are set to leave Fort Flagler at the end of April which is just 4 weeks or so away, which seems odd, it still is like we just arrived.

We went to Everett yesterday to visit our friends, and had a great time as always. The weather could have been warmer, but other then that it was great. We took the Pt Towsend ferry and drove to the Southern end  of the island to ferry to Mukilteo. We wanted to see what to expect for the Summer.

On the way home we drove down to the Edmonds/Kingston ferry which was about $0.35 cheaper then the other 2 ferries combined and made the trip home about 15 mins shorter. Not much to matter regarding which we way we go. Of course in a month we will be just 1 ferry away.

Last week was pretty crappy regarding the weather, we had winds over 35+mph so the RV was rocking back and forth. So far this week it looks like it will be decent.

Spring time in the Northwest…

Is Amazing!

The weather is so much nicer. We have had less rain and more sun with more fog then more sun and then more fog with some sun.

Today I saw my first Anna’s Hummingbird! It was bright red like I am use to and not that deep dark red we saw in Arizona. I only got about 1 second look at it, but that was all that was needed to make me happy. We have not put our feeders out yet, but will be soon. We are just concerned about the winds we still get every so often.

We also saw our first Golden Eagle today! And even better, we had time to go back to get the camera! While it was still foggy when we started taking the pictures it cleared up about 45 minutes later we was able to take more pictures with the sun out as he was still in the same tree we left him in. Lazy bird. Not the best pics as I was “just off” regarding focus, but they count.

We also saw the USNS Carl Brashear (T-AKE-7) going out to sea from Indian Island. She had been dockside since we arrived in November. The first time I saw her I thought she was a building. (Crap weather prevented a good look from so far) but I was able to make out the life boats on the side to confirm she was a ship. She had the usual 2 USCG ships waiting to escort her out to the open sea.

One of the Rangers told us we will soon be seeing more and more wildlife showing up soon and the Bald Eagles will soon be tearing branches off the trees to make their nest which is something we have never seen, so I think we will be bringing our camera with us more when we do rounds in the morning.

I am still running 3 miles a day. I took 2 days off due to the whole “blind in one eye” thing when it was just too sunny for me to see properly and without excessive pain but other then that, I have done pretty well. I know my course well enough to know how to pace the hills. The only thing that slows me down now is soggy trails, harsh winds and drivers not paying attention where they are driving.

Yesterday, I was almost hit by 2 ladies who was paying more attention to whatever they saw outside the passenger window then what was in front of them, I saw them from a distance away and was going to run on the side of the road as I normally do. (I run against traffic since I do NOT trust drivers) but she started to drive like they was going to park on the side of the road where I was running toward, so I went right, then she veered right directly towards me, and as I got closer I realized they still have not seen me, and they never did see me, even when I ran past the drivers window about 2′ away.

I was so close to slapping the drivers window.

Honestly, I was looking directly at the driver and she never, ever saw me. It’s not like I am 6’2″ and 225 lbs and wearing bright red or anything.

*sigh.

Anyway, today I ran my best time ever, beating yesterday (which was my record, which was also a new best time record) by 15 seconds. 3 miles on trials, hills, and road in 32 mins and 45 seconds.

Bright sunny days, with brilliant views of Mt Baker, the Cascade Mountains and the crown jewel, Mount Rainier.

I Love the Northwest!

Once again I failed to remember I have pictures on my phone waiting to be downloaded, so some of these pictures are from a month ago, but most of them are from today.

Enjoy!