Explore Washington Vacation – Day one – Centralia

On February 5, 2016May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, dave, Me, outdoors, vacationLeave a comment

In November we had our big vacation planned for Yosemite. I had figured out where we could stay, where the best spots in the campground were, and reserved them way back in May or something. Then, just as we’re ready to go, word comes in that an early snowstorm is blowing in! After much debate we decided to cancel our trip South and stay closer to home, rather than end up snowed in at Yosemite.

So we headed North instead. Only makes sense right? Snows coming in, so you head North to get away from it! Well, in this case, we were just heading up to Seattle. We figured we could camp at Land Yacht Harbor, explore Seattle, and then take a day to go circle the Olympics.

It was a lousy grey day, as expected for mid-November.

We stopped in Centralia to begin with. There is a nice McMinamins Pub there for lunch.

Dave at lunch.

And the Fox theater, which we once toyed with the idea of buying and restoring. It would have destroyed us! So glad we passed on that adventure. Someone else has been fixing it up and it looks pretty nice on the outside, and they are holding performances so it must be pretty good inside too.

Well, back to the trailer, and head up to LYH. That is always a nice safe place to leave the trailer while we explore. I believe that evening we ‘explored’ our favorite steak house and may have located a casino that needed exploring as well.

Street parking in Centralia. I love that little trailer, it’s so damn cute!

To be continued…
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Moulton Falls

On July 24, 2015May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn Me, outdoorsLeave a comment

We don’t wander up to Battle Ground much since we sold the farm, but we did make a nice mid-summer trip up to wander around Moulton Falls, because it’s beautiful.

We walked along the river and watched people jumping in off the rocks.

The bridge to the upper trail is a local landmark.

We crossed the highway to the waterfalls on the other side of the road.

While I was taking pictures of the waterfall, Dave was taking pictures of me!

By the time we walked back to the car, we were almost out of light, and the trees were lit with a pretty golden glow from the sunset. What a lovely place!

Mt St Helens and Windy Ridge

On July 11, 2015May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn dave, Me, outdoors, photography, travelLeave a comment

We decided to head out for a day of exploration around the backside of our favorite local volcano – Mt St Helens.

Mt St Helens sits on the horizon where we live. It is something we see every day (along with Mt Hood and Mt Adams), and everyone took it for granted until 1980 when it started huffing out clouds of smoke and eventually exploded in an eruption that gave us all a very graphic example of what the word ‘devastation’ really means. Ridge after ridge around the mountain was cleared down to bare rock or covered in ash. Some of the ash even rained down over our homes. When we went to see it a few years after the eruption, it was like a desert where once a beautiful forest had stood. Now when we look at the mountain it’s flat top reminds us at a glance that we have a real live volcano in our backyard.

For many years we took an annual trip from Yakima up to Windy Ridge, often with our Miata friends, and admired the view looking down into the crater. We have also come in on the West side to the observatory. It’s an amazing place to visit, from either direction. This time we decided to wind up the backroads to Windy Ridge and see how it was doing. So we packed a picnic lunch, grabbed the camera, and headed out for a day of adventure.

Driving around the backside of Mt St Helens takes you through woods that were pretty much untouched by the blast, except for creeks and rivers that were flooded by the sudden glacier melts that occurred, causing mud flows to tear down the canyons and valleys. Everything is recovering so well though, that it is hard to see the damage anymore, even at overlooks that were established for people to stop and admire the changes in the landscape.

Then you come to the Muddy River at Lava Canyon

Can you see Dave on the rocks looking over the canyon?

We added a rock to a cairn we passed on our way along a trail that took us to another vantage point of the muddy river. Too bad the clouds were hiding the mountain at the other end of the canyon. We should have realized then that this just wasn’t going to be our day for viewing the mountain itself.

On to Lava Canyon, where water has carved a steep channel through lava rock.

Very cool place, with lots of signs warning you that if you fall in that water, you will die and they will never find your body, or something to that effect. That was the take-away, anyway. That water was fast and furious as it disappeared into the bulbous lava forms sticking up out of the forest.

We backtracked out of the Ape Canyon / Lava Canyon area, and continued heading East towards Windy Ridge. We stopped along the road at this still wiped out canyon and ate our lunch while enjoying the complete peacefulness of the forest. I don’t think a single car drove by while we were enjoying our lunch. It was just us and the birds in the trees.

Further up the road we stopped at a wide spot to enjoy this overlook of what I think was the Clearwater Creek drainage. What an amazing view!

Our sturdy Flex made the ride nice and smooth over the terrible forest service roads, which had a lot of broken pavement. It was the right choice for this trip! The Miata would have been beat to death.

Finally we arrived at Windy Ridge, with it’s amazing view of…clouds. Lots and lots of clouds.

Beautiful view of Spirit Lake though. We had a lovely panorama of the devastated area.

The devastated area has recovered considerably. There was a time when this was all just covered in brown ash. The effects of the eruption are still clearly visible in the three zones. Zone 1 – the ridges were blown clean down to bedrock. They are still bare of trees, but starting to show a cover of green.

Then there is the zone farther out where the trees were all knocked down, and still lay pointing away from the source of the blast. More baby trees are popping up in this area.

In the third zone the trees were killed by the heat of the eruption, but remain standing. This area is recovering even better. It’s amazing to see how one ridge is in the blowdown zone, and the next the trees were left standing.

That is Mt St Helens for you – such a beautiful, amazing place. We stopped at another overlook on the way back from Windy Ridge and enjoyed the peacefulness of the scene, the little pops of color from wildflowers appearing on the hillside. We waited a little bit, but the mountain remained hidden in the clouds. It was just one of those days.

But we had a great time anyway, as we always do when out adventuring together.

Trout Lake 2015

On June 5, 2015 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, dave, Me, navi, outdoors, photography, scenic1 Comment

Time again for the annual trip to Trout Lake to hang out with my Airstream friends. We packed up the trailer, the dogs, and it seemed like more miscellaneous ‘stuff’ than ever before. Maybe it just felt that way because the Flex is so small and the Van was so big! We headed off after work on Thursday so we could get in an extra day.

We rolled into town to find a thunderstorm hiding the mountain top and obscuring the sunset.

We got settled in, said hello to everyone, and soon after crashed for the night. As I lay in bed in the complete darkness, I thought my eyes were playing tricks as I saw flashes, but the thunder told us it was the lightening storm. Kind of cool.

The next day the Airstreams kept rolling in. All our usual friends, and a few we had missed last year. A sad trip for our friends Carolyn and Loren, as they had just lost their beautiful German Shepherd Cosmo. Cosmo had been a fixture at the rally for 7 years, where he would hang out by the campfire with them, but if Mom and Dad weren’t together, he would patrol the camp going back and forth between them, checking on them. Such a good boy. It was so sad to hear of his passing.

Soon there were enough people to stir up a card game, which Dave got in on.

Puzzles came out too …

and guitars. Camping is the life!

The dogs hung out in their dog-yard. I had started prepping the trailer a couple weeks before we left, and was happy to find everything worked. We used the fridge all weekend, and only needed to run the furnace a couple nights because the weather was so mild. With the LED lights, we didn’t even come close to running out of power.

Our friend Chris showed up with his Caravel, and his new/old Bronco.

Cory, Carolyn, Jerry, Patsy, Karen, Dave and Loren entertain themselves. I think this was shortly before they decided to ‘make it interesting’ and start playing for pennies!

Barclay can watch the activities from bed!

When we have the dogs we usually fold the dinette down into a bed all day.

Both dogs like laying in the ‘doghouse’ under the bed. Navi decided it was hers and growled furiously if Barclay tried to invade it. Which he occasionally did, just to annoy her.

Airstreams of all shapes and sizes – vintage, Interstate, and Argosy!

Greg got the fire all stirred up

Sunset over the creek behind the campground

So many friends, good food, jamming around the campfire at night (I even brought my guitar this time) – wears you out. I’ve never slept so well in my life!

The next morning we headed over to the county park to partake of their showers. You can shower in the Caravel, but why make a mess in there, when you can make a mess in someone else’s shower instead? Seemed like a good deal to me! Then we went to the Ranger Station and got a map and directions for the local attractions.

We wandered off into the woods to find the Big Lava Bed. Turns out it is indeed big, but hard to access, and I didn’t even really get any pictures of it!

Back to camp, this is the view at the porta-john – one of the prettiest in camp!

Flags were flying in the wind. All that wind blowing through the trees around camp made for a fabulous afternoon nap while Dave went and played cards.

Peanut butter kongs keep the dogs occupied.

In the evening I play guitar until my fingers were too sore to play anymore, so I packed it in, and grabbed my camera. The wind had blown away the clouds. I finally had a chance (and the equipment and know-how, to do this:

Cozy little trailer.

The next morning we headed up to see Langfield Falls. Along the way we stopped for views of Mt Adams and Beargrass.

Thanks to the dry winter, the falls was only running down one side, instead of covering the whole rock.

We saw a sign to Mosquito Lake, and decided we HAD to check that out. A whole lake of mosquitoes, how fun! (sarcasm) But alas, there were no mosquitoes. It was actually very nice. Must have hit it at just the right time of year. It made us wish we had a kayak!

On the way up there we had to stop to let a small group of Elk stroll across the road. Of course I didn’t get a picture of THAT!

On the way back, we stopped by the Big Tire. Seriously, it’s on the MAP.

Yup, that’s big alright.

Coming back we had a peek at Sleeping Beauty from a different angle. Not quite as face-like from over here.

We went back through town and headed out past the campground in the other direction looking for the biggest Ponderosa Pine in WA – known as The Big Tree.

I suppose it’s kinda big.

Pretty, delicate little flowers in this area.

Back to Trout Lake, to stop for lunch at the Café/Gas Station/Espresso/Ice Cream Shop

As you might guess, the only place in town. But actually kind of awesome.

Back to the trailer for lunch..

And Siesta. I cleaned out a drawer in the trailer and found a bunch of paperbacks. Dave started reading a Star Wars book he had tried to read on previous trips, and I found an old X Files novel. What a great way to geek out during afternoon downtime!

I take this picture every year!

I never get tired of looking at the mountain!

At sunset I took the dogs for a walk, looked up, and saw the setting sun had somehow created a rainbow in the clouds, right over Sleeping Beauty’s face! I ran the dogs all the way back to the trailer to get my camera and get a shot before the phenomenon disappeared!

I love it! And I love Sleeping Beauty.

One more night of singing around the fire, followed by a peaceful night’s sleep, and in the morning, it was time to go.

Trout Lake is always over too soon! We love visiting with our friends, catching up, singing songs, watching the campfire, sharing potlucks, playing games, taking naps, and playing music. We will get together again before summer is over, but Trout Lake is an awesome start to the season. Many thanks to our friends Janet and Gary for pulling us all together for another year.

A visit to Seattle Pt 1–Point Defiance Zoo

On September 25, 2014 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, dave, outdoors, travel1 Comment

Last weekend we took the Airstream out. Now that the kids are back in school and summer is over, it’s the time for us cranky no-kid types to go traveling! We setup basecamp at Land Yacht Harbor in Lacey WA, a perfect place to leave our trailer behind while we ventured into the urban jungle of Seattle!

First stop: Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. It’s not Seattle, but it’s close enough for us. Everything north of Olympia and south of Vancouver BC is ‘Seattle’ as far as I’m concerned.

Point Defiance is big on the Aquarium part of their name. Starting with a beautiful stingray exhibit where you can pet the stingrays and sharks.

This one kept coming up to the edge and sticking his face out of the water. The blue dots on him were incredible!

Dave found a HUGE fish!

In the shark tank this guy kept cruising by, he was probably a couple feet long.

Then there were the sharks

After the sharks, they had a lovely display of smaller aquariums. I LOVE fish, so I was fascinated by all these displays.

Seahorses, so lovely!

This little guy came out and posed for me!

This little guy lives in a hole! Which is pretty amazing for a FISH!

Beautiful!

So beautiful!

I love this stuff! I’ve never had the guts to have a saltwater aquarium. Better to enjoy it when someone else does the maintenance.

How many eels are in there?!

This guy put on a heck of a show, crawling all over the front glass, and finally hanging out and changing color from pink to brown! Amazing!

We headed out to the Zoo portion of the show.

This big cat had no intention of coming out in the cold morning air.

Lovely.

This flower looked like a flock of flamingos!

This flower I just thought was pretty.

On to the seal/sea lion exhibit:

Dave watching seal acrobatics

zooooom! They sure look like they’re having fun!

The sea lions were enormous. I wanted to get a shot of one with people in front of the window to show how big they are. When I got home and looked at the pictures, every one had people snapping pictures with their phones.

When we went to Disneyland and we were discussing what urban photography could show that would show what it’s really like in the twenty-teens, we decided it would show this. Everybody looking at their phones all the time. So there you go.

Next stop – the Museum of Flight…

Gone Campin’ for July 4th!

On July 7, 2014May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, dave, navi, outdoors, pets1 Comment

Time to pull out the Airstream again and go camping. This time our friends Scott and Sherry (and their pups Sake and Sitka, who we frequently doggie-sit) invited us to join them at one of the RV Resorts they camp at – KM Resorts Ocean Breeze at Ocean City, WA.

Navi and Barclay are buckled up and ready to go!

We stopped along the way to get a pic of our handsome new rig. I’m still delighted with how the Flex tows, how maneuverable it is with the trailer (Dave has a much easier time getting the Airstream in and out of it’s home behind the house than he did with the van) and of course, how it looks. I think they make a sharp-looking pair!

We got there and they had saved us a cozy little spot in the trees. The campground is heavily wooded, and felt very private where we were. Other rows were much busier though, so this was a great spot. There were a lot of mosquitoes too, because you can’t have everything perfect!

In no time we had the dog yard set up and the dogs were barking at everyone going by – business as usual! Our friends were camped with their giant 5th wheel right next door, on the other side of the trees. Unfortunately I didn’t take many pictures because it rained so much I ended up leaving my camera safe and dry inside for most of the weekend.

They had us come join them for 4th of July, because the beach at Ocean City, and for quite a distance up and down the shore, turns into a giant party. I’ve really never seen anything like it, and I’ve lived in the NW my whole life. I’ve never even HEARD of such a thing. Of course I grew up in Oregon, where the beaches are treated like they are kind of sacred. They are preserved and kept natural for the enjoyment of all. It was kind of appalling to see people driving up and down the beach in WA, camped out, with big bonfires, car camping with windbreaks built up all around them, firing off fireworks. It was probably the closest I’ll ever get to Burning Man, I’ve just never seen anything like it.

Here in this video I took before dark to see the cars as far as you can see in both directions, several camps deep between the dunes and the driving area, and then more people parked between the driving area and the water.

//player.vimeo.com/video/100067592
beach party from Stephanie on Vimeo.

In this video after dark you can just make out fireworks off in the distance. These were BIG fireworks, being shot off probably a few miles down the beach, and then I panned over the same view as in the video before dark. Now you can see fireworks all the way up the beach to the North, as far as you can see. It was really an amazing sight!

//player.vimeo.com/video/100067593
fireworks after dark from Stephanie on Vimeo.

The next day we explored Aberdeen, WA, had some very good clam chowder, and then lazed around and rested. I love napping in the Caravel on rainy days. I just get warm fuzzy tingly all over, it makes me so happy. The Caravel is just a warm and cozy place to listen to the rain falling.

We spent a bit of time around the campfire (in and out of the rain), and had a nice dinner with our friends, and then Dave and I went to hit the nearby indian casino and dropped $40 in less than 40 minutes! Not as much fun as I’d been led to believe!

The next morning we woke up early and decided to head out early. There was something interesting we’d seen on our way to the beach that we wanted to check out on the way home.

It is an abandoned unfinished nuclear power plant near Elma, WA. Wow, seeing those cooling towers peeking over the tree-covered hills really got my attention – we had to take a detour to visit it.

This nuclear plant has been reclaimed by turning it in to a business park. It was unfinished and never had nuclear material in it, so the power plant parts of the structure just sit abandoned and taking up space. Look at the top of the unfinished containment building, the rebar is just sticking up out of the top!

Looks like they at least put a top on the other containment building before they abandoned the whole project.

There are two cooling towers. Far enough apart I couldn’t get both in one picture.

And now they sit surrounded by weeds and wildflowers.

They are really really really BIG! They sit there hollow and empty.

Well, that was pretty fun, and totally worth the side trip. We hung out there for a bit and ate breakfast before continuing the journey home.

When we got home we decontaminated the trailer – just kidding! It was time for it’s annual bath, and the weather was too lousy last time we took it out. This was a nice day, so we gave it a good scrub before putting it away under it’s carport. I can’t wait to see where we take it out to next.

Airstream camping in John Day, Oregon

On May 5, 2013 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, navi, outdoors, photography1 Comment

We spent last weekend with our Airstream friends in John Day Oregon at Clyde Holliday State Recreation Area. There was a super nice campground there, right on the John Day River. I picked it because I heard it was nice, and I’d never been out there before, but it turned out to be a 6 hour drive! Pretty long for just a weekend. But the scenery along the way was incredible, so that made it tolerable.

We started out heading down 84 to The Dalles, and cut over at Biggs, and for the first time got to see the wind power generators. There hadn’t been any of these the last time we headed up to Yakima, which was probably ten years ago. Some people hate them because they are a blight on the landscape, but I thought they were pretty amazing.

Dave found a mountain!

The farther we got into central Oregon, the crazier the scenery got. If you think of evergreens and rain when you think of Oregon, this would change your mind.

We got to the park and got setup. Some early arrivals had saved spots for us, which annoyed the ranger, but they wouldn’t have had to do that if they allowed reservations. Luckily all but one of our group arrived before the Ranger noticed! Then another camper went and paid for the late arrival’s spot and parked their truck in it so it would be saved.

The spots were HUGE – the biggest camping spots I’ve ever seen! Here you can see the distance between our trailer and our neighbor – tons of room!

We set up the ‘dog yard’ so the pooches could relax in the grass.

After a late night of music around the bonfire, the next morning we headed out to visit the Fossil Beds National Monument.

They had a fabulous museum showing many of the amazing fossils they had unearthed in the area. Not dinosaurs, but early mammals – camels and hippos, and tiny horses – it was really interesting! Also plants and seeds and bugs. After the museum we drove up the road to a ‘Blue’ canyon where many fossils were found. It’s hard to see the color in the photos, but it was indeed a light blue color. The rock was very soft and heavily eroded, and that is how the fossilized animals get revealed.

It was an interesting walk, but the dogs didn’t like walking over these bridges, which had bumpy metal grating, and there were a lot of them, so we eventually turned back.

Dogs refused to face the camera!

We drove around a bit more to enjoy the scenery.

Then headed back to the park for an afternoon nap, potluck, and music around the campfire late into the night.

I love these gatherings, but the next morning it was time to go home. We didn’t even wait for breakfast, knowing we had a long day of driving ahead of us. We took a different route to get some new scenery. It was amazing with gentle rolling hills that stretched to the horizon. We also saw many abandoned hoses and barns.

Back into Windmill country

Navi doesn’t enjoy the ride much, but Barclay is a real traveller. He just relaxes and enjoys the ride.

Before long we were back to familiar territory, seeing barges on the Columbia River, and headed home. It was a great weekend, and I loved seeing some scenery I had never seen before.

Hiking to Steigerwald Wildlife Refuge

On March 27, 2013 By stefrobrtsIn hiking, outdoors, scenic2 Comments

Sunday I headed out with a few friends to walk on the Washougal Dike Trail. It starts at Steamboat Landing (note: there are no steamboats anymore!) and goes to Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge. It was a bright sunny morning, and the Columbia River looked pretty and blue. I’m glad it gave us a little taste of that before returning to March’s standard—issue grey.

As we walked along the Dike we enjoyed the cottonwood trees that lined the river.

Steigerwald looks a lot like Ridgefield, and it’s probably closer to our new home, so I guess we should get used to coming out here.

This shot of the ducks with Mt Hood in the background was my favorite shot of the day.

I was a little partial to these leaning cottonwoods too.

We saw evidence of wildlife other than just the feathered kind.

Soon we came to the end of the road…

Time to head back.

On the way back we stopped at Cottonwood Beach for lunch before continuing towards town. We saw (though I did not get pictures of) several people horseback riding on the beach.

The sky was overcast and grey as we trudged back to the car. It was six miles all together, not a bad distance for a first hike of spring. It was nice and flat, just to get us in the mood for hiking again! It was very windy the whole way! But a nice walk with friends all the same.

End of Summer photos

On August 29, 2012 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, garden, navi, outdoors, pets1 Comment

This has been a weird summer. I’ve been working full time, with a ridiculously long commute, and the end result of all that is I feel like I wasn’t even home for the summer. Hopefully things will get better soon.

I abandoned my garden, and it’s all overgrown and weedy. I planted a few tomatoes in pots on the front deck, and they might kick out a few tomatoes before the winter comes, if we’re lucky. BTW, that’s Saki next to the tomatoes, they were visiting.

Mostly we’ve been working on cleaning the house and getting it ready to sell. It’s coming along better than I expected. But that’s another post.

Today I went out in the late afternoon and took some pictures around the yard. No particular reason. The light was so beautiful, I couldn’t help myself.

This picture was not in focus, but I liked the pose, so it seemed like a good use of one of those funky filters. Look at me, I’m being artistic!

My little perpetual-motion machine stops for a rare picture! Good girl, Navi!

Barclay just wants to play stickball, he’s obsessed with it!

Here’s another picture which came out overexposed, but is saved by one of those funky filters. Makes it look like I intended that ‘glow’!

Rainbow

On December 18, 2010May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn outdoors1 Comment

Driving home in a bit of misty rain, I got to the turnoff for our road and noticed a bit of color on the horizon. It was the end of a rainbow, but the rest of the rainbow wasn’t visible, just a little stub where the trees meet the sky. I’ve never seen anything like it! It was beautiful! I ran inside to get my camera, but it had a hard time picking up the colors against the bright gray sky. With a bit of tweaking I brought the colors out as best as I could. Definitely one of those cases where it’s hard to get the camera to record what you see.

Steff Does Stuff!

Category: outdoors