Susan's Adventures: 2014

Well, we are back from our latest adventure and we had a great time. I think I finally learned how to avoid ear problems when, first, leaving our mountain elevations, and second, when taking a flight. It involves 4days of Mucinex D ahead of the flight then using Afrin nose spray just before any elevation changes AND chewing gum vigorously during ups and downs in elevation. I have arrived home with no ear infection for the first time in, well, ever!

It was a long flight out to Seattle helped by being totally involved in reading a book. We got to see Matt and Leslie and Moira and the new baby, Kailyn Elise, who is so cute and tiny. I’m not that used to holding a tiny little one in that both my girls were over 9 pounds at birth, so this was fascinating. She only weighed 6 pounds and a few ounces and was born only 4 days before. Had fun tumbling in the grass with Moira.

Then we drove in the rain to Port Angeles to take the ferry over to Victoria on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. There was a low fog on the water the entire trip making the passage seem like we were moving through a boiling cauldron. Creepy and cool. We were totally encased in the white fog except occasionally when the tops of trees on island poked through or a ghostly ship suddenly appeared then faded back into the whiteness. We checked into our room in Sidney and found that we’d been upgraded to a kitchen suite, so that evening, Ray fixed us his special—Spaghetti. For dessert, he’d found a whole package of Nanaimo Bars at the bakery! If you’ve never had these, get yourself over to British Columbia where they began in the city of Nanaimo. It is a bar dessert which requires no baking and consists of a wafer crumb-based layer topped by a layer of light vanilla or custard flavoured butter icing which is covered with melted chocolate made from chocolate squares. Pure sugary taste and so yummy. In Nanaimo, they even have a map of where you can go around and taste all the different varieties of Nanaimo Bars.

For breakfast the next morning, we had huge meals at the Smitty’s Restaurant that was part of the hotel. Then we drove to Comox, a city I had visited before when the girls were younger and we went to rent a sailboat there to take off to Desolation Sound. I remembered the glacier that hung over the city from the mountains on the other side of the water and wanted to see if it was still there. Yep, right where I left it and so pretty. We ate at the Blackfin Pub at the Marina—Salmon Burger for me and regular burger and Guinness for Ray. From nearby here, we took another ferry over to Westview (Powell River). It was so interesting remembering the person I used to be when visiting here before—almost 25 years ago—and being here now. We took the ferry back and drove in the rain back to Sidney with a slight delay for road construction—in the rain and at night!

Next morning, Smitty’s again then we decided to explore Sidney instead of going into Victoria. It’s a lovely little town with lots of shops and is known as Canada’s booktown—lots of used bookstores—so you know I was in heaven. My favorite shop was The Haunted Bookshop, which, as Tom the manager told me, isn’t haunted but the whole area of Sidney is. This shop was so cool and had the most interesting books. I could’ve filled my suitcases with tons of them if I’d not had to sneak the weight of the books past Ray. Anyway, I asked if the book called “The Haunted Bookshop” in the window was for sale, but alas, it was not. It had a cool dust jacket on it. Tom told me of another book that WAS about a haunted bookstore and he looked and found a copy of it. He also told me the history of the shop and somehow we got around to talking about ghosts and psychic abilities, and he asked if he could see my palm—and he did a quick palm-reading for me! Wow! Never had that done before! He said a real reading—which he also does—takes 3 hours, but he said that my palm showed that I let people push me around too much, that I have good health, and that I must be a writer because of what my little finger showed. All true. He also said that I have psychic abilities of my own and should try to use them more. While perusing the shop, I was about to reach for an old book and out from its edge crawled a medium-sized spider! I should have expected no less in a haunted bookshop.

After walking around the marina area and hopefully identifying the island straight ahead of us as Stuart Island—which I used in one of my books—we had a lovely dinner at the Beacon Landing Pub where we had a delicious local brew called Dark Matter Lager—one of the best I’ve ever had. Kind of reminded me of the Dark Island that I love so much from the Orkney Islands. I almost feel like the Sidney area is still stuck in the 1950s, in a good way. The little shops that are thriving and everywhere we went, 50s music was playing.

We had breakfast the next morning very early at McDonald’s, since it was the only place open. Here we saw the sign for Spicy Buffalo Chicken Poutine, which is an order of French fries with chicken on top and covered in gravy—I’m not so sure about this. I’ve had poutine before--french fries, topped with a light brown gravy-like sauce and cheese curds, also not a favorite of mine --but maybe it was just that it was breakfast time that made the chicken poutine especially not appealing to me.

While waiting for the Victoria ferry to take us back to Port Angeles, we walked around Victoria where I learned that there is an area here called Songhees Point named for the Lekwungen word for "cradleboard," which is where they placed the cradles of infants after they learned to walk so that the cradles would receive the spiritual power of the water and transfer it to the children. Then we watched the DragonBoat Races in the harbor. The teams came from all over and had cool names like: Fire Dragons, Dragon Heart Strokers, Dragonslayers, Dragon Heart Breakers, and, my personal favorite, the Civil Serpents! On the ferry we got to see a whale spouting off in the distance, floatplanes taking off all around us, Madrona trees on the shores, and a trio of Golden Retrievers, one of whom kept coming up beside me and nugging me to rub his back and neck. His name was Bruiser and he and his aunt retriever loved to tussle and generally aggravate each other in fun.

We stopped back by Leslie’s on the way to Tacoma and she fixed us delicious steaks on the grill. We drove over the newer Tacoma Narrows Bridge, where, in 1940, the bridge that was here then collapsed. From the time the deck was built, it began to move vertically in windy conditions, which led to construction workers giving it the nickname Galloping Gertie. The motion was observed even when the bridge opened to the public. Several measures aimed at stopping the motion were ineffective, and the bridge's main span finally collapsed under 40 mph wind conditions on the morning of November 7, 1940. The present bridge looks very similar to the old one. We spent the night in Tacoma where I frustratingly tried to get Outlander Episode 2 on the TV my iPad, to no avail. Next morning on the way to Mt. Rainier, we stopped for breakfast at IHOP and had a wonderful waitress, Jamilah, who started our day off right. We drove to Rainier to the Longmire area and tried to check in to our room at the National Park Inn, but the room wasn’t ready yet. So we drove over to the Paradise area and hiked up one of the trails to a better viewpoint for the Muir Icefield and the glaciers on Rainier. I think this was the Alta Vista via Alta Vista and Skyline Trails—1.75 mil round trip with a 600 feet elevation gain, but it could’ve been any combination of this and other trails. The alpine meadows we hiked through had the most beautiful flowers—Subalpine Daisy and a Pasqueflower Seedheads that looked like tiny Cousin Its! As we hiked up, there was a quote by John Muir from 1889 carved into the steps: “…the most luxuriant and the most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine gardens I ever beheld in all my mountain-top wanderings.”

We had lunch at the café in Paradise Inn but mostly enjoyed a Gigantic cinnamon roll. Coming back, we stopped and hiked down to see Narada Falls where the Paradise River plunges and cascades 168 feet off a ledge. We then drove over to what used to be Sunshine Point where Ray camped in 2006. This was called the Great Flood of 2006 when they received 18 inches of rain in 36 hours. Two weeks later the horrible floods came raging through and took out the campground, which is now a picnic area only. We checked into our room at about 2:30 and went to sit out on the patio which has a wonderful view of Rainier. Dinner was at the restaurant here in the National Park Inn—Cedar-Plank Salmon for me and Pork Loin for Ray. For dessert, cheesecake and a Strawberry Sundae.

Mount Rainier is an active volcano that last erupted in the mid 1800s. It was over 16,000 feet high until 5700 years ago when a mudflow lowered the height to 14,411 ft (4,392 m). Mt. Rainier is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, and it is on the Decade Volcano list. Because of its large amount of glacial ice, Mt. Rainier could potentially produce massive lahars that would threaten the whole Puyallup River valley. The Nisqually Icefall is an area of truck-sized ice blocks poised in a slow motion tumble down the glacier, sometimes moving 3 feet in a day. In 1912, the Nisqually Glacier reached down to where the highway bridge is now, but it has retreated to its present location.

The first hotel here was opened in 1890 and Fay Fuller was the first woman to climb Rainier. The Paradise area of Rainier gets over 680 inches of snowfall annually. In 1972 it got 1122 inches! I must say something about our hotel. By the time we made our reservation for this trip, there were no rooms available at Paradise and only one room left at the National Park Inn. Throughout the day, because of the high altitude, I felt extremely dehydrated, so I drank a lot of water. We checked in to the hotel and at the foot of our bed were robes and slippers. How nice. But then I remembered that this room has no restroom. The only restroom was a shared one down the hall and around the corner. So after drinking probably over 100 ounces of water all day, guess how many times I was up during the night, throwing on robe and slippers and trudging down the hall—WAY too many. Note to self—if visiting again either reserve early or don’t drink so much during the day!

After sitting on the patio to see sunrise over Rainier with coffee in hand, we had breakfast at the hotel then drove eastward around the volcano, crossing bridges, traversing through tunnels, and stopping often for the views. My favorite stop was at the Grove of the Patriarchs where we hiked on the trail through ancient forests over 1000 years old—Western Red Cedars, Douglas Firs, Western Helmlocks, Red Alder and Pacific Silver Firs—to see the very oldest of the trees, from 2000 to over 6000 feet tall. Also beautiful was the Reflection Lakes area.

We drove to Tacoma and again the room wasn’t ready, so we stopped off at Tacoma Mall where 2 amazing things happened. One, I remembered that this is where the Apple store was—I had been having trouble with my iPhone holding a charge this whole trip—so I stopped in to take my poor little phone to the doctor. Zach (hero of the day) diagnosed the problem as my phone being too stressed from never being turned off, from keeping the phone on the charge AFTER it’s reached 100%, AND—from talking too long in calls. I’m blaming it on the last one as recently—since I gave my father a cellphone to use for emergencies, he has taken to calling me ALL THE TIME!!! LONG calls heat up the battery and stress the phone. Anyway, after this was resolved, Ray had a surprise. On the mall directory, he’d found my favorite fast food restaurant to eat at—Chipotle!!! So my day was complete.

Nice room at hotel but I was too tired to eat. Next morning, flight home—long but also helped by the same book to read—and ended with me breaking the tray table, which resulted in the super duper repair job by the flight attendant. Look at the last photo, guys—this is how planes are repaired now!

Rose at our house:

Entrance to Poulsbo, where Matt & Leslie live:

Moira, showing me her flowers:

Ray on the spooky ferry ride:

Me in Comox--if you click on this maybe you can see the glacier on the other shore?

DeHavilland Beaver landing at Comox while we had lunch:

Heavenly Nanaimo bar:

Poutine with Chicken:

Wonderful statues in Sidney:

Sidney Harbour:

Stuart Island:

Great dust jacket on book at my favorite store:

The indignity--Capt. James Cook enduring someone's prank:

Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria:

Welcome to Victoria:

Dragonboat Races:

Tiny taxi boats in harbor:

Float plane taking off beside our ferry:

My ferry pal, Bruiser:

Bruiser playing around with his aunt:

Tacoma Narrows bridge:

Hobo Hotel near Rainier:

National Park Inn--we had the room with the window just to the right of the entrance and upstairs:

Gorgeous Rainier, peeking out from the clouds:

On our drive to Paradise:

Hiking up Rainier:

Waterfall at base of Rainier:

On our hike:

Pasqueflower Seedheads:

What looked like the silhouette of a Viking Warrior made of trees:

Our "tiny" cinnamon roll for lunch:

A Hoary Marmot, peeking out from underneath a car at paradise:

The area where the Great Flood of 2006 took out a wide path of forest and wiped out entire campgrounds:

Narada Falls:

Ray at dinner at the National Park Inn with his Moose Drool Beer:

Rainier at sunrise:

The sunlit sheer cliff on the left reminded me of St. Baume, except St. Baume has no trees:

On our drive eastward around Rainier:

Reflection Lakes:

On our hike through the Grove of the Patriarchs:

I always told my girls that these hollowed out logs were Gnome and Fairy amphitheatres:

Ray saving the day by holding up the tree from the path (haha):

Crossing the bridge onto the island where the oldest trees were. It was a "bouncey up and down" bridge and it was recommended that only one person cross at a time: