Starship Arrowstar Captain's Log: Exploring the Outer Limits

Stardate: 20-15-06-20
Saturday

Since my FO bailed out yesterday (Friday) to explore new worlds and acquire copper treasures in Port Angeles, I spent the morning editing and organizing photos. John Denver kept me company, and I stayed on a rocky mountain high with sunshine on my shoulder for the rest of the day. Around noon Peanut, Cleo and I struck out on foot for the Chinese Gardens. I’m terrible with maps, but figured out how to find an obscure trail out of the campsite across the road that took us to one of the major trails on the map. We made a jog and continued on the smaller trail until we found the larger trail to the Gardens. I’ll post a panorama of the Chinese Gardens’ Lake.

The area we trekked through couldn’t have been more picturesque, so we continued on until we spied the ocean across the tall grass.

Puppy eye-view of ocean at North Beach in the distance

We’d made it all the way to the park at North Beach.

By this time we’d been walking for 45 minutes, so we sprawled on the thick green grass under a tree in the park to rest. I wasn’t entirely sure I could find my way back to camp without some wrong turns and wasted steps to right the direction, so I decided to cheat and call my daughter Kimberly who drove over with granddaughter Hailey to rescue me and the pups. Life is good.

Kimberly told me I could have walked on the beach around the base of a cliff jutting into the ocean and found the lighthouse at Fort Worden not too far from where we are camped. Who knew?

I thought we had discovered a whole new world at North Beach, but Kimberly had been there many times. “It’s a small town, Mom,” she reminded me. I guess after living here for 2 years, there aren’t many places she hasn’t explored, including the bays and inlets when she takes out one of the sailboats at Point Hudson. She’s going to take Frank and me sailing before we leave here next week.

This morning dawned bright and sunny for the car show where the FO took photos of some very impressive restored cars from the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. I even got to see and salivate over the car I drove as a teenager, a 1963 Pontiac Bonneville Convertible. This one was red, but my mother’s car in 63 was white with red interior. I absolutely loved driving that car! I’m amazed now that she even let me drive it! One day I drove it all the way from Kokomo, IN over to Logansport, IN. It’s only a half hour drive, but I’m sure she had no idea I drove that far. You see, there was this boy who . . . well you get the picture.

It’s so quiet and peaceful up here in the Ft. Worden Forest Campground, unlike the windy beach where we camped two years ago in Ali-the-gator. The sites are far apart and very large with tall green pines sheltering each one. There are no rowdy kids with firecrackers and there are lots of trails and old fort buildings to explore. I’m not going to want to leave here when we move down to Kent for a few days before beginning our trek to North Carolina.

Yes, as Frank mentioned in an earlier post, I miss watching the sailboats, rowing crews, kayakers, and yachts moving in and out of the harbor at Point Hudson, but I’m not complaining about a setup like this (and yes, it’s great to be out of the wind on the Point!)