Alaska USA

We are back in free Wi-Fi world again. The same hotel in Seattle that we left a week ago today.

I did not write my blog all week as Wi-Fi costs would have been $40 each 24 hours!

Did we like the cruise life? Yes and no. We felt a bit trapped and not free to explore as we wanted but we knew it would be like that. The Princess Line is very well organised with thorough routines and clean. There are all kinds of food and drink available 24 hours. The food is very good, you can’t fault it.

The other passengers were a mix of many cultures and really friendly…..only some were demanding and rude (mainly middle aged white Americans!).

We took hundreds of photos of snow topped mountains, fjords, glaciers, small ice bergs the 3 small towns we visited and wildlife. A humpbacked whale breached 5 times near our boat and slapped the water several times with its tail… wonderful. We saw seals and very cute sea otters swimming and laying floating on their backs.

Hope you like my photos

And these are only a taste of what beauty we saw! We’ll be talking about it for ever xxxx

 

Mann Tours is always about 4 hours early for everything ..not today!

We thought it was going to be so smooth today. A two hour journey to the hotel and return our hire car by 6pm……. no

We went back to Dungeness Spit to say goodbye to our 🦅 eagles. We were so pleased an eagle was there on a post eating a long stingray type fish. We were able to get so close to it to photograph. We literally got hundreds of snaps among which are some really excellent shots as it stayed there for ages.

We set off on our journey calling for a coffee and lunch at Port Townsend. This time it was sunny and the town looked so inviting. We strolled around thinking we had loads of time.

So now it was about 12.30 and plenty of time….

We got as far as the bridge over the inlet and decided to stop at the viewing area to see the bridge and wide expanse of water. There was a submarine being escorted by navy boats towards Juan de Fuca inlet and the Pacific Ocean. A young sailor was there and gave us a running commentary on all we saw. It was so interesting. All about the IBMs similar to those deployed in Scotland. We got in our car to set off again but were stopped by the police. Next thing we knew all traffic was stopped and  the bridge was raised. We had to stay there for well over an hour until the submarine slowly was escorted passed.

I haven’t got my laptop it’s packed away so no photos today. But grandad said he’d send them for his grandchildren to see over the weekend.

We set off again after being made to wait until all the backed up traffic passed by …more time wasted…. Then the police let our only 4 cars go so mean of them, they could have let our few cars go first.

Well we still had reasonable time left for the 6pm deadline we thought. Next thing….

We were following instructions from the sat nav . Then I noticed on the road it was painted local traffic /ferry traffic. Vince said don’t worry the sat nav says go straight on…

“board ferry” commanded sat nav.  It cost us $16.50 !  It took 45 mins to cross over the inlet.

Oh well that will save us time we thought…….but no we were thrust straight into rush hour traffic jams towards and through and out of Seattle.

We got to the hotel after 5pm and emptied the car to take to the car rental. The sat nav didn’t know where it was and took us round in circles. So when we finally got there we had 5 minutes to spare PHEW.

back in the hotel it is full of 16 to 30 year olds all dressed up bizarrely in costumes as there is a my little pony convention in the hotel all weekend. The funny thing is there as just as many boys/ men as woman

More news tomorrow as we board the Princess cruises on the “Ruby Princess”

And  a week off driving for Vince!

xxxxx

Today was grey and pouring with rain mostly, although from time to time it stopped for a few minutes.

We called in at John Wayne Marina,(we visited here on our journey up to Sequim) and saw a blue heron.

We were following the coast line up to Admiralty Inlet that leads to Seattle.

We reached Port Townsend. It is an historic town with well preserved buildings from the 1860’s. it was full of quirky shops gift, craft and clothes shops and coffee houses, and ships chandlers. We liked the feel of the place and spent quite a while there, in and out of the rain.

Next we went to the Artillery Museum. It is housed in buildings on the now deserted naval site from during WW1 and WW2. The whole site is on an inlet and was there to defend the surrounding cities from the Japanese. the guns were never needed for war and eventually the base was closed.

Back in Port Townsend it had stopped raining and we found some sea otters

Hee Hee!

AND WHAT I GRANDAD DOING?

I hope he paid for damages!

More tomorrow as we get to Seattle xxxx

Well today we wanted to visit all the sites west of us that we had so far not seen. First stop was by the salmon leap. Salmon are in this river all year but only in Autumn do you see them leap up stream to their spawning grounds. The river was fast flowing and there were stopping off spots to view the rapids.

All along this road there was ancient forest with green tree moss.

We continued to a town called Fork. It is where a few rivers converge to flow into the Pacific Ocean. After eating fish and chips ( much smaller pieces of fish than we have in our fish and chip shops and long spindly thin fried chips) we followed this river through the Indian Reservation to the coast. This is the beach we found there with huge amounts of drift wood and interesting rocks off shore.

On the way back we called to see the wildlife refuge near our motel and saw bald headed eagles, a white tailed kite and a heron.

We are now wondering how all our luggage will fit in the suitcases again as we give up our hire car and go on the cruise on Saturday!

Hope Lily  finishes her SATs on Thursday but if you have another day of them carry on doing your best and don’t worry too much about them.xxxxx

Today we went to the Olympic National Park visitors centre and found out 2 routes to take for the scenery of the mountains. First we went up Hurricane Ridge. this was amazing and we went up over 5000feet.

We met an American, Vietnam war veteran and had a good chat with him. He had a brilliant prosthetic leg and was so friendly. He said his other joints were now wearing out with old age!!

I think I saw a bear up there in the snow??

We saw lots of deer today in various places on the mountain.

Next we went to Lake Crescent, also beautiful and calming atmosphere.

Lastly we went to Mary Mere falls.

and along the River Elwha. This was an interesting river. At one time it was teaming with salmon and then they built a dam and flooded the valley. The environment completely changed for 80 years. In 2011 they finally decided to explode the dam and to let the river relive its due course.

They are busy planting native plants and flowers and trees. Only 4 months after they blew up the dam the salmon have begun to return, isn’t that amazing! There were signs to beware of the bear up there as they are in the area.

We just saw more deer.

Hope you are all ok, we are. We go on our cruise on Saturday!!!  xxxx

 

 

So today we decided to explore the coastline up to the Indian territory to cape Flattery.

We were disappointed that most of the way you weren’t able to access the sea and when you could it was very primeval, but that is a beauty anyway.

We continued passed Clallam Bay and it became much better. We saw this huge bird of prey at one part. It was a juvenile bald headed eagle.

When we got to the visitors centre an old man was in there playing on a banjo. He was very good and played songs for as  we looked around. He made us sign the visitors book as in all the time he’d worked there he hadn’t had anyone from England in there.

At Cape Flattery there is a steep “half mile” walk down to the viewing platforms. It seemed longer than that but I managed it and felt really pleased that I had made the effort. These are Granddad’s photos as I didn’t take my camera down there.

The views were spectacular, there were caves and rocky outcrops and lots of sea birds to see. The cape is at the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and you can clearly see Canada across the water. Grey whales and orcas and porpoises and seals are there all year round and puffins and many birds of prey. We only saw the sea birds and eagles.

On the way back we passed Lake Crescent. We will go back there tomorrow and to mount Olympus.

Back in Sequim which we now find is pronounced squarm! we went to see our bald headed eagles again. There were lots of seals on a sandbank off shore but too far away to photo sadly. We had another lovely day and were out for nearly 10 hours! xxxxxx

 

We are now in Sequim pronounced squeem. We stopped by the coast nearby before we arrived and I took these photos. There is a special week going on called “irrigation week”

There was a bagpiper playing and a gun went off twice and they raised the flags on the flag pole and then 12 or 13 yachts all decorated with flags pulled out of the marina and sailed around the bay as the bagpipes played them out of the harbour. The yachts were full of very smartly dressed people with white trousers and suit tops. we watched them for a while before we went to see our motel.

We knew we were near to Dungeness Spit 7 miles away so we went down there. It is a wild life sanctuary for sea birds and animals, and totally unspoilt and natural.

We saw bald headed eagles down there and took many pictures. The brown ones are the juveniles. There were other birds too and I am sure we will go there a lot.

We called at a fish restaurant on the way back and I ate scallops mmmm Grandad had halibut it tasted so fresh.

Good luck Lily all this week with your SATs. It was great to catch up with you all via messenger this morning xxxxx

The cloud was lower today and although it was sunny, it was  much colder. We visited the lake and the visitor centres to find out more about the volcano that exploded. It is quite a scary story.

It snowed when we went on the board walks over the lake. That’s how cold it was up there.

I took a few more pictures of the landscape. very different from 2 days ago when we saw blue skies and the tops of the mountains.

This area is fascinating and so beautiful it is sad to leave but we must move on tomorrow up to Sequin Washington State( just opposite Victoria on Vancouver Island Canada) Its the very north of Washington near the Olympic Mountains.

We have been away almost 4 weeks but have seen so much…. we are having an amazing experience. There I so much beauty in our world. xxx

A funny name to call this area next to the river!

We woke up to pouring rain. Fortunately the thunderstorm severe warnings came to nothing here!

We decided to go to Astoria and not to the mountains due to the weather ( and driving would be difficult up there)

The marine museum was very interesting and we learnt a lot about salmon fishing and dangers from the bank of waves coming into the river over a bar from the sea. Many ships have been lost over the 200 years.

We saw a monument high up above the town and so went to see it. It is called Astoria’s Column and has paintings all over it. There is a 360 * view from up there.

People can climb up the tower and the tradition is to fly a paper plane from the top.

There was a traditional first nation canoe up there too.

Grandad was brave and went up to the top. He said it was so very windy on the platform and he felt unsafe. Can you see him on  the side in the wind?

The bridge at the top is the long bridge we crossed over the wide Columbia River

The next 2 pictures are of an historical covered bridge.  Over a small river. Washington State has a few of these dotted around. The bridges were all built of wood and to make them last longer they were covered over to protect from the weather

Tomorrow the weather is better and we are going back to the volcano Mt St. Helen’s

Well done Anona for being nominated for an award for all your work as a student. I know some one else got it but you have done so well! Love you very much!

Lily good luck for next weeks SAT’s and don’t worry about them, just try hard and they will soon be over xxx

Louis I loved the photo of you marking off our journey on the map. Good boy! xxx

Also lots of love and hugs to Otis Xavi and Alice xxxxx

Here’s a little bird singing a song for you all

 

We went to the volcano Mount St Helens today. we set of early as thunderstorms were forecast for late afternoon. It was a lovely drive up wooded valleys. We passed Silver Lake and then got to Toutle. Then we followed North Fork Toutle River. We got as far as Coldwater Lake and got great views of the crater of the volcano. The road was then closed due to snow.

I will tell you about this volcano. It erupted May 18th 1980. I can remember seeing the pictures on television at the time. The environment all around was totally devastated, covered by the eruption and 2 new lakes were formed. Nature has a force to evolve and now 37 years later there are trees and grass and flowers and the lake we saw was full of life. Every where looks good.

On our way back the clouds began to gather and as we ate our lunch the thunder started. The lady at the café told us as we left we must go now and “hunker up” there had been warnings on her television about the storm.

Well we have had thunder and lightening and heavy rain but nothing too bad. There have been more warnings on TV about huge hailstones and an intense storm but here in our hotel we are fine. The TV has gone off and on . Perhaps they are getting it up in the mountains so just as well we came back early! Nothing could ever be as bad as we had in Haast New Zealand for 3 days continuous ha ha!

Hope you like beautiful Mount St. Helen. We think it is very beautiful and may go back there tomorrow.

Saw this bird of prey in the mountains.

lots of love from me xxx