11th of July 2012
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| Eastern Gray Squirrel? (Sciurus carolinensis) |
This will be a fairly long post as quite a bit has happened as we near the end of our nine day car trip moving to Anchorage. The night of the 11
th Adam and I couchsurfed in Walla Walla, WA. We visited Pioneer Park Aviary just a few blocks from our host’s home that included an array of ducks, geese, and pheasant from around the world. Now, I have to give a brief for those of you who have never heard of couchsurfing. Couchsurfing is a community of people organized by a website (
www.couchsurfing.org), many of whom love to travel. In my opinion, this is the ultimate way to find the hole in the wall restaurants and the best local pubs. To use couchsurfing, you put in criteria and a location and up pops a list of potential hosts and people in the area who want to hang out. This site is also for finding people to hang out with who may live in your area and includes several groups including: bicycling, hiking, climbing, swimming, diving, skiing, and the list goes on. We got an offer from a great couple with whom we went to a great Italian place for dinner and played Skip-Bo. This experience made friends, that without the aid of Couchsurfing we would never have met. With couchsurfing you skip the introductions and go straight into conversation, after all you are welcoming strangers into your home. I highly recommend it as a way of traveling.
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| Compost bins at restaurant |
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| Duck at aviary |
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| Gazebo near aviary |
12th of July 2012
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| Wild growing Succulent |
In
the morning we left Walla Walla after eating at a local breakfast place… and
let me tell you it wasn’t short of amazing, and as we were leaving, to my
delight I saw the restaurants compost bins. The drive was increasingly beautiful as we stayed snuggly to
the coast of Washington and this was the day that we saw our first snow capped
mountains peeking over winding highways that cut through the mostly rocky
landscape. We grabbed lunch in
Seattle, WA and headed up to Fidalgo Island. Fidalgo Island runs along Puget Sound and is a home to orcas,
seals, sea lions, and a variety of sea and land birds. Setting up our camp was peaceful and
around us were several tree species surrounded by a lush bed of beautiful ferns. The rocky beach was only a five-minute
walk from our campsite and Nala had her first taste of the ocean. At first she saw the water running to
it and as the waves encroached closer to her she frantically backed up as if
she was scared of the white foam as the waves splashed against the shore. This lasted only a brief moment and
soon she was swimming in the ocean, not seeming to mind the water temperature
(well below 60˚ F). I could only
stand in the water myself for around five minutes before the icy water started
numbing my feet and legs. Being in
WA it rained that evening but only lightly because we were mostly sheltered
below the rainforest.
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| Lichens hanging from trees and vines |
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| Walking the trails on Fidalgo Island, WA |
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Wild raspberries on lichen bed
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| Beach view |
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| Douglas' Squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii) |
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| Mink (Mustela vison) |
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| Amazing old barn on Fidalgo Island, WA |
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| Nala loving the ocean |
13th-15th of July 2012
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| Sinking sailboat flying a pirate flag |
We
needed to make our ferry by two and so had most of the day to explore the area
as Bellingham was only around an hour away from Fidalgo Island. We saw old barns and more than a
handful of wineries. As we
continued our drive the mountains became more serious and frequent, it became
easier to count those that had no snow. For the first time on the drive I had
to press my face against the window to see the tops of the trees, averaging at
best guess around 60 feet. To say
the trees were tall would be an understatement. Boarding the ferry was an experience that everyone should
have. The ferry is owned and
operated by the state of Alaska, with a home port being in Ketchikan, AK. Not long into our ferry ride we passed
a sinking sailboat flying a pirate flag.
Some of us on deck pointed and peered through our binoculars to be sure
we weren’t seeing things. Soon
enough, about three minutes later the captain makes an announcement that we are
turning around to aid the sinking boat.
The crew prepared the drop boat and life-jackets just in case they were
needed. We pulled up right next to
it making sure there was no one aboard.
Finding no sign of life the other passengers and I peered down at it
from our vessel, as I had flashbacks to sinking ships/boats of history I
located and took note of all emergency exits and lifeboats on ours. We saw porpoise and various sea birds
intermittently throughout the day.
The thing we didn’t see any longer was flat ground, anywhere. This is the land of mountains and pine;
flat land is no more.
By the time we made our
reservations on the ferry, all the cabins were filled and the two options left
were to camp on the outer decks of the ferry or in the “solarium.” The solarium
is best described as an open-ended greenhouse on the top deck with heat lamps
attached to the ceiling warming the human plants beneath on the plastic lounge
chairs. We chose to set up camp on
the top deck along with 14 other tents.
Little did we know what was in store. The days are growing longer and the sun set the first
evening around 9:30 PM (still reasonably early). I abruptly awoke at three AM to the tent blowing around so
hard that the sides of it touched us as we lay in the middle. I forgot to
mention earlier that we all had to duct tape our tents to the deck, and that
initial taping experience wouldn’t be the last. I’ve never before become so accustomed or welcomed the sound
of the duct tape peeling from the roll.
The first night “the wind” blew through was the worst. The tent next to us partially collapsed
as the poles popped out under the pressure of the strong wind coming off the
ocean. Unfortunately, the wind
didn’t subside for more than 30 minutes starting at three AM. This meant that there wasn’t much sleep
to be had and when we got up at six we could tell we weren’t the only ones in a
tent who didn’t get much sleep.
They too thought we were going to blow away into the cold ocean
waters. Talking to one of the
crewmembers I asked what the wind speed was and his reply was, “What wind? The
wind was so mild I didn’t even keep track.” I was speechless… it felt like more than just a “little” wind. The following two nights were much better, or maybe I became
so tired I slept through the whole thing. Darkness slipped away each day as the
sun never really seems to set, becoming very bright around five AM. I managed to wake up every day when the
light started coming through the tent around four AM, and eventually when I saw
the light, I stopped even looking at my watch knowing that it would always be
too early. For the next day, we
remained mostly in Canadian waters making our way to the Alaskan
panhandle.
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| Tents on top deck of ferry |
Our
first stop was on the 15th in Ketchikan, AK and to my surprise, the
weather was pleasant, hot even. As
we disembarked the ferry, we stood looking for a place to eat and were
approached by a local who was waiting for his niece to come ashore. He offered us a ride into town if we
needed it, and immediately I formed the opinion that Alaskans are very friendly
people. Not a cloud in the sky was
seen as we walked to a breakfast place with some friends we had met on the
ferry. The breakfast place we
decided on was a get-your-own-coffee sort of place complete with mismatched
mugs, something you would rarely find in Oklahoma. The owner of the restaurant came outside and saw us on the
deck where we were eating and told us how lucky we were to not have sideways
rain. He pointed out hash marks
that he had been making since 2004 counting “the good days”. He described good days as those with no
sideways rain, his record was around 186.
We had only enough time to get breakfast and re-board the ferry to
continue our journey. We got
further into our ferry ride and when we went through a portion called The
Wrangell Narrows, we saw our first Bald Eagles. Sparse at first, they became more and more frequent as we
went along. At one point, some
locals shot off fireworks from their home and we saw at least ten eagles leave
their spots in the trees and leap into the sky, inciting applause from the
passengers.
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| A ferry view |
Kingfisher
