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We have been “homeless” since July 25th. We sold our house in Suwanee and have been vagabonds in our RV. When we left our home for the last time, we went to the campground at Stone Mountain Park, the only RV camping place we know of in Atlanta. Our first choice was to stay in one of the Corps of Engineers parks at Lake Lanier, but the Corps had not opened their parks since Covid. We don’t have a good address. “Home is where we park it.” Please keep in touch by email, phone, and this blog.

For years, we have talked about the possibility of moving to Florida. If you think it long enough, it might become reality. The present plan sort of began when we bought an RV in March 2017. Soon after we got the RV, we wanted to take it to St. George Island, our long-time family vacation spot. We tried several times to get a campsite at the state park on the island, unsuccessfully. In the meantime, our Summer 2017 RV trip across the country and other life events intervened.

In February 2018, we made another unsuccessful attempt to reserve a site at St. George Island State Park. Then we moved our fingers on the map along the Florida panhandle until we got to the next state park on the coast. It was on the Saint Joseph Peninsula, also known as Cape San Blas. Even though this area is not far from Saint George Island, we were not familiar with it. We were successful in reserving a few days at Saint Joseph Peninsula State Park. After a few days enjoying the unspoiled beaches at the park, I said, “There is some little town on the mainland. Let’s see if it has a place to eat.” When we got out of the car on the main street in the town of Port St. Joe, we were immediately aware that it was different from other Florida towns that we knew. The tiny downtown was laid out in neat blocks, alleys and wide sidewalks. There were quite a few cars parked in front of the handful of restaurants. There were people on the sidewalks and golf carts.

When our short trip was over, we returned to our busy Atlanta lives but kept this area in the backs of our minds. It seemed to match several of the things we were looking for in a place to retire. There was a defined town with a sense of community. We were also looking for a place near the sea that had a real community, churches, and homes within a bike or golf cart ride to restaurants and shops.

We returned to the area in September 2018 and stayed at an RV park on the bay between the Cape and the town. We looked at a few homes on Zillow and met with an agent to see them. We didn’t really like what we saw. Aside from a few large homes, most houses were 1950’s era houses with small, chopped up rooms and tiny bathrooms. Surprisingly, they were mostly red brick, one-story homes at ground level.

We also looked at houses on St. George Island on this trip, including a house on the bay side of the island that had a wonderful view of the sunset and the bridge. It was not elevated, but it was priced accordingly. We were also interested in a house that we looked at with the agent in Port St. Joe. Three weeks after we returned to Suwanee and began seriously considering buying property in Port St. Joe, Hurricane Michael struck the town and nearby Mexico Beach on October 10, 2018. At the time, Michael was categorized as a Category 4 storm, but later was determined to be a Category 5. The very strong storm made toothpicks out of the 1950’s homes built on wood poles on the Gulf at Mexico Beach. Port St. Joe is eleven miles down U.S. 98 on the Saint Joseph Bay. There, the wind from the Gulf rushed into the bay and drove an 8 foot storm surge into the ground-level homes. Most homes in the town were damaged. Even several blocks from the water, a wall of water blew out the doors and windows in the front of the houses, then exited the back, taking the doors, windows, and furniture with it, and surged through again on it’s way back to the bay.

Now, almost two years later, some of the houses have been restored and a few new houses have been built on the lots where houses were totaled. Contractors as still very backed up. Quite a few homes, sadly, are still boarded up or worse. A family in town had to have the remains of their home bulldozed and hauled away because of the extent of damage. You are not allowed to restore a home here when damages are 50% or more of the value of the house. The family had made plans to build a new house on the same lot. About a year later, even though they wanted to stay in that neighborhood, they could not wait any longer for the builders who told them it could be a year or more before they could get to them. They bought a house in a new development outside of town. We feel their grief in losing their house and neighborhood, but we were excited to see a lot near downtown advertised for sale as there were essentially no lots available near downtown. From our living room, Rob showed the listing and location of the lot to Jane. She said, “I could go with that.” We closed on the lot on August 27, 2019. We met with builders the same day and the next one. One of them was hard to get in touch with for a while. He was a small builder, only building about five houses a year. He is very selective, but when he learned that our house would be in town, a few blocks from where he lived, he agreed to meet with us. His reputation was sterling. He had lived in the town all his life and everyone knew him or knew of his reputation. One person said he built a house “like a fine piece of furniture.” We discussed with Phil the fact that a house he had built at Mexico Beach withstood everything the storm threw at it with only a damaged shutter. Rob asked, “If other houses that were built at the same time with the latest building code were damaged more by the storm than your’s, how do you account for that?” He was quiet for a few seconds, then said, “I don’t know you too well, but I will go ahead and tell you this. Every morning before work begins on a home, my men and I stand together and pray for the work we will do that day and for the family who will live in the home.” We had our builder.

Certainly by now, you are wondering when we lost our minds and decided to build a house in a town that was devastated by a hurricane, on a lot where a house was destroyed. Updated building codes are much, much stricter than when most of the houses here were built. Remember seeing the house at Mexico Beach on TV that wasn’t damaged? The most important difference is that the building has to be elevated. The top of our pilings are 11 feet from the ground. The floor will be about 14 feet from the ground. More on the house construction will be in another post.

Next we had to hire an engineering firm to design the structure of the house. They also had a “designer” who helped us with the floor plan. Jane eventually had to do the designing and he just put it in the software program that produced documents to be turned over to the engineers. The engineers determined the number and height of pilings and beams required for that house on that particular lot, considering elevation of the lot and soils. It is also required here that engineers design all framing, even specifying all fasteners. This process, to our exasperation, took nearly one year. Every construction-related services provider here is backed up. Before the storm, new home construction was just begun to perk up here and the few builders in the area were already busy. After the storm, it became very difficult to get any construction work completed. 

After trying to get a house started for a year, we were greatly excited when the builder called us last month to say that the piling contractor had gotten to our job and would break ground on our property on August 20. Our excitement is tempered by the builder’s preparing us for up to 12 months of construction time. It is not a big house. Most of the time will be spent waiting on subcontractors, especially the plumbers and electricians. The piling work only took one week, but nothing has happened on the lot for a month now. The framers are due anytime, but their other job was interrupted by Hurricane Sally, which brushed by this area and caused very heavy rain and wind for three days. Jane and I were staying in the RV out on the Cape during that storm. It rocked with the wind and sprung few leaks, but we were fine. We’ll have more on that camping experience in the next post.

We are now at an RV site 10 miles to the west of our lot. The road it is on is the border between Saint Joe Beach (unincorporated) and Mexico Beach. The road is the county line between Gulf County (Port St. Joe and Cape San Blas) and Bay County (Mexico Beach and Panama City). It’s also the Eastern/Central time zone line. Soon we will move to a RV park at Indian Pass, 11 miles to the east of our lot. 

We want to be in two places (at least) at the same time. We want to watch the construction, but we also have this time of vagrancy to travel to — well, anywhere. We also have to be in Atlanta frequently during this time, for doctor’s appointments mainly. Rob will have back surgery at Piedmont Hospital on October 8. We will be in the RV at Stone Mountain Park for a week or two after surgery.

We love comments. Please add your comments and questions below. Thanks!

Jane and Rob

Goodbye Sumner House

On July 25^th Rob and I left our house at 3210 Mill View Court in Suwanee, Georgia. It was a bittersweet day. We were looking forward to new adventures and knew that we had to give up some things to make way for new things. We both felt a sense of relief. The packing was done. The house was sold. We did not have yard work to do or house repairs. We could walk away with many happy memories. Now is the time for another family to love this house.

It was a time to reminisce. Rob and I took a trip down memory lane. Many family milestones were reached since moving here, September 8, 1988. Emily was 5 ½, and starting kindergarten and Trent was 1 ½, mastering walking. 

We brought Bethany home for the hospital to Mill View Court in December of 1989. One of my favorite memories of that day was laying Bethany down for a nap in our master bedroom. When I went back to check on her, Trent and Emily were in the bed with Bethany, on each side of her, sound asleep. Such a picture of peace and tranquility.  

As the children grew, we created family traditions. Birthdays were celebrated with parties and friends. We remembered: the Suwanee Police knocking on our door before Trent’s 7^th birthday party, the muddy carpet of Emily’s indoor/outdoor 16^th birthday, and Bethany’s surprise pool party for her 11 ½ ^th birthday.

Other Sumner traditions celebrated at 3210 Mill View Court included:

1. Homemade cookies the first and last day of school each year
2. Carving pumpkins in October
3. All three children sleeping in the same room Christmas Eve and, of course, Santa on Christmas morning
4. Dying Easter Eggs
5. A few April Fool’s Day pranks
6. Family gatherings on Thanksgiving Day
7. College Football in the fall
8. Sleeping in on Summer Days
9. Surprises from the children on Mother’s and Father’s Day
10. Staying up late on New Year’s Eve, and
11. Holding hands to say blessings before meals

Through the years we made changes and updates to the house. Perhaps the biggest change was to paint the red brick gray. Mill Creek and 3210 Mill View Court proved to be a wonderful place for us to raise our family. We were richly blessed with woods to explore, a creek to discover, a backyard for play, trees to climb and space to learn and create. The house was a home filled with love.

Goodbye, Sumner House. Thanks for the memories.

With having to deal with the closed interstate and the bridge and mirror, we arrive at Emigrant Springs State Park after dark. It’s 35 degrees, according to my phone, in the closest town, Meacham, Oregon. It’s heading down into the twenties in a few hours.

We stop at the vacant gate house to unhook the truck and to try to see where the campsites are. I don’t know how they even knew we were there, but two women appeared in a golf cart and asked if we needed help. Yes, we did, thank you. They were the campground hosts. One of them got out so Jane could ride in the cart while the host showed Jane the available sites. Mike and I chatted with the other woman. They were sisters, 18 years apart in age and best buds.

When Jane and the host returned, they reported that the only sites available were tent sites — no hookups. The host said, “You can use a generator at night if there is a medical reason.” We did need to run a CPAP, but didn’t want to bother people and listen to the generator all night ourselves if we didn’t have to. We have a small inverter for this kind of situation. (For non-RV’ers, the coach has large 12 volt batteries to power lights, water pump, and a number of other things, but 120 volt equipment does not work unless you are connected to “shore power.”) This is the first time we have camped without a power hookup.

Our very kind and friendly hosts asks Jane about firewood. Jane loves a fire so she immediately orders some. Our campground hosts were the two sisters and Richard, who I assume was the husband of one of them. The three of them live in a fifth wheel trailer. By the time we get the RV to the campsite, Richard has already delivered the firewood to our site. Great service.

We don’t have a campfire tonight. Tired and hungry, we fire up the propane furnace. Jane has precooked spaghetti in the refrigerator (which runs on propane when not hooked up to 120 power) which she heats in the gas oven. We enjoy the meal and long, unhurried conversation, then make up the bed over the cab for Mike and retire for the night.

It’s morning and that generator now has to go to work. We need 120 volts for the coffee pot. Mike must like the cab-over bed. The sound of the generator cranking up doesn’t cause the slightest stir.

After breakfast, Richard, the campground host, knocks on our door. He says the site across the road is open. It has full hookups. He asks if we want him to move the firewood. I’m thinking that would be great, how kind to ask, but certainly we can do that ourselves since he has already delivered it once.

Over pancakes, Mike tells us a story about the nearby town of Pendleton. We wouldn’t mind just hanging around the park, but the story is so bizarre, we agree to drive into Pendleton. We would not have guessed that in Pendleton, Oregon, you can tour a once-secret underground, with restaurants, bars, brothels and opium houses! Mike explained that the Chinese laborers building the railroad could not be on the street at night, so they built their own city underground. We call to check on the tour and are disappointed to find that today’s tour is sold out. We decide to spend the afternoon exploring the park on foot.

Long before there were any settlements or railroads in this part of the world, Emigrant Springs became an important stop for the westward emigrants.  A park interpretive sign explains: “It is a campground today, just as it was for Oregon Trail emigrants. Long before that emigration, Native Americans also took advantage of this site’s abundant waters and found shelter among the towering trees. Relations between emigrants and the Indians were generally positive in the Blue Mountains.”

“In the first week of January, 1812, a party of trappers and traders, members of the Astor Overland Expedition, crossed the Blue Mountains in this area. Traveling on foot in bitter cold, often waist deep in snow, they were the first white men in this area. The route they traveled between St. Louis and Astoria [on the Oregon Pacific coast] developed into the emigrant route to the Oregon Country, later to be known as the Oregon Trail. Wagon trains, Oregon bound, started their journey with the “greening” of the grass on the prairies, and crossed the “Blues” after completing some 2,200 miles of their journey, from late August to early October. Then, as now, this was the first forested area on the route.” From park sign.

Our new campsite is next door to the host’s site. They have a campfire burning all day. I think the firewood operation is their own business, and they have plenty of wood. Even though it is the middle of the day, the hosts are out warming themselves by a cheerful fire. I wonder over to start a conversation. I accuse them of moving us next door to them for the same reason my 4th grade teacher would move me up to the first row — to keep an eye on me. They stay here for four months every year, June-September. Next week, they will relocate to the camp in Arizona where they live the other eight months. I ask about new hosts. They will be no more hosts until they come back in June. The park will close next week for the winter, but the heated bathhouse will remain available for those using the hiking and horse trails in day use part of the park.

I was curious, why was the hood of their truck propped up with a piece of wood? I had seen a number of trucks with the hood propped up like this and couldn’t figure out why.

“Pack rats. They love to climb up and chew on the hoses, fan belts, and insulation. But they don’t like it with the hood open. They also don’t like those rope lights on the ground we put around the trailer. They won’t cross it. We took one of those darn things back to Arizona with us last year in the basement.”

I don’t know if that’s knowledge gained from scientific research or mythical knowledge passed on from RV’ers who have come before. Anyway, it’s knowledge that has been passed on to me and I’m passing it on to you.

The conversation turned to black tanks and toilet paper. I don’t know how; these things just happen with RV’ers. I told about our incident where we accidentally hooked up the water supply up to the black tank clean-out valve. They allowed they had done that, too, but didn’t notice it until water came up out of the toilet. Then they told me about their new black tank and how much it cost. The old one cracked. Naturally, I wanted to know exactly what happened when they discovered this.

One of the sisters also instructed me that I didn’t have to buy that expensive RV/Marine toilet paper, that any toilet paper labeled septic safe was fine. To test this, you put some of the paper in a jar of water see how well it disintegrates. She got up, went into her RV and came out with a roll of paper to give me. When I got back to our site, Jane wanted to know why I was carrying a roll of toilet paper.

Adventurer Richard Branson offered this advice to fellow thrill seekers: “If you’re embarking around the world in a hot air balloon, don’t forget the toilet paper. Once, we had to wait for incoming faxes.”

The sun is getting low. It’s cold; it’s time for us to make a fire.

It’s heading down to 28 degrees tonight. Rob got the soles of his boots smoking trying to get his toes warmed up in the fire.

They say good things must come to an end. We had thought that Mike would be riding with us to Boise tomorrow and he would fly back to Portland from there. But he found a flight out of Pendleton. I was amazed you could get a commercial flight out of Pendleton to Portland. The airport, the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport, is served by one airline, Boutique Air, which is subsidized by the Essential Air Service program of the U.S. Department of Transportation.  Pendleton has some mining businesses; the Pendleton Roundup, a huge festival and rodeo once week a year; and the headquarters of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation is in nearby Mission. I read the Confederated Umatilla Journal, and it appears that the Tribe has every government department that a state government would have. These government officials likely provide some business for the airport.

We need to leave the camp in the truck at 5:15 a.m. tomorrow to get Mike to the airport for his 6:45 a.m. flight. Mike says it won’t take long to get through security there, and it’s a 20 minute drive.

Lifelong memories can’t be scheduled. They just happen when they’re supposed to.
Quoted in Reader’s Digest.

 

Last night we learned that I-84 was shut down west of Portland for 50 miles due to firefighting activity. Another detour ahead.

Mike is leaving his car at the Portland airport and we are picking him up there. We are careful to arrive when he is ready to jump in because there is no place to park this rig there. We stop in the through lane of the departure area just long enough for him to hop in, and we only get a couple of honks. Drivers in Portland are noticeably more patient than in Atlanta and drive more slowly.

Mike occupies the navigator seat. He directs me across the Columbia River to the Washington side where we proceed along the river on Highway 14, the Evergreen Highway. We drive east along the Columbia River gorge on the two lane road and through narrow tunnels that look they were blasted through the rock a century or more ago.

After about 50 miles on this road, we are across the river from the town of Hood River. I didn’t know this is where we were going to cross, but just before we get to the turn, Mike directs me to get into the short right turn lane to cross the Hood River Bridge. I check the right mirror closely, then change lanes. As I look forward again, I see a warning sign. I have only a second to read the warning across the top of the sign. It says “Low Clearance 14′ 6.” No problem; we only need 12 feet. Later today, I will find that there was a second warning tacked onto the bottom of the sign.

It’s an old two-lane drawbridge, with considerable traffic in each direction. Hood River is where the closed stretch of Interstate 84 reopens. Normally, in light traffic, you could steal a few views of the river from this bridge, but not today. Once out over the river, it’s obvious we are on a very narrow bridge. There is no shoulder. It doesn’t seem like there is enough room for two-way traffic. I glance at the draw bridge structure above us as we as we approach it and see a two men and a woman standing on the upper structure as we go under. Authorized officials, I presume.

It’s uncomfortable, but there are no clearance problems. Then, bam! Oops, that was our mirror. The RV has large truck mirrors. The RV itself is 8.5 feet wide, but the mirrors extend well beyond that. An oncoming truck also had large mirrors. The housing of the side view mirrors are designed to give somewhat when an obstruction is encountered. But the impact caused the larger glass panel of the mirror to pop out and fall away; the smaller blind spot mirror was hanging on by a wire.

At the other end of the bridge, we pay the $3.00 toll. The toll collector looks at the mirror and says “Oops.” The thought comes to me, well, since your bridge caused me to loose my mirror, maybe at least you won’t charge the toll. No such offer. There is a parking lot for a marina and a DMV office on the Oregon side. I am very relieved to still have the smaller mirror. It’s much better than no mirror at all. In fact, it would be impossible to drive this RV without a side view mirror. (Forest River didn’t bother to remove the almost useless windshield-mounted rear view mirror. You can glance in that mirror to see if someone is standing at the kitchen sink, so it’s not completely worthless.)

I reattach the dangling heater wiring to the remaining mirror part and pop it back into place. Mike and Jane want to go back across the bridge in the truck and see if we can retrieve the missing mirror panel. They talked me into it. We unhook the truck and head back to the bridge. The toll is only $1.00 for the truck. Mike is in the back seat, passenger side. He is about 6′ 3″ and has long arms. We drive slowly. We spot the mirror. Mike opens the door and says, “Three more feet,” then “Stop!” He reaches down and picks up the mirror and shouts, “Go!” We manage to turn around on the Washington side and head back across the bridge. As we approach the bridge, this time with more time to read the warning at the bottom of the sign: 9 ft. lanes. I’d like to think that we would have had the good sense and the opportunity to fold the mirrors in if we had seen the warning before. The toll taker takes another dollar. I ask Mike if he got a good view of the river water when his face was just over the grate. He says that when he leaned over to pick up the mirror, he was looking right through the metal grate down to the water.

Most of the glass is still in the mirror panel, but it’s shattered. We can pop the plastic panel back into the housing, but the vibration will cause the shattered glass to fall.

I drive the truck to the nearest store where Mike buys clear packing tape. We tape the mirror up, attached the heater wires, and pop it back into the housing. It’s hard to see through it, but Mike says, “Well, you’re legal.”

Before hooking the truck back up to the RV, the three of us sit at the dinette and enjoy the sandwiches and veggies Jane prepared.

Now eastbound on I-84 from Hood River (the town on the Columbia River), the river gorge is on our left. It’s very wide; there are many boats with salmon fishermen. We see a large hydroelectric dam. Mike educates us about northeastern Oregon. He has traveled the area many times on Forest Service business. We pass the  Forest Service supervisor’s office for the Umatilla National Forest. It’s on Umitilla Indian Reservation land, so the Forest Service pays the tribe rent every year. I think, there’s a lot o national forest land around here, I wonder why the office was built on Indian land at an interstate exit.

I ask Mike what the weather will be like at Emigrant Springs. He says that this is the second coldest place in Oregon. Not the kind of thing I would look for. I ask how cold he would expect it to be now. He says probably freezing or below tonight.

 

 

 

 

Mike Daugherty is a forester with the U.S. Forest Service, Region 6, in Portland. Mike graduated with Rob from the University of Georgia School of Forest Resources forty-one years ago. Mike has worked in the West his entire career; California, Idaho, Washington and Oregon, and even during the summer while in school.

After three years of preparatory courses, the School of Forest Resources admitted about 45 undergraduate students each year,  divided into two sections. On the first day of school, our group of about 20 or so students all met each other at the same time in the same class. Some had done their preparatory work at UGA and some came from other colleges. This created for us a unique experience within the context of a large state university. We didn’t even have to change classrooms. When one class ended, the professor left and the one for the next subject showed up. We had five or ten minutes between professors to socialize in the hall and the break room downstairs. During longer breaks, we utilized the horseshoe pit outside. There were no lectures or lab work on Wednesdays. Each Wednesday, we all loaded up in university vans and headed out for field trips. For instance, we toured the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in Otto, North Carolina.

I mention all this to explain how deep friendships were formed with men and women who did not know each before that first day of forestry school. Then we started spending all day every weekday with our fellow students. And some of us, nights and weekends, too, but no academics were usually involved with that. Another significant bonding experience for the Class of 1976 was the Conclave of Southern Forestry Schools hosted by our school that year. It was a totally student organized and managed event, with hundreds of attendees from Texas to Virginia and participants in multiple physical and academic competitions. There are many stories that were created that April, but their telling must wait for another day.

After graduation, the members of our class dispersed all over the country and even the globe. Some spent their careers as foresters, some as lawyers, doctors, financial consultants, association executives, and airline pilots. But our members come back to Athens for reunions, including our 40th last year. After the event in Athens, Mike came to Atlanta to extend the weekend and stayed at our house along with Sam Dolliver and Sharon Nix Dolliver. Lance “Scribble” Hunt and wife Shirley, from Roanoke, Virginia, parked their RV in front of our house for the night. They had parked in the school forest the previous two nights. Chris and Clair Barneycastle, who live nearby, also joined us for a great evening around the table.

Back in Portland, we set up at the Pheasant Ridge RV Park in the suburb of Wilsonville. We haven’t been able to get in touch with Mike for a long time. We came through Portland to visit with him, but now we are not sure we will see him. We are relieved to get a text saying he will come to our place. We expect a call when he gets to the park. Unexpectedly, at 6:00 pm, we hear a loud knock on the RV and in comes Mike. He just looked for the vehicles that fit our description. We have a beer, then head to a Mexican restaurant. Yes, Sam, Sharon and Lance, it reminded me of our many visits to Manuel’s back in the day.

Mike will come on board with us for a a couple of nights. We made reservations at Crater Lake National Park months ago, but this becomes another gash in our plan — cancelled due to fire. So we plotted a direction on the map from Portland toward the direction of home, and determine we will head out of Portland on Interstate 84 the day after tomorrow. We choose a destination, Emigrant Springs.

The next day, Mike works a half day. We meet him near his office, which is near the food stalls that Portland is famous for. Each of us chooses a different vendor, then sit down together in a nearby park. It’s sunny and pleasant. Next, we walk to Powell’s, a very interesting bookstore. The highlight of the day, though, is Voodoo Donuts.

It’s a good thing we’re in Portland for three days. Remember that salt water taffy from Seaside? Jane has to find a dentist. Fortunately she finds one she is very pleased with. The dentist has the machine that does 3-D imaging and creates caps. She has a new cap in 2.5 hours. The Ford engine that has done so much work to get us this far is badly in need of an oil change, it’s first ever. It’s get fresh oil and a new filter at Pro Auto Care.

 

 

We got in trouble once trying to enter the U.S. with an apple from Aruba. Lesson learned. Or maybe not. We suggest that you don’t try to bring any fresh food across the border to the U.S. Some things are allowed, some things are not, and the regulations are not made well-known. We haven’t eaten out much on this trip and we keep a good stock of groceries on board. We can now give you some definite no no’s. Peaches are allowed, by the way. Last night, we made a point of converting our peaches into peach cobbler. We should have made mashed potatoes and key lime pie instead.

First, we have this fancy card that is supposed to mark us as “trusted travelers.” We got Global Entry cards a couple of years ago to expedite international air travel. You apply, they do background checks, you appear for an in-person interview with a Homeland Security officer, fingerprints are taken, and you get a plastic card. I don’t know what it’s good for, really. Returning to the U.S. last February, we thought it was nice that we could use a special lane with no waiting time. You hold the card out in front of a camera, and everything you know about yourself and more comes up on the border patrol agent’s computer screen before you approach the booth. After this crabby woman yelled at me for not starting and stopping at the proper place at the proper time, I wondered what all those credentials were really worth.

We use Nexus lane again; there is no line. We drive up to the booth after the machine cleared us to do so. We both instantly recognize the same crabby woman we encountered seven months before. She really enjoys having that badge. After the usual questions, she starts asking about food. Jane starts going through the list. “That officer will tell you where to park. Take this paper into the building.” We are not very trusted travelers after all.

They take our passports and keys. This time, we are only detained 25 minutes. The agriculture protection agent comes in with a bag of fruit and vegetables that he had picked from our refrigerator. We’re not sure all that was taken, but we see potatoes, limes, bell peppers, and sliced apples. OK, I just want to eat bacon and potato chips, anyway.

With that hurdle behind us, we hurry off because we have a long drive to our campground in Olympic National Park. We are eager to set up camp and be ready for the arrival of Emily and Stuart who are driving separately to join us there and spend several days camping with us. Checking the map and studying the detour that we had been warned about, the drive down through Seattle and Tacoma and back up the other side of Pudget Sound looks daunting. We consider taking a shortcut using a ferry. Before diverting a long way off the main route, we pull over to check availability. There are no unreserved spaces on the next ferry for a rig our size. We keep driving. When they work on a highway in State of Washington, they just close the road down for miles. I think U.S. Highway 101 along the northern coast of the Olympic Peninsula was closed for maybe 50 miles. The detour was unreal. Two state roads that went through hills and woods and were not all paved. This probably added about 2 hours to the drive. The result was that we arrived at the campground just before dark. As we have said, it’s better than after dark. From the time we broke camp in Canada to the time we pulled into the campsite at Sol Duc Springs in Olympic Natl Park, we have traveled, including through some pretty remote stretches of road, over nine hours. Stuart and Emily have been driving independently. So, it seems miraculous when Stuart and Emily reach the ranger station at the entrance to the park right behind us! The little ranger station in this extreme northern area of the park is closed now. We get unhooked, back into the site at the very small campground, and start to unwind. It’s late, we are hungry and too tired to cook. The four of us walk across the bridge over the Sol Duc River to the small Sol Duc Hot Springs lodge and have a warm and delightful dinner.

 

 

Our daughter, Emily, and son-in-law, Stuart, live in White Rock, a beautiful community that is part of the Vancouver metro. Their house is a few short blocks from the shore of Semiahmoo Bay and the Strait of Georgia. The homes in White Rock are on a steep hillside overlooking the sea. From the kitchen, dining room, living room, and deck of their home, you have a nearly 180-degree view of the sea and of some of the coastal area of Washington State.

Emily and Stuart prepare a wonderful dinner and serve it on the deck at sunset.