Last Day in Newport, WA

What are we going to do today for our last day here in Little Diamond Thousand Trails/KOA Park? I dunno.....let's see what Sparky comes up with! The day didn't start off very well. Sparky woke up at 5:00 AM, which is totally unlike her. Eldo is the early riser around here, what's going on? (I dunno...I just couldn't sleep this morning!) It's a good thing she did. The "neighbors" across the road have a black lab that they just let run loose and do his business wherever he feels like it, which, for the second day in a row, happens to be on our campsite. After watching the elderly gentleman let his dog out, then watching him watch his dog poop in our yard at 5:30 AM this morning and do nothing about cleaning it up, Sparky got mad and marched over there a few minutes later, not even bothering to change out of her p.j.'s but just throwing a coat on over them. BUT she did collect herself before speaking. (E. asks with a surprised look, "You went over there in your PAJAMAS?!" and just shakes his head). Now, before any dog lovers get upset, know that Sparky used to have dogs, several of them over the years, even a black lab for quite a few and she loved her dogs. She just doesn't appreciate a dog being let run loose in a campground and having them shit where they shouldn't. Let's follow the campground rules, that's all she asks. It says right on the campground brochure, "If we poop, you gotta scoop!"

So I march over there, and calmly say (although I am fuming), "Sir, we would appreciate it if you would clean up your dog's shit when he shits on our campsite. You know, they are supposed to be on a leash and not be running around loose." (Having been a former school teacher, Sparky is big on rules and when Sparky uses the word "shit" instead of "doing his business",  or "poop" she is really mad!) Sorry about the language. The guy's son, who didn't have anything to do with the dog this morning, and who was about in his twenties, was like, "Oh-- sorry." The elderly guy (no longer a gentleman in my book) grunted, turned his back on me and went inside. Gr-r-r-r-r......That is the first time we have encountered a careless dog owner but it probably won't be the last. Then, to add insult to injury and especially to the dog, they left him alone for the entire day from about 8:00 this morning till well past seven this evening. He cried and whimpered and howled sorrowful cries most of the day.

OK, I've had my rant today....Eldy is wondering what we can do today to move on...I know, let's take Sparky to Michael's Craft store this morning! That's the ticket! (What a guy!) One more visit to the town of Spokane? Maybe we'll check out the 21 hole disc golf course in Spokane on North Columbia Circle on the southwest side of town. Well, after seeing how far it was to the disc golf course (over an hour) we decided to conserve on gas in the car and money so we didn't go anywhere and didn't do anything but plan some more for the upcoming months. I knitted like crazy to keep my ADD in check today and tried to stay out of trouble for the rest of the day by not bothering any neighbors. I did make friends with a little girl named Olivia and her grandma. Olivia wanted to show me where you can see squirrels on a hilltop behind her camper. I love talking to little kids and get all caught up in their enthusiasm. ( E. says that's because my Sparky is a kid herself!) Yup, I sure am! I don't ever want to get completely grown up.

I rode my bike for five miles around the park and down some county roads this morning. Saw a flock of wild turkeys cross the road in front of me and three deer. No photos, wasn't fast enough for them! Went for another bike ride this evening around seven and saw another deer. We're going to miss the pine forest, the wonderful smell of the pines, and the peaceful park here. I would say we are going to miss the cool nighttime temperatures which have been in the high forties and low fifties, but it's going to be colder at night at Glacier, in the thirties. (Woo-hoo! Snuggling weather!)  We would definitely stay here again on the Thousand Trails side of Little Diamond/KOA park.

Off we go tomorrow to Coram, Montana, less than five miles from the entrance of Glacier National Park. It's going to be about a 270 mile drive, piece of cake for Eldy, but according to the GPS, it's a 6 hour drive. We'll be taking highway 2 east most of the way.  You can't go a more direct route because of mountains and no roads.  Eldy drives at 55 miles an hour for better fuel mileage, so we have to figure that in as well when we drive.

Photos in and around the blog are from the last couple of days here in Newport. Nothing exciting going on but butterflies flitting around....  :-) But it's relaxing... (If Sparky can sit still long enough to watch 'em! says E.)

We will be on the road tomorrow and hopefully we'll have good internet access and enough activities to keep posting daily! If you don't see a post, it's because of a bad internet connection or a really dull day. (WHAT? Never a dull day around Eldo and Sparky). Truth is, yes, we have dull and boring days, but Sparky tries to keep those to a minimum..Hmmm-n-m-m, did I hear a faint sigh in the background?.....See you on the highway tomorrow....

Monday, Monday......

We spent the morning planning and trying to figure out where to plug in more stops in between the ones we have now...

It looks like we are going to be in Glacier National Park starting the middle of this week...Then we head to Yellowstone National Park. There are about two and a half weeks remaining in September that we haven't figured out yet. The end of September we will be heading towards Ohio for Nick's Gypsy Journal rally, always a fun time! We know that the whole month of October we will be back in Indiana to spend time with Eldy's kids and grandkids and to take care of routine appointments. November is undecided, but December we will be in Florida. We're still working on January thru March.

After looking at maps and apps till our eyes got blurry, we decided to head into Newport, the nearest town to where we are staying and take a look at a little museum there. There is also an animal park called Cat Tales Zoological Park which is further out from Newport, but we didn't explore that.

The little museum was great! So much old stuff to see, it was really something to see how much they could fit in a very small space and yet keep it very well organized for viewers.  Lots and lots of old office equipment, old typewriters, old clothing, old shoe repair stuff, kitchen appliances and household appliances placed in room settings where you'd see the actual items used, vintage Christmas ornaments that took me back to the fifties when we decorated our trees with those great old German glass ornaments with the hollowed out shells, metal bells, vintage Valentine cards, and an old belt style exercise "jiggle" machine (I used to use my mom's hoping it would jiggle off some fat, but it just made my back and hips itch like crazy!) The older I get, the more I enjoy seeing all the stuff from the fifties and sixties.....The only thing I DIDN'T enjoy seeing was the antique dentist's chair from the 1900's. (Lots of dental trauma when I was seven through twelve years old--lost my two front permanent teeth in an ice skating accident and still remember sitting in the dentist chair at dusk at seven years old, getting air blown on my fractured two stubs left of my front teeth because the dentist wanted to make sure the nerves were still alive.) I lost the caps several times over my elementary school years clunking them on a Coke bottle, or the bottom of a swimming pool and each time the dentist had to check the nerves by blowing air on the tooth before replacing the cap. I wore silver stainless steel caps on my front teeth until the 8th grade. They didn't use porcelain crowns back in those days. I still have trouble going to the dentist and sitting in the chair today, and when they clean my teeth around my front crowns, I get really nervous. And yes, my dad use to sing "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" every Christmas which just made me mad! Interestingly enough, when the silver caps were finally replaced in my eighth grade year by porcelain ones that matched the rest of my teeth, nobody noticed!

Back to the museum..they had interesting outbuildings on the grounds--some antique mining and lumber industry equipment, old reconstructed cabins, an antique weather station, a lookout tower and an old caboose with railroad memorabilia inside.

For a small town, it had quite a collection of "old stuff"! We enjoyed looking at it today. And if you'd like a recommendation for a decent spot to eat, try Club Rio--a good sized tavern sitting on the Pend Oreille River in Newport/Old Town, just before the bridge at the WA/ID state line. They serve a great hamburger and have a nice patio overlooking the river and the mountains. They have live entertainment on the weekends which we are sorry we missed! We really enjoy getting away from the fast food and trying local taverns or little breakfast or mom and pop restaurants on our travels. We enjoy going where the locals go.....usually it's very good food! We don't have a very scientific way of finding these little places. We do it one of three ways, 1) use our Yelp app, 2) ask the locals, or 3) count the number of cars in the parking lot! Tomorrow is our last day in Newport...we'll see what we find......

A relaxing time at the riverfront

An Awesome Air Show And More!

When we came to town a couple of days ago, one of our first stops after settling in was a trip to the local visitor's center in Kennewick, WA, the closest major town. We picked up our usual tourist guides, magazines for the area, and local newspapers and settled in for an afternoon of reading to get the feel for the area. We found out that there was an unlimited hydroplane race at Columbia Park in Kennewick this weekend, called the 41st Annual Tri-Cities Water Follies, which features the Columbia Cup unlimited hydroplane event AND an air show and Friday was "free Friday"--no admission, and something about free french fries from a local company. (FREE and FREE french fries? I'm IN! says E.) He's a big french fry nut.....

We headed out to Kennewick late this morning, about 28 miles away, and we ended up spending the rest of the day there. It was really fun! Although it was hot, there were shady spots and Friday was a great day to go, 'cuz it was FREE!

Today we got to see a terrific air show first to start off the afternoon...Restored Huey helicopters doing a flyby, F-15 fighter jets, and the craziest stunt pilots in small planes doing the most incredible aeronautic acrobatics we have ever seen!

The stunt pilots stalled their planes to a virtual stop, they did all kinds of rolls, dives and wiggling and whipping their planes back and forth, flipflopping around to the extent that it looked effortless to make their planes do whatever they wanted them to---almost like a little kid with a remote control airplane doing the most impossible twists, turns, corkscrews and dives, only these were real planes. We've never seen anything like that! It was amazing and jaw dropping. We had no idea you could make a plane do all the sorts of tricks they did. They seemed to defy every aeronautic law in the books while they were up in the skies...... How about an F-15 doing a fly by right in front of you just skimming over the water, flying upside down then climbing 3 miles straight up, then diving straight back down? The announcer spewed lots of facts right and left about the jets, the stunt planes, the G forces, facts about the Hueys, but it was hard to remember all that while your jaw dropped open taking photos......WOW! and "LOOK AT THAT!!" was about all we could manage during the air portion of the show....But it failed to impress this guy--guess he just wanted to work on his tan....

This little miss was on a very serious mission....she had to follow her daddy and not lose him in the crowd. She passed by us at least twice in her pink jeep. (Bet she'd love the pink jeep tours in Sedona, AZ!)

Then, the qualifying started for the hydroplanes....Those boats are FAST!  We had a great view in front of us.....late in the day, they ran a "Dash for Cash" race and we got to see as many as six boats all racing at the same time....I guess this race is on the main racing circuit, so it's a big deal!  We were lucky to find out about it, and get to get a taste of what it was like without having to pay the 15.00 a person one day's admission.

There was lots of good food there as always with a festival/show and Sparky never fails to find good food when there's good food to be had.....It was hot but a nice breeze came in off the river and after sitting in the sun for awhile, we backed up into the shade, that and two snowcones helped cool me down....A fun day and it was FREE! We almost thought about coming back again for the races Saturday or Sunday, but after talking to the gal sitting next to us, who had been here before, she told us the crowds would be ridiculous and you'd have to come hours early to get a seat for the race. She said it would be difficult to even see the boats. After talking to her a little more, she turned out to be a full time RVer just starting out, so we traded stories about where we'd been and exchanged phone numbers and email. It was nice meeting you, Karen!

serious shade, these folks had the right idea!

It should be a rather calm weekend, we don't have any plans as of right now for Saturday and Sunday...BUT, you never know with Eldo! We'll see what the day brings tomorrow.....

Corps of Engineer Parks-Plymouth Park

We traveled about 320 miles today from Mountain Home, Idaho, to Plymouth, Washington. Really, folks, we are not going to continue this feverish pace to get to Washington...well, duh, Sparky, we ARE here in Washington now! We have about ten days until my brother's wedding in Easton, WA, and Eldo just decided to hurry up and get here and wait....which is fine with Sparky, too! We're are going to sit and recoup from eating our way through Sedona and doing the tourist things, and staying in a park that was above our 30.00 a night budget. The park in Sedona, Rancho Sedona, was very nice, very shady, had its own swimming hole by a creek, laundry, etc. and it was 51.00 a night, but it WAS within walking distance of town. Since we are in the middle of nowhere at the moment, (not even a grocery store too close) we'll have to really plan to eat at home....wa-a-a-a-nh! (That Sparky can be a whiner sometimes! sighs Eldy) Eldy wants to know if I'm gonna fire up the grill tonight, ha ha! Maybe I'll have him do it! (see yesterday's blog)

He got on the recreation.gov website this morning and found a Core of Engineers park here in Plymouth, WA. Where is THAT? you ask. Plymouth, a VERY small town, is west of Walla Walla, WA and south of Kennewick, WA, and it appears to sort of be in the middle of nowhere...except it's close to the mighty Columbia River, and it's right off highway 82. It's called Plymouth Campground and it's on Lake Umatilla. The Columbia River is just a hop, skip, and a jump past the lake. Unfortunately, there is no way to go down to the river at the park. However, there is a "day use" area at this park with a little beach and swimming section. These out of the way spots are rather common to Corps of Engineer parks. They usually have something to do with a dam or waterway, and every C.O.E. park we have stayed in has been exceptionally well thought out and the facilities have been excellent. This park is no exception and it's incredible! First of all, it's laid out totally different than your normal RV park. The sites are set up in horizontal, parallel positions down each side of the main road in the park. Almost every site is a pull through. You pull off the road and into a little mini lane parallel to the main road. The sites are HUGE, the park is heavily shaded, but trees are NOT a problem with big rigs. We have a huge metal picnic table, a fire pit, and a large cement pad that the picnic table sits on, then a large graveled area so campfires can be had in the fire pit without worrying about starting a fire in the grass or trees. There is a TON of room to spread out your camp chairs, lounge chairs, and anything else you want to put out. Hammock, anyone? There is even a tiny little laundry since towns are few and far between here.  With the Golden Age Senior Pass, we are paying 12.00 a night for FULL hookups and this huge, green living space for the next week. The area around the park is high desert, and the nearest major town is Kennewick, WA, about 24 miles away. But the park itself is a little green oasis in the desert. They water the grounds and it's really green. And, it's level and flat so I can ride my bike around. Gotta keep trying to keep some semblance of fitness around here, or my body is going to start complaining!

There is a nice breeze blowing every day so far and the humidity is low here, even though it's in the nineties. (Now, if I can just get Sparky to sit still for awhile!)

We are a little far from the Columbia Gorge area, but we'll probably hop in the car after a day or two of rest and go exploring!  See you somewhere tomorrow......We just heard there is a big boat race in Kennewick this weekend, an unlimited hydroplane race--think Miss Budweiser in the good ole days....sounds like fun and Friday is FREE admission, always a good thing to go explore when stuff is free! See you on the Columbia River tomorrow.....

Living in Leavenworth-Momentarily

We're H-E--E-R-E!  You know how some trips are uneventful, and others just seem to go wrong at the start? Well, we had a TINY snafu today...(Easy for YOU to say, I'm the driver who has to deal with snafus! complains E.) Well, that's definitely true. We had the normal idiots that float over the line and aren't paying attention to their driving, nearly giving Eldy a heart attack because there's no room for him to go anywhere....and then we had a TINY navigational slip up by the co-pilot. (Fess up, dear! That would be Sparky!) In the old days, Eldy would have lost his temper and done some yelling...

This is according to his kids, but he maintained his cool today when we missed the sharp turn early on to state highway 16 as we were coming around Puget Sound in the Seattle/Tacoma area. Eldy had researched the ferry vs. going south around Puget Sound and back up north again, to get on highway 2 east towards Leavenworth. NOT taking the ferry only added about 71 miles to our trip and the ferry would have been much more expensive...(but more fun! says Sparky.)  At any rate, we missed our turn for the highway jog, 3 south to 16 south right at Bremerton, due to the co-pilot, MOI, not being clear on map and highway number directions (Now, why doesn't THAT surprise me????) and then we had to find a place to turn around. We picked an industrial park a few miles down the road, pulled into the parking lot and realized we weren't going to be able to swing through the parking lot of this particular part of the industrial park with the tow behind. So-o-o-o-o, Sparky monitored Eldy's heart rate and temper scale, and he remained remarkably calm while we unhooked the car, brought the motorhome around into position for getting back out on the highway, hooked back up and away we went. The trip was BEAUTIFUL! We passed through Stevens Pass, about 4,000 feet high, and the diesel pusher struggled a bit...The Cascades were spectacular! The rest of the trip here was uneventful EXCEPT for....

The COWGIRLS expresso coffee shop....in case you haven't read lately, the owners of this little coffee shop chain have decided to "spice" things up a bit...they have scantily clad waitresses in these little coffee shops beside the road wearing nothing more than teeny bikinis. I guess in some places, they (not necessarily the Cowgirls chain) are NAKED!~ IN THEIR BIRTHDAY SUITS! Wooo-eeeee! Eldy has been researching his little heart out to figure out if any of these coffee shops are in line with our navigational plans and so far they aren't. Darn, what a shame....at any rate, he usually is not the spotter of unique things on the road because his eyes are 99% on his gauges and the road in front of him, 99% of the time. But TODAY, he spotted the Cowgirls expresso coffee shop on our way through the small town of Monroe, WA. It must have been the scantily clad, buxom female illustration on the side of the building that caught his eye...(Why, no, sweetie...it was the black and white cow spots that decorate the whole little building.) HA! He frantically (well, actually, he was calmer than that) looked for an exit plan to get off the two lane highway to get back to the coffee shop to check it out, but no such luck with pulling the motorhome with car behind...maybe another town, another day sweetie.....

BTW, expresso coffee shops are HUGE out here in Oregon and Washington, and some of them are just as cute as a button! We saw some really neat ones on our travels out here but haven't managed to get photos of them. Ninety-nine percent of them are just tiny little buildings that sit in parking lots or at the side of the road, outside drive up service only. Some offer a little bit of food along with the coffee and others just the strong stuff.

Here we are at the Thousand Trails Park in Leavenworth, Washington for the coming week. Actually, it's not in Leavenworth at all, but about 20 miles west of there. We'll show you all around the park and the town of Leavenworth tomorrow...it's very pretty in the park, like camping in a state forest. We've even got the SKEETERS thick as thieves in the park, just like you do in a heavily wooded state park area.  See you later....(OW! Three bites in less than two minutes...arrrrggghhh! Get out the bug spray, Sparky!) I'm on it, Eldo! Anybody got suggestions for really great bug repellants besides spraying yourself sick with chemicals? Citronella candles we have, but they don't seem to work. See you later!

Last Day at Evergreen Coho in Chimacum, WA

Lake Crescent, on the way to Hoh Rainforest

I'm bracing myself for the heat....("Oh, brother! Lord, help me", pleads E.)  Honey, I'm gonna practice NOT saying anything about the heat for the next few days where we're heading tomorrow, Leavenworth, Washington...it's in the high 80's and 90's over there because it's on the OTHER side of the mountains and it's just going to get hotter as we head south towards Arizona after that. But FIRST things first...a week's visit to my youngest of three brothers, Charlie....a terrifically witty guy with the best sense of humor ever. After being divorced and single for a few years, he's engaged to a wonderful lady, Kris, and they are very happy together. We're happy for him, too! Can't wait to see them! Photos forthcoming in the next few days....for now, it's leftovers, above and below-- sorry! Here are a few from our boat trip to the San Juan Islands yesterday and some from Port Townsend, a cool town within about 8 miles of our RV park.

Friday Harbor at the ferry landing in the San Juan Islands, WA

Our last day here, and guess what, folks? We're not hiking, we're not exploring, we're not traveling to a cool state park, we're sitting here in our spot at Evergreen Coho. Eldy is washing and waxing the coach, and I'm giving him encouragement and telling him what a great job he is doing! ( I do the car)....I'm straightening up things inside, cleaning out the cupboards and rearranging my yarn supplies to maximize space. (Uh-h-h-h, does this mean room for MORE yarn?) Nope...just cleaning and reorganizing things and finding stuff I didn't know we had...like a brand spankin' new Samsung cheapy flip phone that I bought from AT & T last year in case my iphone went dead, which it did a couple of days ago, totally kaput and it was non-repairable said the Apple store. Well, we went to AT & T and I bought a new, cool Motorola Atrix 4 phone which is technically beyond me at the moment and also bought an extra Samsung phone IDENTICAL to the one sitting at home buried behind something in the motorhome cupboard in case the new phone crashes at some point in the future. Are you with me?  I thought not, I'm confused myself....At any rate, I have two identical Samsung phones and will now take one of the Samsung phones and put it up for sale on Amazon and hope to get something for it. Ever buy something and get home and find you already have the exact same thing? That happens more often than I care to admit! (And WHAT ELSE do we have TWO of? Eldo wants to know...) Just a magazine or two, hon, and a duplicate payment to my car insurance company last month...and.....(Never mind, ignorance is bliss...says E.)

Well, I did want to leave you with a couple more things about Port Townsend, WA....I said it's a cool town, and it really is...did I mention the neat active working boatyard that's open to the public? I guess last year they had Winston Churchill's yacht in the boat yard being worked on.  Did I mention the Diva Yarn shop on the main street in town that's connected to the beading place that's connected to the embellishment fibers place, that's connected to the vintage clothing store? (Now THAT's BIG TIME TROUBLE for us. Thank goodness she only went one time to the yarn shop! says E.) Yeah, but you can do a LOT of damage in about a half an hour. JUST KIDDING! JUST KIDDING, hon! And then, there's the vintage hardware store that has all the coolest antique lighting, brass and fixtures for your home...Lots more cool things about Port Townsend...we didn't make it to the harbor town of Port Angeles, we'll have to save that for our next trip out west to the coast and the fabulous states of Oregon and Washington. We still have the Columbia Gorge waiting for us to come and see.....and so much more.....see you on the road tomorrow!

Port Townsend Vintage Hardware

By the way....it was my goal to write a post every single day for the first year of our full timing. I did manage to do that, sometimes even two! and now I feel that maybe I should cut back just a little--like post every other day. I'm still going to shoot for every day, but don't be surprised if you start seeing posts every other day occasionally. Having said that, I'll still try for a daily blog. (Sparky, you're being wishy washy again!) Yeah, I know, it's my ADD.... I put pressure on myself to write an interesting blog, and sometimes I make Eldy go and do stuff with the idea we gotta have something to write about in the blog! But gosh---it's not realistic to expect that to happen every day! And so.....There ya be....The blog is what it is, according to Sparky and Eldo.

My personal favorite--the Pumpty Dumpty boat, you can guess what that's for!

Chimacum, Washington

Chima-where? I keep wanting to say Chimichanga...I haven't had Mexican food in so long, I'm craving it. (Uh-oh! Not me!) E. doesn't care for Mexican food, but there sure are some great Mexican restaurants around! I might have to sneak off by myself for some "me" time if I hope to get any! We're in Chimacum, Washington...up near Puget Sound, about 45 miles north of Seattle...It's a tiny little town.

Olympic Mountains in the distance

After a long drive zig-zagging across the northern part of Washington on that crazy, curvy highway 101 which splits in two in the northern part of the state, we then headed east towards Chimacum. There were the usual bridges and wetlands scenery, and the lush forests we passed through. In Raymond, WA, we noticed that the whole town was decorated with what appeared to be various iron sculptures...those flat kind like the ones you see where a cowboy is leaning up against a fence? Only these were rust colored. They were all over town. If I hadn't been knitting, I might have captured some of them to show but I would look up at the last minute when Eldy would say, "Hey, there's another one!" We probably saw at least 10 throughout the town. We passed some unusual places--Eldon, Washington (Eldy's legal first name), and this park. Not sure I'd want to stay there!

Without any mishaps, we landed at our Escapees Park destination...Evergreen Coho....It's a beautiful park...only 22 sites with full hookup, the rest are resident sites. We got lucky and got here early before the 4th of July weekend when a lot of places and RV parks fill up. Great price, 109.00 for seven days. Eldy was tuckered out after driving the entire 4 1/2 hour drive, negotiating all those curves on that 101. (Sparky doesn't drive yet, but she's gonna one of these days!) Like from rest stop to rest stop. Although the sites for the drop in people are totally gravel, the rest of the park is absolutely beautiful. The grounds are spacious and green and well manicured, there are mini gardens all over the park.
This is one of the prettiest Escapee parks we have seen. No pool, though!

We decided to check out a local restaurant later in the day and were glad we did...The Valley Tavern in Chimacum. It's quite old from its appearance inside, but it's a locals hangout and they know where to eat good food! Tuesday nights are their steak night special...about 12.00 for a steak, all the salad and french fries you can eat and 2 plates of steamed oysters and clams allowed for each person for just a little more extra. Our bill was 22.00 for the two of us. I had steak and a salad for 9.00, and Eldy made up for the rest in clams and oysters and his steak dinner and salad. The steaks were delicious rib eyes. He can have those oysters! Ugh! Just not something I care to eat! Check out the large horsehoe bar. Everybody's within earshot...careful what you say!

We're looking forward to exploring the area...we'll be hitting a visitor's center to collect brochures, books and deals for the area. Then Sparky sets to work planning a must see-must do list for the next few days, with Eldy's approval, of course! (You mean, I get to have a say in what we are going to do? Woo-hoo! What that REALLY means, folks, is Sparky's gonna pout if she doesn't get to do what's on her list! But usually I enjoy them, too) And there are some cool hikes in the Olympic National Forest. (Sparky, I thought you said you were all hiked out!)   I'm just getting my second wind, honey!  See you guys later! Where, I have no idea!