New Town, New Life, New Dress Size

Tuesday, October 5  -  650 Hudson Place, Port Townsend, WA 98368  (write it down then come visit!)
So I finally got internet service after nearly a week without, in case you were thinking I'd been swallowed up by the black hole that is the Pacific Northwest.  Everyone has this idea that it rains all the time out here but it's not true.  Seattle gets about the same amount of rain as New York - 45 inches a year - and here in PT we get only around 19.  That's because it sits in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains to the west.  It can be gray and drizzling in Seattle but by the time you cross the Hood Canal Bridge

onto the Olympic Penninsula proper, the sun is out.  It's been sunny for a good part of each day since we arrived.

That Wednesday evening we drove into town - me in my new minivan which we picked up in Tacoma on the way

and Dan in the RV behind me - was a moment of pure joy, not only because it was the end of a long journey but also because it was the beginning of our new life.



 We spent the night in the PT trailer park which has to be the nicest one we ever stayed in in terms of location - right on the beach overlooking Puget Sound, and next morning took the dogs on their first PT beach walk

and then unloaded the RV into our new home. 

Dan couldn't wait to retire his yellow gloves forever - he's had enough of trailer life for a long time - but I grew quite fond of our 31 footer.

Yes, standards had slipped quite a bit by the end of the trip.

There are some things about trailer life, however, which I won't miss.  Decent lighting, a bathroom big enough for a 10X magnifying mirror (the middle aged woman's cruelest but ultimately kindest friend) and time enough to make diligent use of both.  My eyebrows looked like Groucho Marx (and I'm not even going to mention the moustache - waxing and bleaching being two other facts of female life that have no place in an RV) and I was horrified to find out I'd been sporting a veritable forest of nasty black chin hairs all across the country.  Ah, menopause.  What fun.


And then there's the unavoidable fact that sitting in a vehicle for up to 10 hours a day, eating some great, some mediocre, some downright vile road food has not done wonders for my figure.  The one box I hope to never find is the one containing the bathroom scale. Luckily there are no full length mirrors in this house yet or I might well be having a full blown hormonal attack.

Embarrassing Disclosure #2
The ridiculous things I thought I was going to need on a 4 week RV trip:
food processor, pie plates, flour and rolling pin for all the pastry dough, scones and pies I was going to bake; racks for smoking ribs (normally an all day process); heavy Dutch oven for the bread I was going to bake; polenta (and not the quick cook kind); risotto (ditto); and all the food supplies I thought essential, most of which I had to pack up and unpack all over again.  What was I thinking?  Was I going to be the Martha Stewart of the Trailer Park?

Because you CAN buy food in the rest of America.

So, that's it for Trailer Trash Mama.  To my wonderful friends and family who cared enough to sign up as followers and made me feel less like a high school loser, thank you, thank you, especially if you were able to get a comment posted which was not always easy.

To the rest of you who read along and sent me encouraging emails, okay, I still love you but you are so not invited to my slumber party.

And to those foolish people who encouraged me to keep blogging but are really hoping to see how setting up a new life in a new town puts fresh strain on an already travel tested marriage, I'll send you a link to my new blog:  Menopausal Mama  -  get it?  Change of life in more ways than one.

And now I leave you with some views from our new home in the hope that you will come and see for yourselves very, very soon. If you don't I may never have incentive enough to tackle the room at the very end.

 Views from the deck.  That's the Whidbey Island ferry in the background.

 The marina the house is tucked in behind.  At night we hear the halyards clanging gently.

 Sunrise from the beach in front.

 In Maine we'd play Dogs On A Rock, here it's Dogs On A Log.

Dawn from the living room window.

 Early morning sunshine on our house.

Help.  I need help!

The End Of The Road

Wednesday, September 29  -  Coeur D'Alene to Port Townsend, Washington

We made it!  (more to come)

Champing At The Bit

Tuesday, September 28  - Yellowstone to Coeur D'Alene, Idaho

We're like horses that have been turned for home and have caught a whiff of the barn - although in the case of PT it will be the whiff of the paper factory (more on that another time.)

We were originally going to stay in Deer Lodge, Montana tonight, just before the turn off the Interstate for the southern Washington state portion of our trip.  This leg would have taken us through the towns of Walla Walla (which I love saying just as much as the Aussie town of Wagga Wagga) then on to romantic and majestic (and active) Mt. Ranier for the last couple of nights.

Instead, we decided to blow off this whole section and head for home.  We would stop at Missoula, Montana instead, a straight five hour shot on the Interstate.

Montana is as pretty as Wyoming but seems to be a bit more mellow. Not as hell bent on shooting everything, more into raising fat and happy cows under magnificent, endless skies.

Back to the road.  Thanks to an early start

Sunrise over Gardiner, Montana and Yellowstone

we arrived in Butte, Montana, in time for an early lunch at another Road Food guide spot.  Wish I could say Pork Chop John's lived up to its wonderful name - after all, it's pork, it's deep fried, it's served "fully loaded" on a bun.

Sadly, it tasted like a meat patty left too long under the heat lamp.  Equally sad, the recommended western gear place in town ("Tell 'em Pork Chop John sent ya!") didn't have a red suede jacket so we hit the road again.

Outdoor dining area at Pork Chop John's

Missoula's a pretty little university town but we didn't stay because by this time we'd decided to keep going, maybe get to the Idaho border.  Beautiful countryside but who has time for more scenic shots?  We reached the border and decided to keep going to Coeur d'Alene instead, which Karen told us we'd reach by 5 pm.  Sounded reasonable except we'd forgotten about the time zone change which added an extra hour to what turned out to be 10 hours on the road.

We pulled into a lovely, isolated rest stop around 4 for a much needed tea break. Even Dan agrees that it does wonders to perk you up.  I'd just made the pot and broken out the bikkies when we noticed a really nasty smell.  Turns out we had company - not a skunk, but the septic pump man who had chosen this very moment to arrive and clean out the toilet.  It's only now occured to me that I should have taken a photo, but then again, do you need to see that?  Probably not.  The funny part really is that we stayed there, stoically drinking our tea, while he went about his business and the smell just got worse.  We were like the Brits who huddle under massive blankets in gale force winds at the beach because, dammit, they're on a seaside holiday and they'll bloody well enjoy it.  We really needed that tea.

But maybe that smell worked its way into not only our olfactory senses but into our longing to be "home" because by the time we'd arrived at the trailer park (really nice one, too, on the shores of the impressive lake here, but who cares?  Also, this town is where Sarah Palin got her degree in field stripping moose.) we'd discussed the rather daring plan of maybe shooting for Port Townsend  the next day.

It's all a bit complicated with the dropping off of the RV in Tacoma, and the picking up of two new cars, and the possibility of not fitting into the two of them all the stuff we have jammed into this RV for the last stretch to PT.  So, we'll try to drive straight to PT tomorrow and unload it right into our new home.  We'll return it on Saturday, pick up the new cars and maybe pop in to the Pacific Northwest Tea Festival in Seattle.  Whew! And then there's all the added excitement about the building we think we're going to make an offer on which I'm not even going to mention for fear of jinxing it.

Port Townsend or Bust!

Embarrassing Disclosure

Monday, September 27  -  Yellowstone National Park

So I'm not very good at geography.  And yes, I prefer to look at photos and don't always read the captions.  But I don't think it's fair of Dan to laugh so hard he had to pull over when I finally worked up the nerve to tell him I thought we might be in the wrong park.

The thing is, Yellowstone is beautiful and everything, but where were all those magnificent jagged peaks and cliffs and thundering waterfalls I'd been staring at for the last 10 years?  Every year I receive an Ansell Adams calendar in my Christmas stocking and this is why I insisted on coming to Yellowstone. I know I told a few of you that this was going to be the highlight of the whole trip for me.

I'm not sure at what point it began to dawn on me that I might have made a mistake thinking it was Yellowstone.  I know when I saw the Grand Tetons I thought, yes!  This is it.  A nice introduction to even more spectacular mountains and such.  Trouble was, Yellowstone seemed so much more open and rolling and, well, less dramatic than Adams's photos.  And I don't remember him ever shooting Old Faithful.  All through that first day I kept thinking that just around the next bend we'd get to one of those familiar, jaw-dropping vistas but all we'd get would be more vast meadows, bison, steaming geysers and new growth mountainsides. 

Finally, in the wee small hours this morning I had to look it up.  So it was Yosemite, not Yellowstone.  Yes, Dan, the other Y park, okay?  In California, not Wyoming.  Not really that funny.  And if you think you're going to be dining out on this story for the next 20 years I advise you to think again - quickly.

Still, Yellowstone is really lovely and I bet Ansell Adams never had a run in with a road hog like we did.

I was very nervous about oncoming traffic hitting him so I tried to pass - no way, he just started running alongside and gave me very dirty looks.

Then he turned and came back in my direction (they've been known to charge vehicles and leave rather large 2,000 lb. dents.)

Finally I had to, ahem, take the bull by the horns and get past him.  And please note, if you're wondering why I look a bit tense, that's a narrow mountain road with a steep drop on my side.

It felt like our last night of the holiday, even though we have three more nights on the road, but our sightseeing days are done, now we're just heading home.  And so, for our last night we sat and watched the stars come out and breathed in the soft mountain air (yes, Susan, I broke out the Benedictine for this) and thought it couldn't get much better. 

But then it did.  A lone banjo a few rigs over, and a man singly softly,  "I'll Fly Away." And soon a guitar and a woman singing harmony joined in.  I'm not kidding.  They worked through a large portion of the Pete Seeger song book before turning in to soft applause and sighs.

Note to Dan:  forget the calendar - this is what I want in my stocking this year.

It's the Bambi model - how cute is that?

Be Beary Aware

Sunday, September 26  -  Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming


Early morning walk with the dogs along the shore, with the moon still shining.

We'd been given a Be Bear Aware pamphlet when we arrived in the park.  It tells you how to live around bears and has a section titled Bear Etiquette.  Apparently it's not polite to throw your backpack or food at a bear in an attempt to distract it - presumably from eating you.  Right, like I'm not going to throw everything I have handy (Dan included, but not the dogs of course) at an approaching bear.  They also suggest it's best not to abandon food because of an approaching bear.  You should pack up the food  and "take it with you" I'm not kidding, this is what it says. 

We set off for the first day of exploring Yellowstone. Old Faithful was the first stop and it didn't disappoint.  Lots of gushing geysers and glorious hot spring pools.

And this rather wonderful sign.

Sure, it's always the dumb boy who does the stupid thing and the sister who laughs and then tells on him, isn't it?  And note the clueless parent in the background.


Saw our first buffalo, (or is it bison?) elk and moose, and had a nasty reminder that no buffalo is really worth getting too excited over.

Another day of Yellowstone tomorrow and then we start the home stretch.  Must admit I'm getting itchy feet, particularly as we just heard that the building we were originally interested in for the Tea Room is now back on the market - at 30% less than a year ago.  Looks like we'll be cutting the trip short a couple of days and should be in PT by Friday, in plenty of time for next week's Annual Girls Night Out, a late night shopping event downtown to benefit mammogram funding.  New friend Susan has invited me to tag along - and guess what this year's theme is?  Cowgirls!  My red boots will have their first official outing.  Now I just need a cowboy jacket.  Red suede, I'm thinking.  Butte, Montana is looking promising.

Grand Tetons

Saturday, September 25  -  Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

I really want to love Wyoming.  It is so spectacularly beautiful.  It's filled with cowboys.  And the Grand Teton Ranges are breathtaking.

And I really wanted to love the town of Pinedale, our first proper Wyoming town which we stopped at for an early lunch.  It had all the right ingredients:

the best welcome sign ever

an abundance of cowboy themed stores

my kind of museum (unfortunately no time to go inside)

and a promising looking roadside joint.

Handy road food tip #2:  the number of pick up trucks outside the only restaurant in town does not guarantee the food will be good.

Not only was the food disappointing but we had to eat it while watching a giant screen TV (thankfully on mute) showing some footage of a huge tom turkey strutting about doing his stuff, obviously trying to impress a nearby female.  Great, we're going to eat while watching turkey sex, I thought.  But no, we cut to a shot of a 10 year old girl, dressed to the nines in camouflage gear, lowering her shotgun.  "No way," I said to Dan, and we both watched slack-jawed as, yes, she proceeded to pop that turkey.  Not between the eyes - it flapped about on the ground as she and her extended family (all dressed in matching camouflage gear)  rushed up and stood about watching as Dad dispatched it (I don't know how as I'd closed my eyes by that point) and then the next frame was Dad being interviewed as he proudly stood by his little girl who was holding up a very dead turkey, and everyone applauded.  It was all too Sarah Palin for me.

This was obviously no biggie to everyone else except the wimpy ex-New Yorkers in the joint.  Turns out it was the Sportsman Channel whose biggest advertiser is the Ammo Superstore.  After the turkey First Blood we got the Fly Rod Chronicles where you see guys standing in a river casting for fish - again, fascinating to everyone except us, apparently.

In desperation, while we were still waiting to be served by the waitress who was sporting a surprisingly complicated up-do (much like "Kiss My Grits!" Flo from Alice, only our gal was way larger and mean as a pole cat) I turned to the local paper.  Front page headline touted that Wyoming had joined nine others states in a federal suit claiming gay marriage was not a fundamental right.  Wyoming was where Matthew Shepard was tortured and murdered because he was gay.

Dan also reminded me that Wyoming is Dick Cheney's home state.  Okay, so maybe Wyoming is a nice place to just visit, although by the time we'd finished our lunch (heuvos rancheros - when will I ever learn?) that Welcome sign was starting to seem just a teeny bit threatening, as in, 'If you need any more civilization get your pansy asses the hell back to DC you pussies.'

Handy road food tip #3:  the more "decor" (yes, antlers count in Wyoming) there is on the outside, the worse the food will be on the inside.

So we hit the road again and didn't stop until we got to Jackson Hole, where DC pussies are obviously tolerated because they bring in so much money. But some people still haven't recovered from the sight of Fed. chairman Ben Bernanke wandering around town in a plaid flannel shirt during last month's economic summit.  Wonder if he posed under the famous antler arch?

Right outside Jackson loom the magnificent Grand Tetons.  I still can't get over the fact that these mountains just seem to pop straight up - no rolling foothills leading up to them, no mini-mountains, no foreplay whatsoever (I still haven't recovered from Arches it would seem.)  They're just there - boom!

 We spent the night in our first National Park which meant no internet but that was a small price to pay for this.

The smoke from a controlled burn somewhere in the park cut down on the visibility but I think it added something extra.

But you can't get away from the huntin' and shootin' and fishin' that is Wyoming.  At this scenic overlook

the park ranger had thoughtfully provided an array of local animal pelts for visitors to fondle.

We settled in for the night by the lake and watched the sun set over the Grand Tetons - lovely, lovely.  I so want to love Wyoming.

Forever West

Friday, September 24  -  Moab, Utah to Rock Springs, Wyoming

I am so in love with the West.  It is so stark, so powerful, so not New York. 

I think what attracts me to this part of the country is the early imprint of Michael Landon in his Bonanza days.

Oh, Little Joe!

We actually passed a sign for the town of Bonanza today but I resisted the urge to detour as I knew it just wouldn't be the same - and it turns out I was right.  It's largely a ghost town today, with a population of 14, of which, according to the latest census, 71.43% are White, 7.14% are Asian, and 21.43% are from two or more races, which, if you have a calculator handy, translates to 0.996 Asians, 10.0002 Whites, and 3.0002 mixed race inhabitants.

Another highlight of today's long drive was the town of Vernal, Utah, one of the few towns not settled by Mormons.  Its claim to fame is its proximity to some serious dinosaur remains - and they take their dinosaurs very seriously around here.

Here's a handy traveling tip:  don't ask the gas station attendant sitting in an enclosed booth reading People magazine for a lunch recommendation.  You'll end up driving to the outskirts of town for "the best Mexican food around" and hating yourself (and her) for the rest of the afternoon.

We started out in Utah, crossed the border to Colorado for a bit, then back to Utah before finally crossing into Wyoming.  Believe it or not, Australian Karen's route was indeed the fastest and turned out to be pretty damn spectacular too. 

It's weird but the minute you cross the state line the landscape changes.
Here's Utah:

Here's Colorado:

And here's Wyoming:

We climbed to almost 10,000 ft - twice!  And felt giddy from the spectacular scenery and the thinness of the air. And the thing is, once you get up to the top you don't descend right away.  Instead there are these incredible high plains that roll on an and on.

You really are "Home on the Range"

We did, however, eventually descend to our home on the range for the night - the only one in town and perhaps not one of the most scenic Trailer Parks we've stayed at so far, but it's nice they have signs up warning "No Fireworks!"

Tomorrow we head to the Grand Tetons and our one and only National Park stay, which means no internet (yikes!) and no cell phone service.  We're lucky the campground is still open as the Yellowstone ones are now closed - it's getting down to the 20s at night and the water pipes have been drained.  Can't wait!