Funnies, Bunnies, and Blooms

Good morning, my friends. When I left you yesterday, I was thinking I'd wait until after our hike to blog again. But then we had so much going on yesterday, and I managed to take dozens of pictures again. Since I know I'll take bazillions of pictures on our hike today, it seemed like a good idea to cut down on the volume for my next post. We're planning to do our hike in a couple of hours...and bonus! It rained last night, but the forecast is for dry weather for the hike. Yay!

Okay, so backing up to yesterday afternoon, after driving for hours, we wanted to get out and walk around for a while before dinner with our friends. A couple of sites to our left is someone who lives here. They have a cute little elfin garden in front of their rig.

Along the way, we spotted lots of bunnies.

There's another one...

And there's another one over there.

Oh, and look! A Holstein bunny!

And a black bunny! Do you think it's bad luck to allow a black bunny to cross your path?

And, of course, I took pictures of every blooming thing.

And some autumn leaves.

This park where we're staying has a small number of sites for "campers," but there are a lot of residential folks here too. With Joint Base Lewis-McChord so close by (not to mention the number of military flags we spotted), I expect a lot of these folks are active-duty military. The mailboxes give some idea of the number of folks living here.

Some folks had their Halloween decorations out already.

Yes, please. We don't want any squished kitties. And if I know my cats, the cat will sit down in the middle of the road to groom itself before allowing you to pass.

It was getting to be time for us to go meet up with our friends for dinner. We drove into downtown Olympia, where I was able to get a good shot of the State Capitol building.

Turning directly around, we could see the Percival Dock.

There was a sign posted nearby explaining its historical significance.

In the image below, I've cropped in tighter on the text above to make it easier to read.

We were having dinner at the Olympia Oyster House.

Here's a little information about the oysters in the area.

This is the map that accompanied the text above.

And, oh my gosh, we had such a nice evening catching up with these near life-long friends. We asked our server to take our picture. Want to know what we're all laughing about?

Our server, Seth, was a hoot all evening long. When I asked him to take our picture, he said, "Oh, but let me take a picture of myself first." I thought he was kidding, but when I took the pictures off my phone this morning...HE ACTUALLY DID IT! Oh my gosh. That is hilarious. 

Okay, well hiking is ahead, although Mike has gone back to bed at this point. Maybe some word games and slow-stitching are in my future. In addition to the hike, we're meeting up with our friends again this evening. We're meeting up a little before dinner so that Andy can show us where the salmon are running. There might not be many at this time of year, but we'll see some sea lions and maybe some other wildlife too.

If you've enjoyed reading this post, you can thank Sadie for her careful editing.

We have one more night here, and then we'll move on to Forks, Washington, tomorrow. We'll be spending four days in Forks, exploring more of Olympic National Park. My thanks to my friend, Linda Kay, for cluing us into some road construction in that area. It looks like the worst of it will be happening days when we're not there. We'll keep monitoring it, and the heads up is appreciated.

All right then. Off I go. Hiking ahead. I've been looking forward to doing this hike for a long time.

On Our Way

Good afternoon, my friends. We find ourselves in Olympia, Washington, this afternoon. It was a relatively short day of driving to get here. It began with some last-minute packing and preparation, and then, we were on our way. We spotted some fall color as we drove away from our home. I expect we'll a lot more of this as we make our way through Washington.

Traffic was fairly light getting through downtown Portland, which was a nice change from the usual bumper-to-bumper we often find there, no matter the day or time. And soon, we crossed the Interstate Bridge.

It took us over the Columbia River, which is the dividing line between Oregon and Washington.

And here we'll be for the next month or so.

Welcome, my friends. I'm so glad you came along!

There isn't a lot to see along this I-5 stretch...just evergreen trees lining both sides of the road. On a clear day, we can get a glimpse of Mt. Rainier, but we were under cloudy skies for today's ride. This barn caught my eye. Look to the left of the barn, and you'll see a minion holding an American flag.

We caught just a glimpse of  the tippy top of Washington's State Capitol building.

Here's another image I swiped off their website.

We had just about another 30 miles to go at that point. As we left the interstate, we kept seeing signs directing us to the campground "just ahead." And this tunnel gave us pause. We couldn't see the height limit because of a branch hanging in front of it. But wouldn't you think with an RV park "just ahead," it would be tall enough to accommodate our rig?

As it turns out...yes. And now...say it with me..."Oh look! There's the light at the end of the tunnel!"

Arriving at the campground, we caught our first Bigfoot sighting of the trip.

Arriving at our site, the kitties were in the swing of things right away. They've got their food and water, their potty box, and their kitty treats. Life is good.

Oh yes, and when I put down the wheat grass, everything was grrrrroooooooooovy.

Except for this: Our neighbors two sites over have a stupid woofie. We know it is a stupid woofie because, and you can say this with me too: "All woofies are stupid." These kitties do not like woofies.

It's a nice site here...spacious. We do have neighbors to our left and outside the frame. Obviously, we're in our truck camper for this trip, and towing our Jeep. The truck and camper require diesel fuel, which is inching toward $7 per gallon day by day. The Jeep runs on regular, which is still expensive, but not as bad as diesel. We'll use the Jeep to get around. (It's easier on the kitties when we're not moving the camper around too.)

Turning directly around from that image, this is behind me. This is the Nisqually River.

Looking to my left, it looks like this.

I caught a Western Gull in flight over the river.

We're meeting some friends tonight at the Olympia Oyster House. They have fried oysters on their menu, and I absolutely love fried oysters. They're natural here...not farmed...and Washington has some delicious oysters. The friend we're meeting is a friend from high school...we were in the band together. Andy played trumpet. I played alto clarinet. We were able to reconnect on Facebook. Several years back, Andy asked if I would make him a Marine Corps quilt, and, as a Marine Corps brat, I was happy to oblige.

So, we'll meet Andy and his wife, Karie, for dinner. We're here for two nights, and so we might meet up with them again tomorrow evening as well.

As for our own plans for this area, we plan to hike the Nisqually Estuary Boardwalk Trail tomorrow. It's looking like good weather in the afternoon, and so I'm hoping we'll be able to do it without rain gear. This is a trail we've wanted to do for a long time, and so we're looking forward to that. Fingers crossed the weather will cooperate.

Okay, and backing up to yesterday, I had time enough to top-stitch all the applique on "Across the Wide Missouri."

The details still need to be added. This will be stitched by machine.

Okay, and that's all I have for you today. I'll spend some time relaxing until it's time to head out for dinner. Tomorrow I'll be back to tell you about our hike.

Making Progress

Good morning, my friends. The past couple of days have been busy, but I found some time for sewing yesterday. So, what have I been up to? Oh...thanks for asking! 

A lot of my time has been spent cooking. I made some Frozen Breakfast Burritos, Egg Salad for sandwiches, a lasagna for dinner on the road, and some Jumbo Breakfast Cookies. They're essentially a peanut butter cookie, but they contain raisins, oatmeal and multi-grain Cheerios. We like them as an alternative to Clif bars when we're driving.

We like Clif bars too. Either a cookie or a Clif bar can serve as lunch while we're driving.

On the sewing front, I've continued to make progress on the Plaid Cat. The upper left corner has been stitched.

Then, I moved my hoop to the right and stitched that portion.

Now I've moved my hoop to the upper right corner. I'd hoped I could finish this before we leave, but I don't think that will happen. It'll come with us, and I'll have plenty of stitching to keep me busy while we're traveling.

Packing the food took a good part of the day, but I found myself with some extra time yesterday afternoon. Sadie was mad we hadn't been doing more sewing.

She helped me get Block 4 for "Across the Wide Missouri" ready for top-stitching. 

As I mentioned in my previous post, this block is dedicated to Dr. Bethenia Owens-Adair. Her marriage was arranged when she was just 14 years old. When the arrangements were made, she wrote this:

Her marriage lasted just four years, but with grit and industry, she was able to finish medical school. She became the first woman physician in Oregon. 

Here is a little blurb from the book that explains this block:

The fusing is finished, but there is quite a lot of top-stitching to do. I'll want to stitch all around the raw-edge of the applique, but there will be some machine-stitched embroidery as well. You can see where I've traced the lines in the bee skep and above the yarrow stems.

Hopefully, I can make some progress on this today, but I'm also packing my clothes and personal items. Fortunately, all the cooking is done, and I can focus on packing. Even if there's time for sewing, I doubt I can finish this piece before we go. Oh well. I suppose it will wait until we get back.

With all that’s going on, I won't blog again until we're on our way. If there's time, I'll blog after we reach Olympia. We have two nights there, and so if you don't hear from me tomorrow, then Tuesday for sure.