We traveled to central Washington to a spot on the Columbia River. We spent a few weeks in an RV park just around the corner.
The view from our “back yard”
On one of our drives along the river, we stopped at a small town post office to mail some post cards. When we got out of the. Jeep I happened to look up at the mountains ( I tend to do this a lot). I saw a few specks above the mountains and my first thought was that I was looking at a flock of birds. The longer I looked, the more of these things I saw. There had to be over a hundred of them just soaring around. Here are just a few. They might be difficult to see on a small screen.
I grabbed my binoculars and discovered what I was seeing.
These are just more crazy people that we keep running into. Perhaps that should tell us something. These folks jump off the top of the mountain and hope that their parachute does not collapse. If all goes well (and how could it not) and with the proper conditions, they can soar like birds for hours.
The lady at the post office said that they do this all the time in the summer and that they land in a park just across the road.
This was just too much excitement for us old folks so we decided to take another cruise to Alaska to calm down. We wanted to try another travel agent, a different cruise line, a smaller ship and a different route, so we took a two week cruise that was a round trip out of Seattle. This cruise was on a ship that focused on stopping at some of the smaller Alaskan towns. In addition to the usual stops at Juneau, Ketchikan, etc. we stopped at Homer, Sitka, Kodiak and a few others.
The dock and our ship at Homer
We visited this private park near Ketchikan.
The park had a collection of old cars that people had abandoned here. I have heard about Stanley Steamer cars but I had to go to Alaska to see one.
Carvings on the outside and inside of buildings.
Our guide was a great story teller.
Here are two views from one of the observation lounges on our ship.
If you ever get really bored you might try towel folding. We discovered these when we came back to our cabin after the room steward finished cleaning.
Here we are backing into the dock in Victoria, BC. The skill involved in maneuvering these huge ships is amazing.
We have always wanted to visit the Buchart Gardens in Victoria and now we had our chance.
For more Alaska cruise photos, go to the archive section of this blog and click on Oct. 2014.
After our cruise we mostly just took it easy for the remainder of the summer. We had stored our motorhome in the RV park in central Washington so we spent some more time there, spent several wonderful weeks on the Idaho- Wyoming border in a RV park in a beautiful mountain valley and made it back to Surprise, AZ at the end of September.
One of the first things I do when we get back is to put out our hummingbird feeders. It wasn’t long before we had these two giant hummingbirds coming to our feeder. The photo was taken through a window and screen.
OK I confess. These are not giant hummingbirds. They are Gila woodpeckers but they also like the “hummingbird juice”.
