Virginia and I have been busy with getting the Bus ready for the big trip. We cant wait to be on the road again. Our good friend took this picture for us. I have to give Joe many thanks.
   We leave on Monday morning, day after tomorrow. The last two weeks have been spent loading up and getting comfortable with all the bells and whistles, on our new rig. The first part of the trip we are going to Paso Robles, Wine Country RV Park, but just for the night then on to Petaluma, but more about that later. Right now I am going to Post and get this sent out to you all. JP

Getting ready for the summer trip.

Lots have happened over the last few months, I will try to bring you up to date. Virginia and I bought a new Allegro Bus, Manufactured by Tiffen Motor Homes in April. We ordered it in February. It seemed to take forever to get here. We also have a new addition to our family, Maddy, a small female Boston Terrier. Max and Buddy would approve. We got her just before Christmas.
   We are now loading the bus up for the trip. We are leaving on the 13 th of May, for a rally in Fortuna, Ca. That starts on the 16th of May.  I will post more later, right now I am at the dealer getting a little work done.  JP

Forks

Thur Aug 23  Moved to our new park here in Forks where we stayed with Alpenlite on the Sea Food Caravan, many years ago. It is an Ok park but not many parks, along the north coast of Washington.  It has been in the 60's today and a little cloudy but no rain.  They get over 100 inches of rain a year over here.  This afternoon we drove over to the beaches.  There is so much huge driftwood, washed up on the rocky shores of the Rialto Beach and it's hard to walk on the rocks and ocean here is scarey.  Then we drove down through the forest road to Indian town of La Push.  There are a lot of stacks (rocks that stick out of the water with dirt on them), out in the ocean and the beach is nicer here=sandy and water much calmer. Tonight we had pizza at a restaurant across the street from the RV Park. (We've eaten there before).  Hope tomorrow is a nice day as we are going to the rain forest. JVP

hurricane ridge

Wed Aug 22  We woke up today to beautiful sunshine.  After breakfast I packed a lunch, we loaded up the car, took Buddy and had a ride up the Olympic National Park. Our first turnout we could see all the way back to Strait of Juan De Fuca.  We could see our little town of Sequim, the view was just awesome.  We continued our drive up the mountain to the end where the Visitor Center is Hurricane Ridge.  The mountains are covered in trees and the mountains still have patches of snow on them.  The fog settled around some of the mountains and obscured the views in places but it was so beautiful and not really cold, like I expected.  We had our lunch and watched the snow capped mountains.  We met our neighbors from the RV park there, too.  We walked around some of the trails and found beautiful wild flowers, some deer that weren't afraid of people and just let you walk within a few feet from them.  Last night after dinner we wandered over to Costco to see if they had anything we needed.  Tonight we might go in search of elk.  Tomorrow we head on farther west along hwy101 to the coast to Forks, Wa.

Olympic Peninsula

Aug 19th  We have started making our way around the Olympic Peninsula here in Washington. The mornings here are cloudy and by afternoon it is the 70's.  Yesterday we moved to Sequim at a little park that has a pond out in front. We have a little more room here between motorhomes.  We drove down to Dungeness Recreation Area and walked along a tree line path down to the spit.  It is a 5 mile strip of sand that you can walk on all the way to the lighthouse at the end, if you want.  We didn't walk far, as the beach has alot of huge logs and rocks and not very sandy.  We did walk over to a little inlet and saw a bald eagle before he flew into a tree.  John will post picture on e-mail.We drove down through town and saw a lot of nice homes out by the Strait, lots of lavender around as this is the place where the lavender farms are.Town is small although there is a Costco and Wal Mart here.  We ate in all 3 meals yesterday- quite a change for us.  Buddy road around with us all day yesterday and will probably take him today too.  He has gotten so he really wants to be outside.

Seattle

Sat,Aug 19th  The clouds rolled in here on Sat and temp back in the 70's.. Yeah!  We took the ferry into Seattle and went to the Space Needle and Chihuly Glass exhibit.  Chihuly is the one that did the glass ceiling in lobby of Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.  The glass exhibits were breath taking and pictures don't do it justice. Next we waited in line 40 minute  to go to observation deck of space needle and after waiting so long had to hurry as car meter was running out.  It was a nice view though.  Next we headed for Pike Place Market.  The streets are very steep like San Francisco and alot are one way.  We ended up right on main drag and people all over in the street and hard to get through.  We visited the flower market and I got a huge bunch of Dalia's for $5.  The flowers are just beautiful there and so cheap.  We walked around but so many people we went to a restaurant and had wine and bucket of mussels and decided to leave (too many people on a Sat).  By the time we got to Ferry terminal we just missed it so had to wait another 45 minutes.  Had good fish & chips at a restaurant close to motor home.

Poulsbo, Washington

It is Friday Aug 17th.  Yesterday we moved out of Marg and Harry's driveway and into a campground about 10 miles away.  Our tanks were full and weather heating up and need more power for air for us and Buddy.  We have spent the last few days helping pack up the house and they will leave for Idaho on Saturday saying good-by to their lovely home.  Wed., we drove over to Bremerton where we were stationed in the navy, in the early days.  John drove right to our old apartment complex and not much has changed.  We walked along the pier, went to the Naval Museum where we enjoyed the submarine part of it and had lunch on the water at Anthony's fish grotto.  John had his shrimp louie and I had a crab salad and we both had peach ice tea with lemonade.  Very good stuff.  Today it was in the 90's which is hot for here and most homes don't have air.

     We drove over to Port Townsend on Friday, where it was cooler since it is on Puget Sound.  We walked around downtown where the buildings are brick and from the 1800's.  They were just beautiful old buildings.  We had lunch out by the water at the Belmont Hotel.  Had clam chowder and sea food again, after all that is why we are here to eat seafood.