It was a gorgeous day today. We idled away the afternoon watching a variety of beautiful birds voraciously consume the contents of our bird feeder. Every so often, one of us would wander off to perform some prep for tomorrow’s scheduled move back to the TT campground in Bow. We have had a nice visit here at La Conner and the surroundings are beautiful but the park’s lack of amenities (sewer connections, WiFi, TV, cable) are a definite check in the “poor” column.

There are some photos of our buddies that you can see by clicking the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/A3agsCp7nMP3XsbU9

Having spent the last 12 days incommunicado, our quest for today was to find a place where we could access the internet. Our last stay at Bow and our current stay here at La Conner TT have been in nice, pretty campgrounds but they both offer zilch on park WiFi. We read in the campground blurb that there is access to the ‘net in the La Conner’s activity center so we drove over and gave it a try.

While it is true that dedicated individuals can communicate over the internet while on the park’s WiFi, it is also true that the connection operates in Old Entish. What would have taken about 20 minutes in a public library, McDonald’s or the Waiiaka Trailer Park in Yreka ended up consuming a few hours in the very nice activity center. Fortunately, right out the windows is Puget Sound and a bunch of forested islands. The views are stunning. Bring your own chair.

Had I a brain, a better, quicker strategy would have been to take a pretty drive to the public library about 40 miles away in Concrete, hook up to real WiFi, do my business and return to La Conner. My feeble, partially defective memory might remember next time.

The weather was gorgeous this morning so we took a little spin into Anacortes, a town about 10 miles from our TT campground near La Conner. Before we left our campsite, the Goldfinches came to visit our feeder and that slowed us down a bit. We finally got out on the road by about noon to take the long way into town.

Anacortes is a very attractive small city. There is a refinery nearby but it is mostly concealed by a hill across Fidalgo Bay. There are extensive small boat docks and moorings, a testament to the number of boaters that enjoy cruising the San Juan Islands just offshore to the west. The San Juans fill up the strait between Washington State and Vancouver Island, a part of the province of British Columbia, Canada. There are lots of marine-related industries and boat yards working on everything from small personal dinghies up to ocean-going work boats and we followed a series of roads that allowed us to cruise the entire waterfront. The Washington State Ferry System boat departs from Anacortes and takes travelers to the San Juans and Sydney, B.C. There is another Washington State Ferry that takes cars, cargo and passengers to Guemes Island, just across a narrow straight from Anacortes.

There are a variety of gorgeous wood houses, most built early in the 20^th Century. The architecture is beautiful. Downtown areas are dotted with gorgeous sidewalk art and murals on the sides of shops. Just off the northeast side of town is Cap Sante, a large rock pinnacle that offers spectacular views of the city, Fidalgo Bay and the straits between the U.S. and Canada. Growing from many locations here are madrone trees that look like the creator did good drugs because their stalks and branches are red but the leaves are the usual green. We spotted another Bald Eagle here – he was gorgeous and quite close but not worried about us mere ground dwellers.

Photos of our birds and Anacortes can be seen by clicking the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/KkwMmgYU3vvAxF1w5

Today the weather turned lousy again with intermittent rain showers. We killed time today by going shopping instead of hanging around and watching TV or playing with our Kindles and smartphones. TV is right out here because we can’t get any reception on our regular aerial, our satellite antenna and there’s no WiFi at this campground.

What the campground has is birds. We put the feeder out a couple days ago and initially had little success in convincing the birds to eat at the easy tray. However, some intrepid birdies started eating at the feeder and soon thereafter all their relatives decided they like the offered food and there is now activity around the feeder that looks like the opening to a beehive except the bees are really big and don’t sting. We have fortunate to observe Spotted Towhees, Black-headed Grosbeaks, Nuthatches, Chestnut-backed Chickadees and many of the Washington State Bird – Goldfinches. The Goldfinches here should really be called Yellowfinches because they are an absolutely stunning shade that stands out plainly in the emerald green surroundings. Overhead, we see large hawks and Bald Eagles circling lazily overhead. Regularly we spotted a half dozen or more of these greedy little marvels in our campsite at the same time. The contents of the feeder drop quickly each day.

We picked up some more bird food while in town today. We also checked out a Mexican store here called Caniceria de Compadres where we scooped up some good meat, some chorizo and had lunch at the in-store taco stand. Peggy went into WalMart and re-provisioned our fridge and RV toilet paper supply. We also stopped at Harbor Freight so I could get an oscillating multi-tool which, according to their staff, did not even exist when I was in there a week ago. They have a website and I found that the staff was bonkers and such tools do indeed exist within the store.

Got some bird pix. Click the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/tTYyCW21Rg4msdQg8

The weather here in La Conner is fickle. Yesterday the weather was crummy for outdoor activities but this morning there was bright sunshine and blue skies. Although tempted to spend the day fooling around, we made a painful decision and elected to do some maintenance that has been hiding behind a veil of procrastination.

Back in San Diego….uhh…in early April, Peggy and I tag-teamed the rear left corner wall intersection that was getting wonky from age and possible leaks. We took the corner apart, re-secured it with longer and better quality fasteners, epoxied some of the screw locations and re-assembled the corner in a long, torturous day of skinned knuckles and ladder work. However, right after we got the assembly back to where it was when it left the factory, we started visiting kids, shopping, going to the doctors and otherwise procrastinating on the final portion of the work – caulking. I am a true spastic with a tube of caulk and have been known to apply some of the ugliest beads of caulk extant.

The front right roof/wall/end cap corner of our beloved home had a hole that Peggy had noted not long after we noted some buckling of the cheesy panel that surrounds the kingpin and drop box assembly some six feet lower than the hole. The damage resembled a white hematoma growing from the panel which eventually cracked and let out the collected water. Peggy scampered up the ladder this afternoon and squeezed out some nice Sika sealant/caulk to plug the offender. We were headed for the back left wall intersection where there was extensive caulk repair needed and, since I was going to be working low on the exterior, I insisted I needed a chair to steady my horrible aim with the caulking gun. That was a fateful decision because when I tried to set up the folding chair at the work location, I stupidly allowed my right ring finger to wander where it shouldn’t and managed to slice a big chunk of flesh off the end of my digit. It bled copiously so I was not interested in really looking at it. The hydrogen peroxide came out and initial attempts to use Band-Aids were unsuccessful. There was still a flow of blood coming out faster than the bandages would stop so we took a break to make a more effective dam. After ruining a few fabrics and several bandage configurations, it quit dripping onto the floor, my socks and my shorts. There is now a big white cylinder of gauze and white tape on the end of my digit.

We finished up all the caulking, or attempted caulking, and called for cocktails.

Today we were going to do some work on the outside of the trailer but the weather did not cooperate so we malingered.

There are lots of birds that can be heard in the trees here. We set up the feeder and filled it with yummy seed (to birds). Not too many showed up this afternoon. I think they are hiding from the rain.

Due to our recent discovery that one of the campgrounds we had on our list of confirmed reservations is a cull, we recently reconfigured our schedule to stay on the coast of the Pacific Northwest. We were reluctant to leave the fabulous, cool weather here and proceed into more arid and infernal climes merely because one of our campsites albeit 21 days’ worth, turned ugly.

One of the idiosyncrasies of our rejiggered schedule is that we left La Conner Marina RV and went to Mount Vernon TT in Bow, WA, a week ago. Today we returned to the town of La Conner but this time we checked into the La Conner Thousand Trails campground, not one of my favorites. It is a big place with hundreds of RV spaces and there is ample brush and trees such that we really are isolated from our adjacent neighbors and it is mostly quiet. There is no WiFi, no normal TV reception, no satellite TV reception and no sewer hookups. The roads are very narrow with large, staggered second-growth trees making passage through the park with our trailer serpentine in order to avoid roof and wall collisions with the big, recently-skinned firs, cedars and spruces.

However, it is free for us, they have satisfactory restrooms and the park is bordering Haro Strait and the Salish Sea. The Salish Sea is called by everyone I know the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Without Google Maps it is Juan de Fuca. There is good food and shopping close by and the scenery is fabulous. It is about as far as we could be on the west end of the Skagit Valley. To go any further west, we have to drive onto Fidalgo Island where we can find the city of Anacortes and ferries to the San Juan Islands and Victoria, BC, Canada.

Strangely, we pulled into exactly the same RV space we had when we were here a couple years ago. We don’t know how that happened but are mostly satisfied. Visits in previous years were short so we didn’t need a sewer hookup, instead using the dump station at the park exit. This year we want to stay a week so I queried the staff about a honey wagon service. The park rep at the gate indicated that the honey wagon is only available on Tuesdays, which will do us no good because our tanks, which are perfectly adequate for four or five days, will fill up on Thursday or 5 days from now. I am quite reluctant to load all our outside seating and barbecue, disconnect from water and power, stow said equipment, hook the trailer to the truck, pull the trailer to the dump station and empty the tanks, pull the trailer back through the serpentine roads, squeeze the trailer back between the myriad trees into our RV spot, get out our utility hoses and cords and re-connect the trailer to the shore facilities only to pull out a couple days later to repeat the procedure upon our departure. We’ll figure out something. We can’t allow these park goons to dictate our schedule so we will try something creative. Just to spite them, I’m going to poop in their restrooms.

Our efforts during the daytime were pretty non-existent but during the evening we went to the Truck & Tractor Pulls at nearby Skagit Speedway. We arrived 40 minutes prior to the scheduled kickoff and lines were very long at the admission gate. That might have been because they let people pay with credit cards or cash in all the booths and their communication speed of their credit card readers is almost glacial.

We eventually got past the gate. We have been to this racetrack before and we know their seating is terrible. The seating planks are only about six inches wide and, probably due to rough weather and negligence, are laced with buttock-piercing slivers and have all the flexibility of cast iron. We brought in Peggy’s nifty grandstand chair and some ass pads for me, fully acknowledging the torturous seating available. The chair works very well but their isn’t enough padding transportable for my rather wide bottom. About an hour into the show I noted that a thought kept coming to me – MY BUTT HURTS!

The tractor pulls started out with little bitty lawnmowers and hobby farm tractors dragging mini-sleds and was quite boring. The announcer was incapable of telling us who was driving the tiny things but we did note that all of the lawnmowers were owned by the same person and driven by his offspring.

Then the stock, or mostly stock, trucks started pulling a much larger sled which moves greater amounts of load onto the sled as the truck goes further. There was much black smoke and whirling of turbochargers except in one case where there was black, then white, smoke because a part went out the side of the engine block right about time the load got serious. None of the diesel trucks could muster a “full pull” which is 300 feet.

Then some tractors with enormous engines hooked onto the sled and started the sled really moving. The tractors were quite a bit more powerful and substantially quicker than those utilized for, say, mowing corn or baling hay. Full pulls became regular after this point. Several of the bastardized rigs had in excess of 1,000 horsepower and two rigs were really fancy, one with three big alcohol engines and another with four. They produced prodigious amounts of both noise and smoke. It was a good, noisy meeting of the Church of Internal Combustion. Washington is not quite as big of a nanny state as California so folks can both smoke carcinos and buy beer right in the stands. It ended up being a big, fun, noisy time for all and much fuel was consumed yet no crops harvested.

Eagle-eyed Peggy noted an advertisement for a quilt show last week and the ad indicated the show started today. I was hoping she would forget about this event because I’m not real skookum on quilts and other sewing-type arts but she actually had secured a shiny postcard-sized ad that she stuck into our bathroom sink mirror trim, eliminating any chance of forgetfulness.

Today I drove her down to Cascade Middle School in nearby Sedro Woolley so she could go in and check out the results of other folks’ sewing and stitching. Since I am completely uninterested in such things, I found a shady spot in the school parking lot and read the news for the day.

In a surprisingly short amount of time, Peggy came back out of the show but not without some crafty merchandise purchased indoors. It looks like Peg is starting her Xmas shopping early.

Cultural activities completed, we then wandered over to Skagit Valley Burger, also in Sedro Woolley, where we acquired a couple more of their world-class hamburgers and tasty fries. As far as I’m concerned, this stop made the whole excursion worthwhile because it may be that Skagit Valley Burger makes some of the best burgers available anywhere.

Although Sedro Woolley is only about 25 minutes from our current campground in Bow, the trip there and back was wonderful. The rural drives in this part of the world offer superb scenery, making the drives the best part of any trip.

We spent the rest of the day in our campsite, checking out the birds.

Bird and quilt shots can be seen by clicking the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/UKTVhXR853WSnX5N7

Our first duty for today was to get our waste tanks emptied by the honey wagon. The park failed to mention that this work is performed by an independent contractor but they did tell us we were number five on the list of clients for the day which we speculated would put the wagon at our trailer around 10:30 AM. The failure to mention that, as an independent contractor, his day could commence at any hour and today that hour was 12:15 PM. By 2:00 PM, we were freed up for some optional activities.

So, we took a cruise northeast of our campground so we could check out the scenery. We started by passing the Skagit Casino, a big Native American operation on Bow Hill Road. The joint looks a lot like a gigantic wood castle. They sell discount tobacco and we have already stopped in there once because a roll of five tins of Copenhagen costs $23 at the shop there and about $42 anywhere beyond 500 feet down the road. I thoroughly enjoyed not paying those pesky tobacco sin taxes so liberally applied to purchases elsewhere in Washington.

We wandered east for about 15 miles through beautiful forest and pasture lands until we emerged at WA-9 northbound. From there we passed through the tiny towns of Prairie, Wickersham and Saxon, a little city called Acme, Comar and finally Van Zandt where we took a loop to the east on WA-547. We somehow ended up on a twisty lane called Mosquito Lake Road which was, strangely, free of mosquitoes. We looped back to Bow after admiring the marvelous scenery in this country.

There are loads of really unique houses, bizarre Americana items and magnificent views in this part of the state. This locale is sidled up to the SW flank of Mount Baker, a giant volcano that today cleverly remained hidden from our sight by low clouds. Maybe next time.

See photos. Click the link. https://photos.app.goo.gl/6Ygjybtxt8gr8K1b6