Iceland Part 1

Sunday, Oct. 15, 2017: Our trip to Iceland actually began with a day in Boston. Marv and I stayed the night near DTW so we could fly out at 7:30AM, rented a car at the Boston airport, and picked-up Kris and Heidi at the motel where they stayed at the end of their one week driving tour through Canada to Boston. We had “done” Boston and the Freedom Trail on our way back from The Azores in 2012 so all agreed it would be nice to see Lexington and Concord this time. We spent the day at Minuteman National Historical Park with a nice lunch at an outdoor café in Lexington before Marv and I returned the car to the rental place while Kris and Heidi parked their car in airport parking and we all met at the Icelandic Airlines gate to take the all night flight to Reykjavik.

The Visitors Center near Lexington at the beginning of the lineal park.
Here we saw "The Road To Revolution," a multimedia theater program that provides an excellent introduction to the park story. The program depicts Paul Revere's Ride and the battles at Lexington Green, North Bridge and along the Battle Road. The visitor center exhibits include a forty-foot mural that portrays the fighting between Colonists and British Regulars.

The master of the house greeted Kris and me and showed us around.

Whittemore House master greets a visiting neighbor.

Firearms demonstration

Walking the Battle Road Trail was my first chance to see how the crutches and I
were going to get along on this very active trip that would require lots of hiking. 

The Minuteman Statue stands near The North Bridge, down
a long hill below the North Bridge Visitors Center.

The Concord River and the North Bridge have been restored to
their 17th century bucolic settings.

The North Bridge site of "The shot heard 'round the world".

An informative Minuteman talked to us on the Concord Green
where a lot of action took place. 

State of Washington 5

Tuesday, August 29—We all got up in a leisurely manner and slowly gathered again on the back deck for breakfast, coffee and conversation. Don died about two month later so this was precious, precious time to be with him for the last time. The Oiens drove back up the peninsula to meet us at the Blue Goose Café along the airstrip at the Port Townsend Airport where we once again ate outdoors on the deck, watching many single engine planes take-off and land. We bid John and the Colemans good-bye and drove towards Tacoma, with a stop at the lovely Elandan Bonsai Gardens, with the world-class bonsai collection and studio of Dan Robinson. We wandered, sometimes singularly and sometimes as a group, among the ponds, waterfalls, sculptures, and lush gardens on the shores of Puget Sound. As we were perusing the Asian themed Gift Shop Dan himself showed up. He took us back out into the garden to talk about his craft and artistry and even did some trimming of a specimen to illustrate his talk. Since Dan has literally written the book on Bonsai-Gnarly Branches, Ancient Trees: The Life and Works of Dan Robinson—it was like a college level workshop introducing us to Bonsai. It made for a memorable respite on our drive to Tacoma. 

I didn't get a very good picture of these fine friends. 😒
I think they had all taken a bite of their lunch at the same time.
From the left, that is Marv, Don, Ann Marie, John, Lou, and Janice.

Some of the specimens of bonsai were as old as 1000 years old!

Adding the nooks and crannies to the bonsai is how Dan elevates the skill from craft to art.

This shows how tiny Bonsai are sometimes grouped together. 

The oldest specimen in the Garden was over 2000 years old!

Many of the trees had a plaque like this, giving its age, what kind of tree, and where it was gathered.

A close-up of one of the tiny trees.

Dan Robinson highlights the fine points of his art.

We stopped briefly to walk along the Bremerton Boardwalk overlooking the Naval shipyard

Wednesday, August. 30—We had to cram a lot into our final full day in Washington; who knew when we’d be back or when we’d see these dear friends again? We finished our tour of their yard, trying to guess what some of the plants were and envisioning some of the changes they want to make. We also went back down to Stadium High School to tour it on the last day before students returned and it would no longer be accessible. We had a great time wandering the five stories and fancy stairwells and large dining area. It’s a magnificent structure, totally redone and updated in 2014, but retaining the grandeur it was meant to have as a turn-of-the-century hotel. We had had a wonderful visit in Tacoma and could return to East Lansing with good feelings about the area that Janice and Lou have chosen to call home. As for us, we had a fall full of MSU Football games to look forward to, along with a trip to Iceland in October. 

Lou flexes his muscles in the kitchen to the amusement of Peggy & Janice

Janice and Lou in the kitchen. They had hardwood floors put throughout the house.

This is the Guest Room where we stayed. We literally "made" our bed
because they had just gotten a frame for the mattress which had sat
upon a blow-up mattress on the floor. 

The dining table was replaced at Christmas time with the beautiful
redwood slab table for which we had seen the workshop.

Backyard with patio. They can park their View RV in the long drive beside the house.

Back yard with house

Front patio

Stadium High School sits above the older stadium in Old Woman Gulch

Note the elegant stained glass transoms above the stairwell doors!

Looking up an empty stairwell

A third floor open theater area in the old ballroom for the hotel

The Creative Writing teacher was in his room and spent a lot of time
talking to us about the school and what it took to renovate it.  He also was
teaching here when a sizable earthquake hit and told us about
what it took to evacuate the 5 floor building with only four stairwells.

This is the view of Mount Rainier from the Creative Writing classroom.
I wondered how hard it was to keep the students' attention on a clear day.

Lou, Peggy & Janice descending the stairs.

State of Washington 4

Monday, August 28—John needed to drive to SeaTac airport to pick-up Don and Ann-Marie Coleman, whom we knew from their time with Campus Ministries at the U of M, and now lived near John in Claremont, CA. Don was in the last stages of terminal stomach cancer and John was unsure if they would make the trip right up until he went to get them. We assured John we would be fine on our own, exploring Fort Townsend State Park, which borders the neighborhood in which we were staying. We packed a lunch to carry and readied ourselves to head-out although my left leg was really hurting a lot and I wondered if I could actually do another day of hiking. I walked around the house to loosen up and went downstairs and felt like I’d be okay. I turned to go back upstairs to tell Marv, stepped on the first stair, something went “pop” in my left knee, and with a yelp of pain I went down in a heap. Now I had a real dilemma. But I couldn’t imagine what we would do in a strange house all day with no car. I found a leg wrap and took some Tylenol and, after resting the leg a bit, I resolved to go ahead and hike. At the top of the hill I found a sturdy branch I could use for a walking stick and we went down, down, down a lovely, loamy trail through soaring Douglas firs, Western hemlock, cedar trees and a rich understory of ferns. Built in 1856, Fort Townsend operated as a US Army site on and off until a fire destroyed its barracks in 1895. Little remains except a couple of little garages used by park rangers who were nowhere in sight, and the small campground had very few sites taken so we had the area virtually to ourselves. We followed a “Trail” through the parade lawn lined with a few old, faded interpretive plaques and back into the woods down to the high bluff which afforded us views of Port Townsend Bay. We ate our lunch high above and overlooking the water and opted not to try to find our way down to the beach, because going down hurt much more than going up. When we had had our fill of the quiet scenery we walked through another, more wooded loop of the campground and headed back up the hill to the house. All told, we hiked 5.5 miles. (I saw an orthopedic surgeon back at home and I found out I had a torn meniscus and a stress fracture in the left leg. I told you my leg hurt!) When John returned with the Colemans we all relaxed on the back, second-story deck over some wine and cheese as the sun set. After dark, Ann-Marie was so exhausted she opted to go to bed and Don, John, Marv and I went into town to find someplace still open for a very late dinner. 

Marv is getting pretty good at selfies! This was supposed to show the
steep, steep hill we were descending but you just can't get the perspective.

Again, you can't see the hill but you can see the rich understory.

Looking towards Port Townsend across the bay.

The old parade grounds. The Officers' Quarters used line the other side.

We saw evocative shapes in the growth here like what we saw a few
years ago when we hiked on the west side of  the Olympic Peninsula.
It's easy to see how Sasquatch became legendary here. 

Washington State 3

Saturday, August 26—We got up and had a hardy breakfast before our “Hosts with the Most” drove us all the way to Port Townsend to meet John Rogers, who was house sitting in two different places for a few months. He and Barbara lived here for a few years after retirement and it remains one of his favorite places in the world. The five of us walked around the historic downtown, and in and out of quaint shops where John was sometimes recognized by name, before having lunch at the Belmont, which has been in the same spot since 1885, and again John was greeted like an old friend. We ate lunch in the hot sun on the deck overlooking the water before Oiens headed back to Tacoma. John drove us around to show more of the town and, after agreeing that we’d do the cooking while we visited, we got groceries and headed to the large home in a heavily wooded neighborhood that John was inhabiting. Amazingly and sadly, it looks like we neglected to get any pictures of the house, but it was lovely and secluded, with the main living space upstairs, and a bedroom (where we slept) and large great room downstairs, at ground level.

The architecture of this port town has been strongly influenced by the
ships which have been coming here for hundreds of years. This is
the restored Hastings Building.

The rowing club and workshop had many beautiful skiffs,
many of which were wooden and handmade.  

The History of The Belmont, where we ate lunch.

The view as we drove around the upper part of Port Townsend

Sunday, August 27—Today was devoted to driving to Olympic National Park and its environs. Because John is so familiar with the area we took a circuitous, scenic route ending up at Hurricane Ridge, with its dissipating glaciers and magnificent vistas.

During a stop at the East Gate Visitors Center, we realized that this was the last day for
people to buy a $10 Lifetime Senior Pass before it went up to $80.  Although Marv has two
of them, I couldn't resist the chance to support the parks at a bargain price, so I bought one too. 

The Visitors Center is near the bottom of the steep drive up to Hurricane Ridge,
but it still has a really nice view across the water to Victoria on Vancouver Island, Canada.

John drives the roller coaster road up to the Ridge with Peggy beside him. 

Bailey Range beyond the Hurricane Ridge Visitors Center

Bailey Range and Mount Olympus
Sadly, the glaciers are shrinking here, just like everywhere else in North America.
We heard the same fears from Park Rangers that we had heard in Glacier National Park,
of the very real possibility that there will soon be no glaciers to visit and study. 

John and Marv

After a long visit and a quick lunch at the Visitors Center, Marv and I took the
short hike towards the ski hill area of the park while John took a nap in the car.
You can clearly see the still barren hillside from a forest fire a few years ago.

Mountain Meadow flowers in bloom with the forest beyond.

Part of the walk was through forest area

Mountainside Selfie

We drove back to Port Angeles and to the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge on the Dungeness Spit (yes, like the famous crabs). We all walked the trail out to the lookout above the spit, then Marv and I went down, down, down the steep hill to the water’s edge before going back up to return with John to the car and then back to Port Townsend.

Peggy & John hiking to the Lookout Point

Another great view of Mount Baker

The long, long spit curls out over 5 miles and is constantly changing with the waves and the tides.

The Lighthouse out on the point can be visited but we didn't have time
to make the 5.5 mile sandy hike by the time we got to the Refuge.

The waves would start way down the shoreline and roll up to us and beyond
in a never ending low roar. It was mesmerizing!