A Trip to Aberdeen

We have been totally out of coffee cups for our Keurig coffeemaker for the last few days. Forry finally found a couple of cups in his stash this morning, but that's all the caffeine we had. Late this afternoon, we finally got ambitious enough to unload the sewing machine from the passenger seat of Toad II and head for the Safeway store in Aberdeen, about twenty miles from here. After getting the coffee, some orange juice and a few other things (we were careful as there is very little room left in Toad II.)

It was late enough in the day that we started looking for a place to eat. Since we were in Aberdeen which is on Grays Harbor, I wanted seafood. We looked on one of the iPhone apps and found a place on the waterfront, the Breakwater Seafood and Chowder House. It would have been nice to have been here earlier in the day as the have a very nice outdoor porch that looks out on one of the drawbridges.

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Half of the place is a fresh fish market while the other half is a little restaurant. You order at the counter and the lady delivers food to your table. Forry ordered calimari sticks and chips --

While I ordered a Crab Louie that was absolutely delicious. I haven't had really good fresh Dungeness crab in a l-o-n-g time.

This was a nice find. I would definitely return here to eat anytime. Not fancy by any means, but really good food!

A Damp Chilly Saturday

It rained hard last night; it drizzled off and on all day today; and now it's raining hard again. It's almost like being over on the coast with that damp cold that feels colder than snow.

We weren't very ambitious this morning, but finally got our act together this afternoon and went into town to run errands. We dropped off our accumulation of cardboard and aluminum at Spokane's  Waste to Energy plant. We've found recycling to be one of the hardest things to do as a full-timer. Not too many parks we've stayed at have had recycling bins -- even ones for aluminum cans. So because we can't quite bring ourselves to throw everything away, we find ourselves trying to make space in our tight quarters for bags of cans and stacks of cardboard...

From there we went in to Group Health's Pharmacy to pick up a couple of Forry's prescriptions. I also wanted to pick up a pill splitter as my doctor has asked me to increase one of my blood pressure meds to a pill and one-half. Usually Group Health is bustling, but since it was a Saturday afternoon, only the Urgent Care portion was open. The pharmacy only had a couple of people waiting, so that errand went pretty fast.

Next stop was Bed, Bath and Beyond. Forry has been very happy with the pillow he got there a month or so ago, so I decided I would get one too. Of course, we couldn't get out of that store without picking up a couple of other things and some Starbucks coffee for the Keurig as well.

From there we went out to the Lazy Boy Store to look at their recliners. Forry's chair that came with Auntie Violet is starting to break down, showing its age, and we've been thinking about replacing it. I thought it might be a good time to look while Toad II is relatively empty and could be used to haul a new chair. The only chair that fit Forry (and would fit through the door of the motor home) was only available in dark brown or an ugly sort-of-tan. I had been thinking of maybe adding some color to the coach -- maybe a blue or red chair (all of the furniture in the coach is an off-white). I guess we'll keep looking...

Our last stop on the way home was at the Safeway Store in Cheney. We had to hustle to get the groceries and get home in time to watch the bull fighting.

Errands

Today was a day for running errands. We had quite a few of them.

Two weeks ago we had taken my Chinese rug into Kirishian's in Spokane to have it washed. It usually takes about a week for them to wash it and then get it dry again. The day before we were supposed to pick it up last week, they called and said that they were going to wash it a second time -- it was that dirty! I tried to get it cleaned before we left last year, but they had been so busy at Kirishian's I couldn't get an appointment. The rug covers the main area of Auntie Violet's living area, so it does get ALL the traffic in and out.

From Kirishian's we went to the pharmacy at Group Health to pick up the prescriptions I had ordered on-line a couple of days ago. While we were there, I took my wrist blood pressure machine upstairs to our doctor's office to compare the readings I was getting with it to the ones the Medical Assistant was getting.

Next it was Bed, Bath and Beyond out on North Division. I wanted to get a new throw rug to put down in front of the refrigerator. The ceramic tile floors are deadly to anything dropped out of the refrigerator. I also like having a rug there to catch the drips from getting ice.

BB&B is a fun place to just browse. Besides bedding and linens and kitchenware, they have a lot of "as seen on TV" stuff. They also carry larger boxes with more varieties of coffees that fit our Keurig coffee machine then you find in the grocery stores. Forry found the water filters for the Keurig he had been looking for as while as a new pillow.

Next stop was over to Spokane Wireless on N Foothills drive. Our Communications Guru Scott Ross  has put together all of the wi-fi router, boosters and antennas for Auntie Violet over the years. The antenna and pole we had up at the ranch had blown down and broken while we were gone (which is why I had no internet service there!). We bought a new antenna -- a new improved, and hopefully sturdier model (Wilson Electronics, Inc Multi-Band Omni-Directional Antenna). Forry also got a bluetooth headphone for using his iPhone that should work well with his hearing aides. Besides which, I got a couple of very nice big hugs from Scott!

Our last stop was at Yoke's Fresh Foods to pick up a few groceries. By the time we got back to Ponderosa Falls we were both tired. I was glad I had picked up a baked chicken for supper while we were at Yokes!

A Trip to the Beach

I was up early this morning and spent a couple of hours sitting outside, enjoying my coffee and people watching. It is so nice to have a working Keurig coffee maker again. The neighbors with the noisy dog pack must have taken the warnings from staff yesterday to heart, as the dogs only barked once when they were being leashed up to go to the dog walk area.

After Forry got up and had breakfast, I made some tuna sandwiches and packed a bag with some sodas, gathered up the camera, our binos, the bird books and the Judy quilt and we went to the beach.

The KOA campground is about six blocks (and two major streets) away from the beach. They have a "beach shuttle," a large golf cart-type vehicle, that you can get down at the office for a ride to the beach. They drop you off about a block away and you walk the rest of the distance (I think the walk to the shore may be owned by the hotels on either side, so they don't drive on it...)

Being that it was mid-week and a bit chilly, there weren't a whole lot of people on the beach. And the only bird we saw along the shore was a pigeon -- plus a few pelicans flying off-shore.

After we watched the waves for a while, I took a walk along the water down the beach towards the amusement park. As I was walking back, it clouded up and started to sprinkle. By the time I got back to where Forry was, it was beginning to rain. He had already gathered up all of our stuff. I called the office as we had been instructed to let them know we were ready for the shuttle back to the campground. The lady informed me that they "did NOT run the shuttle in the rain!" She suggested that we find shelter and call when the rain let up...


We decided that we would just go ahead and walk back. We were at the gates of the campground, quite drenched, when one of the workers came by in his cart and offered us a ride the last little bit to the car. It's probably a good thing we didn't try to wait it out. The rain turned into quite a thunderstorm! Then after the major storm passed, it just kept showering -- and it still is five hours later!