On the road again
Well, it's been a few crazy and lazy weeks since we got back and now we're headed out to the coast to a couple of our favorite places in Washington and Northern California. In place of some photos from this trip. I'll add a couple from a day trip to Mt Rainier.
First stop is the Tokeland Resort Hotel just outside of Tokeland, Wa. It's about 130 yrs old, originally built in the 1880's on Willapa Bay. A couple decades ago it was restored and reopened by a couple from Seattle. We came on it on one trip to the coast and have been back many times. Willipa Bay is one of, if not the cleanest, estuary in the country. You can walk out on to the mud flats near the mouth of the Willapa and see dozens of bird species. It's one of the furthest north places that brown pelicans frequent. One day we saw 3 flocks of over 30 pelicans. It's really neat to watch them fall into the water to catch fish. We've sat there for hours watching birds.
A little further north on the coast highway you can access the beach at the far southern end of the driveable beach, just north of Wash-away Beach. You can walk without fear of being run over by wayward drivers.
After Tokeland we're heading down 101, stopping at the lighthouses we haven't seen yet and eventually ending up at Howard Creek Ranch for a couple nights. This is a great place to stay. The owners are great people and the rooms are comfortable and eclectic. They serve a wonderful ranch/farmhand breakfast that you have to eat to believe. There's no lunch or dinner service so you have to go to Westport, where the local restaurant has re-opened, or down to Fort Bragg, where there are a couple good places to eat. I'll fill you in on them later.
Howard Creek Ranch is similar to the Winchester House in that it's built without nails. There are two apartments in the main house and several more across the creek in the old carriage house. You get between the two via a suspension foot bridge. They also have access to the beach at Westport-Union Landing State Beach across CA Rt 1. You walk alongside the creek and under the highway bridge to the beach.
Getting there is half the fun. From the north, after driving through the redwoods on US 101 you turn off at Leggett. You are first greeted with a road sign showing an "S" curve, 25 MPH, ahead. As soon as you get through that curve there's a second "S" curve sign with the notice, "Next 28 miles" and it ain't lying. What a drive! Our first time down both Cathy and I almost got car sick. She's had that problem before, but I never had until that time. Our second time down I had no problems. It's one curve after another with little to no straight-away's until you get to the coast. The only way to get back to 101 is down through Fort Bragg and then east but since there's been fires between Fort Bragg and 101 we'll be headed back north along the coast, stopping at different towns than we hit on the way down.
WARNING! POLITICAL STATEMENT.
The crazy weeks are due to the insanity of the presidential campaigns. I can't believe what's happening. Clinton's pilloried for the email server stuff that prior secretary's of state, Powell and Rice, did. Seems that since they worked for George the 2nd that's OK, but not because she worked for Obama. Is it simply a Republican thang? Must be. How about that ingrate liar, Trump, turning over his tax returns. Being under audit is no excuse, in fact it may be an even stronger reason to want to see them. My bet is that he doesn't want his disciples to realize that any one of them has paid more in taxes over the past 10 years than he has. He needs to release them now, in time for reviews, not a week before the election only to say "See, I've done it. Are you happy now?"
I'm frosted over the Trumpites immigration stands. My grandfather came to this country about 110 years ago. Being Sicilian he was shunted into working on the railroad track gangs . He left Chicago after my father was born to get away from the Black Hand, the original form of the Sicilian mobs that eventually became the US Mafia. He moved his family to Danville, IL and then to Peoria. When researching documents for Italian citizenship I found that when he became a US citizen in 1919 it was his second attempt. He originally applied in Danville but his application was "lost". I don't believe it was lost. That part of the country has a real history of KKK activity and I expect that since he was a despised "Southern Italian" his application was shit-canned by the local crackers. At that time anyone from southern Italy was considered a different "race". Even in Italy, Sicilians are referred to as "Africans", due to the 200+ years of Arab rule on the island.
My father originally worked for the railroad also but in the mid-1930's got a job as a letter carrier in Peoria. Now, Peoria is a WASP town. The Catholics were all Irish and German and they also discriminated against us folks w/ vowels at the end of our names. My dad didn't get a job at the Caterpillar plant in East Peoria, a full racist town even when I was in high school in the 60's, not as bad as Pekin, IL but close. I figure now he couldn't get one of the good jobs at CAT due to his Sicilian heritage as well as looking for stable employment with the government. It was stable work but paid poorly. When I left that town in 1975 I was making more money as an engineering technical aide with the City than he was after nearly 40 years carrying the mail. Now we have a major political party, the party of Lincoln, reverting to Know Nothings, over immigration and anyone who doesn't meet their idea of "american". That rumbling sound coming from just north of Springfield, IL city center is Lincoln rolling over in his grave.
Being "white" I've not experienced the degree of discrimination that Latinos and African descendents have, but being Catholic and Italian was only a step above them in Peoria. I found then that the best way to deal with the Irish bullies was to catch them alone, beat them mercilessly and make them understand that it can happen again. I understand what drove the Black Panthers in their social actions decades ago. Actually, I feel that we need them again. 30 years ago I had to go play soldier for reserve duty at Fort Dix. One of my fellow soldiers went to see some friends in New York City in a neighborhood where black Viet vets had taken over the streets and moved out the pimps, hookers and drug dealers. Much the same thing that the Panthers did, only without the publicity. The fact that the federal government, J. Edgar Hoover in particular, took physical, violent action against the Panthers, even to the point of encouraging the Chicago Police to kill the local leaders in their beds, is one reason why the Panthers had to disband. If the guys in NY wanted to clean up their neighborhoods, doing it on the QT was the only way to go. I won't blame them. Now we've got the KKK openly supporting the Republican nominee, what a farce that people refuse to believe it.