Snow?!!

Our trip this weekend was cancelled due to the campground still being snowed in...

Gray Land Indeed

That's a tent under the tarp.

Late March in Washington, as a general rule is not known for beautiful weather.  The general rule held true for our latest RV trip.  We spent the weekend at Grayland State Park with many guests.  I took Monday off to extend the trip a bit.  I knew what the weather was supposed to be like, and really was not looking forward to it.  I made sure everyone brought their boots, and confirmed the tarps were stored.  We arrived towing the Saturn to find that most of the campsite was submerged.  That included the fire pit and picnic table.  It was so bad that it was pretty obvious that Micaela and her friend Tasia were going to have to set up the tent on the paved section of the site.

I was able to cover the tent with a tarp, secured on one side with stakes into the ground.  On the other side, it was secured with lines into the trees.  It looked good.  Unfortunately, at O'dark thirty the winds and rain came.  The tarp was not nearly secure as we thought it was.  Somehow, the tarp slid off the stakes (which I later found were still secure in the ground), and flipped over the top of the tent.  I was awake in the RV, listening to the torrential rain and wind outside.  I figured that if there was a problem outside, the girls would be smart enough to abandon ship and come inside.  They didn't come inside, so I figured all was well.  Apparently they are just really slow...  They were wet.  Micaela's boyfriend Travis was smart enough to sleep inside.  Well, ok, he knew he was likely to not survive the night if he tried to sleep in the tent with the girls.  But I probably shouldn't speak about that...  One night was enough for them, and they all drove the Saturn home on Saturday evening.

Our friends Joey and Carrie, their daughter Victoria, and son Michael also shared the weekend with us.  Carrie and kids came out with us, and Joey arrived Saturday night after work.  Joey cooked Sunday and Monday morning, giving me a nice break from that chore.





We did manage to get out a few times to the beach, in between downpours of near Biblical proportions.   Nothing much to see there.  It just worked out that this weekend, there was no razor clam digging.  The weekend before, and next weekend we could have tried our hands at chasing those mollusks.  Maybe next year.

  We left around noon on Monday, a bit earlier than planned due to an incoming storm packing 70mph gusts.  No thanks, we'd had enough!

Buck, or no Buck?

Ready to ride!

Our usual end of season trip in mid-October once again found us parked on Gene and Janet's RV pad at Deep Lake, in Stevens County.  Mikee and I drove over together, yet apart.  I drove the RV, and she drove the Durango, pulling the trailer with the quad and supplies.  She did a great job.  The trip was pretty much uneventful, except for a surprise call from my Doctor about two hours before we lost cellphone coverage...  Damnit...  Anyways, Mikee got to see Gene and Janet for the first time in several years.  They have been wintering in Utah, but were staying late this year rebuilding their home after last years fire.  Janae also got to meet them this year.

Good thing we brought food...

We had such good fishing last year that we had to hit the lake again.  And got skunked.  We fished several times over the 8 days all of us were there, and only had two fish on the line.  Both were lost before we could bring them in.  Too bad.

My plan for the year was too help Mikee get her deer, and then go looking for a mule deer for myself.  If I had no luck, there was always late Whitetail with the guys.  Mikee's challenge level was raised this year, as she is now 16 years old (almost 17 as of this posting!).  This means she can no longer shoot a doe, it has to be a buck.

The saddle.

It was pretty typical weather for the time of year.  Crisp and clear mornings, and mild afternoons.  Our first day hunting brought me one of the funniest close encounters I've had in my years of hunting.  About midday, we were riding the quad up the road behind Gene and Janet's, stopping and walking into meadows and cuts to glass.  We arrived at a saddle and pulled off onto the landing, stripping off our riding gear, and getting our hunting gear.  We began walking to the edge of the landing.  Just as we got to the edge, I caught movement to my right in my peripheral vision.  I turned my head and there was a whitetail buck, walking almost parallel to us.  The buck was no more than 50 feet from us, maybe 75 feet from where we parked the quad.  He had a nice set of antlers on him to boot.  I turned toward Mikee, who seemed as unaware as the buck, and hissed,  "Shoot it!"  I pointed with my barely raised left hand towards the buck.  Mikee looked at me, confusion on her face.  I again hissed, "Shoot it!"  With no response from Mikee.  At about this time I turned, to see the buck looking at me, with it's eyes popping out of it's head.  After a couple of seconds, the buck sprang into action, bounding away in front of me.  I had concluded that Mikee was not going to shoot this deer, as I rapidly brought my rifle to bear.  Alas, to no avail as the buck dropped over the far edge of the saddle before I could fire.  We ran over to edge, but the buck had vanished.  Mikee picked this time to tell me that she thought she needed new lenses in her glasses...   She told me that she couldn't see the buck from where she was about 20 feet from me.  So we walked up the side of the bench and found a place to glass from.  We spent about two hours sitting there and saw a doe and fawn crossing the saddle on the other side of the bench, in the same direction as the buck.  I thought we had found a good spot to sit as this appeared to be a well used funnel.  We sat here several more times and never saw another deer.  Weird...  You don't see a lot of bucks in early season...

Mikee's hunting did however end successfully a couple of days later.  We set up Sunday evening in Helen & Merry's barn watching the upper field.  It was slow, but just as it was getting dark, we caught movement to our right.  I checked it through my binos.  It was getting hard to see, but I could tell the deer had antlers.  I had Mikee get set up on a steady rest and encouraged her to shoot it.  The blast and flame from her rifle were not enough to keep me from seeing the deer drop like a sack of potatoes (at a paced 100 yards).  We stayed put, keeping an eye on the spot the deer had gone down.  We couldn't actually see the deer, as the grass was not grazed this year.  I checked my phone and found it was just a couple of minutes before the proscribed end of shooting time.  I looked through my scope toward the deer, and it was literally now too dark to really discern anything.  After a few minutes, we got down out of the Barn.  On a side note, Merry had built us a very nice ladder into the loft, after they tore down the rickety stairs this year.  Thanks Merry.  We began walking towards where we believed the deer was down, now using lights.  We spread out from one another as we weren't following a blood-trail, just going on direction and distance. Within a few minutes,  I found Mikee's buck.  A very respectable, if smaller eight-point.

Eight points, counting eye-guards!

Gotta be honest here.  To date, this is the largest buck our family has taken.  I'm very proud of her.

At the Lind Ranch

 One day, Mikee and I rode the quad up to the Lind Ranch.  This is an old, abandoned homestead on the top of a mountain.  On the way, we saw a group of hunters hauling out a very nice mule deer buck.  We also saw about eight mule deer does.  But nothing for me to shoot.  We rode a lot, and eventually found our way to the ranch.  Mikee had a blast shooting photos in the wonderfully warming sunshine.  Later, that night, Janae and Colton arrived at our hunting camp.  Mikee left the next morning to return to school.

Janae never got a shot on a deer.  We saw does and fawns, but no bucks until our last evening.  To be frank, it was probably for the best, as we were really out of freezer space after our earlier bottomfishing expedition.  It was really hard to see in the overgrown fields.  However, on our last day, I set up my two gamecams.  That evening, as we sat in the loft, a deer entered the field from left to right.  It moved rapidly across the field as I noticed it had antlers, a small spike.  Janae moved to a rest as the deer stopped along the right edge next to the fence.  Janae no longer moves very quickly, and before she could set up and fire (what seemed an eternity to me), the deer jumped the fence and disappeared.  Janae told me that she had in fact pressed the trigger, but had left the safety on.

Vince butchering Janae's deer a month later!

During "Man Camp" in November, Vince put this poor dumb spike out of it's misery.

How do I know it was the same deer you might ask?  Well the spot where the deer had stopped was right in front of my gamecam.  Very unique looking spikes.
 

"No, first I will stand here and mock her..."

One lucky deer.  At this moment, Jane was looking through her scope at it.  Curved spike antlers...

I got a couple of shots of it while Janae was working on shooting it.  Same deer.

We did have a great time this trip.  Janae and Colton got to ride the quad if nothing else.

The trip home was uneventful this year.  We are all looking forward to the next season of Longtine RV Adventures!

Just another week at the beach...

Crabs boiling on the Coleman Stove

Nothing too exciting this trip.  Just some crabbing, antiquing, and hanging out doing little to nothing.  Pretty awesome!  We arrived at Grayland Beach State Park on August 1st, after getting a nice late start.  We were up and at em not too early the next morning with our focus being crab.  As we left our RV early that morning at about 10am, I noticed that our neighbors were already boiling some dungeness crab.  When I asked if they had already been to the boat basin, they stated that they had just picked these up out in the tide pools on the beach...  They had picked up about 20 or so since they had been here.  Hmmm...  Anyway, we went to the boat basin at Westport and tossed our crab ring and pot in the water after paying way too much for bait.  We managed to catch two keepers in four hours.  Not so great.  But, we did see a sealion, some seals, and a lot of pelicans.  I don't remember seeing any pelicans as a kid.  The population must really be expanding.  The highlight of the day, however, had nothing to do with wildlife.  We decided to move from one moorage slip to another.  Colton, being the excited kid he is ran over to grab our chairs.  He didn't realize the camera was in the cupholder of my chair.  Yes, I got the old everything goes to slow-motion as I watched the camera fall out, bounce once, and splash into the water...  So, all the photos in this post are from cellphone cameras.  Not the best, but certainly better than nothing...

Second day's catch

The next day, we went out in the morning at low tide searching the tidepools.  We found two more keepers and made them our special guests for brunch.  Next time, I'll bring a net to duct tape to a pole to get at some of the deeper ones we jut couldn't get to.  Well, anyways, I didn't want to get as wet as would have been required to get the.  Not much more to report, other than a little sun and relaxation.  Next trip won't be until the end of the month due to stuff going on at work.  That will be Ocean City State Park.  I hear it's right next to the casino.  Hmmmmm...

Grayland Beach State Park

Last night, we returned from our latest adventure to Grayland Beach State Park.  Conveniently located about 10 minutes south of Westport, Washington this park is on the Pacific Coast, with a short walk to the beach.  The weather, although somewhat lacking, was considerably better than on our last trip here in December. 

Probably should have put sunscreen on.

Anyway, the highlight of the trip was the, apparently now annual, deep sea fishing expedition.  Last year featured Dakota, Colton, and me going salmon fishing on a charter boat out of Westport.  Followed by me going bottom fishing a couple of days later on the same charter boat.  I had so much fun bottom fishing that I decided this year, I'd take the kids to do that instead of salmon.

 

 The ride out was a bit wet going over the bar.  The kids were not exactly happy when they found out that we would be going out about 2 1/2 hours to the fishing area.  But that didn't last long when it was found that we had to stop part way to catch live bait for the Ling Cod fishing.  We used squid chunks to catch flounder which were collected and placed in the live bait well.  Colton broke his salmon jinx from last year, catching 8 or 10.  Stocked up for Ling Cod, we continued the journey.  We eventually arrived and rigged up for Ling Cod.  There was quite a current over the rocks and the captain was trying to hold us over them.  With 19 anglers dropping tackle over two hundred feet to the bottom, tangles were horrendous.  I did get a bit frustrated, spending it seemed 90 percent of the first half hour or so tangled.  But my last tangle occurred as I hooked up with my first Ling of the day.  Once I got untangled, the fight was on.  It was apparent to me that it was a big guy (at least by what I've caught in the past).  He made me realize that 300 feet down is a long ways.  Finally got him to the boat.

My largest Ling so far...

Mikee caught two, and Dakota caught one as well.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of Dakota with his.

Mikee's Biggest Ling

 Once we had hammered the Lings, we took a short break while the deckhands rigged up our gear for rockfish.  The rockfish were actually kind of a letdown.  They came on board so quickly that it only took about 20 minutes for the boat to limit out with 200.  Rhett knows his stuff out here!  They were all yellow tail rockfish, with a couple of yellow eye rockfish thrown in.  Unfortunately, the yellow eyes are a protected species, and you can't keep them.  They are beautiful, as the photo below of Rhett trying to decompress one shows.  Unfortunately, they usually don't go back down, dying on the surface...

Yellow Eye Rockfish.  It did die despite Rhett's best efforts...

Yellowtails stacking up on the starboard deck!

Holy cow!  And on the port!

 The trip back to the dock was fairly uneventful.  Mikee helped me with seal-a-mealing most all of the fish, and then she and Dakota took the fish home in the Saturn the next morning.  Unfortunately, some water must have spilled out of the cooler, because now the car smells like fish!  And, the freezer is full!
The rest of the trip was mostly just hanging out, and hitting the beach for some sun.  Although, we did see mostly cloudy and rainy weather.  Oh well.  Next week we'll go back to Grayland Beach State Park.  This time, we'll have the Saturn with us the whole time.  So crabbing and touring Westport are on the agenda...

Alta Lake State Park

Our trip began on June 24th, with a trip up and over Chinook Pass.  The pass had just opened the day before after a record winter snowfall (over 700 inches at nearby Crystal Mountain Ski Resort).  Colton was pretty impressed with the walls of snow, and we had to stop for photos near the top of the pass.  The rest of the trip to Yakima was pretty much uneventful.  We arrived safely at Yakima Sportsman State Park for our stay.  There's not much to say about the park.  No, really, there's not much to say.  We had never stayed there before.  And we probably won't go back.  I mean it was ok if you just need a place to stay.  But there really wasn't much to do in the area.  Colton caught a few fish in the youth only pond, but it wasn't much fun for Mom and Dad.  We did find they have quite a few mosquitoes.  And my escape from my allergies didn't quite work out, as the Cottonwoods were in full release.  It looked like a heavy snow storm a couple of times.  Unfortunately, we stayed there many days.  Alta Lake State Park couldn't come soon enough...

The beach at Alta Lake State Park

And then we arrived at Alta Lake.  Nice and warm, with a breeze.  Colton and I enjoyed the beach and lake several times.  I will not scar you with photos of myself in a swimsuit!  While the park is very nice, I had an ulterior motive.  You see, many, many years ago, when I was a kid, the family camped here many times.  I recall it being Mom's favorite place to camp.  Well one trip, I took Jeff Forgey along.  He and I decided we were going to hike the trail up to the viewpoint.  Well after about only a quarter of a mile, I nearly stepped on a Rattlesnake.  Now, I never liked snakes, and that sealed the deal.  We never made it up the trail after that.  So, my plan was to finally hike up to the viewpoint.  The first spur I tried was fairly overgrown, which didn't ease my concern for snakes.  The second was better and soon I was moving upward on the trail.  I did eventually reach the viewpoint.  And it was indeed a good day.

This viewpoint photo, only 35 years in the making!

My next goal was to get Colton to the Grand Coulee Dam.  I have enjoyed the place many times, and thought he would as well.  We loaded up the car and went to Coulee City.  The dam was bleeding lots of water over the spillways and was quite spectacular.  We took photos from the usual viewpoints and then headed to the third powerhouse area for the tour.  I had somehow avoided this in my prior trips.  It was great.  We passed through security and loaded into little tour buses.  We got to go through the third powerhouse, right at the base of the dam, and then up and across the top.  No one had been allowed up there since 9-11-01.  This summer they opened it back up.  Wow...  It was amazing...

Lots of surplus water this year.

Inside the third powerhouse.

On top of the dam.  Lake Roosevelt to the right.

And over the spillway.

We wanted to see the Laser Show, but didn't want to stay longer that day, so we went back to the motorhome.  But, silly us, went back the next evening.  It's only about an hour and a half each way.  It was fun though.  I mean the show was no LaserFloyd, but it was neat seeing the show on the flowing spillway of the dam.  And on the way back to the park in the dark, lonely stretches of the highway, we pulled out Google Sky Map and showed Colton many constellations.  And the Milky Way!  The next day, we pulled up stakes and headed home.  Next up...  An old favorite, Silver Springs NFS campground!

Potlatch State Park

That's a limit.

Finally, got on the road.  We took a quick drive up the road to Potlatch State Park to try our hand at clamming.  I found that the descriptions on the State Park website, of the camping sites themselves was a bit scarier than the actual conditions.  I figured that just showing up, our site would stink, but it was very nice.  Not as private as some, but nicely tree shaded by big old maples.  We immediately hit the beach for clamming.  The tide was less than optimal, but Colton and I both managed to dig up limits of varnish clams.  I had never heard of them before either.  But we did discover the next day that they steamed up very nicely.  Tasted great.  We enjoyed Costco Lasagna for dinner and looked forward to a lower tide in the morning.  And we did actually crawl out of bed in time to hit the beach before the 8:05am low tide.  The tide was considerably lower than the afternoon the day before.  We used Jana's entrenching tool from the army, and a clam rake that she had picked up Friday morning at Sportco.  On my first attempted raking, one of the tines broke off.  And it didn't get much better from then on out for the rake.  It's all bent up.  Anyway, I went to the entrenching tool, which we found had a tendency to bust up clams.  But, I did limit on Butter clams, Native Littlenecks, and Manila Littlenecks.  That was some hard work, and took about an hour and a half.  I got a bit sweaty as I started with a sweatshirt on.  Colton went back and limited on mostly varnish clams again.  We had the first day's catch for a lunch/dinner.  I have to admit, I was less than enthusiastic about getting up Sunday morning to go out and clam again.  Saturday morning had worn me out.  But we once again managed to get down to the beach for the best tide so far.  After about three or four minutes digging into my first hole with the shovel, I had an epiphany.  I found that once I moved the surface rocks away, I could just dig into the sand with my hands and find the clams.  It only took about a half an hour doing this to limit on mostly butter clams.  And the added bonus being that it was much less physically taxing.  We made quick work of them, limiting out easily.  Of course, time to leave came much too quickly.  We are planning on going back again, and are now looking forward to our next trip, this time east of the mountains for some sun and heat!