Olympic National Park, WA

Spent some lovely time with friends James and Wendi in Olympic National Park.  Stunning views all around!  Up on top of Hurricane Ridge we could see across the Puget Sound to Canada on this beautiful day!

Looking down on the visitor center

one of the locals;)

another local, a marmot

Mike and I with James and Wendi Brenner

Anacortes, WA, and area

I know it's been a long time folks but I did want to share some pics of Anacortes, WA, and area where we have spent the past month.  Originally, of course, we had other plans this year. But ending up staying a month in this beautiful area helped to make up for some of those plans.

Friends of ours now have us hooked on geocaching which has added a whole other dimension to our hiking.....which now revolves around finding hidden geocaches!

Some of the places in this area:

Fort Ebey State Park

Skagit Bay and Craft Island

Little Mountain Park

note old wreck from many years ago

ghost pipe

Lake Cachuma, CA

Last Tuesday, March 17th, we arrived at Lake Cachuma for a 2 week stay.  It is a beautiful county campground up in the Los Padres mountains near Santa Barbara.  Seemed like a good place to be with the Covid-19 virus spreading like crazy everywhere.  The day after we arrived, the park ranger informed us that they were closing the campground to campers on Friday, because of the virus, and that we would have to leave!  They were still going to allow day use!!  Makes no sense.

We had to scramble realizing that all the county and state campgrounds we had reserved this year in California were closing and who knew for how long.  We are currently in Paso Robles, which was our next stop anyway.  We were able to extend our stay here from 2 weeks to a month.  This is our favorite wine region....but all the tasting rooms are closed!  Weird being here like this!  We are healthy though and grateful for being so.

Even though we were only at Lake Cachuma for  about 2 1/2 days, we really enjoyed it and I have to share a few pics of the area and birds:

that is our motorhome in the clearing across an inlet on the lake

a view of most of the lake from a mountain trail

beautiful Madrone tree

lots of turkeys!

Sandhill Cranes at Whitewater Draw

This will be my last post from the Tucson stay.  A few pics of the beautiful cranes from a day trip to Whitewater Draw.   Just an incredible auditory and visual experience to witness these large birds coming in to land in the draw!

Mike and I are wrapping up a 2 1/2 week stay in the San Diego area and will be heading gradually north in CA trading off some previously seen places with some new ones.   I did do a couple of places here that are worth a mention and will do my next post on them.  Then, onto other adventures!!

a thousand big birds flying in to land right before your eyes!  And the noise!  

there is always some bickering going on somewhere!