Nana and Grampa are selling their house and moving to South Carolina next summer. We traveled down to Naples for one last visit before their big move.
The girls took their remote schooling in FL. Tessie's piano recital was prerecorded and we watched her performance on the big screen.
These Florida soft-shell turtles were all over the neighborhood pond
We'll miss swimming and shelling in the Gulf at Wiggins Pass State Park
As much as I respect the wonder of the heavens, this Saturn-Jupiter conjunction was underwhelming
Where we were looking from, you needed decent eyesight to even see the smaller Saturn
On our "way home" I decided that this was the time to tackle visiting the Dry Tortugas. So the afternoon before our flight home, we drove across US40 through the Everglades and down to Key West. We spotted this guy at the Big Cypress VC in the Everglades.
In the summer we were in the northwest corner of the country where I-90 and US-101 end. Here in Key West we're at the far other end of the US, where US-1 ends.
There's a lot of southernmosts in Key West. At 8 in the morning while picking up pastries for breakfast we encountered the southernmost drunk guy that I've ever seen. Here's the southernmost conchblower statue, the southernmost menorah, and the southernmost lost hat.
and here's the famous concrete buoy marker. Now just because they built the causeways to make it drivable, I don't understand how an island can become part of a continent. The southernmost point of the contiguous US is actually Cape Sable at the end of the Everglades. With so many gators, skeeters, and pythons out there, there's no one to object to Key West claiming the tourist trap.
See Google agrees with me. While driving out to Key West and on one of the causeways, it said that we were in the Atlantic Ocean.
To get to Dry Tortugas NP the options are by boat or plane.
I got to ride next to the pilot of the DeHavilland Otter, technically making me the copilot
Straight ahead is the southernmost point, which we are now south of. We took off from Key West in a passenger vehicle, so now are we at the southernmost point?
There are a string of keys beyond Key West out to the Dry Tortugas, including the Marquesas of Survivor fame and Ballast Key, the true southernmost island in the US
The Tortugas get their name from all the sea turtles in the water and from our viewpoint a few hundred feet above the waves we could see many loggerheads surfacing for breaths of air. The Dry bit was added later to remind seafarers that there is no water on the islands. Technically an atoll of 7 islands, Garden Key is the biggest and almost entirely occupied by the massive Fort Jefferson. The last island is Loggerhead Key with the lighthouse. Speaking of lighthouses, you may think we're crazy for visiting so many US National Park sites, but consider the plight of stamp chasers for the the US Lighthouse Society. There are >660 stamps to collect!
The morning seaplane arrived 2 hours before the daily ferry, meaning that we shared the island with the NPS staff and a handful of campers
and that's why you wear flipflops to deplane from a seaplane
At 16 acres and containing 16 million bricks, the fort is the largest masonry structure in the Americas. And it was never finished. Construction began during the Civil War as part of the Union blockade of the Gulf. Like so many brick forts of the era, it quickly became obsolete due to the power of rifled artillery. Rather than finish the fort, the military developed the island as a strategic refueling location for ships patrolling the Gulf and Caribbean Islands. The Park Service acquired the island in 1935 and the fort has been crumbling away ever since.
And I mean crumbling. Over half of it is off limits and the rest is open for wandering at your own risk
Precipice path on top of the fort
I'd always wondered how it was possible for cannons to hit ships when fired from forts. This wayside reminded me that the the cannonballs would skip along the water surface, and in this case after they were superheated, the red-hot cannonballs could ignite a fire on the target ship.
Southernmost Junior Ranger swearing in in the continental US (couldn't resist)
The seaplane company supplied us with snorkel gear. The surf ended up being a bit too rough for decent snorkeling. And the "sand" was actually entirely crushed bits of shells that scratched your feet when they stuck in the flippers.
There was even beverage service on the 35-min flight back (cans of soda from a cooler)
With faith in our T-cell immunity, we decided to take our long-planned vacation to Washington with Katy's family. Heather's Mom was in the midst of transitioning to a new nursing home, forcing Heather to arrive late and leave early. We lucked out with sunny weather as we toured the rain forests, islands, mountains, and beaches of the Evergreen State.
View from our flight in: Mt. Rainier rising above its usual cloak of clouds
Instead of flying, from our home we could have driven past the airport, turned right onto the start of I-90 West, and stayed straight for 3,000 miles until its terminus in Seattle
Thanks to a rescheduled 7AM flight, we arrived in Seattle in the afternoon in time to visit the Seattle Aquarium
Marine mammals were the attraction, such as harbor seals
and sea otters
We visited an old friend from high school but the kids attraction was his dog Daisy
The next morning we were up early for the first of our 4 car ferries around Puget Sound
This was the commuter line from Edmonds to Kingston on the Olympic peninsula
Up to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park
Three deer and one Deere
This view is north across the Strait of Juan de Fuca with Vancouver Island, Canada in the distance. Our phones pinged us with "Welcome to Canada". Does that mean my phone has to quarantine for 2 weeks?
Lyla wanted us to stop in Port Angeles and find a dark alley where Bella could have been attacked by vampires
No luck on vampires or werewolves but we found bilingual signs with the native Klallam language
Up in the Sol Duc Valley of Olympic National Park the trees were beautiful
Sol Duc Falls was thundering
Nurse log!
Entry was limited to the hot springs and the cold pool
Mixing up the kids in the cars was win-win for the parents and kids
We caught the Port Angeles - Coupeville ferry and landed at Ebey's Landing National Historical Reserve, which preserves the coast and prairies along picturesque Whidbey Island
Later that day we caught the Anacortes ferry out to San Juan Island
The San Juan islands archipelago sits between Vancouver Island, Canada and the northwest tip of Washington
Our house rental was adjacent to fields covered with blackberries, and not the big bland ones found in supermarkets, but the ripest sweetest most blackberry-y bites you've ever tasted
There were also enormous slugs. We named this pair Kit and Chaz.
We hiked around the rocks of the American Camp side of San Juan Island National Historical Park
Meanwhile Heather took a puddle jumper from Seattle
and waved to us way down by that lighthouse on the end of the island
These islands were almost part of Canada, but as opposed to the forceful establishment of the US southern border, the final dispute of the northern border was resolved peacefully. Now that we've been to the park sites at the northeast corner (Saint Croix Island, ME) and northwest corner of the continental US, do we have the resolve to tackle the southwest corner (Coronado NM in San Diego, CA) or - gulp - the southeast corner (Dry Tortugas NP, 70 miles SW of Key West, FL)?
What are we, mountain climbing? No, this was the gear for our whale watch. Besides the 9 of us there were only 2 other passengers and the flat calm seas made for perfect whale viewing.
We tracked a group of 5 orcas for most of the trip (see videos below). Fun facts about orcas: they form some of the tightest family bonds among mammals and families groups stay together their entire lives, with some children never leaving their mother's sides. Orcas can live 50-80 years. Their gestation period is 17 months. They never stop hunting and "sleep" by turning off one half of their brain at a time. Their favorite prey in the Puget Sound waters are harbor seals and porpoises. The pod that we were tracking made a kill and spat out the one porpoise part that they don't like eating. Can you identify this organ? Here's a hint - it floats. Yes, those are porpoise lungs.
Fog bank on the morning ferry back to the mainland
North Cascades National Park is a remote wilderness adjoining parks in Canada. Fortunately its Visitor Center is less remote just off the highway from the Anacortes ferry
Driving down the I-5 in Seattle, that's Mount Rainier
We splurged on the Tatoosh Lodge in the foothills of Mt. Rainier
The Wellspring Spa hosts weddings in this amphitheater
panorama photo courtesy of Erin
Our big hike in Mt. Rainier was the Skyline Trail, a strenuous 1,700 vertical ft, 5.5 mile loop
Pardon the photo barrage, but the scenery was so spectacular
Hello marmot
Heather and Tessie took a detour up the trail with the summitters but found the glacier
At Panorama Point we could see the blown off top of Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood in Oregon
After our day on the mountain we headed to a restaurant run by a Nepalese family. This was the display inside the restaurant.
The fastest person to ascend Mount Everest, Lhakpa Sherpa, is also the owner of Wildberry Restaurant. Wait a minute...
As the fittest-looking person in the restaurant, he wasn't hard to find. Here he is, selling us Nepalese wool hats.
On the East Coast, I've seen signs for Hurricane Evacuation routes, like in the Outer Banks of NC, but never a Volcano Evacuation route. If Mount Rainier were to blow, would you really be able to hop in your car and drive to safety?
Since the main road is that white line coming off the southwest corner of the lahar field, unless you can outrun the lahar for 20 miles, you're going to be toast
Really, the World's Largest Egg?
Would've rather seen the World's Largest Chicken
Heading down to the Columbia River, it was clear what the dominant industry was. Revenue from timber outranks fishing and farming by at least a log unit. Maybe two.
Tsunami Hazard Zone? Seriously! That's worse than the Volcano Zone! You'd better run, little man. Thanks to the New Yorker, I was aware of this risk and not a little disconcerted by the numbers. The Cascadia subduction zone averages massive ~9.0 magnitude earthquakes every 243 years. The last one was in 1700, 320 years ago. When the big one strikes there will be 10-30 minutes until the tsunami 20 to 100 feet high buries the Oregon and Washington coasts and everything in them. Listen for barking dogs because they will hear the compression waves before human alarm systems are activated. But you can't outrun a tsunami.
Here you can hold hands before the tsunami drowns you
At the mouth of the Columbia River lies Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, where the Corps of Discovery rested in the winter of 1805 before heading back East
Fort Clatsop was open to the public
and we learned all about the fur trade
The Fort-to-Sea trail was really cool in that after a couple of miles we reached an overlook. Instead of seeing it from the highway, our first view of the Pacific Ocean was human-powered, just like Lewis and Clark and the kidnapped Shoshone woman Sacajawea, and York the slave.
The 4 mile-long Astoria-Megler bridge over the Columbia River is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America
No room for bikes, pedestrians, or breakdowns on this bridge
It's tough to see oceanside sunsets on the East Coast, but I've seen them on the Gulf Coast of Florida and the outer tip of Cape Cod. Here's the West Coast real deal at Long Beach, Washington. The 28-mile stretch of sand claims to be the longest beach in the US. At ~55 degrees, the water temp was forbidding, even to the porpoises Erin and Charlie.
That's the World's Biggest Frying Pan. Is it next to a telephone pole or is that also the World's Largest Chopstick?
The kitsch shop held the elusive jackalope next to the even rarer Swamp Ape from the Florida Everglades
On our last day we rented bikes for the beautiful trail through the dunes
This is a replica of the carving by William Clark marking the turning point in his journey and ours, too
The scenery was great, but the bikes were total pieces of garbage. And five miles in, at the incorrectly named Cape Disappointment, I discovered that my car keys had fallen out of my pocket. Since we had locked everyone's luggage in my car in order to all pile into Brad's car, this presented a problem. It had the benefit of squelching all the kids' moaning about the bikes as they contemplated missing our flights due to a 9-hour forth and back and forth trip to Seattle to retrieve a new key. We completed our search pattern without joy until we got back to Brad's car, where the key was found on my seat.
Heading back to Seattle through the empty lands of western Washington we made an inspired stop for dinner in South Bend, dubbed the Oyster Capital of the World for the huge Pacific oysters pulled out of Willapa Bay.
These grilled oysters tasted as good as they looked. Requiring two bites, they resembled their dainty East Coast cousins in name only. A perfect finish to our tour of the beautiful, sunny, dry, and blessedly earthquake-free Pacific Northwest.
