A couple of pictures from our weekend

On Saturday, we did some meal preparation -- we are enjoying cooler weather that makes cooking more enjoyable.

We had purchased an "Ultimate Meat" pizza at Walmart on Friday. We "fixed it up" with basil, sliced Roma tomatoes, and extra mozzarella cheese to make it the kind of pizza we prefer.

On Saturday afternoon, we prepared a sausage-cabbage soup. Carl sauteed the sausage while I cut up veggies. Even though the title of the soup implies it may have only cabbage, the recipe calls for celery, carrots, and onions, and then we like to add other vegetables -- so this time, we put zucchini, yellow squash, and broccoli in as well as a head of cabbage. We ended up making two 6-quart Instant Pots full - so lots of leftovers! No pictures, unfortunately!

On Sunday, we were supposed to move from Thousand Trails Mount Vernon to Thousand Trails Thunderbird (near Monroe, WA), but the northern lights forecast looked favorable for Sunday night (that we *might* see some activity as far down as we were), and we had a nice open area without lights near our rig, so we called and changed our reservations. 

It was nice to have a Sunday without being a travel day. After joining our church in Irving for Sunday services...

Carl worked on another batch of sauerkraut. This is his third batch -- he started a batch with green cabbage when we were in Virginia in May, and then, soon after that, did one with red (or purple) cabbage. Those two provided sauerkraut for him through the summer. This batch is again with green cabbage, with added caraway seeds (for flavor) and carrots (for color). He is also using fermentation lids, or air-locks for fermenting. This allows carbon dioxide pressure to escape without letting air back in which reduces the possibility of bad bacteria getting in and causing spoilage. Depending on the ambient temperature in the motorhome, these should be ready in about 2.5-3 weeks (the warmer it is, the faster it will ferment).

Unfortunately, the prediction of good possibility of northern light visibility did not pan out, but we got some things done around the rig which was good.

Ancestry

For my birthday, Carl gave me a DNA testing kit and subscription to Ancestry.com (I had indicated an interest in doing a DNA test). He gave it to me when we were on our Alaska trip, and I sent in the "vial of spit" from Fairbanks. I got the test results back a few weeks ago. I've also been on Ancestry.com looking at information about my family tree. I'm not sure exactly why I wanted to get the DNA test done, and there have not been any life-changing results (unlike for some friends and family of ours), but I am grateful that he got me this for my birthday!

Ancestry DNA kit

I didn't have any exact way to figure out which of my parents are parent 1 and parent 2, but I assigned Parent 1 to my Dad and Parent 2 to my Mom, and the cousins who have also done the DNA test (a first cousin on my Mom's side and a first cousin once removed on my Dad's side) were designated correctly as maternal and paternal, so I guess it is assigned correctly.

One of the things that the output of the test provided were traits that may be predicted from DNA. Some of them were accurate for me, and some were not... here are a few that I pulled out:

The asparagus odor trait is not correct -- I didn't even know that there was such a thing until Carl and I got married, and he is able to smell and I am NOT. However, I *do* dislike cilantro, so that was on target.

I think I'm pretty competitive, but I also enjoy dancing (right on one, wrong on one).

My ring finger is longer than my index finger so wrong on this one.

I am not a very good goal setter (I hated the discussions at IBM on "what do you want to be when you grow up?"), I definitely have thin hair strands (though I have a lot of them), and I do not tolerate heat well (I have about a 1 degree F comfort range between too hot and too cold) - so all of these were correct.

I have no ability to make contact with a ball - another correct.

I am more of a morning person, but I am very likely to have a pet. I am definitely less physically flexible -- I recall when we were celebrating my Granny's 90th birthday and she demonstrated that she could touch her toes -- I was in my 30s and could not (and really was not even flexible when I was in middle-to-high school and had to do gymnastics in gym class) -- so two correct and one wrong.

All of these are correct for me.

And these are also correct.

In all, they provided information on 77 traits -- I was surprised that these would be predictable by DNA. I think the data is collected by testing lots of people's DNA, and asking them questions -- with a large enough data sample, I guess they can start making reasonable guesses as to the predictability of certain traits.

Friday the 13th

On Friday, we had a number of places that we wanted to go -- things to see, shopping to get accomplished. 

We stopped at Mi Mexico in Burlington, WA for lunch -- very good lunch, and very interesting building inside.

Then we drove to Thousand Trails La Conner -- it is on the coast on Skagit Bay. We don't have reservations to stay there on this trip, but wanted to drive through and check it out to see if we might want to visit in the future. One of our neighbors at Birch Bay had told us that it was their favorite campground in the Thousand Trails system. Dwayne and I had done the same about 7 years ago and decided that the roads in the campground were too narrow, and the sites too difficult for Miss Doozie to get into. While we think that Gracie could probably navigate the roads and we could probably find a site that we could get her into, we didn't find it to be all that interesting or attractive. It is a possibility for a future visit, but not something that we can't wait to do!

From there, we drove to...

Snow Goose Produce (https://www.snowgooseproducemarket.com/).

There are a lot of farm stands in this area...

... Snow Goose Produce was a place that Dwayne and I had visited some years ago...

... and what I remembered was the "immodest" (their word) ice cream cones. We each got a "split" scoop -- meaning a single scoop with 1/2 of one flavor and 1/2 of another -- so, that's a single scoop! She also gave us a bowl and spoon because it wasn't going to be easy to eat before it melted all down our hands or parts started falling off. It sure was good though!

We sat at a table outside with a couple from Long Beach, WA (where we will be in about a week), who are planning a move to Bellingham, WA (near Birch Bay where we were last week). It was interesting chatting with them -- they gave us some recommendations of places to visit while we're in Monroe and Long Beach, WA, and in Seaside, OR -- our upcoming stops.

Then we drove back into Burlington to stop at Safeway, Walmart, and Petsmart.

On our way back to the campground, we stopped at Camping World. We generally have a "do not shop" policy with Camping World -- they have such a bad reputation with regard to their customer service and knowledge. However, we need to replace our toilet (I won't get into the issues it is having)... so we had been shopping online. It is hard when we're traveling to get items shipped to us -- Amazon generally is good because they will have a pretty good estimate of when items will come, and we can sometimes have packages sent to a campground that we'll be staying at or use an Amazon Locker. But for big items, the lockers are not available, and the arrival date is often a range of dates (like from 9/17-21), which may cover the times that we will be at a couple of different campgrounds. We sure don't want to order something heavy like a toilet and have it arrive after we leave (or even to have it arrive before we are there and the campground staff have to deal with it). So, we were looking for a retail option. There is a Camping World in Burlington, WA, we had gotten a 10% off discount that we could use with an online order, and we should be able to pick up the toilet at the retail store... except the online store would never let us successfully check out -- we'd get all the way to the payment screen, and then it would say that something had gone wrong. We both tried on each of our computers, we tried different credit cards, we tried not using the 10% discount code, nothing worked. We called the store, and the fellow there indicated that, while the system indicated that they had two of the toilets we wanted, they were not on the floor or in the back -- we wanted bone, they had a white one. We almost said, "Yes, we'll take the white one.", but then backed off. We looked for other online options -- nada. 

So on the way back to the campground on Friday, we decided to stop at Camping World -- maybe they had one in stock and the fellow we talked with just didn't find it, and maybe we would find it. We walked to the back area of the store, and sure enough, the type we wanted was on the shelf, but the picture on the outside was a white one. Then we looked at the model designation -- it was in the bone color! 

We got a guy from the store to help us -- we explained that we had tried to order online -- he agreed to give us the online price and a 5% discount (not the 10% that we were supposed to be able to get online, but, okay) -- so we bought it. We're glad to at least have it in the Jeep, and hope to get it installed in the next few days.

A busy and productive day!

Night sky

On Thursday night, the Aurora Borealis was predicted to be outstanding -- north of us (like in Prince George, BC). We were barely inside the range where it was predicted to possibly be visible, so we decided to go out and see what we could see...

The answer was...

... not much...

We could see stars amongst the clouds, but no Aurora activity as far as we could tell.

Earlier on Thursday, we had taken a long walk to the activity center here at Thousand Trails Mount Vernon (long walk because we tried an alternate route), and then practiced some of our line dances that we learned last season at Venture Out in Mesa. We had planned to practice all summer, but with one of our slides being broken, our "dance floor" inside Gracie has been unavailable. We have practiced a couple of times outside the rig, but not as much as we had hoped. There is a nice wooden dance floor at the TT Activity Center, so we danced for about an hour, trying to make our brains and our bodies remember!

Movin' to Mount Vernon

On Wednesday, we moved a little south to Mount Vernon (Washington, that is) to the Thousand Trails Mount Vernon. 

The trees are starting to turn here in the Pacific Northwest.

We got to the campground and found a site -- in this Thousand Trails, the sites are "FCFS" (First Come, First Served) or, you pick your own site. They give you a map and out you go. I asked if they had any suggestions on where available sites might be, and they did not. The lady helping me did share where the sites were that had more of an open sky view versus where the more wooded sites were. She also pointed out where the 50A sites were versus 30A. She didn't bother pointing out where the FHU (Full Hook-Up - including water, electric, and sewer) because there are so few and, as far as I have read online, they are given out based on people getting on a waitlist after they arrive at the park. We can survive without sewer hookup for at least two weeks (as we regularly do at the Kane County campgrounds near Chicago), and we can live on 30A, just needing to consider what appliances are already in use before we start heating anything in the kitchen. More on our site later in this post...

In the early evening, we took a walk around the campground -- it is a long narrow campground, running right alongside I-5. Dwayne and I had stayed here a couple of times before (2017 - https://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2017/09/heading-south.html and 2018 - https://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2018/08/a-few-more-pictures-from-victoria-and.html) -- I remembered it as being very wooded and with road noise from I-5 being prevalent when outside.

We had seen this rig at our previous campground - Thousand Trails Birch Bay. We think it may be a home-grown tiny house built on a goose-neck utility trailer. It looks well made.

Side note: it is pretty common to see the same rigs over and over again within the Thousand Trails (TT) system in a geographical area. There are stay limits (usually 3 weeks) so people may move from one TT campground to another and back, using their membership to stay for "free" for a long period of time.

Additional side note: many campgrounds have limitations on what kinds of rigs are allowed to park there, indicating that the RV must have a RVIA (RV Industry Association) sticker, meaning that it was built to RV industry standards. Schoolie conversions (school buses made into RVs) as well as other home-done bus conversions, and other home-built campers do not have RVIA stickers and are excluded from many public and private campgrounds.

While on our walk around the campground, we saw what looked like a silo sticking up from the trees, and thought that maybe this had been a farm at one time...

... as we came by it, we found that it is a water tank, we think for campground water usage.

We walked by (and into) a site that we had considered as we were selecting our site. It was 50A, and we thought it might have clear enough sky access for Starlink, but we decided against it because the entry getting into the site seemed very tight...

... I wanted to take a picture of the cover of the electrical box -- which isn't covering the box but rather is on the ground next to it. I can't decide if I think that they painted the leaf design on the cover, or if, when they were painting the darker green color, they just didn't move leaves out the way. Given that this is Thousand Trails, I would guess the latter... but maybe I am being uncharitable.

The site we ultimately chose was B48, 30A Electric/Water -- relatively clear sky view for Starlink, and, we thought it would be reasonably level (but it turns out that the front end had to be jacked up quite a bit).

I am going to try to start putting information into our blog posts about which sites we're gotten at different campgrounds -- particularly if we've chosen them for ourselves -- so I can look back if we go back to the same campground and know if there was a site that we liked, or one to avoid. B48 at TT Mount Vernon is an "okay" site, but if we didn't want Starlink, getting a 50A in the woods might have been preferable. If it was predicted to be sunny and hot during our stay, then getting 50A in the woods would definitely be preferred.

and the fog moves in...

On Tuesday morning, the day started relatively clear, and then the fog moved in...

Just about an hour later...

... the skies aren't exactly clear, but at least the clouds are no longer at campground level!

We were in site 46 at this campground. This was in Phase 1 of the Birch Bay campground. In this phase, 4 campers share one utility pedestal area -- there are 4 power boxes, 4 water faucets, and 4 sewer dump inlets all at the back corner of the RV. For 2 of the 4 RVs, the utilities are on the correct side of the RV; for the other two, they would need to run their cords and hoses under their rig -- not ideal -- we saw more than one motorhome pulled into the site rather than backing in so the utilities would be on the correct side. Even for the ones for whom it is on the correct side, being all the way at the back of the rig is inconvenient -- usually meaning that additional sewer hose is required (and possibly extra power extension cord and/or water hose).

In Phase 2, they have "buddy sites", where two RVs pull in to their sites in opposite directions and the utilities are between them. 

We were thankful that no one was in the site behind us, nor the site right next to us, as it would have been quite tight.

The campground sites were very level, and, in phase 1, there are beautiful large evergreen trees. Phase 2 is in full sun. We were a little concerned about our Starlink having good sky view, but we were right on a campground driveway, and did not have trees very near us to the west (which is the direction that our "dishy" points in this area of the US).

Semiahmoo Spit

We drove out on Monday to visit Semiahmoo Spit -- on the same peninsula as where we're staying, but out into the water...

An overview map from Google -- our campground is located where the blue dot and picture of Carl is -- we drove out to where the red marker is (actually, to the end of that spit). https://www.google.com/maps/place/Semiahmoo+Spit/@48.9765554,-122.8170146,9321m/

We drove right to the end of the spit -- found parking (only noticed after we came back to the Jeep that there were signs indicating "Permit Parking Only", but didn't have a problem). Looking across the water...

... we thought that might be Vancouver, but have come to think it is probably White Rock or Surrey, BC.

And, looking more toward the west, we think that piece of land on the right side of the picture might be Point Roberts. I didn't realize until looking at the map after we got home is that Point Roberts is a peninsula off of Canada but it is part of Washington state. The building on the left side of the picture (on Semiahmoo Spit) appeared to be a restaurant, part of the Wyndham property located there.

Walking along the boardwalk

Condos -- the closest building was built in 2020, the further building 2013. There's a unit for sale in the further building: https://www.wicklundre.com/listing/5338248/9535-Semiahmoo-Pkwy-Unit-B305-Blaine-WA-98230  Be aware that this is in a tsunami hazard area (https://file.dnr.wa.gov/publications/ger_tsunami_evac_birchbay_blaine.pdf).

As we were walking east toward the marina, we could see this interesting structure, the water tower that provided water to the cannery that operated here from the late 1800 to the mid 1900s.

It is quite distinctive, and I found an interesting blog post about it: https://semiahmoomarina.com/blog/semiahmoo-water-tower/

Outside the cafe/gift/supply shop at the marina, a "dog moorage" area!

There were beautiful flowers in the beds on the marina's grounds...

At first, from a distance, I thought they were roses,

but Google Lens identified them a Dahlias...

so many shapes...

.. and colors!

Variegated pink...

... and variegated yellow/orange...

... and another with spaced out petals that I thought must be different from a dahlia, but Google Lens still identified this one as a dahlia too!

Boats in the marina

Another view of the water tower as we were walking back to where we parked the Jeep

We looked at the information about the Plover Ferry -- it seems to go between Semiahmoo and Blaine during the summer. I believe that this building was part of the Semiahmoo Cannery (https://blainebythesea.com/semiahmoo-cannery/, https://www.historylink.org/File/9148)

Looking across toward Blaine, we could see the Peace Arch if we zoomed in a lot with our cameras -- you can see that it has two flags (US and Canada) on top of it. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Arch)

This was the view of the Peace Arch without zooming in.

We are enjoying our time to just kick back and relax and not have to make long drives every 2-3 days!