Skip to main content

Diamond Geezer...

I've survived six decades... under a fairer government I would be drawing my old age pension from now.. as it is like so many people of my era I have to wait another 6 plus years.  I can legitimately wear purple and a red hat, eat sausages and butter etc... (see Jenny Joseph Warning)

Its also my lovely granddaughters 8th birthday today - obviously a very special date!!!!
I refer to think I am celebrating my Diamond Jubilee - Diamonds used to be for 75 years but Queen Victoria changed all that  and for some reason made it 60 years... Its only a number but it feels like a significant one, In a good way I might add.  I have no issue being 60 years young - to be fair being a nana is more aging, having children in their 30's makes me feel old, crawling in and out of the b****y tent has aged me - however those days are passed... we have slept our last in the tent...

final striking of tent 

We have just had the most lovely few days - the last few days in our tent - on a fantastic campsite up on the coast in the Olympic National  Park in Washington.  We had one day of perfect weather - our camping spot was in exactly the right place, a completely unimpeded view of the beach and the sea from the tent and even better if you sat on the picnic table.  We spent the day relaxing in the sun and watching countless whales swim past - lolling and frolicking or what ever whales do- spy hopping actually - that's when they sort of stand up on their tails and poke their heads out to have a nosy - they were spuming and flipping about it was very fascinating.   There were pelicans flying overhead as well.

whale tail - from the tent

We lit a campfire in the evening and watched yet another superb sunset over the sea.. later the moon came up full and red -a warning of the day to come. The next couple of days was more of the same, relaxing, lazy, whales, campfires, but the forest fire smoke once again reached us and the sun was hazy. (Red moon at night smoky day)

note Dr Fred for scale 


We went down to Ruby beach and if I thought the drift wood in Lincoln city was impressive it was nothing on whats on this coast!!! Massive massive trees, logs, some like sequoias, huge dead cedars just littering the coast masses of bleached white gnarled twisted wood everywhere you look.  its very beautiful against the dark sand. 

wish I could bring some home 
We had a birthday breakfast on the beach (in the haze) and packed up, later we found a fantastic classic 50's style American diner for lunch and now we head out to try and do justice to an American steak house....

the Flippin' Fifties Diner 

So the tent and camping gear has gone to the charity shop - the very nice man in the motel reception when I asked him for directions to the nearest thrift shop let me have my laundry for free as I was donating all our stuff - just another kindness we have seen all the way along this trip, people donating food ( we probably looked like we needed it ) fire lighters, tips on good places to see and eat, even free camping at one place, loads of offers of gardens to camp in - yes we have had the odd unpleasant encounter but once again the american people have lived up to my expectation from our previous trip.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Almost last chapter... In which our Go Stargazing team watch Astonishing Aurora Borealis seen from the deck of the Astonishing Borealis!!!

The weather brightened considerably and the snowy peaks lining our sail down the fjiords  looked glorious and sparkly in the sunshine against a (mainly) blue sky back drop.   More awesome scenary.... the Go Stargazing team wrapt up their lectures ... only searching for the illusive Northern Lights remained.  The tension from the night before dissolved in the sunshine the forecast for Aurora borealis was looking fairly positive - it was the captains farewell cocktsil party so everyone had their gladrags on.. We ate dinner and sky remained clear so we headed back to our room and donned as many layers as we could move in and proceeded to deck 10 in anticipation of stars and northern lights..... it did not dissappiont - just we got there as the bridge announced that the lights could be seen on the starboard side of the ship. It was stunning. Slowly the intensity built. The auroral green became brighter and bigger areas appe...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town.  Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now.  The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art....  Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

verdant lushness

Its a never ending island hop... today we hopped of the boat at Kingstown, on the island St. Vincents and Grenadine. Once through the usual port duty free - cheap booze and diamonds to go milarkey we were straight into the town... crazy noisy smelly chaos... refreshingly no tat shops for tourists, just local markets and street traders all vying for local sales.  Music blasting from everywhere, cars (very battered and often very pimped) all over the roads - parked in the middle of the street, loading, unloading, chatting seemingly oblivious to the total traffic jam caused behind them...  We walked through this mayhem - the temperatures were rising probably about 30 degrees - tourists evident by trying to walk on the shady side of the street - even when we turned off the main drag and there were less people it was still like carnival time with music blasting everywhere. Its very atmospheric and mostly promotes a good vibe although I have heard '3 little birds' everywhich way a...