First week in TT-Birch Bay

We are very happy with this park and except for a few clouds upon our arrival, it has been sunny and in the 70's all week. Over half of the sites here are satellite friendly, Verizon is at 4 bars and elbow room is above average. TT staff are friendly as usual, as well as our RV neighbors.

Much of this week was focused on chores. Mailing, shopping, laundry, car washing, rig cleaning, rig fixing, etc. Speaking of rig fixing, our little electric awning over the door is dying again. This time blowing fuses. We have an appointment next week in Bellingham to have it fixed. The transmission problem is still gone or in remission. We're hoping for gone.

Saturday we drove to the marina peninsula off of Semimahoo and took the passenger ferry 'Plover' over to Blaine. This approach was a one hour solution to a ten minute problem, but the ferry ride was very enjoyable. As the ferry left Semimahoo, it passed by a floating dock that had nearly a hundred seals sunning themselves including a dozen or more young pups. From the Blaine harbor we walked into town soaked up a children's jazz festival and art fair. Reasonable fun and we 'got the T-shirt.' On the return voyage of the ferry, it goes out in the bay a short distance and come close to the official border with Canada before docking.

Today, Sunday we drove south past Bellingham and checked out two Thousand Trails parks that we are not staying at this trip but wanted to preview for future use. We visited Mt Vernon and La Conner. Both parks are of the heavily tree'd variety that drive me nuts when trying to find a site that will permit DirecTV satellite service. We would likely only use these parks for a short stay or not at all, but now we know.

After these two visits we drove onto Whidbey Island which has some great scenery and a couple of nice beach towns including Oak Harbor. The bridge getting you on the island from the north is a definite Kodak moment and a number of pictures are included in the album link at the bottom of this post.

We have been going for a walk each evening. Modest exercise, but better than none at all.

Heard that Yuma had a 'haboob' yesterday afternoon with winds in the 50 to 70 mph area. The sandstorm was followed up with a little bit of rain, but it was mostly about wind and did some modest damage in the downtown Yuma area. Called our good friend Andy and he graciously drove over to our house and checked to make sure there was no wind damage. Apparently we are in good shape and according to Andy the worst part of the storm was in the main part of Yuma rather than in the Foothills.

My mind was suggesting to finish off with, "That's the way it is", but this doesn't seem like the right week to steal that line.

More from Birch Bay next week and see the following web photo album for pictures from this week: Birch Bay - Whidbey Island Pics