Road Schooling - Day 3 - 3/17/20

I'm one to sleep in but the kiddos are early risers.  They were awake a good hour and a half before me and that set up some dynamics that weren't pretty.  But we navigated through them and got breakfast and some schoolwork done before we headed for Long Beach to refill a propane tank and use cell service or WiFi to do schoolwork and catching up on the news.  Along the way we dumped a garbage sack at the main dump station in the Park.

At the Propane dealer there was a sign saying 'Closed for Corona Virus; go to the Chevron gas station'.  So we did and the attendant there was surprised to hear that they were closed.  But she filled our propane bottle and that'll probably give us enough propane for the rest of the week.

We found an entry to Long Beach where we parked and the kiddos did their online lessons, and I caught up on email and Cruise related matters.  We then made a tourist stop in town to check out some wood carving sculptures and an antique store before heading back to the McD's for a 2pm lunch.  The McD's is closed for sit down lunch, so we purchased a round of cheese burgers and retreated to the pickup to use the free WiFi to watch the Gothard Sisters do an Irish music concert on this St. Patrick's Day.  They are a favorite musical group of our extended family and their concert is available to watch at www.gothardsisters.com this week.

After a long lunch we headed back towards camp and made a stop at the Old Town Coffee Cafe to pick up some corned beef and cabbage soup we saw advertised on a sandwich board on our way out.  We're trying to support the local economy as best we can.  Back inside the park we stopped at  McKenzie Head.  This site was near where William Clark camped in 1805.  The kiddos were enthralled to read the signage and joked about some of the differences in spelling of some words between then and now.  We then hiked up the 1/4 mile trail to the top where we enjoyed the views and explored two WWII gun emplacements and a pillbox.  A nice sized frog even made an appearance in the algae filled pond in one of the gun emplacements.  We also discovered that we could see the other lighthouse at Cape Disappointment and could see Oregon across the mouth of the Columbia River.

At camp the kiddos rode their bikes while I washed some spots one the truck I missed yesterday. A new couple is in space #63 next to us.  They have a cute R-Pod trailer and have been coming here since they were kids.  Mac 'n cheese was the kiddos dinner while Angela and I enjoyed the corned beef and cabbage soup with rye bread.  While Angela did a ukulele music lesson with the kiddos, I built a fire which we later used for making s'mores.  After using the public restroom at the end of our culdesac, Jakob & I spotted a mother blacktail deer and her faun making their way through camp.

Tonight was an iPad free night.  Jakob finished his homework lesson while Katie read and Angela went back to the public shower for a warm sprinkling.  They were in bed by around 8:15 and we set up our Murphy bed around 9.  It was a good day and the kiddos experienced a lot of hands on history, biology, spelling, architecture, music, and much more.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

November 14, 2019 - A day at Fort Worden State Park

Image
We woke up at 8am after a restful night's sleep. The flannel sheets did their job and it was nice having a nearby toilet for the duties that come with old age. We cooked up some breakfast (ham, eggs, & hashbrowns) as well as some oatmeal for Angela.   We walked up to the gift store and the Commons and learned that we could in fact purchase a Senior Off Season Pass and that it would apply to our current stay. The Pass cost $75 which was roughly what we paid for our two night regular stay. But we received a $25 per night credit for having a Senior Pass. All of our future winter Washington State Park stays will be free unless we want to use electricity which will be $10 per night. What a deal! The Coastal Artillery Museum was now open at 11AM so we watched a couple of introductory movies which were good before touring the museum and purchasing a few souvenirs. We walked around the grounds visiting the former balloon barn (now a performance hall), the cemetery, former PX, th
Read more

November 5, 2019 - Purchasing a travel trailer

Image
Several weeks ago we purchased a brand new travel trailer to replace our aging small motor home. I was very tired of climbing up into the overhead bunk to sleep and our grandkids were needing more room as they are getting older. They like traveling with us and we like traveling with them. Plus it's one less vehicle to maintain a power plant system on.  What's really significant about this purchase is that it's the first vehicle that we've ever purchased that was brand new. I've always purchased used vehicles and have had pretty good luck with them. But for this trailer, we both had been impressed with another model that we saw last July when driving back from the beach. Throughout our long overseas trip to Australia, we continued to talk about it and check availability. Upon our return, we paid a visit to Angela's brother and sister in law and looked at a few trailers but couldn't find the exact model we sought after. They had also just purchased a n
Read more

Bay View State Park 11/8-13/2020

Image
We arrived at this cute little Washington state park about 3:30pm on Sunday afternoon after a short. 80 mile drive north from our home. This park is situated on Padilla Bay about 8 miles west of Burlington, WA with campsites on the east side of the Bay View - Edison Road, and the beach on the west side of the roadway. The beach is easily reached via an underpass. There is a small community called Bay View and interestingly one of the houses has the address 12745 which was the address of the house in Seattle that my parents built and that we later owned. Our cost is only $10/night for utilities as we have an offseason senior pass. Our camp setup process is pretty routine now and within an hour we were set up in campsite #30, The RV sites here are mostly a bit small except for those closest to the beach and near the camp host. We are parked next to the bathroom which is sparkling clean and heated and has showers. We also have a view of Padilla Bay out of our dining
Read more