Ft. Casey 2020

Day 1 - Friday, 10/23/2020

It was a wet and dreary day when we left home around noon and drove up to our next campsite at Ft. Casey on Whidbey Island.  Fortunately, due to the time of day, the drive through the heart of Seattle on I-5 was easy.  The GPS wanted to route us using the Mukilteo-Clinton ferry, but the cost of the ferry was more expensive than the cost of fuel to be used while driving around via the Deception Pass Bridge.  We did make three stops along the way.  The first was for a late lunch at McDonald's in Smokey Point and the second was for refueling at the Swinomish Casino for fuel at $2.359 per gallon which was a good price. The last stop was at Wal Mart in Oak Harbor for some provisions.

Arriving at our campsite we were pleased to learn that the Coupeville ferry terminal adjoined the park and we would have frequent ferry sightings. Given that I had only made this reservation a week ago, we were very pleased with this site #35 location. Someone had probably cancelled their reservation as I have frequently looked for open reservation spots for several months, and I was greatful  to have found this 6 night reservation.  It only cost us $10 per night for utilities because I have a senior pass.

This park is located on the site of a former coastal defense fort and is one of a triangle of forts (Fort Worden and Fort Flagler being the other forts) that provided defenses against ship invasions.  Unfortunately, the forts became obsolete about as soon as they were built due to the rapid increases in airplane technology. The large guns were removed and either sent to Europe for use in WWI or melted down.  After the forts were declared surplus, Washington State Parks acquired them and turned them into parks for camping and study of the coastal defenses.        

Our site has water and power but no sewer connection.  The nearest sewer dumps are at South Whidbey or Deception Pass State Parks.  We quickly set up camp in a light drizzle and ate a light dinner before settling in for the night watching Long Way Up which I streamed using my cell phone.  We followed this with a couple episodes of David Letterman's current series,  "My next guest needs no introduction and a little bit of news.  Again this was streamed as we have no OTA (Over the Air) TV.  

Day 2 - Saturday, 10-24-2020

While it got a little chilly here overnight, I had purchased a small electric heater so we wouldn't have to run our propane furnace which is both loud and fuel hungry,  It worked very well to keep the chill off.  Its fan noise is like white noise and we're really pleased with it.  This really helps save on propane useage.  

Our first adventure of the day was to walk around the gun emplacements and visit the Admiralty Head Lighthouse.  They have two period correct 10" guns (removed from a fort in the Philippines in the late '60's).  One is displayed in the firing position, and the other is displayed in the lowered for loading position.  When in use, the original guns were never fired against the enemy, but were fired only once a year as each gun barrel was only good for about 350 firings.  There's also a collection of spotting towers where spotters could locate targets and relay that information to the gunnery teams.

The Admiralty Lighthouse was recently renovated and open for tours on the weekend.  So we took the tour and it was interesting.  Afterwards we hiked back to our camp and decided to drive into old Coupeville and explore it.  The town has a large car parking lot just up the hill from the old part of town.  We parked there and walked down into town and one of our first stops was the local museum which was open for visitors.  It's a very nice local museum, and it is worth a visit.  Outside the museum is an original blockhouse which was an effective defensive structure in the settler's battles with the first Nation's people.  There's a pier with shops which we also walked to before walking the length of the Main Street.   After returning to the truck we decided to go find the pioneer cemetery which was mentioned numerous times in the video we watched in the museum.  We found it and made a special note of one of the prominent gravemarkers: ENGLE.  This is the last name of friends of ours but I don't think they are related.  There's also another blockhouse located here on the grounds of the Sunnyside Cemetery.  Just below the cemetery is a very nice lookout over the Ebey Prairie which was one of the first cultivated lands on the island and named after the family that received the land grant in the mid 1800's.

It was then a pleasant drive back to camp where we watched episodes of David Letterman's interview series before retiring.  It was expected to drop to freezing levels over night, but our little heater was working like a champ to keep us warm and toasty.

Day 3 - Sunday, 10/25/2020

Angela really wanted to take a ferry ride over to Pt. Townsend.so after breakfast we walked over to the ferry ticket booth and bought a pair of round trip senior tickets for $7.60 total.  The Salish is a fairly small ferry designed for this particular route and the ride across was on glass smooth water.  Once in town, we walked down both sides of Main Street stopping at many stores to do a little shopping. We found that a favorite Thai restaurant was still open, so we enjoyed our first sit down inside restaurant meal in months at the Khu Larb.  I also photographed a number of the historic buildings.  These were built during a boom time in the late 1800's that came to a crashing halt when the railroad decided to not expand here and Seattle became the port of entry and exit of international commerce. The city really never recovered from this except for tourism and people like us.  They also have a nice little museum next to City Hall.  On our way back to the ferry we visited Gallery 9 which has paintings on display from a cruise friend of ours.  We just missed the 2pm sailing, so we continued walking south to the Chase Bank where I withdrew some cash.  Our 3:30pm ferry was right on time and whisked us back to to the dock next to our campsite.

 

Our evening was spent watching the Seahawks  / Cardinals football game and unfortunately the Seahawks lost by a field goal.  I should note that we can't receive any over the air TV; however, we have good unlimited T-Mobile service and streamed the game on my iPad which was tethered to my iPhone. 

Day 4 - Monday, 10/26/2020 = A Do Nothing Day

Today, we did almost nothing.  I got up late, cooked my customary sausage, potatoes and egg breakfast.  Then I decided to build a fire and sat beside it for much of the mid day.  I even watched my new neighbor do the. Ft. Casey shuffle from one site to one next door to us before Angela asked me to grill some hamburgers for a late lunch / early dinner.  The very hot coals did a fine job and the burgers and ears of corn were toasted to perfection.  All the while, I watched the Salish come and go on its appointed schedule.  I watched the vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett as the next Supreme Court Associate justice and then her public swearing in ceremony.  Together we then watched. Letterman's last interview of Lizzo and it was the last I had saved.

I then did another OTA TV scan attempt and came up with. 5 channels including  Q13 Fox which allowed us to get the news before retiring for the night.  The going to bed outside temperature was 45ºf so it looked like it would be a warmer night.  So I turned down our little electric heater and the furnace so that we would have a cooler sleeping termperature.

Day 4 - Tuesday, 10/27/2020 - An Eagle Encounter

We slept in until 9:30am after which I cooked my customary sausage and potatoes and eggs.  While it was once again 45º,  we bundled up to do our first beach walk.  There's about 5 miles of beach to be walked and it's littered with lots of wood debris as the State will not allow salvaging of wood.  The tide was out and beginning to come in.  We walked almost even with the Admiralty Lighthouse and noted a beached runabout with a 2008 registration date.  There was also another small hull cross section a little further up the beach.

While we were observing the boats, an eagle passed overhead and I was able to snap a photo of it.  It landed on a log about 100 yards south of us and eventually dragged what looked like some kelp out onto the beach at the tide line.  We continued to watch it and thought we were seeing our first vegetarian eagle.  We moved closer to about 25 feet away and the eagle permitted us to be that close.  We watched for about 45 minutes and soon it became apparent that the eagle was eating something mammalian.  It was impressive to watch the eagle use its claws to hold down it's catch while ripping pieces of meat from the carcass.  Eventually the eagle got its fill and flew off to alight further south on the beach in shallow water to wash itself off.  I went up to the carcass and examined it.  It turned out to be either an otter or a small seal.  Not much was left except the spine, one rear flipper and the rib cage.  

This was the closest we have ever watched this high level predator feed.  It was amazing that the eagle spotted it from several hundred feet in the air and that it permitted us to watch the feeding.  Afterwards we hiked back south using the upper bank to gain a different perspective.  Back at camp, Angela had a zoom choir meeting while I downloaded my pictures from my camera and posted them to Facebook.  

We spent our afternoon doing a driving tour to South Whidbey State Park (closed to camping because of falling tree danger).  I wanted to check out the RV waste dump site.  From there we drove to Freeland and checked out the ACE Hardware, Habitat for Humanity store and True Value Farm Store.  We made a few purchases there to help support the local economy.

Our route back to camp took us through Greenbank (the store was closed).  At camp, I cooked dinner (shoestring potatoes, onions, mushrooms, and $1 steaks) over the fire, and we ate it watching the Camping World Concert Series featuring Lady A.  Afterwards, Angela had an online choir meeting and I watched game 6 of the World Series until Angela joined me.

Day 5 - Wednesday, 10/28/2020 - A Campground Hike

This found us doing a hike to the mortar emplacements and around on a loop through the former barracks area and back along the high bank to our campsite.

The mortar emplacements are pretty interesting. There is a flat pavement area on which the mortar sat (there are 4 or 5 in total) and on each side of each mortar is a giant mound where the munitions were stored. About 50 yards outside each mortar emplacement was a concrete control tower where the soldiers who aimed the mortars were stationed. They would receive the location of the target and relay the mortar settings to the firing crew. Apparently these mortars were extremely accurate. They would fire a large charge which would have an arc not unlike one of the arches in the McDonald's hamburger symbol. 

The former barracks area which is now used as a conference center by Seattle Pacific University is in pretty good repair although we couldn't enter any of the buildings. Those buildings are surrounded by spacious open green fields that further open up on a nice beach front. There's even a location for a large BBQ. Leaving the barracks area, it's a short hike up the hill and past the Admiralty Lighthouse. We then strolled along the high bank and past the 10" gun emplacements before returning to our campsite where we spent the remainder of the day lounging around. Since this would be our last night here, we straightened things up so as to make our breaking camp the next day a bit easier.

In summary, this little RV camping location has great views of Puget Sound, close access to the Coupeville-Pt. Townsend ferry, and lots of coastal defense artifacts to explore. The construction noise at night which lasted until up to around 2AM some some mornings was a bit of a distraction. The lack of an RV sewage dump was also a bit of a drawback if one were staying longer than a week, but we were able to dump our tanks at Deception Pass State Park on our drive home. It would be fun to return once the construction is complete and the construction noise is done. We'd even consider using one of the primitive sites which have no power or water as we can operate self contained. Some of those sites have the best views.