Peninsula Living, Part 2

SUMMARY: But don’t you have to drive a while to GET someplace? Lol

Answering this friend's question on Facebook Sept 11, 2023

Depends on what you mean by "someplace". Within 5 minutes I have Costco, Home Depot, Safeway (and 2 or 3 other local/organic/nonchain groceries), Walgreens, Rite Aid, YMCA, local medical center, hiking opportunities, Dairy Queen, Burger King, McDonald's, Papa Murphy, Applebees, Taco Bell (plus nonchain restaurants and cafes)... and Walmart if you're inclined. 15 minutes to Toyota dealer if I want them to do things on my car, Wendy's... trying to identify local places by familiar names.

I *do* miss: Target, Macy's, Trader Joe's, Penney's (yes there is one up here!), Panera, major movie theaters, ... but all and many more are in Silverdale usually <60 minutes from here, so we just make it a day (or morning or afternoon) and go enjoy ourselves and do the shopping we need.

The biggest issue: Closest 24 hour emergency vet is also in Silverdale.

Most of my doctors are in Port Townsend (by choice--that's where I started up here and I like the facility and the docs etc) which is 35-45 minutes, but I'm so used to driving it that it doesn't bother me at all, AND... no traffic! The only traffic lights are at the onramp to 101 by my house and maybe one in Port Townsend--and within town they use roundabouts.

But NO TRAFFIC getting to all these places is such an amazing benefit--

I mean, it could take me an hour to get home from work in San Jose because freeways were jammed (15-20 minutes on a weekend). So driving freely through quiet mostly wooded areas for 40-60 minutes is nothing.

Not everyone else up here thinks that way. They just shop at walmart and online.

Yes, then I do have to consider gas prices. [shrug] I'm far from wealthy, but it's not like I make those drives every week.

I do avoid going to events in Seattle--it looks close, but it's either a 2-plus-hour drive or a 2-hour trip with less driving but waiting for and riding a ferry, less gas, plus ferry ticket. Ferries are pretty reliable.

You can drive around locally and find eggs and fruits and veggies and flowers and more at people's homes or at local small farms etc. And often it's just a small booth with the product and a sign stating the price and a place for you to drop your payment. Pretty cool. Of course, as population grows and more thieves arrive, that might go away.

Any more-specific questions? 😉

• My previous post about ferries: https://dogblog.finchester.org/2023/04/peninsula-living.html 

Photos from various  visits  to Silverdale (I have selected a whole bunch more, but from blogger into photos on my iPad, there's no way I can find the ones that I want. So I'll have to come back later on my Mac and figure it out.) ...(OK, I give up, the captioning and things don't even work right on my iPad. Here's what I've got so far kinda.)

This is a couch I've been considering for months. Then I bought that tie-dye thing. Oh well.

Sister and husband buying rugs at Macy's in Silverdale.

Short Hike Involving Excessive Sweating

SUMMARY: Pulgas Ridge Open Space with dogs and Sierra Club.

(Already posted photos on Facebook.)

Haven't been able to hike with the Sierra Singles Wednesday evening group in a while.  Managed to make it to this one, Pulgas Ridge. OK, it's a 40-minute drive (w/out traffic), and it's 500 feet elevation gain, but it's only a 4-mile hike and the uphill isn't really steep.

Turns out traffic was a mess on the peninsula, both on 101 (several miles north, paralleling I-280) and on I-280, where I was. Usuallygoing north at this time of day, a piece of cake. Except everything was jammed up. Southbound at a standstill, northbound seldom getting over 35MPH and usually less. Drat.

Looks sunny, but look at that fog bank pouring over the coastal range.

Turns out that I was NOT ready to get back to a hike like this with avid hikers--I lagged the whole way and they spent more time than they probably liked, waiting for me. Even the dogs were faster and more energetic than I was. Downhill for the return to parking not so bad, but that steady 2 miles of up starting out took all my energy. Gah. Must do more.

A hiking friend offered to use my camera to take our photo at the top of the ridge. She said she'd been sick for a while and was completely out of condition. Still, she managed her usual dashing back and forth and up and down taking photos everywhere and not even breathing heavily. She was NOT lagging at the back of the pack, and I most definitely was.

But everyone was nice--it's a good group--at least they didn't complain where I could hear them, and lots of people asked nice questions about the Merle Girls. One fellow who also has a border collie (actually got her as a rescue via Jim Basic, my agility instructor) has to leave her at home these days as she's too old for vigorous hikes, offered to take Boost's leash and did for a while. It was good training for mama's dog Boost, trying to get her to be a little independent of me and go ahead on the trail with someone else. She wanted repeatedly to come back to see me, but with encouragement from both of us at the right times, she went for longer and longer stretches and greater distances between insatiable needs to go back and touch Human Mom. She liked it most when he ran a bit.

I mostly didn't want to stop to take snapshots, but had to hesitate for a moment to snap the view from near the ridgetop. Southish, looking across at the Edgewood Open Space park.

Saw quite a few wildflowers scattered here and there--lupine, sticky monkey flowers, blue dicks, white ones whose name I don't know, and a few others. Interesting red California bee plant, another native, which showed up long after it was too dark under the forest canopy and in the shade of hte hill to be able to take a photo, but I did again hesitate in my rush downhill trying to catch up, to snap a blurry shot of these really nice globe lilies, yet another native.

Watched hte nearly full moon rise in front of us among the trees in the home stretch; i could go faster downhill but so could everyone else, so no photos of that, either, but I assure you it was lovely.

Wore out the dogs, which is good. Wore out me, which might be good, too. Every mountain is a step back in the direction of being able to keep up with these folks again.

Vacation Day 5: Road Trip

SUMMARY: [singsong] We're on our way to Disneyland!

[already 2 days behind on posting. So something brief for Wednesday--]

Three of us drove down together today, Wednesday, from San Jose to Anaheim. Got on the road about 8:45 a.m., just 15 minutes later than planned, and headed south on 101. (Avoiding our usual I-5 route because of construction near the Grapevine.)

We had a great, riotous time in the car, so the 8-hour trip (including lunch and traffic) mostly flew by.

We stopped for lunch at Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo. It's a quirky hotel and quirky cafe. Everything in the public building is pretty much pink. Except for their trademark glassware, which comes in about 30 different colors.

Around Santa Barbara, we could see the Channel Islands in the distance--I don't  remember ever noticing them before, but then it's been a long time since I've been down this route instead of down Interstate 5. Also had a clear view of all the oil rigs out in the Pacific along the coast (in this photo, you can just see an oil rig as a vague tiny hulk out the the left of the one island.

THENNNNNN we cleverly managed to hit Los Angeles smack dab in the center of rush hour--and no carpool lanes on the route we traveled, which was to join up with I-5 for the rest of the trip to Anaheim. So despite the highway signs that told us how long the current travel time was to various destinations ahead, the times were off by about 50%. Hum de dum de dum.

And then, not too late in the afternoon, we arrived! Of course I'm doing the short version of all this, but we're staying in the Disneyland Hotel! Where everything is a little different--

Even the palm trees look a while lot different from just about anywhere else.

We then wandered out into Downtown Disney (a fantasy-filled shopping, dining, and entertainment area, where we had dinner, took a lot of photos, listened to some music, and browsed the shops.


And then, to bed. At the Disneyland Hotel. Where the headboards have twinkling fireworks!