My alarm went off at 4:30 in the morning, and my first thought was, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Even though I had gone to bed relatively early the night before, I still didn’t get much sleep since it was the night before my first real hunting trip. Fortunately, the excitement of the coming day was also enough to roust me out of bed at that ungodly hour and
One out of the way (REALLY out of the way!) location in Washington State is Tokeland, situated on a peninsula by the north shore of Willapa Bay near its mouth at the Pacific Ocean. Named after Chief Toke, of the Shoalwater Bay tribe, and probably NOT after the slang term for smoking marijuana, the community has about 150 resident souls brave enough to weather the… well, actually the weather. The
As I sit here in my blaze orange Deer Camp 2011 tee-shirt from Cabela’s and write this blog entry on my couch, I think about how I should be out in the woods sitting on a stump glassing a clearcut for movement. I should be creeping through the timber areas north of Brady, Washington, stalking deer and elk. Maybe even a cougar or a bear. I should be shoulder to
Yes, I blog about Ocean Shores a lot. My parents live there, so what can I do? We drove over on Saturday afternoon and dad made a great dinner of sausage, sauerkraut, apples, bacon, and rolls. Delicious if you like sauerkraut. While we could have gone to the beach before sundown, we were very tired from a trip to Point Defiance Zoo that morning, so we opted to stay home
I recently had the fortune to be taken on a personal tour of the Weyerhauser logging areas north of Brady, WA. I’ve been more and more interested in hunting as of late, and a coworker of mine – an avid hunter since he was a teenager – was kind enough to take me on a scouting trip to the area where he hunts every year. Being completely unfamiliar with anything
Last weekend was my parents 40th anniversary, so Kelly, Parker and I spent the weekend at their house in Ocean Shores. I realized that I’ve never written about Ocean Shores in this blog, and it was about time I did. I guess we travel there so much, it’s lost some of its initial charm. Ocean Shores is a little less than two hours west of Olympia. To get there, you
I had the opportunity to take a private tour of the towns of Centralia and Chehalis today. My friend and former co-worker, Jim Valley (now the Executive Director of the Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce), agreed to meet me for lunch so I could pick his brain about a few ideas I’ve had. After lunch at Azteca (where we ran into Rep. Richard DeBolt, Washington State House Minority Leader), Jim showed
Last weekend, I got another chance to drive through some small Washington towns to which I’ve never been before. It was our family reunion weekend, an annual event, that was scheduled this year for Packwood, Washington. We always try to find a somewhat centralized location so all family members can at least make an effort to attend. Packwood seemed to be easy for us and for the Campbells in the Yakima area,
Since non-union state employees haven’t received any pay increases in almost two years, my wife and I decided to forgo the traditional anniversary gifts and cards to each other. We celebrated our seven-year anniversary on Monday (July 5th) the same as any other day…Parker woke us up around five in the morning, and yours truly spent the rest of the early morning on the couch as he watched Handy Manny.
Father’s Day turned out to be pretty spectacular despite the terrible weather. Kelly, Parker and I went with several of our family friends to the Olympia Air Show to see the planes and let the kids get close up views of the “ah-panes.” Not expecting much from the Olympia Regional Airport, I was surprised to find the place packed with both planes and patrons. After parking in a field some