Anacortes, Washington

[PZ]

We just returned from a trip to Anacortes, which is on the northern Washington coast. We stopped at Leavenworth, a Bavarian style town, for an overnight stay, and then continued toward the coast. The road was in bad condition, and once we reached our destination, we realized that the left rear bearing on our trailer blew out to the point where the wheel was wobbling on the spindle. We were lucky we did not turn over the rig, with us along with it.

Our plan was to visit the tulip festival, which was spectacular - we took lots of pictures. As part of the trip, we went to Coupville on the recommendation of a friend to have Penn Cove mussels. Cheri ordered the traditional white wine broth and I tried the Mussels Rockefeller, the broth of which contained butter, bacon, Pernod, garlic, spinach, and spices of all sorts. They were the best I have ever had!

Photo album of our trip, mostly with captions. Warning - there are 52 photos, including ones of our destroyed axle.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/k6w7do2ACbUyNnvW7

[Art Blade]

Impressive. From a deadly crow (I think you meant "crowd") over invisible grey whales to penguins, from an RV repair shop with my name on top over driftwood bigger than anything I've even seen drifting in any stream to a main stream pot shop. Oh and some flowers. The blown out wheel.. you guys were seriously lucky. I'm glad it kind of panned out nicely, as in, we've got you back

[fragger]

Lovely run, PZ You guys in the USA are certainly spoiled for scenery. Australia is pretty boring by comparison, unless you're really into empty desert flatscapes Well, we do have some cool stuff to look at here, but nothing like the sheer variety of natural spectacles you folks have got.

I checked out Anacortes on Google maps, you guys were really way up near the border there. Bet that gets chilly in the winter, brrrr.

Lots of lovely piccies there. My faves are: the factory at sunset with the majestic peak in the background (you will NEVER see a mountain like that here, they just don't exist); all the colours in the tulip fields; the leprechaun trying to steal Cheri's cap; the bald eagle, one of my favourite birds; another one of my favourite birds, the F-16 Falcon (yep, they're loud); and the sign for the place that looks like it sells beer, wine and weed (my kind of place )

But I really enjoyed looking at all the photos, great stuff!

Thanks for sharing mate, and I'm glad that wheel didn't give you any real grief.

[PZ]

Thanks gents 

We are truly lucky in many ways. Lucky to be he@lthy enough to travel, have nice places to visit, and especially lucky not to have flipped our trailer, which also would have taken the truck with it.

[nex]

Just had a quick look, fantastic 

[mandru]

Wow great pics PZ and a stroll down memory lane for me.

When I was a kid Whidbey Island was one of my family's favorite vacation destinations.  You even got a good picture of the bridge at Deception Pass.  I had a lot of boy scout camp outs at the State Park there at the Pass.

Due South of Coupeville (on the map) is Fort Casey State Park.  www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Casey

It was only a two and a half hour drive from home for us if we skipped the Mukilteo/Clinton ferry crossing.

Pillboxes, emplacement spots for disappearing guns (one on display), and scads of explorable underground concrete superstructure with shell elevators and ammo storage chambers as well as cliff front observation stations overlooking the water course access to all of Puget Sound made for hundreds of hours sparking my young imagination as I roamed the grounds.

The constant winds at Fort Casey make for one of the best kite flying spots in the state.

[PZ]

Thanks guys 

Small world mandru 

Thanks or the information about Fort Casey S.P.; I wish I'd done more research before we left because I really enjoy visiting old military installations. We'll likely end up there one of these days because we like the area.

Here is the first of two short videos:

**CAUTION** I used a made-up bad word about a minute into the video.

[PZ]

This is the second video.

Video

[Art Blade]

nice

[Dweller_Benthos]

Nice pics and video, even though I just ate lunch, I could go for some of those mussels, they look yummy.

[nex]

Very nice PZ, hope you guys had a good time

[PZ]

Thanks gents - it was a good time, and excellent food 

[fragger]

I really enjoyed the videos, PZ The mussels looked wonderful!

Out of curiosity, did you record the videos on your phone or a camera?

[PZ]

A camera of sorts - a Hero4 GoPro, which I have become extremely fond of. It is tiny - not much larger than a matchbox, and when I want to capture something, all I need do is press the button and a video starts recording. I can use it plain, or in a waterproof housing.

The resolution is excellent, but file size very large. Once I import the video, I can use it as is, move to any place in the video and capture a single frame (excellent resolution), and process it using the free GoPro software.

However, because the file size is so large, somewhere about a gb per few minutes of video, I have used a couple of different applications to get them to a reasonable size, usually less than 200 mb for every gb of original size. These I upload to YT.

On an aside, I found a kit which includes just about any possible way you can think of to mount the device: headband, bike handlebar mount, flexible tripod, wristband, chest mount, bicycle helmet mount, sticky pads, regular camera tripod mount - just about anything you can think of, all for $20.

Nice thing is that if I do not wish to drag my heavy bulky SLR, I can stick this thing into the smallest pocket and at least have some way of recording video (and by default, single images with excellent quality)

[Art Blade]

I first came across the brand name GoPro in a funny vid. The vid was recorded with the cam strapped to the back of a golden retriever while he was running from his home to the beach and plunged into the water. It was breathtaking and funny as hell

I found it! here you go (I posted that long ago somewhere but hell, here it is again)