Changing to Travelingturtles.weebly.com

Okay folks; this is it.  The switch has been made.  From now on, find updates on the Traveling Turtles at weebly.
travelingturtles.weebly.com  See you there!

Tacoma Narrows

In the last post I forgot to mention the drive to Poulsbo took us over the bridges at what is called Tacoma Narrows.  The resemblance of these bridges to the Golden Gate bridge is striking... except there are two of them, side by side.  

In case you haven't yet seen enough sand and water pictures I thought I'd include a couple more.  The tide is out here and the shore was shallow for quite a distance.  This particular stretch of "beach" is of the chunky variety.  But yesterday, I found a section of sand in a beach when the tide was out.  Funny, there were be stratas of rock, seaweed, sand and more rock in different areas at different times.  I've come to appreciate wet sand quite a bit.  From now on, I'll refrain from more sand photos. 

I'm finding Blogspot to be very frustrating when it comes to formatting the photos and text on a page.  It has a mind of it's own.   I'll be making a switch to another blog platform.  When I do, I'm thinking of starting out with our original 2000 - 2002 newsletters written during of our original travels as Traveling Turtles.  I've kept them in my email account all this time.  

I wish I could convert all our blog posts but I haven't found a way to do that thus far.  If you know of a way please let me know.  The new blog will be with Weebly.  (Thanks Laura for the referral!)

Blueberries, Ft. Nisqually & Leavenworth

Larry's been working two weeks and I've only worked one, but we got our first week-end off together.  There's so much to see in this area we plan to make the most of our every-other week-end off.

 We started out the day picking blueberries.  The city of Tacoma owns what used to be a privately owned blueberry farm.  They manage the farm with volunteer help and let the public and wildlife pick for free.  They use no fertilizers nor pesticides.  We spent about an hour on Saturday morning picking somewhere around 6 cups worth.  The temperature was very comfortable and spending time scouting among the bushes was very enjoyable and the blueberries are among the best I've ever tasted!  Nothing beats fresh picked organic berries.


From there we headed to another city park called Pt. Defiance which is a 760 acre park on a point on Puget Sound in Tacoma.  There's a living history museum called Fort Nisqually.  We went because they were having an event called "Sheep to Shawl" and thought it would be fun to watch the old craft of making a piece of clothing starting from shearing the sheep.  Unfortunately, the sheep didn't show up.  There were a couple ladies there using their spinning wheels and we sat and talked with them a while and learned alot about different kinds of wool, how they spin it and what they make from it. We also toured the rest of the fort, which was built for commerce, not protection.  I especially liked the plant tags which described how the different plants (that I'm mostly familiar) with were used for food, medicine, dye, needles, and more.  This is stuff our culture has completely forgotten about.

Life must have been very difficult then, without our modern amenities but there is a part of me that yearns for the basic, down-to-earth existence, at least the way it exists in my mind.  I suppose if I actually had to live it I would yearn for running water, flushing toilets, and warm showers.  Just guessing, but Larry might say he would miss music on demand, phones and blue tooth.

It's interesting to see our roots of modern living in the early tools and buildings.  Looking at the construction of this house, it's easy to see where our modern construction elements come from.  Vinyl siding is made to look like the slats on this house.  The gutter is inventive, don't you think?  I wonder how often it had to be rebuilt?

We talked at length with the blacksmith and store keeper, both of whom explained life in the fort in the early days.  It's fascinating stuff.

By then, our feet were hurting (both of us seem to have "old-people" issues with foot pain) so we headed  for the beach... also in Pt. Defiance.  The only thing is... as it seems with so many "beaches" here, the sand is rather chunky.  It's horrible to walk on barefoot - especially for a tenderfoot.  We pretty much wear our sandals until we get to the water's edge and then stand in one place with our feet in the water.  Believe it or not, it does help our feet feel better.  It's probably a combination of cold water and making contact with the wet earth that helps.  We both seem to be able to walk easier after spending 20 or so minutes soaking.




From there we took a long car ride to check out a couple touristy towns. Gig Harbor, just a little ways North, is supposed to have a nice little shopping district.  "Little" was a good term for it.  We didn't bother subjecting our feet to window-shopping.  We drove on to Poulsbo, WA, a good hour or so further.  It's a town with a Scandinavian district.  Unless there was more that we missed, this two about "little"... about two blocks long.   We did get out and walk there but decided it wasn't worth coming back to a second time.

Dinner at Skipper's with clam chowder and Fish 'N Chips wrapped up Saturday.



On Sunday we headed 2 1/2 hours NE for another Scandinavian town (Norwegian, I believe) called Leavenworth.  We climbed in elevation quite a bit and in the Winter this is snow country.  Winter pictures of Leavenworth are gorgeous.

This town had much more to offer than Poulsbo and we spent a few hours walking around, mostly looking for something "authentic" (Norwegian) to eat.  The few restaurants we could find seemed more German than Norwegian to us but what do I know?  I guess I thought Norwegians might be fisherman and have a different culture from Germany.  The thought occurs to me that maybe this is not an authentic Norwegian town.  What do you think?  :-)

At the far end of the street we found a great little place selling a good assortment of sausages (fancy hot dogs) with all kinds of toppings to add, including some yummy sauerkraut.  There was an open courtyard with picnic tables crammed in where people shared tables with people they didn't know.  Each table had a firepit in the middle which I'm sure is extremely popular in the Winter.

All in all it was a very enjoyable two day "vacation".  Now it's back to work for 12 days straight before our next one.

By the way, we'd love to know who is reading the blog and invite you to leave a comment.  That makes sharing more fun for us.  Thanks!

4th of July - Shirley's first day of work in Tacoma

It took less than a week from Larry's start date (on Monday) to get the marching orders for my new assignment.  The first inkling was a call on Wednesday (two days after Larry started) to confirm I was in Tacoma and ready to work.  I was told I would hear something soon, maybe even Saturday.  Thursday evening I was told that I would get a call Friday morning.  Sure enough, Friday morning I received a call to report to work on Saturday morning.  I was given very little information about the position but hoped it was in the same department as Larry.

Things have turned out well.  Not only am I in the same department but I sit next to him.  It would be hard to be too far away as there are only 4 of us in this department.  We're part of a larger team who work out of Dallas but it's still just the 4 of us here.  We're doing the same job that Larry has been doing for the last 8 months in Dallas.

For me, this job is very different from my last.  Before, I was actively working with people on the phone all day long.  I would take my alloted breaks but otherwise there was always more work to be done than could be done in a day (maybe several days).  In contrast, this job is a piece of cake!  All we need to do is be available to assist others who are taking new claim reports and help out as needed.  So far today I've had 8 phone calls. There are no tasks waiting for my attention and no responsibilities beyond answering questions.  This hardly feels like a job at all!

With all my spare time I've been studying the details of my scope of work so I can assist my customers better.  In about a week I should know it pretty well.  Then what!?

We're sitting on the 12th floor of this building, the top floor.  There are views on 4 sides, though one must get up and walk around to see them.  On two sides there is a very nice view of downtown, on the third side there is a view of Puget sound and the view on the 4th side is dominated by Mt. Rainier.  The weather has been gorgeous since we've been here so we've been able to see it well.  I expect most of the year it is shrouded in clouds or fog.  I only got this one picture today.  Maybe tomorrow I'll take photos of the other three views and share them with you.

So this post was titled as 4th of July.  I supposed I should mention that the fireworks in our neck of the woods, which really is rural, were non-stop from sun-down to well after midnight.  The booms and pops were non-stop for hours and came at a frequency that was fast and furious.  I finally fell asleep from pure exhaustion with the booms and pops still frequent.  Somewhere around 4am I woke up and realized it was quiet.  These natives apparently love fireworks.  I expected to hear more last night but didn't.  Apparently, everyone spent their whole the whole budget in one night.  It must have cost a fortune!