O Captain! My Captain!

Stylish, understated gift shop in Ocean Shores, Washington

It's been an unusual week for me in some respects. I'd never in my life had to make a phone call to emergency services, but this past week I've had to call 9-1-1 twice. The first time was on Monday, when I noticed a man lying unconscious near the road. A closer look showed there was blood from a cut on the back of his neck...and a beer can in a paper bag nearby, suggesting a drunken fall. The paramedics who arrived on the scene knew him by name, and fortunately he didn't appear to be seriously hurt.

The second occasion happened this afternoon while I was walking with my daughter in the Illahee Preserve. Passing by a man sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree, I casually greeted him with a "How's it going?" as we walked by. For some reason this seemed to antagonize him, and I quickly realized he wasn't a hiker but one of the homeless who lives in the woods. He began swearing and making threats while calling me the N-word (go figure that one), before getting up and walking away in the opposite direction. I had the impression he was scared and didn't want to be disturbed, hence the aggressive front, but with Amber by my side I didn't want to take any chances, so I called 9-1-1 again and gave a description of the man. We didn't see him again as we made our way back to our car, but I did warn several other people out enjoying the fresh air of his presence in the area. I was very impressed by my daughter, who remained calm throughout the experience and didn't seem flustered by it at all.

Fortunately, these two experiences were just bookends for an otherwise good week, with most of it being spent with my sister and her granddaughter in the coastal resort town of Ocean Shores. Probably the highlight of our visit was on Thursday morning when we had the opportunity to pilot an electric boat through a section of the canals that run through the area. After a five-minute crash course given by Tom Kimzey, the owner of Oceans Shores Electric Boat Company, I was ready to take the wheel:

The canals are lined with homes, many with their own boat launches:

Passing under bridges and avoiding the shallow parts of the waterways required total concentration:

Several deer were spotted during our one-hour cruise:

At times it felt like we were on the bayous of the deep South, minus the magnolias and the humidity...and the gators:

I may have been the captain, but I was no William Bligh. Everyone had a turn at piloting the boat, even our two youngest crew members, on a section of water called Duck Lake: 

I've seen the future, and it could involve a home by the water and an electric boat of my own to putter about in when I retire. In any case, it was a lot of fun:

After lunch at a Mexican restaurant, followed by shopping and a round of miniature golf, we dropped Karen and Kloe off at the hotel. Amber, Pamela and I then drove down to the beach hoping to go on a horse ride before dinner, but we arrived too late. Storms were brewing far out to sea, meaning it was unlikely there would be a spectacular sunset:

Amber nonetheless enjoyed playing in the surf:

We also took a walk through the dunes, amid beach scenery quite different from what I remember as a kid growing up in southern California:

Driving on the beaches in Washington goes back to the days when there were few roads and the sand was considered part of the state's highway system:

Our day ended with a dip in the hotel pool and dinner at a nearby seafood restaurant. Drizzle and cooler temperatures meant we couldn't go horseback riding the next morning, but I still took a walk along the beach:

We spotted more deer as we drove through the quiet back roads of Ocean Shores. The deer outnumber the human residents (the latter around 5000) and show no fear of people, but coyotes and bobcats help to keep their numbers in check:

Is it a lighthouse? A Bed-and-Breakfast? A private residence? No, it turned out to be a storage facility:

We eventually arrived at the Ocean Shores Interpretive Center, an excellent educational facility that provided plenty of hands-on opportunities for the girls:

In addition to the fauna, there were historical displays, including pieces of wreckage from some noted local shipwrecks:

There was also an exhibit on flotsam that had been carried from Asia on Pacific Ocean currents to Washington shores, much of it the result of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami 東北地方太平洋沖地震:

A final seafood lunch, and then it was time to leave Ocean Shores. As we made our way inland, the rain started to come down hard, a much-needed downpour in what has been an extremely dry spring and summer in the Pacific Northwest. On the way back to Bremerton we stopped off in Aberdeen, a gritty lumber town where Nirvana's Kurt Cobain grew up. Approaching from the wrong direction, we weren't able to get a photo of the Welcome to Aberdeen: Come As You Are sign, but we did drive by his childhood home. Although the house has an assessed value of $67,000 (no surprise considering the surrounding neighborhood), the musician's mother has put it on the market with an asking price of $400,000:

If this is what passes for a "scenic view" (that's what the sign said) in Aberdeen, then it becomes easy to understand why Cobain was so desperate to leave as he was:

Today is Saturday, and we're back in our temporary home in Bremerton. I took Amber to the Poulsbo Marine Science Center this morning, but it was "closed for maintenance." My daughter didn't seem to mind, however, and instead we had lunch at the retro-chic Green Light Diner, where we were happy to discover they carried Cheerwine: 

Later we drove out to the Illahee Preserve, where the aforementioned encounter with the cranky homeless denizen occurred. Despite that unpleasantness, it was still a interesting walk through the woods:

As we didn't have a map with us, I took pictures of Amber pointing the way back at every numbered post, which came in useful when it was determined that our best course of action was to leave. Considering the risks, I won't be taking my daughter out on these particular trails again. It's a shame, but there lots of other walking trains in the region to explore:

From the shores of Ocean, um, Shores

Greetings from Ocean Shores, Washington, described by Lonely Planet as the state of Washington's most popular coastal resort (as well as "a manufactured beach haven"). We are staying at a chain hotel with my sister and one of her grandchildren, Kloe, having arrived in the middle of this afternoon. Popular though it may be (our hotel currently has no vacancies), it doesn't feel very busy and the town is pretty quiet. Perhaps it might pick up this weekend, but as things stand now, Ocean Shores feels like the resort that time forgot, stuck in a 1970's kind of time warp judging from the architecture, though like everywhere else in Washington, craft beer and espresso are not difficult to find. 

Public access to the beach here is fairly straightforward: you drive your car right up to the shoreline and park it there.  After several hours in the car driving from Bremerton (including stops for lunch and an iced tea break), the girls wasted no time getting their feet wet, with Kloe especially chafing at the bit:

It was hard not to notice the 42 foot-long fishing boat that had become grounded just offshore the previous day. Other news articles have mentioned the possibility of a fuel leak, which is something to consider should some of us want to go swimming tomorrow:

Even if swimming is out of the question (the water was cold late this afternoon), the sunsets are worth another trip to the dunes:

Yesterday, while the trawler was lying in the water like a beached whale, my daughter and I had a very enjoyable day together. Most of the time was spent at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma. Seattle may have a much larger and more famous facility, but Tacoma is much closer and easier to reach from Bremerton. Amber has been to the Tacoma zoo before, but didn't mind going again, plotting the appropriate route from the map with Rocky the Raccoon in tow, the latter a gift for making a $5 donation for animal conservation (the suggestion for the name was mine):

In addition to the usual animals in their enclosures...:

...Amber had several opportunities for more hands-on experiences, including feeding goats and budgies, and getting to touch rays and sharks:

She also was able to meet Dr. Bones, the canine star of one of the shows:

After the zoo, we visited the Japanese Garden inside Point Defiance Park. Tacoma's sister city in Japan, Kokura 小倉 (now part of the city of Kitakyūshū 北九州市), was the intended target for the second atomic bomb, but was spared due to cloud cover. What was fortunate for Kokura could be not be said for Nagasaki 長崎:

The Pagoda, dating from 1914, was originally a streetcar station and then a waiting area for buses:

Amber also enjoyed the Rose Garden, but didn't care much for my rendition of a certain Lynn Anderson song:

We ended up at Cheney Stadium, home of the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers, to watch a minor league baseball game. I could go all George Will or Ken Burns at this point, and wax nostalgic on how baseball at this level is indicative of the American character, how its appeal provides a link between the information age of the early 21st century with a bygone 19th century pastoral society, but I won't. Suffice it to say, it was a great family-friendly atmosphere, with plenty of between-innings goings on to keep the younger set engaged. My daughter wasn't always paying attention to the action on the field, but she had a good time eating clam chowder (this is the Pacific Northwest) and cotton candy, watching the videos on the scoreboard and talking about the things that matter to a nine year-old girl with her dad. For me, there was the obvious father-daughter bonding, as well as the link to a bygone age in American history when...

In any event, it was a good game. Though I'd normally root, root, root for the home team, last night's opponent was the Sacramento River Cats. Having lived in River City in the period of time between when the Solons moved to San Jose and before the River Cats came to town from Vancouver, I never had the chance to see a minor league game in the place that I refer to as a "hometown" (for lack of any other suitable candidates). The Rainiers jumped out to an early 4-0 lead, but Sacramento came from behind to score nine runs in the last three innings to win 9-4 (for Tacoma, having its bullpen blow the lead and lose the game was emulative of how the parent club has been doing this season). One of these days, I may actually return to Sacramento and see a game at Raley Field, framed by a backdrop of  high rise buildings that I don't recognize:

Amber pays her respects to Ben Cheney after the game.  In case you're wondering where my wife was, she had planned on going to the game with us in the hope of seeing Chien-Ming Wang 王建民, the pride of Taiwan, pitch, but when she learned he wasn't going to be starting last night, she lost interest and decided to stay home. Fans can be fickle at times: