13

8 homes.


7 moves (all at least 3,000 miles across country if not across an ocean) - 8 if you count moving from Boston to Groton when we got married.

5 deployments (3 to WESTPAC, 1 to CENTCOM, and 1 to EUCOM)

1 Change of Homeport (huge pain in the arse those are)

2 weeks after our first son was born, we were packed up in the car driving across country

3 days after our second son was born, I was recalled off of baby leave to go to sea because another boat broke.

13 years since my wonderful wife and I were married in Boston.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetie!

Olympic National Park - Staircase Rapids Hike

The weather sure has been spectacularly beautiful here in the Pacific Northwest over the past several weeks.  I've been itching to get outside and enjoy the natural beauty of summertime in Washington, but we've been busy digging out of the sea of cardboard boxes and making frequent trips to Home Depot for home improvement projects.  (I really should buy stock in Home Depot.)

We finally achieved a sufficient level of comfort in being "settled in" to invite friends over for a barbecue a week ago Sunday.  Having reached that milestone, we finally took Saturday to head for the hills. 

During my first visit to Olympic National Park (ONP) back in June, I picked up the Falcon Guide to Best Easy Day Hikes Olympic National Park.  The first hike listed in the guide is Staircase Rapids.  It's listed as a 2 mile hike with only 200 feet of elevation gain, so I figured it would be a good hike to do with the boys.  Plus, it's only open in the summertime, so I wanted to give it a try. 

Now, in most national parks, the NPS website is pretty detailed and informative.  I've been a little disappointed with the ONP website.  ONP, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, is bigger than the state of Rhode Island.  There are half a dozen or more different places in the park you can visit with different climates, ecosystems, trails, and things to do.  Each one of those places deserves a unique page and pamphlet, but they just have one web page, one map, one pamphlet for the whole park.  To wit, when we drove up to the Staircase Ranger Station, the Park Ranger handed us the exact same ONP pamphlet that I got up at the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center in June.  While it's nice to have a map of the ENTIRE park for general reference in choosing which part of the park to go visit, it would be useful to have more detailed information at each of the ranger stations or visitor centers.  There are certainly dozens of others of websites with photos and guides for visiting different spots in ONP, but with so many to choose from, it takes time to sort through and figure out which ones are worth a darn. 

Lake Cushman

To get to Staircase Rapids, you go to Hoodsport, WA, and there will be the standard brown roadsigns telling you where to turn to head up to Lake Cushman and the Staircase Ranger Station.  I was rather surprised that there were a few miles of dusty, bumpy dirt road along the way.

Once we got to the federal property line and the ONP sign though, the road was paved again.

Time stamp - departing the Ranger Station.

While there isn't a visitor's center per se, but the Ranger Station does have the standard National Park stamp and some books and small souvenirs for sale.  (Note:  They only take cash.) 

It used to be a loop-hike that would take you up one side of the Skokomish River, cross a bridge, then down the other side of the river back to the Ranger Station.  However, the bridge is washed out, so for now it's just an out-and-back along one side or the other. 

We crossed this bridge that is still intact right next to the ranger station and hiked up the west side of the river.

This baffled me.  There were no fewer than a half dozen "no pets" signs at the park entrance, in the parking lot, at the ranger station, and TWO signs here at the trailhead.  Yet, no sooner did we walk past these signs, a family passed us and headed up the trail with two dogs.  What the heck?

Another thing that surprised me was to see people walking back toward the Ranger Station in wet bathing suits and wrapped in towels like they had just gotten out of the water.  Sure enough, we got upstream aways and saw a spot where people were jumping off a large rock into a swirling pool of colgate-blue water.  I didn't go down to feel how cold it was, but I figure that water's gotta be frigid snow-runoff.

The still photos of the Staircase Rapids don't do it justice.  When you look at this photo, imagine a tremendously loud roaring noise as gajillions of gallons of water crash around these rocks and carve their way down the valley toward Lake Cushman.

The old-growth forest that the river cuts through is beautiful.

7-year old YB on top of the roots of the tree.

Overall, it was a very nice family hike.  I'm not sure it was quite good enough to justify the long drive out there, but I was very glad to get out of the house with my family and enjoy the beauty of ONP again before summer sneaks away.

 

Hike Stats:

Date: 30 July 2011

Start Time:  2:59 p.m.

Moving Time Elapsed:  49 min

Stopped Time Elapsed:  23 min

Finish Time:  4:11 p.m.

Miles:  2.8 miles

Elevation gain: 98 feet

Temp:  Forgot to write it down.  It was low-70's, and we were all in shorts and t-shirts.

Wind:  None.

But alas poor Smokey...

We are mourning the loss of a family member today.

Smokey was a good fish. 


Loyal.

Friendly.

Resilient.

Okay, so "loyal" may be stretching it a bit.  It's not like he had a choice who his owners were.  However, he was definitely a friendly and resilient fish.

I never thought fish responded to people or showed any sign of personality before we got Smokey.  He actually came out of his little fish-bowl house and appeared to wag his tail for us when we would walk into the room. 

He was certainly a well-traveled fish, having made the trip to New Hampshire for summer vacation and most recently the 3,000 mile drive across country from Virginia to Washington.  He proved his resilience more than once.  The first occasion earned a Post-of-the-Week award for his tumble down the stairs. 

Smokey's Travel Fish-bowl

The most recent occasion I now realize I forgot to write about.  It was when we went on vacation in New Hampshire last summer.  The boys and I had recently watched What About Bob, and they got the idea of taking Smokey with us in a glass jar like Bill Murray with his pet fish Gill.  In anticipation of our upcoming PCS transfer to Washington, we decided to use the drive to NH as a test run for Smokey.  He passed with flying colors. 

Well... swimming colors I suppose. 

There was a close call along the way though.  When we stopped to tour the Valley Forge National Historic Park, we left Smokey in the car. 

It got a little warm.

When we returned to the car, we found Smokey on floating on his side near the top of his water jug, periodically twitching one of his fins like a toy whose batteries were worn out.  We manned battlestations-fish-resuscitation, cranked on the A/C and my wonderful wife held Smokey's jar in front of the vent to cool him off (but not so quickly as to put him in thermal shock).  He seemed just fine a couple of hours later.  No harm done apparently.

I suppose I didn't write about it so none of you would be calling the humane society on me for leaving a pet unattended in the car.

Along the way across country this month, he got to visit the Louisville Slugger bat factory, Mount Rushmore, and Yellowstone National Park.  In hindsight, I am wishing we had taken pictures of him at all those places.

Well, Smokey has gone to to the big fishbowl in the sky now.  This is a first time for my kids to deal with death first hand.  My eldest son (ES) seems to be taking it harder than my younger son. 

We asked the boys what they would like to do for a funeral for Smokey.  We offered the burial-at-sea-via-the-toilet or the bury-in-the-back-yard options.  ES didn't want either.  The toilet seemed to undignified, and he said Smokey wouldn't want to be buried in Washington because he's a Virginia fish.  We convinced the boys we should bury him here at our new home in Washington.

Actually, in order to calm ES down, my wife told him we would exhume Smokey when we leave Washington in a few years and head back to the east coast, and take him back to VA for a proper burial.

...Being a Virginia fish and all.

We're hoping ES forgets by then.

It was a spectacularly gorgeous day in Washington.  Here my wife and son dig a grave for Smokey in our back yard.

So long, Smokey.  You will be missed.

Baltimore

Last weekend we had a wonderful Thanksgiving here in Ashburn with friends from church.  Then my wife and I made a spontaneous decision to go to Baltimore on a family weekend getaway.  We've been wanting to go for quite some time, but just never got around to it until now.

We drove up just after lunch on Friday.  Our first stop was at Fort McHenry to see where the flag was flown that inspired the Star Spangled Banner.

I have yet to be disappointed by listening to a Park Ranger from the National Park Service give a talk.  The Park Rangers here at Fort McHenry were no exception.  This Ranger gave us a great introduction in the visitor's center, and another Ranger was dressed up in a uniform from the War of 1812 and was milling about the grounds of the fortress.

After the introduction by the Park Ranger, we went into the small theater to watch the introductory video.  The video was a little on the cheesy side, but did provide good background on the sequence of events during the battle.  Then ending was extraordinary though.  As the video ended, an electric motor drew back the curtains to reveal the flag flying over the fort while a very moving rendition of The Star Spangled Banner played on the stereo system.

The entrance to the fort and a Park Ranger dressed in a uniform from the War of 1812.

My eldest son looking out over the entrance to Baltimore Harbor.

Self-Portrait with ES.  That flagpole in the background is where Francis Scott Key observed, "that our flag was still there."  Fort McHenry is an excellent National Historic Site with many interactive exhibits in each of the buildings inside the fort.  Both of the boys did the Junior Park Ranger activity sheet and earned another Junior Park Ranger badge, too.


Next we went and checked into our hotel.  We used our Marriott Reward points to stay at the Renaissance Hotel right on the waterfront in Baltimore.  When we checked in, the lady at the counter gave us a free upgrade to a room with a view.  Score!

When we got to the room, we found that they even provided binoculars in the room.

The front desk staff was VERY helpful with information about what to see and do nearby.  We had already been planning on going to the National Aquarium Baltimore because it is open until 8 p.m. on Fridays.  What we didn't know, and what the hotel receptionist informed us, was that the aquarium was only $5 after 5 p.m. to get into the aquarium on Fridays.  Score!  Cha-ching! Cha-ching!  It was like 4:30 then, so we went and had an early dinner at a restaurant across the street first, and then headed over to the aquarium.

I've been to many aquariums across the country, and I was very impressed with the National Aquarium Baltimore.  When you buy tickets, they are for a certain entry time, done in 15 minute increments.

The inside of the aquarium is organized in a manner to keep people moving through each of the exhibits, with moving walkways and escalators keeping people moving in ONE direction through the museum, not back and forth and all over the place.  Having the time sequenced entry, limiting how many people are allowed to enter each 15 minutes, and having the layout to keep people moving was genius.  It was very efficient and well planned.

Here is YB checking out the kelp forest.  This felt like a homecoming to me.  I "grew up" learning to scuba dive as a teenager in the kelp forests off of San Diego.  You can see a beautiful male sheepshead in there, too.

YB with the jellyfish.

Toward the end of our visit to the aquarium, we came to this seemingly black wall.  I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it, except for a smattering of various people sitting and standing around watching this wall as if they were watching a giant movie screen with nothing on it.  Suddenly, there were "ooohs!" and "ahhhs!" and gasps through the crowd as these gray ghosts gracefully glided past behind the glass.

Ghosts

We ended up taking a seat to watch the dolphins swim past a few more laps before moving on.  (Note the reflection of LW's pink sweater in the glass above.)  This reminded me of being at sea off the coast of Southern California where the dolphins look like ghosts in the water, but there they are highlighted by a sheen of bioluminescence and leave a glowing trail behind them.

Night view of Baltimore from our hotel room.

Saturday morning, we went to tour the historic ships on the Baltimore waterfront.  First we went to USS CONSTELLATION.

This boatswain's mate met us on the main deck of the CONSTELLATION, and he was AWESOME.  He enlisted our help to do morning colors.

Raising the flag on USS CONSTELLATION

The Bo'sun showing the boys the ropes.

Oh say can you see...

The boatswain told us to come back after we finished our tour in order for the boys to receive their "pay" for working for him that morning on raising the U.S., Maryland, and Baltimore flags.  When we returned for the boys to receive their pay, he explained how much they had earned and how much he had to deduct for their uniforms and candy they took from the ship's store, so they wouldn't actually get any pay.  However, he said in honor of their service, President Lincoln was awarding them each a presidential medallion.

The boatswain presents "presidential medallions" to the boys.

ES inspects the presidential medallion he earned for doing morning colors.  It looked suspiciously like a penny, but the boatswain assured him that pennies had Indian heads on them and that this was a genuine presidential medallion from President Lincoln.

We also toured the submarine USS TORSK, the last submarine to sink a Japanese ship during WWII.  One of the volunteers on board told us the boat received an encrypted message in the middle of attacking a Japanese convoy.  They sank two of the Japanese ships and were lining up to shoot a third when the radiomen brought the deciphered message to the captain reporting the Japanese surrender and directing U.S. forces to cease all hostilities.

While we were touring the USCGC TANEY, we were climbing up a ladder and my eldest son behind me said, "Daddy, there's a big hole in your pants."  There is?

Why, yes, indeed there was a RATHER LARGE and GAPING WIDE hole in the crotch of my pants.  No wonder I was so cold!  My loving family proceeded to form a sort of privacy-screen walking in front of me as we proceeded down the street to the nearest department store to buy me a new pair of jeans.

Last stop for our whirlwind trip to Baltimore was the Port Discovery Children's Museum.  The boys had a BLAST. 

Here are two young archaeologists pulling themselves across a river in Egypt.  I was actually pleasantly surprised by some of the side exhibits at Port Discovery like this Egyptian archaeology exhibit.  There was an actual mission to find out the name of a pharaoh, and you had to put together pieces of pottery and take crayon rubbings of hieroglyphs and decode clues in order to come up with the answer at the end.

Later, YB asked my wife if he could get his own car when he gets older.  She said, uhhhh, sure, why?  He responded because then he could drive himself to Baltimore to go back to the Port Discovery Children's Museum.  Sadly, by the time he's old enough to drive, I think he will have long forgotten how much fun he had there last weekend.

We had a great weekend getaway to Baltimore.  There's still a LOT more to see and do around Baltimore, so we look forward to going back again someday.

I'm alive

Hey folks,
     Sorry my blog posting has been light lately.  I blame summer vacation and new toy syndrome.
     Back when the boys were in school, they had a bedtime that allowed my wife and I to have a few hours to ourselves between them going to bed and us going to bed.  That was the main time I was writing blog posts.
     Now that the boys are out of school for the summer, we've been letting them stay up later.  We've been enjoying the time together.  We used to only do family movie night on Friday or Saturday nights (not school nights).  Now that they don't have to get up for school in the morning, we've been having a lot of family movie nights.  Actually we've sorta run out of movies per se, but we've become big fans of Netflix on the X-Box.

Netflix has a lot of movies and TV shows you can watch instantly through the internet, and we've been working our way through a bunch of old TV shows that my wife and I used to watch when we were kids.  During the day the boys have been watching an episode of Knight Rider with my wife.  In the evenings, they've been watching an episode of Quantum Leap with me.  Tonight we watched my favorite episode of Amazing Stories from Steven Speilberg, "The Mission."  It's about a B-17 bomber crew flying a mission over Germany.  I actually had this episode recorded on a VHS tape when I was a kid and watched it several times, but it had been a long time since I had last seen it. I was quite surprised to notice the cast included Kevin Costner and Kiefer Sutherland. 
     Anyway, sorry, end of tangent.  The POINT was that now I only have about an hour between putting the boys to bed and my own bedtime because I still have to get up for work in the morning.

     Another factor has been new toy syndrome.  My wonderful wife picked me up a Kindle off of Woot.
     I wasn't so sure about it, but my wife got a great deal on it, and I figured I'd at least give it a try.

     Oh my gosh, I LOVE IT! 





I've always been one to work on several books at once.  Every once in a while, I get really engrossed in a book and can't put it down until I finish it.  See for example, "Ender's Game."  Most of the time though, I have several books that I rotate through depending on my mood.  For example, right now I happen to be working my way through three books:








"The Book Thief"  THIS is an AMAZING story.  It's the story of a girl growing up in Nazi Germany, and it's narrated by...  well...  that might be a spoiler.  It's just an extremely thought-provoking and well-written book.

"Last Child in the Wilderness"  This is a really good book about how our society is changing because we don't spend anywhere near as much time outside as our ancestors did.  It's got some interesting insights on the societal changes that brought it about and on the unintended consequences of it on our children and our society as a whole.  The Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (NVRPA) blog had a similar post about this topic and also cited this book.

"Managing Maintenance Error."  This book was recommended to me by a fellow submarine officer, and someone I look up to as a mentor.  It's an EXCELLENT book, and I wish I had read it before becoming a department head.  The title may sound a bit boring, but I have found the subject matter fascinating.

     It becomes problematic for me when we want to go anywhere on a vacation, and I always want to bring several books with me.  They quickly add a lot of weight to one's baggage.  I always have trouble picking out just one to put in my carry-on bag for reading on an airplane.

     Enter the Kindle.

I can now carry untold dozens of books with me in something the size and weight of a single paperback.  It's AWESOME.  I've always liked to carry a book with me wherever I go.  Long line at the DMV?  Bring it on!  I just open my book and read.  The Kindle has just reinvigorated that habit for me.  I carry it almost everywhere now.
   
     In other news, we are in receipt of orders once again.  This time the Navy is sending us to the Pacific Northwest, and we're pretty excited to live someplace where the houses are affordable, AND the commute isn't bad, AND the schools are good.  That'll be a first for us.
     As a result, we're in that stage of the PCS-cycle of military life (moving every 2 to 3 years) where the weekends we have left in our current duty station are numbered, and the calendar quickly fills up with all sorts of things you want to do before you leave.
     We're supposed to break heat records this weekend in the DC area.  Yuck.  I'm sorry to say the extreme heat tomorrow will prevent any attempt to get out hiking, biking, or kayaking.  However, I'm very excited to see some dear Navy friends of ours coming up to visit from Norfolk.  We went to church together in San Diego when R and I were both department heads there.  As much as it hurts to say goodbye to our friends each time the Navy moves us to a new duty station, it's always a joy to be reunited with those old friends when you cross paths at new duty stations.

     I hope you all are enjoying your summer, and I hope it's not nearly as HOT and HUMID as it has been here in the DC area.

     Oh, two administrative notes on my blog:
     1. I've finally surrendered to turning on comment moderation.  Those annoying comment spammers just keep leaving CRAP in my comments.  I think I've deleted like two dozen spam Chinese comments from my last blog post about our Shenandoah kayaking trip.  I apologize to those of you who leave legitimate and thoughtful comments, but there shouldn't be too much of a delay.
     2. You'll notice the book links above.  I have written before that nobody is paying me to write about anything in my blog.  My recommendations for books or any other product are my honest opinions.
    That being said, Blogger has added this nice link-to-Amazon feature, where if you mention a book, it will include an image of the book cover and a link to the Amazon website.  IF you should click on the link and purchase a copy, then I will get some small compensation from Amazon.  I don't think that compromises my assertion that my recommendation of the book is my honest opinion that it's a good book, right?  It's just offering you a quick and easy way to click on a link IF you desire to buy the same book from Amazon, that's all.

Alright, I've talked your ear off enough for one night.  It had been long enough that at least my one most faithful and devoted reader started to complain that I hadn't posted anything in weeks.  Hopefully we'll be going on leave up to New Hampshire again for a couple of weeks in August, and I'll have more outdoor adventures to write about then.

In the meantime, I'll be enjoying our air conditioning.  :-)

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

H/T and many, many thanks to TwoDC.  I read their blog post about the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens and said to myself, "Self, that would be a cool place to go when your parents come to visit."

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens is a hidden gem in northeast DC.  I highly recommend reading TwoDC's post about it, because they are much more eloquent than me in their overview description of the park.

TwoDC recommended going in the morning because as the day gets hotter, the flowers close up.  I checked out the web page and saw they had tours scheduled for 9, 10, 11, and 12.  The first tour was too early in the morning for us, so I planned on us leaving our house around 9 a.m. in order to pick up some breakfast at Dunkin Donuts and make it to the KAG in time for the 10 a.m. tour.

Unfortunately, I didn't trust my instincts and drive the way I knew.  I followed the directions provided by our car's navigation system and ended up sitting in traffic for a while.

Thanks to the traffic though, we did enjoy the scenery of the architecture in the neighborhoods of the historic district of Washington, D.C.  We arrived at the KAG about 10:40 and found out there actually wasn't a 10 a.m. tour, so we didn't miss anything AND we were just in time for the 11 a.m. tour! :-)

KAG has been there a long time and is now run by the National Park Service. 

Comparing Notes

Before we drove down to DC, I printed out two copies of the Junior Park Ranger activity booklet and put them in binders for the boys.  They both really enjoyed earning their Junior Park Ranger badges.  During the car ride, they did the dot-to-dots and the maze and drew some pictures.  While we were there, they really got into the scavenger hunts.  The booklet actually provides two scavenger hunts for older and younger kids.  My eldest son did the scavenger hunt that lists a dozen or so items written out in text (a view of the Anacostia River, a beaver dam, a historic marsh, a reconstructed marsh, etc).  My youngest son did the scavenger hunt that consisted of six simple pictures on the page (picture of a lotus flower, picture of cat tails, picture of the national park service emblem, picture of poison ivy, etc).

For a while, YB rode on Grandpa's shoulders and

used Grandpa's head as his desk.  Here he is crossing

off the cat-tail picture from his scavenger hunt list.

The flowers... oh my gosh the flowers were absolutely gorgeous.  My wife and I both took tons of pictures, but I will try to pull out just a few to share with you here.

Common Orange Day-Lily

I forgot this one and can't find it in my book.

Fragrant Water Lily (and dragonfly)

Orange trumpet?

Carolina Rose

Lotus

Pink water lily

Hydrangea

I feel like I'm being watched.

We saw a few turtles and also had a Great Blue Heron swoop across the path right in front of us.  

Traditional Blunoz Self Portrait

Our Park Ranger tour guide was awesome, and I'm SO glad we went for the guided tour.  I have yet to be disappointed by a Park Ranger led tour at any National Park.  They are just walking encyclopedias of information and anecdotal stories about the history of the park.

YB drawing pictures in his book. 

The boys turned in their completed Junior Park Ranger books at the visitor center.  They had to say an oath of office to get sworn in as Junior Park Rangers, and then they were awarded their own hats, badges, and patches. 

This picture alone made it worth the 
frustrating drive through DC traffic.

If you are in the DC area, then I highly recommend visiting the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens.  Regardless where you are, I highly recommend taking advantage of every opportunity to visit your closest National Park and go for a Park Ranger guided tour.

My two newly-minted Junior Park Rangers 

enthusiastically leading the way to lunch.