Adventures With Nancy: INTO AUGUST

We had a few outings and campings early in the year that had to be canceled due to Susan’s ankle adventure. We would be making up time during these last summer days! Our first outing is with SOTF for a bioluminescent kayak tour on Hood Canal — more about that later. First, we get to see the Grandboys again ;’-).

On our way to Hood Canal we stopped for two nights at Jenny’s. We took the boys on a trail ride for one of the days.

The ride takes us to the Golf club along a winding, hilly, shaded trail. With A’s recent bike crash, he would be cautious about the steep downs (walking most of them) and I was just as cautions as he ;’-0.

At the end of our ride, we had the well earned and well deserved …. Ice Cream!!

A few more activities with them filled more of our time and soon we said our goodbyes and continued on for our campout with Sisters On The Fly.

Our campsite was prime — right on the water. A few of the sisters took an afternoon paddle on the calm bay.

The next day we took a short bike ride with Kristina, a sister we had met last year on our Lake Easton outing. One part of our adventure this morning was finding our way around a blockade to get to the road at one point.

We enjoyed a great little picnic place at Dosewalips State Park before heading back to camp.

Back at camp we relaxed and after dinner got ourselves ready for our Bioluminescnse kayak tour. They had kayaks and all the gear we needed for our nighttime paddle to see the glowing bioluminescent ‘things’.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioluminescence

Here is what our leader wrote to us at the start of planning the event:

This 1.5 hour night tour begins at our rental beach.. As you paddle through the waters, bioluminescent plankton will light up like fireflies. The more you splash and agitate the water with your hands and paddles the more you will make the water sparkle! And don’t forget to look up to stars! We may also see meteors, bats and maybe hear a squawking heron or a startled harbor seal.

The best I can do is refer you the the above site that will at least give an idea of what this is — it is something like lightning bugs (some call those ‘fireflies’). This phenomenon happens when the air and water temperature are “right” — warm enough for both — which is right now. It happens in just about all species — including humans in some way. Who knew!!

Here we go.

Get your gear and boat.

Paddle out and gather up for the leader and the remainder of the paddlers. A few photos taken by others on shore as we departed.

We took Kristina’s photo…

Kristina took our photo…

We were out there for hours! But the darker the night became the more luminous the plankton became and it was quite the thing! Sparkling little lights following wherever you stirred or swiped your paddle. Mesmerizing. Too bad we could not get a photo, and even if we could, it would not have shown it well enough. This was the last time (so far) that I have done something for the first time ;’-).

Now the penultimate day — Saturday and we depart tomorrow. Susan and I took another little bike ride which repeated much of what we did yesterday. We joined a few other sisters at the Gardens that they had driven to, for a tour of the acres of plants and flowers. Susan did more of the touring while I took advantage of their free WiFi and published the last two posts.

We were riding along to the town of Brinnon to get to the gardens.

Taking the side road avoided several miles of riding on noisy Rte 101 and was a delightful backroad experience. Again on a ride we managed to find a blocked road.

This one did not end up being anything we could bike along, but Susan did her scouting to determine that. Our route had taken us along shoreline of Hood Canal. If you enlarge this photo you can read a bit of history about how important this canal was to the native Americans.