Lochaerie Resort

In January and February we worked diligently on under grounding all the power to the cabins and removing the overhead wires, which really made such a big difference!  But then we stood back and thought “You know, if we did a little limbing to some of these trees, it would really open up the view to the lake.” So . . . we got this wonderful crew in from Aberdeen that spent three days cutting down the dead hemlock tree by the parking lot and working on the trees around Cabins Olympus, Storm King and Angeles.  Now the two upper cabins, Olympus and Ellinor have an amazing view of the lake through these trees. What’s fun for everyone is that now we can all see the eagles as they fly from their perch in the big spruce to the lake.

We’re out of time now for big outdoor projects because of cabin rentals until fall. So, we’ll pick up again later in the year and continue limbing between Cabins Olympus and Col. Bob.

Cabin Ellinor – another kitchen completely repainted from top to bottom! Ellinor has been having folks apply paint to her kitchen for 87 years and the beaded wood walls and tongue and groove ceiling are not easy to paint! She’s looking very fresh and pretty.

Tom has continued to work on exterior wiring to the cabins and is now working on lights along the pathways. With the continued help of the  high school crew, they’ve torn down the old wood shed by Storm King and have continued with brush removal. It’s starting to look very “Park Like”.

We decided to take advantage of the quieter time in January to underground and upgrade all the electrical service to the cabins. This turned out to be a much bigger job than anticipated! Fortunately, we had three great high school guys that worked industriously helping us dig the ditches. When we’re finished, there won’t be any overhead wires between the cabins and the big pole beside the corner of Cabin Olympus will become guard rails in the parking lot.

Of course, one thing always leads to another, so why not spend some time doing a bit of interior repainting as well? Another project that started out small . . . ! We began with Olympus’ kitchen with the intention of only painting the cupboards and ended up repainting the entire kitchen and the floor. Next we moved on to Cabin Christie where we completely repainted the cabin floor and did touch up trim painting. Well, nothing like fresh paint to cause a person to notice two really tired refrigerators, so now both cabins have new ones. Cabin Christie’s refrigerator was such a classic from the 50s, it was really hard to give it away. But the consolation is that it’s going to have a new life as a smoker!

Now we’re working away on Cabin Ellinor repainting the kitchen, putting in a larger on demand hot water heater and hopefully getting the floor painted.

This last fall Tom and I decided to drive down the coast highway to San Francisco. We’ve actually had quite a few guests that have taken this trip as they’ve come up the coast to visit the Olympic Peninsula, so we’ve spent time picking their brains for some of their favorite places.

Here are some highlights from our trip:

Our first stop was Astoria, a town that we’ve often driven through but have never really taken much time to explore. The Maritime Museum was very interesting with information about not only the Columbia River and shipping, but also information about the history of the area. We spent the night in the Hotel Elliot which was right downtown. On our way down the Oregon coast we saw lots of pelicans flying just off Boiler Point and visited the cute little coast town of Brandon which was nestled in amongst cranberry farms. The cranberry fields were beautifully colored at that time of year. Some guests told us about Arch Rocks which are at the southern end of the Oregon coast near a town called Brookings. It’s pretty amazing what nature can create.

We wanted to spend some time hiking in the Redwoods, so we spent two nights in Crescent City. We hiked in the Jedediah Smith Redwoods on the Boy Scout Trail and hiked up to the Boy Scout Tree. Living in the Olympic Rain Forest, we think we’ve got some pretty big trees here – but they’re youngsters compared to the redwoods! We almost missed the cut off on the trail to the Boy Scout Tree because it was only marked with a stick in the ground and an arrow scratched in the dirt. What a tree!

When we got to the town of Leggett, we turned off onto Highway 1. What a fun twisty roller coaster of a road that was! Tom and I had to draw straws to see who would get to drive the Mini. But you really won either way because the view was so magnificent that just looking was a treat in itself.

There aren’t many places to stay or eat along Highway 1 and we were beginning to wonder how far we’d have to drive to find a place to stay for the night. Then we came upon the little town of Westport and there was the darling Westport Hotel and the Old Abalone Pub! What a find. We were lucky enough to get a room overlooking the ocean.

We hadn’t been to San Francisco for many years, so it was fun for us to visit places we remembered as well as exploring other parts of the city. And of course riding the cable cars and trolleys. My mission was to eat crab as often as possible. Thus, crab cakes, crab salads, crab soups, and crab sandwiches were at the top of the menu selections.

We had heard about the Oregon Caves and decided to head toward them on our way back. Driving inland through the orchards, farmlands, and the Siskiyous was interesting because of the variety of plants and landscapes. We got to the Oregon Caves on the last day that they were open for the season. What should have been a 90 minute tour turned out to be two and a half hours! But truly fascinating! Bats, spiders, stalagmites, stalactites, lots of wet dripping water, and very cold. We even got to hear a ghost story. What fun!

We stayed in the town of McMinnville partly to visit the Evergreen Flight Museum and to see the Spruce Goose, which we found out was mostly made of Birch. (And also to visit more brew pubs!) With one night left, we stopped for the night in Long Beach in order to get just a little bit more ocean time and then home. But neither one of us was complaining because even though we saw so much and had so much fun, who can be unhappy to come back to Lake Quinault and Lochaerie?

Two weekends ago, Steve (Quinault Woodcrafts) and I finally made it to the weekend drag races in Forks sponsored by West End Thunder.  What a gas! Parking by donation, $10.00 entry, drag racing 25 feet away from the spectators, and free access to pits. 60 cars racing and the smell of burning rubber all Saturday long.

We always say that summer arrives in the Pacific Northwest on July 5th. And this year NOAA proved us right! On July 5th there was a minus 3 ft tide mid morning that we decided we really needed to get to especially with the beautiful day. We were able to see a lot of tide pools that aren’t usually accessible. Starfish and sea anemones were everywhere! As well as mussels, snails, barnacles, etc. Warm air and salt air – it really doesn’t get much better for a day at the beach.

Here are some wildlife pictures I took one morning this spring in our front yard. So, which one do you think is driving me crazy?

Every once in a while we get to go back to Seattle for a few days to spend time with family and friends and to just be tourists in what we still consider to be “Our Town”. One of my favorite things to do is get up fairly early in the morning and head to the Pike Place Market for a latte and a croissant. Then we just wander around and look at all the delicious produce! So much variety! This last week when we were there, I managed to come away with lots of juicy cherries, gorgeous local strawberries, cute little multi-colored potatoes, and some small purple artichokes that I couldn’t resist. I always get at least a couple of loaves of good crusty french bread.  At one of the fish stands, we also picked up some halibut steaks that Tom grilled on the BBQ when we got back . What a feast!

And places to eat! There are so many interesting and good restaurants in and right around the Pike Place Market. Some of our favorites are: The Athenian, Copacabana Cafe, the Steelhead Diner, Pike Brew Pub, and Etta’s. It’s a good thing we have all the stairs at Lochaerie to run up and down after we return from Seattle!

Cabin Christie has a new lakeside steel roof! No more surprise drips over the daybed! The roof color even matches the trim color!

We’ve been continuing our battles with English ivy, English laurel, holly, Scotch broom, and salmonberry. We are making progress. We leveled the lawn over the old pond, fertilized, and now the moles have moved in and are seriously undermining our work. We finally got the old greenhouse up and are hoping for a longer tomato, lettuce, and basil season. The hundreds of Narcissus bulbs we planted last autumn were gorgeous.

In the cabins we’ve begun putting in pillow top mattresses and replaced the old 1940′s metal bunk bed in Cabin Olympus with a brand new wooden bunk bed. We’ve been attempting to paint cabin exterior trim, but our paint won’t dry with all the rain and humidity! We’re painting the new cabin screen doors in the basement of the house so that the paint can dry more quickly.

Sure is nice to be living here permanently.  Not only is it beautiful here in the valley, and we so enjoy our guests, but also because we now have time to work on Lochaerie projects.

Toward the middle of April we took a trip into Oregon. We thought it would be fun to take the back roads to Portland and then Cannon Beach. We took Highway 101 south through Aberdeen and Raymond. We then took Highway 4 to the little town of Cathlamet and drove across Puget Island to the small open car ferry which took us across the Columbia River to Oregon. From there we drove along the river to Portland on Highway 30. Portland is always great for shopping, walking, and eating. After a couple of nights in Portland, we decided to head over the Coast Range on Highway 6 along the picturesque Wilson River to Tillamook and it’s cheese factory! (Pretty cheesy!) Then we headed up the coast to meet friends in Cannon Beach for a couple of days. We discovered a beautiful new beach with caves and a waterfall called Hug Point which is just south of Cannon Beach. We saw lots of birds, Oyster Catchers, Pelicans, gulls, but no Puffins yet on Haystack Rock. We returned home by going up the coast through Astoria returning to buckets of rain! What a fun getaway.