Yuengling Brewery

All of us are fans of Yuengling Lager, brewed in Pottsville, PA. During the Barn Raising we tried to get there for a tour, recommended in the "1000 Places to See Before you Die" as the best brewery tour in the US. Yuengling is the oldest brewery in the US, having started in 1829. The founder came over from Germany and set up a brewery which burned down after two years. He then built this brick brewery, which is still in the family (fifth generation). In German tradition, you don't inherit a family business, you have to buy it at fair market value. This facility is one of two in Pottsville and there is a third brewery in Tampa, FL. It only takes 50 people to run the brewery. The price of a Yuengling beer in Pottsville is still 40 cents. The tour is great. You have to wear closed shoes (they have loaners) because you are right out in the production area. This stained glass ceiling was built because the kettles were originally copper and the sun coming through the windows blinded the employees.

This photo is of the inside of the only remaining copper vessel, which was being cleaned. It is in this vessel that the liquid beer is separated from the mash. During prohibition Yuengling remained viable by brewing near beer, Porter (a medicine for nursing women) and ice cream. Interestingly, the day after Prohibition ended Yuengling delivered a truckload of beer to President Roosevelt. How that was possible since it takes 24-28 days to ferment beer is unknown, though there are various theories that the beer was being stored in the cistern or in the nearby church or in the town hall.

This original facility both bottles and cans, though we were there when they were canning the Lager. It produces 600,000 barrels a year. There was one guy on this machine and one more guy at the machine which loaded the cases of cans. You could get right up to the canning line. Yuengling originally dug caves under the brewery to store the beer. They are no longer in use. During Prohibition the government bricked up the caves to prevent brewing.

After the tour you are allowed to try two different types of beer. It worked out perfectly since we didn't need to taste the Lager or Light Lager and didn't want to taste the Light Premium. That left Premium (yuck!, no hops), Porter, Black and Tan (60% Porter and 40% Premium) and Lord Chesterfield. We liked the latter a great deal. After the brewery we walked around Pottsville and visited the Yuengling family mansion (which had a great gate house and is now the historical society) and looked at some nice buildings downtown. Pottsville is clearly economically depressed, but it has a huge, gorgeous county court house and and old jail (1851) which looks like a castle and is still in use. Afterwards we drove to the Dutch Kitchen, recommended in Jane and Michael Stern's Road Food. It had a great salad bar with pickled vegies and good, hearty Pennsylvania Dutch Food. I had a pot pie casserole (no dough) and Bob had turkey croquettes. We would definitely recommend Yuengling, both for the tour and for the beer.

Tunkhannock East West Pow-wow

August 15 and 16 was the East West Pow-wow and Camp Lackawanna west of Tunkhannock. The camp is at the end of the long peninsula between a loop of the Susquehanna. Markus, Carol, Bob and I drove down about 6 p.m. We were almost the only white folks present. There were about 100 people camped in the trees around a fire circle and about a dozen vendors. One person was selling buffalo burgers and Indian tacos (fry bread with pinto beans, lettuce, tomatoes and cheese). The rest were selling items, some handmade, but many made elsewhere. We just soaked up the scene. The above photo shows the trading blanket. Anyone can come and place an item in the center of the blanket and in turns people can put other things on the blanket that they are willing to trade for the first item. A description of the item is made and if a trade is successful, the parties will shake hands. The trading blanket starts with feathers. Rocks, feathers, porcupine feet, handmade chokers, beaded bobbie pins and other items were traded for several hours.

This woman from near Wilkes Barre where she works as a hospice worker was beading a barrette which will then be danced in. Her 19 year old dog is at her feet. she was very willing to talk to us and explain the various traditions.

The big event of the evening was the fire dance. There had been a procession and dancing from 1-5:30 and the Fire Dance began at 9. The drummers at the this pow-wow include women, so many chiefs would not come as this is not traditional. The man in black to the right of the fire was the chief who explained the fire dance. First various men went in and lit brands from the central fire and lit tiki lamps around the perimeter. Then, women entered the circle. Lastly, everyone was invited to dance. Bob and I got up to join the group.

It was a really interesting evening. We were struck by the community of the people there. Clearly they travel to various pow-wows during the summer. An incredible number of people smoked, an indication of their traditional use of tobacco and the fact that most people appeared to be quite poor. Alcohol wasn't visible, but there appeared to be some people who were under the influence. Kids ran around and swam in the Susquehanna and people clearly cared for each other. At one point during the evening a young woman had a grand mal epileptic seizure and though Bob got up to assist, they took care of it themselves. A woman talked and held the young woman under a blanket so there was some privacy and the flashing lights, which could trigger a seizure, wouldn't be visible. Eventually six men carried her on a blanket to her tent where she rested a short while before joining the Fire Dance.

More Tunkhannock Projects

Bob and I spent a total of three and a half weeks in Tunkhannock. The first two days were spent preparing for the arrival of the Barn Raising crew. The next week we all hung out together, though the weather didn't cooperate. One day it rained 4.6". After everyone left Bob and I stayed on to work with Markus and Gary, the 19 year old local man who is learning to be a carpenter at Johnson College in Scranton. The projects included various maintenance operations performed by me, including replacing shingles on the roof where they had blown off during the winter. There are multiple layers of shingles just tacked over each other. I also did a lot of weed whacking around the frog pond and the three of us mowed around the 700 trees Markus and Elizabeth planted several years ago. Unfortunately, only about 35 survived the porcupines and the lack of sunlight due to the lack of bush whacking. The above picture shows Bob's project along the outside of the laundry room in the basement. It is not an optical illusion that the back looks thinner than the front - it is. The bottom piece of wood also slopes down. The project involved digging out down to the bottom of the foundation (about 3' of mainly rocks), installing insulation and then building the frame. The frame is necessary because after Markus straightened and leveled the house the porch ceiling extends past the edge of the wall by almost 4". It was a lot of fussy cutting and fitting. When completed Bob added insulation and Gary attached pressure-treated sheathing. It does insulate the last exterior wall in the cottage.

Markus and Gary had framed the basement and Bob and Gary had installed the sheathing on the porch over the joists Markus installed. The next job was to wire the 12 lights and install insulation. While Markus wired, with some help from all of us when he had to run wire through the joists, I installed insulation, a hot and prickly job. However, new construction is square and the space between the joists was exactly 12" so the 24" fiberglass could be folded in half and stuffed in.

Then, Bob and I stapled vapor barrier over the insulation and the lights. Bob built the jig in the rear to hold the plastic up while we worked along the ceiling. I then went and cut out the lights.

On the last day Markus and Bob began installing fireproof 5/8" sheetrock. It's very heavy, so they built the extensions on the platform out of wood and would raise the sheetrock and put in shims until it was almost at ceiling level, before screwing it in. This was all in preparation for the installation of the garage doors, door and two windows to fully enclose the basement. That all has to be done by Markus and Gary.

Tunkhannock

The family barn raising was only a week this year and was plagued by very rainy weather on two days. The Northeast has been suffering a very wet summer. The hidden benefit to this is that the pond, which last year was very low, is almost full now. Full is 17' 2" and it is presently at 17'. We tried to work less hard and play more. Play included a visit to Stony Brook for great swimming on Monday, an abortive trip to the Yuengling Brewery in Pottsville, PA (substituted with a visit to a great tree house in Scranton), swimming in the pond, a baby shower for Andrew and Julia and various excursions in the environs. Projects around the Cottage included the women sorting through the cupboards and boxes of items at the Cottage and getting rid of things that weren't needed and consolidating the boxes into the eaves upstairs. This was a major improvement, though it wasn't until everyone left that we remembered that there was a 3' X 6' table that could replace the 2' X 3' table in the kitchen (the only counter space). The above shot shows Andrew and Bob building a temporary lean-to on the north side of the cottage over the area which will eventually be living space to store the wood that is presently in the horse shed (which is needed to store our new tractor). That took much of a week, also with the assistance of Julia's PhD compatriot, Joe, who came for two days. The second-to-last day we all moved about half the wood into the covered space which has withstood the serious rains we've been having ever since.

Meanwhile, Beren and Calder put in the remaining floor joists in the tree house and attached most of the pie-shaped floor to the tree house. There is still a little work to do on the floor, but we hope to have the tree house (re-christianed the Cottage), complete in 2010, the 100th anniversary of the Cottage. Even my 82-year-old mother climbed the 30' up to the tree house when the floor was installed to check out the work.

On their last day, Andrew, Julia and Markus did the framing of the entry hall on the subfloor that had been constructed last year by Markus and our cousin John Mark. After they left, Bob, Markus and I installed the door (which cleared up a lot of floor space in the living room where the door had been stored). I put black plastic over the side wall, Markus installed a temporary corrugated steel roof, and Gary cut the plywood over the door. It is pretty waterproof now, particularly with the addition of expanding foam at the junction of the roof and the wall.

The main work has been in enclosing the basement. At this point we have finished installing the subflooring for the deck. We started with about 16 feet square of unattached subflooring to sit on. It's now all glued and screwed down to the left corner. We have insulated the subflooring in the garage, installed 12 lights, installed the washing machine (we can now get clean laundry at the Cottage), begun the installation of the pressure-treated plywood to the exterior walls, built out the corner to line up the corner of the porch roof to the porch and begun the process of enclosing the garage. I have painted the subflooring.

I have also done a lot of maintenance. I weed-wacked and removed all sorts of trash trees around the frog pond and hand trimmed the hedge (though it is uneven). I've also replaced roof shingles where they blew off in the severe weather last winter. There is still an amazing amount of work to be done, but progess is being made. Unfortunately, Bob and I only have two extra weeks to work here, so there is only so much that we can accomplish.

I think we managed to balance work and play better during the barn raising, though there wasn't enough work for some folks. The road to the Cottage is in really bad shape in many places, particularly down on the flats and we need to do some serious digging of trenches and work on shaping it. Even so, last night Bob and I saw two black bears running down the road in front of us on the flats. The thunderstorms have including great high clouds and lightning. We've seen some movies (Harry Potter and Julie and Julia), we've eaten out a few times, we've been to the Triton Hose Company Carnival (for potatoe pancakes, funnel cakes, BBQ'd pork, steamed clams, antique cars, games of chance), etc.

Today we went to Pottsville, PA (about 90 miles from Tunkhannock) to tour the Yuangling Brewery (the oldest brewery in America). It's in a brick building stuck on the steep hill side of Pottsville, a coal mining town. The brewery includes caves dug into the rock where the beer was stored before refrigeration and a real close-up look at the bottling (though it was canning today) process. The brewery is owned by the fifth generation of the same family and employs only 50 persons to produce 600,000 barrels a year. There are two other breweries which each produce 1.5 million barrels. We ate lunch at the Dutch Kitchen (recommended by Jean and Michael Stern's Road Food).

Sault Ste. Marie Locks

As we came back from the north shore of Lake Superior, we stopped at Sault Ste. Marie (the "Soo") on the US side to watch the locks between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Lake Superior is 21' higher than Lake Huron. There are rapids between the two lakes and in the past cargo had to be off-loaded and portaged around the falls and reloaded. There are five locks at the Soo (1 Canadian and 4 US, though 1 isn't in operation). One of the locks was rebuilt in 1968 to handle 1,000' ships. This lock handles 79% of all traffic through the locks. The locks are operated by the Corps of Engineers and it costs nothing for a ship to go through them. The locks are filled and emptied without any pumping of water. There is a hydroelectric plant which provides the electricity for the doors of the locks. While we were there we saw both locks operating simultaneously, though in an opposite way; one was for ships going upstream and the other downstream. It was fascinating. In the above photo you see the front lock filled for boats going down to Lake Huron while the back lock, MacArthur Lock, is empty and there is a large ship entering the lock. The drawbridge arm in the center left of the picture is lowered after the ship enters the lock. As far as we could figure this was to prevent a boat from getting in the way of the opening of the doors. This boat was 784' long.

This photo is looking up towards Lake Superior where there are three boats waiting to enter the filled lock. The bridge is the international crossing.

Here, the large boat has risen up and the private sailboat has only the tops of its masts visible. Each boat is tied up to the wharf on one side before the gates are closed. The water rises and falls very quickly.

Here you see two boats heading out of the closer lock into Lake Huron. There were two men who were tieing up the boats on the wharf below. Since it is after 9/11, there was only one entrance to the locks and our handbags were searched and there were many areas blocked off from public access.

Musings about US Camping

The picture above is at Tawas Point State Park in Michigan, a huge campground; i.e. 250-300 spaces tightly clustered around several loops on a sandy spit sticking out into Lake Huron and Saginaw Bay. On this trip we have stayed at lots of different campsites, from commercial sites to state and national park sites. I find that in these packed sites I don't feel like I am getting away from it all. When we were at the campsite in Yoho National Park, what I heard was the river and what I saw was the huge peaks and even though there were RVs relatively nearby, I didn't feel like I was living in a city. When we stay at these other sites, I feel like I'm living in a city. I can hear my neighbors and I can see into their lives. I remember something I heard at a ranger talk about the long houses the First Nation people lived in in Canada. Many families shared these huge houses and there was an understanding that you didn't look into other people's space. I find myself both drawn to and feeling like a voyeur when I do so in a campsite.

Other than people with small canvas-sided pop-ups and tenters, we are a very small camper and we draw a lot of curiousity everywhere but the far west (in Fort Flagler WA there were three A-frame pop-ups). Many of these campsites have accessible sites for those with disabilities, a wonderful addition. At Tawas Point and at Pancake Bay there were boardwalks out over the sand so that people in wheelchairs could go out on the beach. Many people come with the most amazing number of toys: swimming pools, lights, signs listing their names (and the names of their dogs and children), boats, ATVs, tents, awnings, mosquito enclosures, games (Monkey Claw - the game I described that Bill Schuckel built involving the throwing of golf balls tied together towards a ladder [or in some cases a ladder with a paddle wheel on top]), a bean bag game that we found out was called "Potty" because the target looks like the top of a toilet seat in a latrine), chairs, radios, etc. They also have RVs of various sizes and congregate in family compounds and multiple cars. As a result, it doesn't feel much like wilderness to me. In addition, many people are listening to radios or watching TV inside their RVs.

I know I am probably from a different socio-economic class and have a different level of education from many of these people. I also know that the kids are having a fabulous time. It's like the 50's; they are running around on their bikes, playing in the playgrounds and at other sites and having fun. People are out jogging and walking their dogs. It is a community created at the campground. For many people, this is their vacation, and a cheap one at that.

However, I still wish for more quiet and wilderness (though I do appreciate a warm shower occasionally).

Kokanee National Park

The next day we got up, broke camp and headed over the Continental Divide to Kokanee National Park, which is directly south of Yoho. On the way we saw the above mountain goats right next to the highway. Everyone had slowed down and was out taking photos. There were supposed to be mountain goats at Hamilton Lake, but we never saw any. After getting down into Lake Louise Village we went back over the Continental Divide into Kokanee National Park and the Stanley Glacier hike.

This hike was only 8.6 km with 300 meters of vertical rise. It started in the remains of a burned forest. The fire was in 1968, but the burned stumps and trees still hadn't decomposed and there were few baby lodgepole pine, evidence of how hard the climate is. However, the open slopes allowed for amazing wildflowers - Indian paintbrush, columbine, roses and lots of things I couldn't identify. The hike was very gradual until we got up into the glacial valley at the base of the Guardwall (see above). If you look carefully, you will see a cloud of dust in the center which was a very large rock fall. The trail continued up the valled to its head where three branches of Stanley Glacier hung above us. There were waterfalls all over the edges, some disappearing into thin air because of the wind.

This phot shows two of the lobes of Stanley Glacier. There was a large moraine below which we did not climb, though there was an unmaintained trail to the base of the ice fields.

As we headed back out, we could see the mountains across the highway and down the U-shaped glacial valley. We drove on to Calgary on the Trans Canada and then headed south to Fort Macleod on our way back to Montana.

We have been making tracks since the Canadian Rockies. We have crossed three time zones in four days and are now back in Ontario near Thunder Bay. The first day we went south to Montana and headed across US 2 to Glasgow Montana. The next day we continued on US 2 to Larimore Dam (25 miles west of Grand Forks, ND). Today we went across Minnesota and up to International Falls where we crossed back into Canada where we plan to go around the north shore of Lake Superior. We've had four long days of driving and I'm looking forward to slowing down in the next few days as we head to Sault St. Marie and down the east side of Michigan and then across southern Ontario to Tunkhannock PA. The drives have been beautiful in a quiet way. It's been very wet (there was standing water all over N.D.) and the fields are all very green. There are a lot of rolling hills, so it isn't all flat. Minnesota, as its motto says, is the land of 10,000 lakes.

Yoho National Park

We drove from Cobble Hill, BC, via the Nanaimo ferry to Vancouver and to Kamloops, beating the forest fires that are presently ravishing Kalona and the Okanagan Valley. The route went up the Fraser River canyon and once we got to Kamloops Bob played disc golf on the longest course in B.C. We got up early headed east on Canada 1 (the TransCanada highway). All day the scenery was spectacular; starting with Shuswap Lake, Revelstoke National Park (where we crossed the Columbia River for the second time on the trip), Glaciar National Park, on our way to Golden where we crossed the Columbia River for the third time. We ended up at Chancellor Peak Camp Ground, just inside Yoho National Park on the banks of the Kicking Horse River, which runs fast, wide and green and under Chancellor Peak (3280 m). We decided to take a short 4.8 km hike to Wapta Falls on the Kicking Horse River. While we were hiking it started to thunder and pour, and although we had our waterproof jackets, our pants and shoes got soaking wet. The view above is of Wapta Falls (which means river in the Nadoka language of the Stoney people) in the pouring rain. The structure in front of the falls is a large piece of rock. We ended up hanging our wet clothes inside Snoopy, not leaving much room for us. However, we were grateful for the dry space to cook, eat and sleep as it continued to rain most of the night.

The next morning promised better weather and we headed to Emerald Lake and the 11 km hike (with 850 m of vertical rise) to Hamilton Lake. We started out flat and then switch-backed up and up through the forest. Finally we came out to this view and many other wonderful views over the Kicking Horse Valley and the snow covered peaks surrounding it. The mountain wild flowers were fabulous. Darwin got to chase sticks and we felt pretty good at making the ascent in 2 hours. When we got to the top, we ate lunch on the edge of Hamilton Lake.

This is a portion of Hamilton Lake which is on the dividing line between two different rock forms. On the left are the softer shale strata which but up to the horizonal strata of harder quartzite, limestone and dolomite of Mt. Carnahan. In the center is an anticline, the semi-circular strata. The lake really was this blue.

When we got down to Emerald Lake, aptly named as the above picture illustrates, we had a beer at a lovely patio on the lake while Darwin collapsed and attracted the photo journalists. The place was crawling with Japanese and German tourists. Our campground is also filled with quite an assortment of rental RVs filled with mainly Germans. Yoho is a Cree word meaning aw and wonder and it is an amazing place. There are 28 peaks over 3,000 meters and was the second national park in Canada. Yoho is also the location of the Burgess Shale which is a very important fossil site because the soft animals were burried in silt and thus werent scavenged and didn't decay, so the number of new species is amazing.

Helen & Bill's Renewal of Vows

The Stone family (Jane's side) is famous for their pig roasts. On Friday night Joe and Alan, Jane's brother, Jane, Colin (Jane's son) and various other folks prepared the pig by stuffing it with apples and onions, lacing it with garlic and coating it with lard. You have to do this so that the skin doesn't burn. Beginning at 6 a.m. Saturday morning, Joe, Colin and I loaded the pig onto the spit and Colin tended it all day.

The scene during the party. Helen and Bill had invited about 200 people and about 150 showed up. We provided the pig, buns, baked beans and beer and wine. Invitees were asked to bring appetizers and salads. It was a really hot day (about 90 degrees). Needless to say, the timing of the pig controlled all and it wasn't finished when predicted. So, people sat around and drank beer and ate appetizers and crowded into the ever-diminishing shade. Eventually it was decided to do the ceremony before eating.

Helen and Bill had new rings made for their 50th anniversary by a Native goldsmith from melting down four other rings. Here Bill is trying to get his ring on. Granddaughter Jeri has oil in her hand and he's trying to grease his finger. Maria (Rob and Lisa's youngest daughter) is supervising. Father Frank had them repeat their vows and had all their children and grandchildren come up and bless them. There was the inevitable kiss which had to last until he said they could quit so all the photographers could get their photos taken. Jeri, with the help of Lisa, had made about 300 mini cupcakes, all decorated, and mini cheese cakes, all of which were set out in a beautiful design. She is heading off to culinary arts training to be a pastry chef.

The carvers, Joe, Colin and Bob, cutting the pig up. The meat was absolutely delicious and the event ended with the carcass being thrown onto the fire. Joe is a cook by profession and Colin has proven he can roast a pig. We ended up staying on Sunday to help clean up from the party. After finishing the clean-up we all (Joe, Jane, Bob, me, MaryAnn Wood and her daughter Olivia [from Tetherow Crossing and Enterprise and Coos Bay]) and three dogs all went swimming at an abandoned limestone quarry. The weather was beginning to change, but the swim still felt fabulous after all the work of cleaning up. Various other folks also helped.

Taku Resort, Quadra Island BC

About 40 Burton relatives gathered at Taku Resort on Quadra Island, across from Campbell River, for 3 days of eating and activities. Helen and Bill, with the assistance of their four kids had all the food arranged, which was fabulous. Breakfast and dinner were provided and everyone was on their own for lunch. When we arrived at Quadra Island it was pouring rain, but by mid-day on Wednesday, July 8 it was beginning to clear. Everyone at Taku had either A-frame cabins or rooms and we also took over the beach house with its two floors and decks where we all ate. Bob and I camped in a lovely area above the resort. One of the highlights was taking care of granddaughter Anita for a few hours while her parents went for a run. We went down on the beach to build rock stacks and Anita is busy showing her grandpa the nice rocks and shells she has found. Note all the shell hats on the piles.

One morning, Joe and Jane (Helen's son and daughter-in-law), Goldie (Bob's daughter) and Gail and I took a 10 km walk around Morte Lake. This is a view of the lake from the first time we saw it. The trail went through lush forest and we even saw a sunken boat. It was good exercise to help walk off some of the food. Bob and I also took a three hour sea kayak tour out of Taku across the open bay and into three other bays where we saw an eagle and some ducks. We all took a walk on Rebecca Spit, across from Taku, played bocce and a game Bill built involving golf balls tied together on 20" strings which you throw towards a fence and try to get them to wrap around the rails. A wonderful time was had by all.

Sunset off of Taku. All the mountains in the distance are either other islands or the BC mainland. The land on the right is Rebecca Spit. On Friday morning we all packed up to leave and stopped in Nanaimo to take the pedestrian ferry to Protection Island to see Sarah (Bill and Helen's daughter) and John's new house and the 400 square foot cabin they have been visiting for years. We ate dinner there before heading down to Joe and Jane's farm to camp in their back field. We loaned Snoopy to Alice, Jens and Anita and Joe outfitted us with a huge 3-man tent with the thickest air mattress (1 1/2 feet) I have ever slept on. They had provided port-a-potties for all.

Chocoholics

On July 2, 2009 Bob, Darwin and I took off in Snoopy again for about nine weeks. We began in Seattle where Bob was playing in a disc golf tournament (where he came in second in his division [out of 4]) July 4 and 5, with a practice day on July 3. We stayed with delightful friends Randy Signer and Jane Levine. On Friday I took a chocolate tour through the Chocolate Box (which I highly recommend to anyone who likes chocolate). The three and a half hour tour began at the Chocolate Box with some history of chocolate and the most amazing hot cocoa I have ever had. Some facts: 1) chocolate grows in a 20 degree belt around the Equator, 2) it's a very delicate tree, 3) the cocoa beans grow right out of the trunk and are pollinated by midge flies that can't really fly, 4) it doesn't self propogate because the cocoa pods don't drop and rot, 5) once the pods are picked they are left out to ferment for 7 days going from alcohol to acid to water, 6) once the seeds are freed from their mucilageonous coating, they must dry for 21 days (in the rain forest) which involves a lot of moving in and out, 7) the pods on a tree mature at different times and 8) a regular size chocolate bar only has as much cafeine as one cup of decaf. We then headed off for Theo Chocolates, the only organic, fairly traded chocolate maker in the US and the home of some wonderful, interesting flavors such as ghost chili, coconut curry (really yummy), where we were given a tour on how the cocoa beans are turned into chocolate bars. For all you health food nuts, chocolate has the second highest level of anti-oxidants of any food (so eat up). Then we headed to Oh Chocolate! through the Fremont district, past the statue of Lenin. An American history professor was in Czechoslovakia at the time of the fall of the Soviet empire in a village where they were destroying the large (i.e. 30' tall) statue. He was horrified at their destruction of history, but they pointed out that he hadn't had to live under communism. Instead, they sold him the statue for $40,000 and he paid $80,000 to ship it home to Seattle where he put it in his front yard to the consternation of his neighbors. Upon his death, his kids tried to sell the statue at the Fremont farmer's market. Needless to say they were unsuccessful, but ultimately the Fremont neighborhood donated a piece of property where the statue now resides where it is still for sale for $250,000. At Oh Chocolate we learned how to temper chocolate by getting our hands all gooey and dipping graham crackers and marshmallows. The Hawaiian lady who founded Oh Chocolate learned how to temper chocolate and during WWII would gather up local kids and teach them to get them involved and less upset after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The next day they would deliver their goodies. Lastly we went to Fran's Chocolates, the home of the grey salt caramel which is the Obama's favorite candy and given to all visitors to the White House. The story goes that when Barack was guaging a run for the president he came to Seattle to give a speech and was given a "Welcome to Washington" basket that included the caramels. Michelle popped one in his mouth as he went on stage and when he came off he asked her what it was and said it was the best thing he had ever tasted. I highly recommend the tour.

While the guys played disc golf I went to the Seattle Art Museum and its Asian museum, went to the Pike Place Market and wandered in the UW Arboreteum with Darwin.

On Monday July 6 we headed towards Ft. Flagler State Park at the far northeast corner of the Olympic Penninsula. In 1966 or 1967 I attended a Seattle Symphony music camp there. We parked Snoopy in the rain and walked to the fortifications, created around 1900 when the port at Bremerton was developed. There are three forts in a triangle guarding the entrance to Puget Sound. They were equipped with guns and search lights, but most of the guns were shipped out to Europe in 1918. The fort remained operational until 1963, but is now a state park. We drove over to Port Townsend to see it and to taste the beers at the Port Townsend brewery. They have 12 different varieties and you can put small glasses down on a placemat to indicate which beers you want to taste. The photo above is of the campground at Ft. Flagler from Port Townsend.