April 18
Our final day at First Landing State Park began early, and I took a couple of pix of a newcomer to the neighborhood, a (presumably) hand-made wooden teardrop that came in right across the way from us. It was a neat little thing, and later, we saw two adults and at least one child tumble out of that small space.
The day truly began, however, with breakfast in the company of Annie, John, and Mary at a place Annie’s friend had steered her to earlier: Simple Eats.
Quirky, artsy, fun, and delicious. The owner reported they’d been open since June of last year, so Simple Eats was about to have an anniversary. What a great find. I had their breakfast burrito, but everything everyone ate was delicious (naturally, Jack’s brekkie included sausage gravy, and it was full of good drippings, so was a comforting shade of light brown rather than the white-white we get at breakfast stops in Meadows of Dan). The conversation was varied and quite fun, and we all had a great time together.
Mary and John got back to the campground and began stowing things away for a noon-to-one departure (as did we), but their activities revealed that their battery was as dead as the proverbial doornail. Even an attempted jump from the Park Ranger didn’t give it enough juice to turn over the engine. So their departure was somewhat delayed, as they called AAA and the nice fella tested their depleted battery and suggested replacing it. Which they did. They began their 6-ish hour journey home in the 1:30 to 2 range.
Our day’s destination was merely 3 hours away, back at North Bend Campground again for the return, so we weren’t so concerned about our departure time. But staying nearly a week in a single spot revealed how scattered and disoriented our gear could get in that amount of time. So it took a while for everything to get back where it was supposed to be stowed.
An uneventful drive east got us to North Bend around 5 or 6PM. While we were filling our fresh water tank, Mark and Angie arrived with their Alto 1743 (fixed roof) and they not only wanted to fresh-water shower their bikes, trailer, and car to get the road salt off (they’d come from the frozen north) but also to de-winterize for the season. So they spent more time at the dump station than we.
We were in site 117 in Area B, and decided to perform the minimum set up. While it was warmer there than at First Landing, the wind was still up, it was late, and we were tired after a late night with friends and beverages.
We had chosen an unserviced site at the end of a lovely peninsula, with no one on the south side of us, and the sunset was lovely. Mark and Angie had gotten to their site next door (116) in time to get their setup done before the sun set, so they joined us for a late cocktail. We talked so long that 9PM crept up on us before we’d even thought about dinner.
Happily, we saw the bald eagle we’d seen at the point across the water last time we’d been here, and also the Canada goose pair whose nest was tucked into the bank opposite our beach. Mr. Goose kept patrol through the night while Mrs. sat the nest, patiently incubating their eggs. Wish I could have seen the goslings follow Mom down their handy ramp to the water, but we were too early for that Big Day.
peregrinations 