Category Archives: Other Local Places
No Mail from Fife
Every afternoon last week I checked my mailbox for an official-looking letter from Fife. On Sunday I learned that I won’t be getting any mail from the small city that straddles I-5 just east of Tacoma. And that’s a good thing.
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Would You Have Stayed at This Motel?
From what I can find out there really was a Norman Bates Motel in Fife, Washington. The motel, located on Pacific Highway East (Highway 99), was razed several years ago. All that remains is the sign (see photo) and a cement pad, broken up by a carpet of weeds, at the back of the lot where the foundation used to be. The picture, taken yesterday afternoon, seems appropriate to post with about three weeks to go until Halloween. I wonder how creepy the site is at night.
I generally watch one scary movie a year. A couple of years ago my movie-critic friend recommended Psycho as that year’s Halloween night movie. As I watched it, I remembered some of the scenes from seeing the movie as a kid. But I must have been in the lobby or hiding under my seat when Janet Leigh, caught in a storm, checks in to the Bates Motel. After watching the movie as an adult, I can answer the question posed in the post’s title this way: No way. Not even if it was the only motel in western Washington with a “Yes” light on.
Bremerton Construction Projects Updates
The Mud Bay Blog played a role in getting Bremerton to start providing more timely information about construction projects in the city. Well, not actually the blog, but its purveyor. That would be me. But what does it matter who gets the credit as long as Public Works keeps updating the Construction Projects Status and Updates page on the city’s web site?
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Haunted Scrapyard
I have toured a few haunted houses without wetting my pants, but this is a new one for me—a haunted scrapyard (see photo). For the last few years, Belfair Auto and Truck Wrecking on SR 3 has been scaring the Holy bejesus out of anyone brave enough to visit their automobile graveyard on weekend evenings in October. According to the man I talked to, the gore is unsurpassed. Bringing kids is not recommended. Their web site is called Scrapyard Massacre.
This sounds a lot scarier than Christine, the Stephen King novel and movie about a haunted 1958 Plymouth.
Duckabush II
My oldest brother and his wife have fond memories of a backpacking trip we took along the Duckabush River in 1990. They still talk about it. So when their son visited me earlier this month, it was important for him to see the Duckabush. He had heard too much about the river not to go there.
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My Knees Held Up
The photo and this post’s tags relate to what people might be interested in—a day hike to Marmot Pass in the Olympic National Forest. However, what’s important to me is that my knees made the 10.6-mile roundtrip with its 3500-foot gain (and loss) in elevation without complaining. A couple of days later the rest of me is still sore. But my knees are fine.
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Buoy ID
The latest addition to my buoy collection has almost enough information for me to commit identify theft. About the only things missing are a social security number and a date of birth. In the photo above it’s the one covered with black Magic Marker writing.
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About Those Missing SR 16 Miles
SR 16, the busy Washington state highway that connects I-5 in Tacoma and SR 3 in Gorst, is missing a couple of miles. I don’t mean that it’s not all there, just that there isn’t as much of it as you might think if you go by the official state mile posts alone.
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Golfing in Manette
There’s no place to play golf in Manette. But depending on your range of thinking, there’s a place to practice. At least there is for the man in the photo.
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A Creative Car Show Ballot
I haven’t been to the Taste of Hood Canal Car Show for several years. Since the last time I attended the show, the organizers have expanded the ballot for voting on what used to be a simple people’s choice award (see illustration). It might be the most creative car show ballot around.
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