Category Archives: Other Local Places

Wi-Fi in Allyn

Posted on November 20, 2011 | 4 comments

I'll have one coffee to stay.


Allyn, Washington, (population 2400) has gone high-tech. Last week Sail On In, an espresso stand on SR 3 at the south end of town, added Wi-Fi to its menu of great coffee, delicious pastries, and tasty soup (see photo). For years Allyn, a burg on Case Inlet’s North Bay, was known mainly, at least from a business standpoint, as the location of Big Bubba’s Burgers, a 1960’s-style drive-in across the street from the waterfront park. Now there’s another good reason to visit Allyn especially if want to surf the net without a data plan. Perhaps other local businesses will follow suit.

Wi-Fi in Allyn makes it harder to justify paying $130 extra for an iPad with 3G. (As an aside, the buzz created by Amazon’s Kindle Fire prompted a look at tablet computers in general; my conclusion is that I wouldn’t be comfortable with the Fire’s 7-inch screen despite its attractive price.) Now I’m back to thinking the Wi-Fi-only iPad might solve my connectivity issues when I’m away from home. Our vacation place at Treasure Island (3 miles from Allyn) is not connected to the Internet, and previously the closest Wi-Fi connection was 9 miles away in Belfair. Now Wi-Fi is just a short drive (or easy bike ride) away over back roads. And Sail On In has a comfortable indoor seating area for when the weather is bad. Perhaps I can do a blog post from there.

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The Missing Chums

Posted on November 8, 2011 | 4 comments

No fall chum salmon yet


I’m not going to pass up a great title even if it isn’t completely apt and also needs to be credited to the Hardy Boys. The fall chum salmon aren’t really missing (I hope) just late in arriving to the creeks at the eastern end of lower Hood Canal near Belfair. Perhaps we should call on Frank and Joe to solve the mystery of what’s keeping them or at least to find out where they are. The brothers’ motorboat, Sleuth, would come in handy.
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Oyster Bay View

Posted on November 4, 2011 | 1 comment

Oyster Bay at high tide


Oyster Bay is just south of Mud Bay. The two bays are separated by a narrow strip of land that forms the base of the Marine Drive peninsula. Oyster Bay is larger than Mud Bay, better known, and more scenic. Its name gets more respect too even if most of the oysters that lived in the shallow water along its shores are long gone.

The photo was taken this afternoon from the parking lot of the Family Pancake House on Kitsap Way. Bremerton’s Baymont Inn is in the background. Additional great views of Oyster Bay are available from Madrona Point, Shorewood Drive, the Baymont Inn, and several other restaurants along Kitsap Way. The Oyster Bay interchange, a major exit for Bremerton from State Route 3, lies just to the west of the bay.

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Lower Elfendahl Pass Road Reopens

Posted on November 2, 2011 | 3 comments

New fill and asphalt, old culvert


For nearly four years vehicles couldn’t drive on one of the most scenic roads on the Kitsap Peninsula. The lower section of Elfendahl Pass Road had been closed since December 2007, when 12 inches of rain over two days flooded Stimson Creek and caused several serious washouts. The photo shows the repairs to one of them. The road reopened last Thursday.

Photos of some of the damage caused by the December 2007 storm are included after the jump.
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More Dancing Men

Posted on October 24, 2011 | 4 comments

That's me on the left.


What’s up with West Bremerton and dancing men? Along a 1.5-mile stretch of Kitsap Way/6th Street, there are four of the quirky inflatables. Statistically this is off the charts (I think). The local business district might be the state epicenter for deployed balloon advertising. In Great Minds Think Alike I showed a picture of the Jiffy Lube and Blockbuster Video entries. A better title might have been “Herd Instinct.” Did all four businesses hit on the dancing-man idea independently or is there a bit of copycat go-go going on here?

To correct the photo caption, that’s not really me on the roof of the Mid-Town Market. I do support free ATMs though. And free debit-card transactions (although Mid-Town probably doesn’t have them). Certainly both are worth dancing about. As for the Pep Boys figure, maybe he’s just happy because of his name.

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Creepy Car

Posted on October 19, 2011 | 2 comments

Spider on board


Actually the vehicle is a truck (see photo), but calling it a creepy car makes a better title. The previous post was also about Halloween decorations, although the holiday is still almost two weeks away. Similar to Christmas, people in Bremerton like to get ready for Halloween early, using their homes, businesses, and, in this case, vehicles to display a creepy creativity. The truck’s owner gets my Halloween award for this week.

You can achieve a bit of notoriety by hauling around a giant arachnid that looks like it might leap out onto the hood of the car behind you. Even so, this big guy isn’t for me. If I looked into my garage one morning and saw one like it in the bed of my truck, I would slam the door and then freak out, hopefully in that order. I haul a lot of firewood and yard waste so spiders undoubtedly hitch a ride with me from time to time. But there aren’t any spiders in my truck right now. I just checked.

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North Shore Halloween Display

Posted on October 14, 2011 | 3 comments

Boo!


A Halloween display near Belfair State Park (see photo) has just about everything: ghosts, goblins, Jack ‘O Lanterns, witches, scarecrows, and a collection of stuffed raggedy harvest figures. The only things missing are a black cat and a skeleton or two. The strings of small red lights likely add a spooky touch at night although I don’t know that for sure. In case there are any malevolent spirits about, I took the picture during the relative safety of early afternoon.

Clearly the family who lives here likes to decorate their road frontage on Hood Canal’s North Shore Road. Last February in A Thousand Icicles I included a picture of the icicle tree they created in the same spot. They also go all out at Christmas with lights, snowmen, and hanging snowflakes. But the Halloween display, with its party atmosphere, might be the most impressive of the three.

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Hunting Big Game in Silverdale

Posted on September 20, 2011 | 1 comment

Clear Creek elephant


You can hunt big game along Silverdale’s Clear Creek Trail. Of course any shooting needs to be done with a camera as there’s no way to get a Washington hunting license for the animals I bagged yesterday (see photos). Constructed of several sheets of ¾-inch plywood, the animals tower over a field of tall grass in the Clear Creek Valley just north of town. A series of crop circle-like paths through the grass allow for close-up photos.

A passing hiker told me that the animals were put up by a private party who wanted to create a memory of his trips to Africa. It worked for me. With just a bit of imagination I was transported to the Serengeti Plain. The best part was the total surprise. I had no idea that there are life-sized animal-shaped billboards along the Clear Creek Trail. Having my camera with me wasn’t luck. As I have said in other posts, a small digital camera should always be included as standard equipment when you go to Silverdale.

There’s one more photo after the jump.
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Elwha River Trip

Posted on September 18, 2011 | 2 comments

End of the hike---Whiskey Bend

End of the hike---Whiskey Bend

I had been planning one last trip to see the dams on the Elwha River before the removal project started. The trip didn’t happen. Demolition of the Glines Canyon and Elwha dams began last week. The project, which has the lofty goal of restoring one of the largest watersheds on the Olympic peninsula to its pre-dam glory, is proceeding slowly and will take years to complete. So while there’s plenty of time to go see most of what remains of the two dams and the lakes behind them, the best I can offer for now are sketchy memories of a hiking trip I took several decades ago with three companions (see photo).
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Canoe at High Tide

Posted on August 3, 2011 | 3 comments

Tied up at high tide


Last night was a perfect summer evening at Treasure Island. Perfect for everything but canoeing. Due to its minimal keel, my 15-foot Coleman Outfitter gets blown sideways by any wind exceeding about 5 knots. So after a brief battle against a stiff breeze, I brought the canoe back in and settled for a picture of a moored canoe instead (see photo). At 15.5 feet, the tide was one of the higher tides for August. The picture was taken a few minutes before high tide.

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