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6/14
We left for Cle Elum early & enjoyed the scenery on the way back. The large snow-covered mountains seem to loom over the dry knoll-type mountains in the foreground. It is beautiful. We stopped at the Cottage Café in Cle Elum for breakfast. A popular truck stop, this place does have the kind of breakfasts that Gary loves. It is always busy, busy. Truckers, locals & tourists all seem to flock here. We set up camp again at Whispering Pines & did some tourist type shopping & checking out the river. Found wifi at the local coffee house & uploaded this website. Didn’t know if it was EVER gonna happen. Lazy vacation day with improved weather…no clouds & it hit at least 74* today. No jackets, Yeay!
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One of the wonderful views of extraordinary mountains as we were about midpoint from Ellensburg to Cle Elum.
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Lots of agriculture and cattle ranching in this area.
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6/15
Father’s Day is another gorgeous weather day. We decided to return to Roslyn to visit their Farmer’s Market. It turned out to be a bit larger than the one in Ellensburg (gale blowing the day of Ellensburg’s market). They had a guitarist playing for the crowd’s enjoyment and we were enchanted by Cesar Medel’s mastery of the classic guitar. What this talent is doing playing at a Farmer’s Market is beyond me! In reading his CD inside cover, we discover he is from Chile and a deeply religious man. He certainly made our day. The marketplace had a very artistic basin & metal wand for bubble making. The children & their parents were having a good time with that! Made me miss my grandgirls! They would have loved it! I spoke with a number of the merchants, who are all so friendly & helpful. We came away with a much lighter wallet than we arrived with. And smiles! Great time! As we walked to our car, we stopped to look at a mural we had not noticed when visiting this tiny town before. A well-done rendition of Marlon Brando in one of his first movies painted on the back of someone’s wooden garage. The empty lot on the main street of town made the perfect foreground for this mural. We’re often left with more questions than answers when we see things like this. Why? When? Will someone repaint as the weather peels it? Hmmm. Gary especially liked the wonderful Father’s Day phone calls from the kids. Just made him grin. What a Dad!
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Just what is Marlon Brando’s portrait doing on the back of a building that is facing the main street of Roslyn? There was no one to ask.
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Roslyn’s Farmer’s Market. Below is Cesar Medal entertaining the crowd. Lower right is mom creating bubbles & her cute little son dashing about to catch them.
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This ‘wild child’ is no tougher looking than the woman passing him by. So they both get my vote for ‘Wild Life’. There are a lot of biker groups who ride these mountains on the weekend. And a lot of them look about as ‘wild’ as this guy. The funny thing is, though, a lot of them are our age. Quite scary!
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6/16
Gary got up at o-dark-hundred to get to the fish once again. I slept in. We then had the task of removing all the screens from the coach windows to vacuum off all the cottony type stuff flying through the air from the bushes & trees. So, if your gonna do the screens, then you have to wash the interior windows. After that chore, we just had a lazy afternoon. We tried like crazy to get pics of the dog & cat who are the best of buddies. Ms. Curious Cat & Mr. Cutie-Pie Dog are owned by the camp hosts and the cat roams at will. Very curious and friendly. Her buddy is a toy poodle. They roll around on the lawn together, playfully jumping onto one another & following one another about. The dog is on a leash most of the time when not in his owner’s arms, but that cat just is everywhere. They have made us laugh so many times! The photo session was not altogether successful. See below. We took the river walk and, since the wildlife hides from us, we took some pics of the wild flowers along the path. Thank goodness flowers don’t run away. I am starting dinner, so this will end now.
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The mighty Yakima River & flowers found along its shores.
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WILD LIFE OF THE DAY
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Ms. Curious Cat & Mr. Cutie Pie Dog together. They are a wild pair and play with each other constantly. So cute.
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They are looking for their next challenge!
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6/17
Our last full day here. Gary is up with dawn to go fishing. The wind is blowing so hard that he was casting his fly line sideways to try to get the fly out there. Gave up, came back & we went to the local hatchery. It is much more than a hatchery. The Yakima-Klickitat Fisheries Project, the dream of Levi George, a tribal leader in the Yakama Tribe, is doing state-of-the-art studies of the salmon that run this river. A joint project of the Washington government & the Yakama Nation, it involves capturing home-bound Salmon at a dam site, bringing them to the facility, taking their eggs (each female’s eggs are kept separate from the others), raising them, marking them & releasing them. Some are caught in succeeding years on their way back and further studies are done. It is a complex program that is not only markedly raising the numbers of salmon out there, they are studying the effects, if any, on the project-raised salmon compared to wild salmon. Our guide explained that about 60% of the salmon caught on this river now are Fisheries salmon returning to spawn. She said without this project, there might not be any salmon on this river. Most enlightening. The wind is blowing too hard to do anything outdoors, so we’re just veggin’ at our campsite. We will never forget this wind during our time here & in Ellensburg.
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We were just in time to see the trucks from the dam unloading the salmon. On the left are the wild salmon being unloaded by pipe and below is another class of salmon unloaded by net. Ya gotta be strong to handle the net. About 100 pounds of salmon there.
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One of the captured weighing about 10 lbs.
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On the right, hatchlings by the thousands in each one of the troughs as shown below. The Facility tries to mimic the salmon’s natural environment with the circles of netting that replicate shade from tree leaves, shading them from the sun. These little guys swim in a combo of temp-controlled river & well water.
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Can you even guess what he is? We were alarmed that such wildness was running loose at the hatchery. What about the poor salmon who could be attacked by this bright colored bird? (It’s a metal chicken about 6 inches high placed in a flowerbeds there. There is NO wildlife to be found!)
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