August 5, 2008
Well, things don't seem to be slowing down very much for us. Wow, what a year it's been so far.
As soon as we recovered from our global adventure we got into planning and organizing the Fathers Day weekend activities. This is an annual event for us and it's a Morgan weekend. Joanne and I plotted a route that we (mostly Jo) hoped would be an interesting run around the peninsula. Lots of twists and turns to keep the drivers happy and to make it slightly more interesting for the passenger, we would make it a "Poker Run", and add a couple of scavenges just for good measure. A Poker Run is mostly an eastern event where you race from check point to check point collecting playing cards and the person or team with the best poker hand wins. That seemed simple enough, so we gathered some friends to man the check points and hand out cards, and after much tidying up, weeding etc. June 14 arrived and we were ready to go. The run went very well and everyone claimed to enjoy it. When they all returned, and we had 20 Morgans here, we had a pig roast which always is a big success and a great day was had by all. On Sunday we all drove to Beacon Hill park in downtown Victoria for the annual Fathers Day Picnic. This show attracts about 400 British cars of every description and vintage as well as motorcycles. The Morgans had a good showing with 32 cars. This is the most we've ever had.

No sooner was this weekend over, and our 8 house guests departed and we were off to another great Morgan event. The "Devils Punch Bowl" run to Oregon. Joanne and I left on Wednesday and visited Hurricane Ridge in the Cascades before heading down to Portland where we were to meet all the rest of the group. Unfortunately it was pretty fogged in and because of snow we could only go part of the way up (Morgans and snow are not a good mix). After leaving the ridge we drove down the Hood Canal to meet up with a few other Morgans at Tumwater, Washington.
The next morning Jo and I decided to take the long way to Portland and headed east and then south toward the Columbia River and follow it. The plan was great but with the very late spring in the mountains we couldn't get around Mount Rainier and had to turn back. By this time we had managed to kill half the day and ended up booting it on I-5 to Portland. The weather was beautiful and the mountains were spectacular. We saw Mount Rainier, St. Helen, Hood abd Adams. That evening we met the rest of the gang and first thing on Friday a.m. we set of on our route to the Newport area. The ride was fantastic and lunch at a vineyard along the way was
a great touch. We arrived at the Alpine Chalets by about 4 p.m. and off to the beach.
On Saturday we roamed around on the beach, hit the outlet mall in Lincoln city to stock up
at the Columbia store and met for our pot luck dinner in the parking lot with the rest, including 8 cars from the Northern California club. A great weekend and ended with seeing the Tall Ships arrive in Port Angeles while waiting for the ferry back to Victoria.

That pretty much finished June, July we stayed home for the most part and got a lot of work
done around the house. The grapes needed to be tended to, we built a vegetable bed by the vineyard, beat back some ivy and generally did household chores. We did manage to escape
for a few days up island. We had been trying to get to the Cape Scott area for a couple of years and just never quite made it. Well, this was the year. We loaded up the VW and headed up.
The weather was not great but we did manage lots of dry bits and went to San Josef Bay
and looked around the area in general. Beautiful up there. We'll have to gather our hiking buddies and have a go at the northern trail that has opened up that goes from Cape Scott east to near Port Hardy. Another year....
From there we went to Malcolm Island and Sointula - found a beautiful camping spot, had a great hike along the beach and since the weather was deteriorating on the north Island we headed home to where it was sunny.
We're now in the process of getting ready for Alaska. Joanne is in Toronto working and will fly
directly to Achorange and I'll meet her there.

All for today.
k