Tag Archives: Fort Victoria RV Park

9/15/2019 Elwha River Port Angeles, Day 5

Fall in the Pacific North West

Why am I surprised that the sky is gray with clouds and intermittent often heavy rain.  The Olympic Peninsula is a rain forest after all. We may not be cycling today.  Not that we’ll melt, but there’s no reason to be uncomfortable, cold, or wet in the midst of beauty. The Strait of Juan de Fuca is gorgeous in good weather.  It can appear bleak and uninviting in cold wind driven rain.

With weather, anything is possible.  The sun could break through later today, though that is very unlikely.

Evenings, the temperature drops and the clouds open up.  We slept to the sound of heavy rain last night.  As the temperature warms in the morning, rain stops as the clouds store moisture and the promise of rain in the evening.  Plants benefit, we see vibrant green  everywhere. 

There is a burn ban in effect.  I expect it will lift soon.

Happy Wife, Happy…

It’s Football Sunday with NFL Sunday Ticket from DirecTV.  Cool. Search “Jets football” or “jets NFL’ on our guide and get no results!  WHAT?  Ok a Google search turns up Jets @ Browns Monday at 5:15, Monday Night Football.  Sunday Ticket only covers Sunday Football.  Why wouldn’t my search find Jets @ Bills in my lineup? Google search again for “Jets @ Bills” and up pops ESPN.  Tune into ESPN; I’m not subscribed to ESPN. 

DIRECTV offers three methods to solve this.  The first: Text upgrade to 223322.  Cool.  I do the text and get back a text stating, “DIRECTV MOBILE: go to DirecTV.com or call 1-800.531.5000, the other two on-screen methods.  Why even provide text to 332233 if it does absolutely nothing?  Probably for the money ATT makes charging for texts.  That SUCKS.   Go to DirecTV.com with tons of advertising for shows. Eventually I was routed to ATT.com, a maze of a website.  Method #2 is untenable.

Method #3: call.  The first thing you hear when ATT picks up is a sales pitch for NFL Sunday Ticket with extended instructions about how to subscribe, what to do to activate your subscription and on and on.  Such BS.  Using the voice recognition system I asked “upgrade ESPN” and was told “that package is unavailable”.  Typical of ATT.  I think they would have done better not to centralize ATT, ATT mobile, and DirecTV.  “Operator” and I was transferred to a live person who made ESPN happen for a few dollars more.

I cringe each time I want to make changes to my DirecTV account.   In any case ESPN is now available to me and “JETS @ BROWNS” is set to record tomorrow.  Ellen should be happy and happier if the JETS happen to win (an unusual occurrence).

CNN, Phase 10, Lazy Day – not.

Coffee this morning with the heat on briefly and a rookie mistake.  The heater cycles on, off, then stays off with no heat if LP is switched off.  ooops.  We finished last night’s phase 10 game and started another.   It was 10:45 when Ellen said, “Since the weather is bad and we’ll not bike today, let’s go to home depot in Victoria.  We can fix the drawer today.”  The next ferry to Victoria loads at 12:15. Black Ball said their reservations were full, they leave 20 slots open for arrivals without reservations, and we could go on standby if all slots are filled. “We have five slots open.”

We’ve never “broken camp” as quickly as we did that morning.  We took one of the last three RV slots.  Li’l Beast is rated a 24’ motorhome.  It is actually 25’ 6” long, but with the bicycles on back we measured out at 30’!  “UGE.   Port Angeles at sunrise is beautiful.  At mid day its commercial nature belies the area’s natural beauty.  The sound was socked in with nothing to see.  Victoria’s inner harbor was partly sunny.  A new marina was completed with a super yacht parked fronting a new hotel complex.  Each year there’s more construction here.

We were fourth off the boat and breezed through customs.

“Where do you live, how long will  you stay in Canada? Do you have firearms? Do you have beer? Do you have wine or spirits? Are you carrying bear spray?  Do you have marijuana products,”  

“One Beer, but it won’t last long (I had maybe 12).  Is marijuana legal in Canada?” 

“Yes it is legal in Canada, but you cannot bring any in.”  “Oh, Ok”

We called Salish RV Haven; no space available for tonight.  They recommended Fort Victoria RV Park.  They had availability, no reservation necessary.

Home Depot carries a variety of draw slides from 16” to 22”.  I took one of the slides with me, and found a strong 20” slide; the perfect length but maybe 1/2” wider than the original.  “Some Assembly Required” I thought.  The new sliders went in relatively easily with a bit of measuring, drilling, and screwing.  The sliders need a bit of lubrication, but they work.  

Fort Victoria RV Park

At 5:30 PM we drove a few miles to Fort Victoria for the night.   Fort Victoria sits right on the intersection of two bike trails.  Both are converted Railroad right of ways: the Galloping Goose Trail and the E&N Rail Trail.  Both run down to Victoria Harbor.   Though we could have, we chose not to unload the bikes this evening. 

We cooked a chicken meal in the convection oven, watched “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and played two games of phase 10. Ellen won the last game.

Fort Victoria RV Park packs ‘em in.  The sites are level with full hookups.  Many have good satellite visibility.  For a single night sitting window to window with neighbors we no problem.  I’d rather not stay here as “home base” even if I didn’t know about Salish.  Salish’s location has such a wonderful view and easy access via water taxi to Victoria.  Why stay anywhere else?

Checkout is at 11AM.  “I wonder how early we can arrive at Salish”, Ellen asked.  We’ll find out.

Port Angeles to Victoria Ferries

The ferry schedule varies by season.  In winter, the ferry runs once every day.  In high season it runs four times daily.   For us the ferry departs Port Angeles at 8:15, 12:45, and 5:20.  The 9:30 PM ferry stops on September 3.  I recommend making ferry reservations well ahead of time.  We arrived for the 12:45 ferry at 10:20 AM and barely made it on.  Had we missed the 12:45 we would have been first in line for non-reservations on the 5:20 PM sailing; inconvenient, but doable.  If you miss the last ferry, you’ll be spending a night at Fort Victoria RV Park.

The ferry takes an hour and a half to make the crossing.  People rush upstairs to grab booth seating.  There are rows of seats in the bow, where we sat.  Even though we were relatively early on the boat, most booth seats were taken.  You’ll find food and drink aboard ship.  Ellen brought a tray of fried potato slices that were yummy.