July 14 – Aug 8, 2019 – Gig Harbor RV Resort, Gig Harbor, Washington

Laziness strikes again. So here’s a bit catch-up post.

We’ve generally been visiting with family up here in Washington state. We’ve either been going over to our daughter and son-in-law’s home or sometimes the family’s gathering spot out on Fox Island. We’ll touch on some highlights.

July 15

We headed over to Elizabeth and Cole’s house to visit with the family. Malcolm wandered across the street to visit with an old friend.

Of course we caught up with Cole and Elizabeth. (Photo credit: Scarlet)

July 17

We headed over to Fox Island to visit with Cole’s grandmother Shirley. Elizabeth and the girls came over, too. Malcolm worked while we were there, along with one of his buddies.

July 18

We stayed at the trailer while Malcolm took care of some important maintenance. When we were unhooking in Florida to start our trip this way, Malcolm found that the end of our power cord had a burnt looking terminal.

It turned out to actually have been caused by what was probably a loose connection at the trailer’s connector. The red insulation on one of the hot wires was fairly burnt.

On the way west, we ordered a replacement cord end and trailer connector, upgrading to a heavier-duty SmartPlug setup that others have recommended.

Malcolm took his time, but was still done in a little over an hour. We really like the new setup a lot better. It is touted to have much better contact area and seems very sturdy. It is also marine-rated, so very well sealed.

July 20

Elizabeth drove over to the campground from Fox Island, leaving the girls with Cole. The three of us wandered around the art festival in downtown Gig Harbor.

We browsed the arts and crafts, had lunch and took advantage of a photo op.

After that, we all headed back out to Fox Island to visit with family for the rest of the afternoon. Malcolm kept Lulu entertained.

We took the girls for the night. They came over and made cupcakes with Nana.

July 23

Malcolm got the new wheels we ordered on the way out here and put them in the truck. He also took the wheels and tires off the trailer and threw them in the truck as well. He took the whole setup over to the local tire place for them to switch our tires over to the new wheels.

Besides our one wheel that had cracked and allowed air to escape, Malcolm found another wheel on the trailer had a cracked spoke on it. That pretty much made our decision to switch to steel wheels seem like a pretty smart move (we hope).

The tire store had the tires done in a couple hours.

We headed back over to the trailer and mounted the new wheels back on the trailer and put our spare back up in the spare tire carrier.

We hope the steel wheels work out a lot better. We think they will. They carry the same ratings as the aluminum rims. Several days later, we decided not to mess with the aluminum rims (sell them to someone or whatever) and just took them to a local metal recycler.

July 24

We met Cole at the Museum of Flight over in Seattle. The family had a special pass so that we all got in free to see the Apollo space exhibit.

Violet wore her “space suit” to the event.

They had several interactive things the children could do. Violet had fun with the 3D printer pens. (Dad and Grandpa may have also joined in the fun).

Scarlet insisted on one more picture before we left.

July 27

Elizabeth and Malcolm had a daddy-daughter birthday thing by heading to the Goodguys Car Show at the Washington State Fairgrounds.

Malcolm took his camera and got lots of pictures of Elizabeth posing with various vehicles.

Malcolm and Elizabeth also got to cruise around with some of Cole’s cousins in their vehicles that they were showing. It was a long but fun day. They went to the car show in lieu of the traditional horseback ride and Elizabeth’s allergies won’t allow her to do that activity any more.

August 1

Even though Elizabeth couldn’t go on a horseback ride, Violet was more than willing to go, so she and “Pa” had a grandfather-granddaughter horseback ride for their birthdays.

After the ride, you can feed carrots to your horse so we brought a fairly big bag of carrots. Since there were so many, we split them between our two horses, the horse of the trail guide that went with us and the resident pig.

August 4

Violet celebrated her birthday by going to “big girl camp” for the week at the local YMCA camp. Cole and Elizabeth dropped her off at camp, then brought Scarlet by our place for a week of “Camp NanaPa”. We’ll fill you in on our week of hosting camp in a couple days after camp is over. But here is the happy camper with her two leaders all in their matching camp shirts.