His Name is James Deigan and we met him under the bridge at the Kirk Cobain Memorial. He played us a song and told us that unless he makes at least one person smile a day he can't smile himself. I asked if I could take his picture and he said sure as long as I email it to him, so I did. He had a great voice.

We took a little side trip to Aberdeen, WA to visit the Kirk Cobain Memorial Park. It is located a few blocks from Kirk's childhood home where the young Cobain hung out and it inspired the song "Something in the way." After his death a third of his ashes were spread here by his friends and family, and it was turned into a memorial park in his honor.

Well our first stop was on the Washington coast at Copalis Beach. It has been steadily raining since we arrived. We are staying at the Dunes Beach Resort which is right off the beach though there is no direct access. The resort itself is comfortable with good amenities. The spaces are quite close together though so in season it might feel a bit crowded.
This is definitely not the most comfortable season to visit the Washington coast. There have been very high winds and driving rains most of the day and night! There were a few breaks in the extreme weather so we were able to have a little adventure out today. The stormy weather made for some quite dramatic views as we explored.
We were surprised to see just how many deer were around, they were just about everywhere we looked!
We found a fun oyster shack to have a little snack at. F and I both had our first Oyster Shooter in a souvenir glass!

Being that it is off season many of the area attractions were closed but we had a great time exploring the area anyway. We found a great museum and though it too was closed there were a bunch of cool things to look at out side it including a fun little nature path.
The Buoy in the picture is 30 feet long and it was found washed up on the beach in 2007. It is from Ginoza in Okinawa, Japan. It was washed away by a super typhoon in 2006 and spent 245 days in transit.
The buoy provided us with an opportunity to discuss  marine habitats as the buoy itself provides a man made ecosystem by trapping kelp which then attracts invertebrates which feed the fish. The sign said that within 30 days yellow fin tuna will be present in the ecosystem created by the buoy. The tuna are a major commercial catch for the Ginoza fisherman.
There was also a sign that discussed currents which was another fun topic to talk about with the kids. I look forward to continuing these lessons with the girls as we continue down the coast. Road schooling can be so much fun. There are opportunities for learning everywhere...even in closed museums!  

Well we have officially left Roslyn. It was an eventful last month however. We moved out of our house and into the camper the last week of September. At the same time my sister came to visit. It was a busy week. It was so nice to have her with us for the start of our great adventure!
The day after she left was really exciting here in Roslyn. The entire town was transformed in a few short days into the 1962 town of Canon City, CO for the filming of "The Man in the High Castle." It is based on the novel by the same name by Phillip K. Dick. The primes of the story is that Germany and Japan won WWII and America is under occupation by the Nazis and the Japanese.
The filming was the pilot episode for an Amazon series set to debut sometime in 2015. It was amazing to watch the complete transformation of the town.

I loved seeing just how many people went into making the transformation happen. It was equally interesting to see how quickly everything was set back as it was previously, just as if they had never been there! Ahhh, the magic of Hollywood! 
Once the town was set back to normal things quietened down a lot! We spent our time taking photos and selling art around town whilst waiting for Jason to finish his day job out.

One fun photo shoot Jason did was for Fused an artisan glass shop in town. Tony the owner and artist behind Fused invited Jason to shoot his shop in trade for a class for our girls.
I have not yet seen what the girls made as they decided to make me birthday presents! Such little sweeties. As an added bonus I got an hour long lunch date with Jason while they had their class. Happy Birthday to me!

Tony the artist from Fused made a bunch of the above ornaments and then hid them throughout Roslyn for people to find. He got the idea from the Lincoln City, Oregon glass float drop which brings in tourists from all over to search for the beautiful glass floats. So tony brought this idea to Roslyn and we had a ton of fun scouring the town looking for them. We found three. R found hers in a window sill near the glass shop. F found hers on top of a door jamb in town. I found one in a small shrub. Each one is marked with the date. I hope that this idea takes off the way it did in Lincoln City because it is a ton of fun. What a great little souvenir for tourists and locals alike!
All in all our last month in Roslyn was an eventful one, but we are glad to be on the road now. Let the adventure begin...

Me: "R, tell me about your picture."

R: "It's night time and they are in the stream and they are swimming over to the sea."

Me: "What was one thing you learned in this lesson?"

R: "They lay their eggs and then they die."

Me: "Tell me about a salmon lifecycle."

F: "Salmon take a jerney to the ocean when ther babys. Then they go back to spawn when ther adults, then they die."

Me: "What was your favorite part of this lesson?"

F: When we whent to the salmon spoting my farit part whas when we saw salmon spawning."

* F's answers were transcribed from her written work, mistakes and all. It preserves her work where she is now and helps us to track her progress as we go on.

Well we have not left Washington yet, but that does not mean we have not had some fun adventure time! Currently we are staying at our first RV Park and I have learned a lot about site selection...more on that later though. We are in such an amazing natural area, just a few minutes down the road is a Salmon spawning site so we decided to check it out.

The location is absolutely beautiful! From the old bridge you lookout over the river, it is such a nice view. From that height you can see lots of salmon spawning. We decided, however, that we wanted to take a closer look so a short little hike through the woods led us to the viewing area at the water's edge. The first thing we noticed was the smell. Before we even saw our first fish we could smell them. The End of the salmon lifecycle leaves quite the pungent oder! The next thing we noticed was all of the dead fish in various stages of decomposition.  They were everywhere, in the water, on the banks, everywhere. You really had to be careful where you stepped! Finally we began to see the live fish spawning. It was such a sunny day that the glare on the water made it a bit challenging, but we were able to capture a few pictures.
The girls had a blast. The were filled with questions, so we decided to make it a real homeschool lesson. Today I looked up some fun information for the girls about Salmon. We learned that Salmon are a Keystone species, which means that they are vastly important to their environment providing food and nutrients to both animals and plant life. We found some great information here from the US Forest Service. We looked at the anatomy of the salmon and the lifecycle of Salmon. We learned that fish scales have growth rings much like trees and that by studying the scales you can learn about how old the fish is, you can also learn about the fishes' food supply by studying the rings. The rings will be thinner and close together during times when the fish have less food and is therefore growing more slowly such as during the winter or when the salmon is in fresh water. When food is more plentiful like in the summer or when the salmon is in the ocean the rings are thicker and further apart. Pretty cool, huh?
I think my favorite part was this math lesson:
Stay tuned for the kids perspective on this lesson coming soon!