So one of the things we want to do this year is travel more, go on more adventures, do more OUTSIDE as a family. So ... even though it's January, we still want to do this....
Which was the plan, we were all going to go to two of our (my) favorite places. Port Gamble and Point No Point. It was supposed to be in the 50's ... not warm but decent....
However, it didn't work like that. I thought about taking Elly, and asked if we could a few days prior to Sunday, but my Mom (who currently has custody of Elly) hadn't answered me. So I assumed no, but I knew I needed to stop and see Elly because I had promised her. So when Mom asked if we could go babysit, I asked her if we could just take Elly with us. So we did ...
However.... Nathan and Kaedyn were up all night. I got up at 5am (ish) and Kaedyn was all "I can't sleep" and Nathan was moving around but he never looked at me or said anything, but the movements were enough to make me think he was awake .... Noah hasn't been feeling good all week and he didn't want to go .... so I let him stay home ... let the little boys stay home with him.
So it was just DB, Cal, Tina, Elly and I.
Below is the Olympic Mountains from the road when we were heading out of town...
PORT GAMBLE is a small little town that is standing still in time (kinda) ... it's been restored and and preserved and the whole town is a Historical Landmark. And something new I learned, if you live in Port Gamble (in one of the homes) or if you have a business in one of the preserved buildings, if say your stove breaks, you call them up and they come fix it or replace it.... plumbing issues? They pay for it. They even mow your lawn. Ah.... where can I sign up? The only thing you are supposed to do is keep up on your flower beds.
I mean - seriously - where do I sign up?
Every time I've been there, it's always been very quiet. It's a really quiet town - besides the tourists that is. In the summer you can rent things for water activities. It's a sweet town. There are little shops there, a yarn store, quilting, there is a general store, museum, restaurant ... there is lots. Including a graveyard with a very distinct historical figure buried there. But I'll talk more about that below....
This isn't the first entry for PORT GAMBLE ... check out some of the others, there is a lot of pictures, different pictures, in a lot of them, because I don't figure I need to take pictures of the signs every time. LOL ... or every building....
I will also be writing up a HISTORY OF PORT GAMBLE entry and I'll be sure to link it when I do.
So this time, we just had fun.
 |
| Google Find.... |
Elly at the top of the stairs (at the front of the house which is facing the water, not the street) ... of the Walker-Ames House.
The Walker-Ames House in Port Gamble is *known* to be (one of the) most haunted houses in the nation. I will talk about the haunting claims in the history post I will make in the short future. But the very first time I was ever in the town, I looked at the house and I said .... "that house is really haunted" and later, we found out - there are claims to heavily support that.
The house - is BEAUTIFUL and I wish that they would restore it like they have the other houses. They keep the outside kept, but not so much the inside and this could very well be because they don't want to kick the spirits up more than they already are, because things with in the house already seem to be a bit bad...
I do tend to go on the porch and I peek in the windows. I am obsessed with this fireplace in the front room of the house facing the front door.
Cal, Tina and Elly on the steps of the Walker-Ames House
Cal & Tina on the steps of the Walker-Ames house...
STATE CHAMPION CAMPERDOWN ELM * It was 1640 that the "Earl of Camperdown" in Dundee Scotland noticed a branch growing on the floor of his elm forest. He grafted it to a Scotch Elm tree and it took hold producing the first Camperdown Elm. The Scotch Elm is the only root mass the Camperdown Elm will grow on. The tree is a mutant and cannot self produce. Every Camperdown Elm tree in the world is part of the original and they must be grafted to a Scotch Elm tree to get started. When the graft starts to grow, the Scotch Elm branches are cut off leaving only Camperdown Elm. This magnificent tree depends on humankind to keep it alive as a species. * This Camperdown Elm is the new State Champion. This tree was planted in 1875. It measures 20 ft. in height with a 26 ft. crown and a 7 ft. circumference.
In the summer the vines blossom with tons of leaves and you can literally walk inside the branches (there is one area where there is an opening in the branches) and you can hide in there for hours. Or or months - I mean, I'd say forever but forever isn't realistic because it sheds it's leaves and people would discover you in the winter... lol...
On the second floor of the General Store ... there is a little museum with coral, starfish, tons of shells and crustaceans, along with some sea-life. it's pretty cool! So if you stop by, make sure you check it out! I had no idea it even existed until a few years ago!
Elly looks sooooooooo big (older) in the two pictures below. She reminds me of ... like a five year old.
I promise, she wasn't crying - her nose was super red from the whipping wind with the chill outside ...
The black shell.... I think it's pretty awesome!
STARFISH!! Did you know that that star fish don't only have five legs? They can have so many legs, There are 9 legged ones, 7 legged ones... 10 legged ones! They come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and colors.... the ones in the middle and bottom right picture of the collage (below) are called "Basket Starfish" ...
The top half of the collage below is "Mineralized Flowers" and they are BEAUTIFUL!!! And then under that there are sea urchins ....
I also spotted Chewbacca!!!
Elly had to "balance beam" the curb when we got outside..... all the way to the end (once it started to get high I had my hands on her though ....
The cold bitter day that I didn't expect .... was cold and windy and bitter .... but the water always makes it worth it. When Elly got home to Nana and Papa ... she told them "We went to the Ocean!!" Well, she's right.. LOL.... I mean we did!
Below you can see the waves CRASHING against the rocks....
Tina and I ....
Tina and Cal
Tina and Cal ... whenever I take photos here, it always feels like it's some backdrop, but it's not.... it is 100% real!
I've never noticed this before.... and I think it's adorable! The little chandelier is behind the word Cove in the bottom photo .... it's super cute! Makes me wonder if it lights up!
James Foster, son of the Puget Mill Company's fore-founders, was the first person buried here. The best known grave is that of Gustave Englebrecht who was killed by the British Columbia Indians on Gamble Bay a few months later. His death is historically notable as the first U.S. Navy member to die in action in the Pacific Ocean. Many of those buried came from Maine, but other states and many other nationalities are also represented, including Austria, Canada, England, Finland, Ireland, Germany, Scotland, and Sweden.
I don't share my morbid love of cemeteries with a lot of people, but why not put it out there. I <3 cemeteries. I wander around looking at all these souls, their names, the small blurbs that their loved ones add to their tombstones, the artwork, etc. There are some very beautiful gravestones. Very artistic ones. The statues in the graveyard sand the mausoleums.
I am also a member of FIND A GRAVE which helps out incredibly with genealogy searching and family tree building. And there is something about being able to see the final resting place of your great-great-great-great grandmother that you never met but you are meeting for the first time. It's like.... there you are, you are real, and I'm your granddaughter down the line.... if it weren't for you, I wouldn't be here. So when I go to a cemetery, I do try to get photos of the grave-markers there - especially if it's a small cemetery like Buena Vista Cemetery. It still took me (probably) about an hour to take all the photos I did ... but I can't say that I'm not glad! Cuz I am. Of course, there are the graves that break your heart. Like "Infant Son" or the daughter that died when she was three years old. It's hard not to think ... and wonder... what happened a little bit to end a life so early, but back in that day, it was most likely illness.
I won't bore you with all the gravestones, but I will tell you that I do think...... this is the view that I would want to spend eternity (or until my next life) looking at....
So the cemetery is surrounded by this very pretty well kept white picket fence - of course it gets dirty with the weather, but it really is well kept.
In the middle of the cemetery there is one grave that's fenced in it'self... and there is one or two other ones, one has fences around it too - one has no marker inside of it. This one though, it has some significance.
This is the grave of Gustave Engelbrecht.
The best known grave is that of Gustave Englebrecht who was killed by the British Columbia Indians on Gamble Bay a few months later. His death is historically notable as the first U.S. Navy member to die in action in the Pacific Ocean.
For some reason ... when I was trying to wrap my head around this, and the Battle of Port Gamble, I was thinking it was a case of settlers fighting for land against local Indians but that wasn't the case.
And that's what Tina, my Native-American girl, thought she was understanding too. However that is most DEFINITELY not the case. I found it best explained here:
Coxwain Gustave Engelbrecht was a crewman on the USS Massachusetts, the single American warship (actually a small gunboat) stationed in these waters, which had been US territory for only ten years. In November of 1856 the Massachusetts responded to an urgent call for help from the town of Port Gamble, where residents and local Indians were under heavy attack by a large war party of Haida Indians.
The Haida (sometimes called "the Vikings of the Pacific") were a fierce, warlike people from a thousand miles to the north, roughly the coastal area where the Russian possessions (Alaska) met the English possessions (British Columbia, Canada). They used huge sea-going canoes holding dozens of men to attack once or twice a year in large raids of hundreds of men seeking slaves and plunder, and their coming literally terrorized the local native population.
The USS Massachusetts arrived at Port Gamble to find the town besieged and the battle underway. In the Battle of Port Gamble, the little vessel was able to drive off the Haida with heavy losses, including the death of their principal chief and several other headmen. The Massachusetts sustained fairly light casualties, but they included the US Navy's first man to die in combat in the Pacific, Gustave Engelbrecht, whose grave is honored in the center and highest point of Buena Vista Cemetery. Above historical notes by Kevin Fraley, © 2001.
A few of Calahan and Tina's photos .....
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for leaving some LOVE!