4th of July Excitement

Early in the morning of the 4th, Sonny received a text from the Ranger saying the power was out throughout the park. We soon learned that the power lines in the park are all buried underground. Since there are still wire runs from the last century, it is easy for a line to short out. This is the 6th outage this year. Apparently, at 2:30 AM, there was a surge somewhere underground knocking out all power.  The next dilemma was the holiday.  PUD checked their power to the park which stops at the entrance  and said it wasn't their problem so they went home.  The private utility company, who works on the power inside the park,  said that due to the holiday, they didn't have anyone to come in till Tuesday.  The next issue was the bathrooms-how long could they be used before the water reservoir would be too low?  Porta Pottys were ordered and began to arrive late morning. The water level maintained so campers could still get water.  I volunteered to staff the office phone since the regular girl had the day off.  I answered a call from one Porta Potty driver. He was struggling to find the park.  He told me he had gone "straight at the stop sign" so he should have been right in front of the park office.  However, 3 phone calls and 2 radio calls later, we discovered he was at Fort Worden in Port Townsend, not Fort Flagler!  

Another task I was assigned was to call all the incoming campers to alert them to the power outage. Many were already on  the way and didn't mind even though power wasn't going to be restored soon. Real camping!  

After our shifts, we headed to Port Orchard for our days off, mowing and laundry. There were a few neighborhood fireworks but not annoying.

Utility power trench stretching along the park parade grounds.

The power was restored two days later for a few minutes.  Apparently,
the surge caused another outage for half of the park.  Their
power came back on Friday.

Entrance to the Park where the power company was still trying to
restore power 3 days later.  The little bobcat filled in the trench
and then loaded up to leave.

Navy dock on Indian Island looking West toward the Olympics.  We think
this ship is one of the tenders we have seen docked at the Naval Shipyard in
Bremerton.

The Navy has a Magazine on Indian Island, next to Marrowstone Island.
We learned that ships with nuclear war heads cannot go into
Puget Sound so the war heads are off loaded here for storage.

Nordland is the closest town to Fort Flagler.  The General Store
is the hub of the town.

Shelves as in the old days.  Antiques line the top shelf.

The Tsunami evacuation T-shirt warning: "Grab Beer, Run Like Hell"

One stop shop

Sonny is standing by  the town meeting place around the wood stove and
looking at the 60s wall phone.