Where Yarmiks Roam

Oregon City, Oregon - Week 31 - August 2 - August 8, 2021

Two big events this week

The first is that we went to Anacortes/Oak Harbor, Washington for Brenden's Change of Command.

Warren, Whitney, Dad and I drove together in their car and shared a hotel in Oak Harbor at the Oak Tree Hotel. Malcolm/Haley and Travis/Ann drove separately to Oak Harbor and stayed at a different hotel.

Our first stop was for lunch somewhere off I-5 at an authentic Thai restaurant. Well, the cook was an authentic Thai woman, but the server/cashier/busboy looked like a bearded old man who had met his wife/cook when he was a service man in Thailand....he was nice and friendly though.

The food was yummy and we spoke all the Thai we could remember and were probably a bit silly at the same time.

We headed to Anacortes where Brenden lives to be there in time for an Open House and pizza. So... we learned something about cows. In the navy, a COW is the Commanding Officer's Wife (don't know what happens if the CO is a woman...but that's for another time). Tradition has it that when the current commanding officer is replaced by a new one (in this case, Brenden), then a bunch of COWs are transported to the new commanders home and placed on the lawn. The cows stay there until the wife of the new commanding officer is sick and tired of them and has them put into a basement someplace somewhere, and they reappear in fifteen months when there will be another Change of Command.

There were tons of people at the Open House - Brenden's parents, and his parent's friends and relatives. There were also bunch of Brenden's old friends who had been at the Merchant Marine Academy when he was there. - they were navy, coast guard, and...maybe a civilian. At one point we were sitting around a table, and I was certain I was sitting somewhere in New York because we were surrounded by a strange accent. Pizza was good, and I learned that Papa Murphy's Gourmet Delight is wonderful.

Thursday - we headed to the US Navy Air Base for the ceremony. It was in a big hanger set up with a stage. chairs, flags, flags, flags, a brass quintet, and tons of navy personnel in bright white uniforms.

We found our seats and sat

And a Growler. Notice there is a name tag on it, just below the cockpit. It says Commander Nuttall who is the retiring commander. but...if you look, you can see it is a plaque of some sort jut stuck onto the side of the place.

Then the ceremony began....the new commander is welcomed aboard the ship (or, in this case, a stage).

And he salutes!!

A bunch of speeches followed. The speeches all confirmed that Commander Gray was now the new commander of the Electronic Attack Weapons School and that the other guy is no longer in charge....that needs to be made clear to everyone. Then Pamela pined on Brenden's new pin.

And Brenden made a speech ending with, "In order to have peace, you must prepare for war."

Then there was an interesting flag ceremony where a folded flag was passed from sailor to sailor in ultra slow motion and then presented to the previous commander's wife.

It was over! And we rushed to get photos. This is a great one of Brenden and his Growler. Notice the plaque is gone and Brenden's name is on the plane.

Taking a suggestion from Brenden, we went to a Wendy's for take out and headed for picnic tables located at the end of the runway where Growlers and other planes would be taking off.

I'm sure there is a Growler in this photo...it was going really fast.

Then we went to Camp Casey which was an old fortification in the early 1900's which had seven BIG guns pointed out to sea. They were never used....because airplanes could find them easily. The guns were dismantled and shipped off to scrap yards. After WW II, two of the same kind of guns were discovered in the jungle in the Philippines and were brought here and installed - now the area is a National Fee Area.

From the sea, the installation could not be seen.

This is from the top looking down at the guns.

In the evening we went north to Anacortes to a yacht club venue for another Open House. We hardly knew anyone, but ate happily.

Friday (6th) i we headed south to Ebey's Landing which is a national historic site commemorating where the Ebey family first settled and developed the area. The beach area had incredible rocks.

Then we went to this little town of Coupeville which was the first town on Whidbey Island. Very cute, indeed. There was a really good museum, a dock, and a gift shop where I bought a jacket.

Then we headed back to Anacortes to Brenden's where we had another open house with a barbeque. Talked most of the evening with a woman from Australia who had great insights.

Saturday morning (7th) - we headed back home. Stopped in Seattle and walked along the dock that Dad and I couldn't find a road to the docks when we were in Seattle in June). It was fun. We stopped at a sourdough bakery and got a loaf