Category Archives: Pet Friendly

The Dunes near Pullman

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The Dunes near Pullman, WA is a recreational student hangout and a lot of fun. Dear daughter and I went on a hot day just prior to school’s beginning. It wasn’t at all what I expected. It was about 40 minutes away from the dorms and there was a big, switchback hill involved. To get to the Dunes, which are actually in the small town of Pomeroy, the county seat and the only town in Garfield County. You have to actually cross the Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River. The crossing itself was a surprise. I pulled up to the gate and the uniformed attendant wrote down my license number, then I was allowed to pull all the way up and he asked the nature of our visit (fun!) and if we had firearms (no!). We were told the speed limit on the dam was 15 miles per hour except where it was 5 mph and under no circumstance should we get out of the car or take photos/videos. Well, ok. The crossing itself was more like going through a work site, which I guess it is. The gate on the other side opened automatically. In doing some research, I see this over the dam road was actually closed for six years after 911, so I guess we are lucky to have the option at all. Obviously I have no photos, but here is a link to the Wikipedia entry. Here is the link from the US Army Corps of Engineers.

If you go to visit, be aware that the dam closes at 5 and then you have to go the long way home. And good luck with that since your phone won’t have reception!

So, back to the Dunes. There is a decent parking lot, a walk through the hilly sand (wear shoes the sand gets hot!) and then a large beach area which was fairly full. There were some enthusiastic college students playing and having a time and while I didn’t see drinking or drunkenness, I won’t have been surprised. But really, not a concern. The way the river flows in that area, one can walk out to almost 1/2 way across and be up to one’s waist. See those rocks in the top photo? They are people! And then there is an obvious drop. As much as I’d like to have actually gone swimming, I just wasn’t too sure about the drop. Nobody else crossed the line and I was worried about the current. Next time I’ll bring a floaty though, that looked like fun.

So, all in all it was a lovely way to spend a summer day and I got to visit with my daughter. After going back through the gated dam, we got back into town and then went to a movie and then out for ice cream. Really, what more could one want?

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McMenamins’ Anderson School, Bothel

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imageI was pretty excited to hear that the newest McMenamins had recently opened in Bothell. It is known as the Anderson School and is located at 18607 Bothell Way NE, Bothell. So dear husband, dear daughter and dear daughter’s friend went to explore it this weekend. The complex includes a restaurant/tavern, several small bars, a lovely heated saltwater pool, a movie theater (in the previous gym), an area for a reception, a small store, outdoor areas with fire pits and of course, the hotel which is in the original junior high school which has 72 rooms located in the original classrooms.

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Next to Nature Pet Food

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Next to Nature at 1624 Tacoma Avenue, Tacoma, is a splendid pet supply store with friendly helpful staff. Today we stopped by with our two pups and purchased some holiday treats. Our pups were thrilled that the store had cats, though the store cats sensibly wanted nothing to do with them. I hadn’t realized that there are two other Next to Nature locations, one in Edmonds and the other in Seattle.

Per Tacoma Public Library, the building was originally the Coast House Materials Property which was founded in 1900 by Frank McHugh. In part of the 1980s and the 1990s, it was a hardware store.  It closed in 1990. In 2001 Coast House Furnishings
opened and in July Next to Nature Pet Food opened.

http://www.next-to-nature.com/

Chopper’s Holistic Food

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I had a hair appointment today and right next door was Chopper’s Holistic Pet Food at 612 Regents Blvd., Fircrest, WA.  It has an entirely different feel from a large box pet store.  The store is indeed mostly pet food and high quality pet food at that. The rest of the stock is treats, toys, clothes and accessories. The woman who helped me was pleasant and knowledgeable and even gave me some samples :D.

 

I guess we need frogs

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In a moment of weakness I said yea, sure, you betcha’ to dear daughter getting another pet.  We already have two dogs, cairn terriers and that breed is ratters. So, all of those rodent kind of pets seemed like a bad idea (mice, rats, etc.). Dear daughter is sadly allergic to cats and the reptiles seemed to want to eat live things.  We ended up with two African Dwarf Frogs and they are kinda cute in a froggy way. We had already purchased the aquarium and set it up and today we got the frogs.  We went to Petco at 4028 Tacoma Mall Blvd, Tacoma.  And no, I don’t have a photo of our frogs here (eye roll), I’ll get one soon.

http://www.petco.com/

   

 

Titlow Beach on the 4th of July

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Some of the things we saw today while visiting Titlow Beach:

  • Lots of tiny crabs, some with egg sacks
  • Folks sunbathing
  • A man and his dog boating away in his inflatable canoe
  • A starfish
  • A wedding
  • The Narrows Bridges
  • Canada Geese
  • A low tide
  • The remains of the original pier
  • Trains, both freight and passenger

Altogether, a good outing!

Wiener Dogs and Windmills

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Once in a while I go to two wonderful, new places in one day and I usually decide which one to blog about.  But Saturday’s two places are just so wonderful that I’m doing a double entry — Wiener Dogs and Windmills!

We went to Ellensburg for a quick get away and where delighted to find out that it was the 9th anniversary celebration of Dachshunds on Parade.  We got there late for the parade (next year!), but made it in time for the pet tricks and races.  Apparently Dachshunds have their own thoughts about if they should be racing.  There were races in which all of the dogs flew from one end of the track to the other.  There were races where the dogs got away from their owners before the ready-set-go and races where none of the dogs went anywhere (except maybe rolling over on their backs!).  One race, a dog ran right into the stands!  It was really a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours!  And I’ve never seen so many Dachshunds at once!

http://www.dachshundsonparade.com/

Afterward, we traveled about 15 miles outside of Ellensburg to the Wild Horse Wind Farm.  I’ve always wanted to see the wind turbines up close and they were glorious!  It was pretty windy when we got to the information center and the employees explained that they don’t give tours when the wind is over 25 miles per hour.  But still we looked all over the information center and got to touch one of the blades that they have at ground level and see the solar panels and hear the wonderful whomp, whomp, whomp of the blades as they turned.  The view was wonderful also.

http://www.pse.com/inyourcommunity/kittitas/Pages/Wild-Horse.aspx

All in all, it was a very successful day!

Columbia Veterinary Hospital

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Columbia Veterinary Hospital

Originally uploaded by Gexydaf

I was in the market for a vet to handle the medical needs of my two pups. My last vet retired and closed up shop and I wasn’t too keen on the mega-vet I went to before that. It use to be that people usually went to the closest vet (or dry cleaner, or hair dresser, etc.), but nowadays we search for reviews. That’s what I did, I looked on Yelp and eliminated some vets with less than stellar recommendations. That lead me to Columbia Veterinary Hospital at 5916 6th Avenue, Tacoma, WA 98406-2016 (253) 564-7927 .

http://www.columbiavet.com/

It is a relatively small building and four veterinarians are listed as working here. They really seemed to love the animals and were good with them. My dog (unloyal animal that she is) would have happily stayed! They were kind enough to clip her nails, I job I truly hate! And the bill was somewhat less than I expected. So, all in all a good experience.

We topped it off with a trip to PetSmart for a new collar. I’m pretty sure the dog that I took went home and gloated to the dog that stayed home this time!