We took in the Tall Ships Festival, but just from the bluffs overlooking Commencement Bay - there were about two million people at the 4th of July Celebration on Ruston Way and at the docking sites for the big ships. We really didn't want to be part of the holiday crowd, after all.
Instead, we packed up the canoe and went exploring. We paddled up the South Fork of the Palix River over by Willapa Bay. It was a very peaceful glide, beautiful weather. I film our glides, but wouldn't you know it, when a herd of Roosevelt Elk thundered by, my camera was off! We startled them, and they just crashed along the shoreline, bolting into the woods.
We tramped through the old pioneer cemetery at Bay City. It was a jumble of weeds, old grass, and sinking gravestones. Some of the stones just said, 'Infant girl". One had scripture from the Bible. A husband and wife and children shared a plot, with a little fence around it. Old roses hung down to the ground, in a tangle onto the ground. There must have been influenza, because so many of the deaths were in 1889. I filmed the little grave-markers, some with birds and scrolls, some so worn that the names have faded.
The cemetery is on a hillside, overlooking a little harbor, dotted with old sheds and boats. An abandoned oyster processing shed is in the shallows. Just a little sleepy town now, with a lot of history on the hillside.
