The night had been cool and if Ellen's cold had not interfered, she probably would have gotten a good night's sleep. We woke to a chock-full campground. The campers had been streaming in all day on Friday and all the sites around us were full. Ellen and Sally got an early start as they were going over to the visitor center for the morning's ranger-led birdwalk. I went over to see Harry and he made us pancakes and bacon.
After breakfast and the morning van turn-around, we biked over to the visitor center. I still had those bills to pay and Harry wanted to try fishing from the bulkhead on the bayside. I was more successful than Harry. The tide was out and there was only about two inches of water. I finally got the bills paid. Harry went back to camp while I stayed on for a bit of a tech fix at which point Ellen and Sally appeared, returning from the birdwalk. They hung around a while and Ellen left me with secret orders to get Sally a specific "Buff" from the Marina Store as a birthday present (tomorrow is her birthday).
After they left and I had finished catching up on the depressing state of the rest of the world, I picked up the gift and rode back to Speedy for lunch.
After a bit of lounging around in the shade of the screen house, I left Ellen resting her cold and rode up to the visitor center again. Harry had gone up there to try fishing at high tide. I found him over by the Marina. He'd once again been unsuccessful since the onshore breeze had brought quite a bit of weed in and clogged up the water along the bulkhead. He had a story though.
As he rode over to the visitor center, he stopped behind another man who was looking at a snake on the paved trail. They conferred a bit and thought it might be a rattlesnake. The other guy took a photo; the snake slithered off into grass; they went on to the visitor center. They went in to ask about the snake and were given the snake photo book to look at and found the snake they saw, a Diamond-back Rattlesnake. They pointed it out to the ranger, who was a bit skeptical until the other guy showed him the photo!
Harry was relating this story to me as Sally arrived, having just walked Nina up the same trail. She was a bit concerned. I didn't see any snake on my ride. She decided to walk back via the road. She also managed to get her phone working. After another online chat, it turned out that she had disabled a critical app, Google Hangouts, thinking it unnecessary (that's why I couldn't find it when I looked yesterday). Re-installing the app fixed the problem. We all learned something.
By the time I got back to the van, it was almost dinner time. Ellen had undertaken the task of the afternoon van turn-around and mastered it well ... maybe she has a new job? Tonight we switched venues and had dinner in Harry and Sally's screen houseå, which is identical to ours. Once again, a good time was had by all.
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