2012 WSGS Conference Armchair Genealogy Day 3

Well now you are going to say the conference was only two days long so how did you get three days? Well we stayed Saturday night at Port Angeles, and the next morning went up to Hurricane Ridge and these are some pictures I took as we were there.

This was the visitor center near the end of the road, there was some hiking trails past the visitor center and the road went about a mile past the visitor center to a loop turn around. Just before the turn around it looked like huckleberries along the road so we stopped by the loop and picked some huckleberries, put them into the ice box in the back of Jacque's van, and Monday morning had huckleberry pancakes.

The road to the visitor center has three tunnels and this is one of them.

This really does not show as good as I hoped, there was a ship in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and it does not show here at all.

We then visited the Olympic Game Farm at Sequim. You stay in your car and drive through the farm around the animals. This was the llamas.

Don't think I had seen a prairie dog before.

This was a zebra.

This was a Yak

 The next five are all Kodiak bears.

 This was a Kodiak bear in a pool of water, it was pretty hot the day we were here.

 This was a black bear.

 This was elk trying to block the road and slow down the cars so they would throw more wheat bread.

 These were deer.

The buffalo really liked the wheat bread.

2012 WSGS Conference Armchair Genealogy Day 2

There were several vendors at the WSGS Conference and I think I visited all of them, but just took pictures of three booths, this was the APG Booth

WSGS Booth

Volunteer Award Winners at WSGS Booth

First thing in the morning was the excellent Continental Breakfast

Continental Breakfast

Brian Hutchison the main speaker of the conference, this was his second talk, we could not hear him very well for his first talk on Armchair Genealogy, but it was on long distance researching. For the second session we moved closer to the front and was able to hear this session, Twenty Five tips in Sixty Minutes. 

After Brian's session we had two breakout sessions, I went to the session on the New Family Search by Ray Madsen, he is a very good speaker and his session was a good learning experience. The Next breakout session was Jon Kirshbaum and I got to introduce him and his session on Migration Routes. Jon rambled on for about 45 minutes and then in the last 15 minutes he got on subject. The room was warm and I thought it just about right, but most of the coast people thought it was too hot.
Next was the excellent lunch and then the annual WSGS meeting. 
This is Sue Ericksen WSGS President with Best Website Award

Volunteer award winners from around the state, but none from EWGS this year.

I even got to tell about my project the Resource Guides. After lunch was the last breakout session, and I got to announce Rod Fleck and his session on Military Records from the beginning of the settlements in New England to WWII. Rod is an excellent speaker and his session was over way too soon. His session was in the Elk Lodge Room and this elk head is over the fireplace there.
Elk head in Elk Lodge Room

Last was another session from Brian Hutchison using underused sources to find your ancestors, and then they had several door prizes and raffel tickets to draw. I did not win anything.

2012 WSGS Conference Armchair Genealogy Day 1

Day one started at 0 dark 30 as we were about four hours south of Port Angeles at Ocean Shores, Washington, and I was to be at the WSGS Board meeting at 2 p.m. My sister Jacque and I headed out and soon we were on highway 101 in the tall trees of coastal Washington. This is Lake Quinalt on the way north.

Near Kalaloch we came upon a view point to see the Pacific Ocean.

I clicked this picture as we crossed the Hoh River. I was surprised I got a waterfall also.

Between Forks and Port Angeles is Lake Crescent and we drove alongside of this lake for several miles.

We stayed at Port Angeles Inn up 101 steps from First Street. We did not count them but did go down that way once.

We walked down to the Strait of Juan De Fuca and was watching the ferry to Victoria B.C. load. I looked across the street and there was a lady taking a picture of what looked like a warehouse, so we walked over and found this wall mural on the warehouse wall.

Up the street towards First we stopped and had lunch then kept walking. On another wall was this very long mural of Port Angeles in 1914, took two photos to get all of it. 

Then across the alley was this picture of the Kalakala ferry from Puget Sound. Today it sets in dis repair waiting for a restoration. As I was taking this picture Roger Newman the WSGS Secretary walked up and told us the history of the Kalakala.

So we walked up First to this sign on the street in front of the Elks Naval Lodge.

This is the back of the previous sign.

This is the Elks Lodge sign.

So we went inside and took the elevator to the third floor for registration, and they could not find my registration, but found Roger's and Jacque's, so they made up a new name tag for me. We walked into the ballroom and was looking around when Roberta Griset started calling my name. Seems I had been volunteered to help introduce two of the breakout speakers, and she had my registration, and nametag and a packet explaining what I was to do. I then went back and turned in the other nametag. Then I went to the WSGS Board meeting.

This is the conference Chair Virginia Majewski and WSGS President Sue Ericksen.

This was the SAR Flag Ceremony to start the conference.

Here are the two SAR gentleman that did the Flag Ceremony.