OLA: Reliving WWII in the Philippines

We are back in Seattle, Washington!

sunset at the Bataan peninsula from Battery Grubbs in Corregidor Island

At the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898, Spain ceded the Philippines to the US.  The US built three major military bases: Subic Naval Base in Zambales, Clark Air Force Base in Pampanga, and Fort Mills in Corregidor. The islands became a major battlefront in the Pacific during WWII. For a Filipino-American couple like us, this piece of history takes on significance of more than double proportions.

 

monkeys by the road in Subic

In Bill’s first visit to the Philippines in 2009, I took him to Subic and Clark. Subic Base, a major ship-repair, supply, and rest and recreation facility of the US Navy, was the largest overseas military installation of the United States Armed Forces after Clark Air Base.  Since the bases turnover to the Philippine government in 1991, it has become an industrial park, a tourist resort, and a residential haven.


People can find an online degree education at Guide to Online Schools. Many people who love reading about history stories such as this one are also interested in pursuing studies in the field of history.

Charo's home, former officer's at Subic

One of my friends, Charo Simons now lives in a great former officer’s home for a mere $50,000 long-term lease. She works for the Chairman of the Subic Bay Development Corporation which manages the area. The tourist duty free shops still offer many a bargain, the beaches still look very inviting, and the hills offer good jungle trips.  Regularly, planeloads of Asians are brought to its casino for a gambling weekend.

Clark International Airport

When we went to HongKong, we departed from the Clark International Airport. Unlike Subic, it looks like Clark is dying. It should be an ideal place for a major airport (bus trip from Manila, 1 ½ hours) because of all the facilities and land (14.3 sq mi with a military reservation extending north at another 230 sq mi). The base was a stronghold of the combined Filipino and American forces and was a backbone of logistical support during the Vietnam War. Bill was able to fly a plane at a Clark flying school in 2009.

an Aeta hut at The Villages

Goddess of Peace facing Japan
a similar one is in Corregidor

We had a few hours before boarding our plane, so we hired a van to take us around. We discovered a lonely Goddess of Peace memorial from Japan, the controversial white elephant project of former President Fidel Ramos, and empty hotels and duty-free shops. But the Villages, home of the native Aetas in the surrounding hills, is the great discovery. We even witnessed a cow being butchered in the fields.

a cow being butchered in in the fields

empty Centennial Expo

Coming back from HongKong, we stayed in Clark for the night and BFFs Ann and Jingjing picked us up in Dittas’s car (she is in Colombo, Sri Lanka, heading an IT company). We first had the famous pizzaninis at C! and then took the SCTEX, the new interchange connecting Subic and Clark, and proceeded to Montemar Beach in Mariveles, Bataan, where Jingjing is a member.

KM 00 of the Death March in Mariveles

On Dec. 7, 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Four months after, Bataan fell to the Japanese.  75,000 Fil-Am soldiers were forcibly transferred to the POW camp in Capas, Tarlac. The 60 mi Death March resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon prisoners and civilians alike, and was later judged by an Allied military commission to be a Japanese war crime.

Las Casas Filipinas in Acuzar

It started in Mariveles near Montemar and markers are regularly placed on the road retracing the infamous route. On the way there, we paid tribute to Filipino heroes at Mt. Samat, the huge cross on top of the mountain, a memorial to those who suffered in the March.  In Acuzar, a town before Mariveles, is Las Casas Filipinas (Philippine Houses) by the sea, a neat cluster of restored ancestral Filipino homes brought there piece by piece.  Montemar is a very nice exclusive beach resort (we watched the Pacquiao-Mosley fight there).

water bikes in Montemar

hydrofoil and tramvias in Corregidor

The strategic location of Corregidor Island at the mouth of Manila Bay prompted the Americans to make it an ‘impregnable fortress’.  During World War II, Corregidor played an important role during the invasion and liberation of the Philippines from Japanese forces. The hydrofoil trip to the island was just 1 ½ hours from the Folk Arts Theatre area in the reclaimed land on Manila Bay.  Colorful tramvias, replicas of the trollies they used then took us around the island.

ghost of Mile-Long Barraqcks

MacArthur's I Shall Return

The skeletons of heavily bombed Mile-long Barracks (the longest single military barracks in the world housing 8,000 soldiers) and the remains of the cross-shaped Hospital which the Japanese destroyed  despite war treaties were spectacles of the gruesome battle that lasted five months. And the fitting tributes to the brave soldiers are many…the Pacific War Memorial (with its altar and Eternal Flame), the Filipino Heroes Memorial with 14 murals of Philippine history, and statue of Gen. Macarthur who  escaped to Australia where he declared, ‘I shall return’. Corregidor was retaken 3 years after.

Malinta Tunnel from our room at Corregidor Inn

The Malinta Tunnel Night Tour is the most descriptive of the life of soldiers on the fortress. It is a 2.5 mile network of laterals on Malinta (full of leeches) Hill.  At times bending low to pass through narrower sub-laterals, we experienced utter darkness, felt whiffs of cooler air from the air passages, visited the 1,000 bed hospital that replaced the destroyed hospital outside, and retraced the escape route of Gen. MacArthur, the quarters of President Quezon, the petroleum storage facilities, the quarters, and even the femur bone of a Japanese soldier. 

     

air passages for a lateral

Reliving WWII in the Philippines reminded us again of the closeness of Filipino-American relations. It also gave me memories of my father who fought with Americans and my mother, a teacher who learned Japanese and interpreted for Filipinos. Taking this trip with Bill, my American husband, made it even more significant!

the largest battery in the island

OLA: Taking you to Cranberry Fields Forever

a Berry Bog on Cranberry Coast

For the first time in many days, sunlight drenched southwestern Washington’s fields! Although it was forecast to be a high of only 43*F, Bill and I quickly seized the opportunity and drove our little red Saturn west towards Ocean Shores where the Pacific meets the southern tip of the Olympic Peninsula. At the Visitors Center in Aberdeen, the Olympic Gateway, we were convinced to go south instead to a different coastline.  So, ‘let us take you down where we're going to…cranberry fields forever…’ 

the tallest lighthouse in the state of Washington

Westport, a commercial fishing town

The first town on the Cranberry Coast is Markham where Ocean Spray brings all the berries for processing and transporting to the different parts of the USA. At the western end before going south is Westport, the big commercial fishing town of Washington. Actually from there you can see Ocean Shores at the other side of Grays Harbor on the mouth of the Chehalis River.  The fishing town boasts of the tallest lighthouse in the state and a Maritime Museum showcasing several huge skeletons of whales. 

skeleton whales in the Westport Maritime Museum

Ocean Shores from the Westport side

Driving south on Highway 105 we reach Grayland (pop, less than 2,000), site of the Annual Cranberry Festival. There we found many cranberry bogs that were started by the Finnish farmers nearly 150 years ago.  Cranberries are a fruit crop that is grown in wet, marshy areas called bogs.  They grow best where there is a cool growing season and no extreme cold.  They are found mostly in the provinces of Canada but in the US they are grown in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Washington.

Washaway Beach from a washed away tree

coastline changes since 1891

Next on the loop is a special little surprise with a lot of camera moments. North Cove is a small town famous for the Washaway Beach. The sketch on the left shows you how much of this 2-mile stretch has been clawed away by the Pacific Ocean since 1891. A little further east is Tokeland spit named after Chief Toke. It is where you will find the Shoalwater Bay Casino, the friendliest little casino on the coast. There is also a small Marina, an RV Resort on the Willapa Bay and a historic hotel built in 1855.

a house just teetered on Washaway Beach

Willapa Bay is also the source of 15% of the oysters consumed in the United States. So the next towns you encounter after leaving the Cranberry Coast from Tokeland are Raymond and South Bend. The latter is dubbed the ‘Fresh Oyster Capital of the World’. All around town are hills of oyster shells kept for new farming beds. Pacific oysters have been grown in Willapa Bay for over a century and the 10,000 acres devoted to the farms there harvest an average of three to four million pounds per year.

an oyster shell hill in South Bend

2 of 200 steel sculptures in Raymond

A little north of South Bend, upwards towards Aberdeen and then Elma, at the beginning of the end of our day’s loop is the small town of Raymond.  It is known for its Wildlife-Heritage Sculpture Corridor, about a mile of enchanting steel sculptures of wildlife and people along Highway 101, State Route 6, and throughout downtown Raymond. Incorporated into the Raymond landscape in 1993, the two hundred sculptures were designed by local artists to reflect the area’s great heritage.

the strange space ship at a little corner market

the house that 40 sausages built

The Cranberry Coast brought us many little surprises like a little store that sold 40 different kinds of sausages, including, of course, cranberry sausage and the little corner market in front of which is a strange space ship! We started the day thinking we were going to Ocean Shores.  That trip is postponed for another sunny winter day. We enjoyed taking you down to where we finally went to cranberry fields forever, where the land turns bright red, the coastline always changes, and seafood reigns supreme.

another beautiful sunset on the way home

Exploring the Southwest

From the bustling metropolis of Los Angeles, we reached the city of Palm Springs where ''snowbirders' were already congregating for the winter. Located in the Coachella Valley desert region, it is sheltered by the San Bernardinos to the north, the Santa Rosas to the south, the San Jacintos to the west and the Little San Bernardinos to the east. This unique geography gives the city its hot, dry climate, with 354 days of sunshine and only 5.23 inches of annual rainfall. The coolest days in winter are in the lower 70s °F and the nights fall to the lower 40s °F. No wonder.

The City of Palm Springs' best-known mayor was Sonny Bono and though celebrities still make it a place of regular retreat, many others like Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage have also become as popular. Bill and I were treated to our first deluxe campground with hot tubs, pools, recreation rooms and lots of activities. Towering date palm trees dwarfed our little Star. On a Saturday potluck dinner and disco night, we found our first buddies on the road. So we decided to buy into this lifestyle and bought into the Thousand Trails+ system with over 300 in North America!

This is a place to come back to...in fact, maybe even settle in later!. The world's largest rotating aerial tramcars in the Aerial Tramway, climbs to more than 8,000 feet, with a 30 degree decline in temperature, a 360 degree view of the valley, and a top-notch restaurant at the top, a most welcome treat in summer! The Palm Springs Follies stage-show features performers that are over the age of 55 (I knew can still be a star!). Every Thursday evening downtown is transformed into a Village Fest on famous Palm Canyon Drive. Vino 'scootered' us through streets named after Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, and the like!

And only a few miles east is Joshua Tree National Park, named for the Joshua tree forests native to the area. Covering a land area of 789,745 acres the park is, in fact, two deserts, each a separate ecosystem supporting diverse life, both vastly different from life we know!. The higher, drier, and slightly cooler Mojave Desert is home to the Joshua tree (the biggest one we found stood at 50 ft!) and hills of bare rock, formed a million years ago, of quartz monzonite, a very rough type of granite (because there is no snow or ice to polish it like in Yosemite), are very popular with rock climbers. 
 

Below 3,000 feet, the Colorado Desert features habitats of such dense cactus that form natural gardens. The California Fan Palm, only native to the state, occurs naturally in five spectacular oases in the park, areas where water occurs naturally year round, supporting many forms of wildlife. The southern lookout point at Keys View offers breathtaking views of the Coachella Valley and Salton Sea. We dry-camped at one of the nine park campgrounds. Unlike Palm Springs though, this is definitely not one that we will consider to settle in, but it was exhilarating at dusk and specially at dawn.

South of the park is the Salton Sea, a saline rift lake located directly on the San Andreas Fault. Like Death Valley, it is below sea level, at 226 ft. The sea is fed by three rivers, as well as toxic pesticide laced agricultural runoff drainage systems and creeks from nearby farms..Covering about 376 sqmi, it is the largest in California. But it should really be called the Dying Sea. It was certainly sad to see multitudes of dead fish on the expanse of beaches. In just two weeks, we had moved from a city of upscale living, to lonely desert life, to a sea of death. 
 

The Salton Sea was created in 1905, when heavy rainfall and snowmelt caused the Colorado River to swell. The resulting flood poured down the canals and breached a dike. Over a period of two years two newly created rivers sporadically carried the entire volume of the Colorado River into the Salton Sink. This basin was formed for 3 million years as the Colorado River built its delta in southwestern US, creating a massive dam, excluding the area. Depending on the balance between inflow and evaporative loss, the Sink has long been alternately a fresh water lake and a dry desert basin, 
 

The Southern Pacific Railroad attempted to stop the flooding but the effort was not fast enough and a massive waterfall was created. It rose to a height of 80 feet before the breach was finally stopped. As the basin filled, the town of Salton, a Railroad siding and some Indian land were submerged. The sudden influx of water and the lack of drainage resulted in the Salton Sea of today. But by the 1925s, the Salton Sea developed into a tourist attraction, because of its water recreation and the waterfowl that flock to the area.

Called a "crown jewel of avian biodiversity”, over 400 species have been documented. The Sea even supports 30% of the remaining population of the American white pelican and is a major resting stop on the Pacific Flyway. With relatively high inflow salinity and lack of an outlet, the Sea's salinity has increased by approximately 1% per year. Currently, at 44 parts per 1000, it is saltier than the Pacific! Many species of fish are no longer able to reproduce or survive in the Sea as the runoffs have resulted in elevated bacterial levels and large algal blooms, major food sources for migrating and wading birds!

The Salton Sea is definitely not a place for us to settle in but we thought, 'It was good to be able to see the miracle that, unfortunately, will probably not last.'. This segment of our cruising lifestyle was truly learning about different conditions that support life!' And that is what traveling is all about!

Next Stops: Julian, Ramona, and San Diego, California plus Casa Grande, St. David, and Arizona

Driving Down the West Coast: Solvang, Santa Barbara, Malibu, and LA

Once the euphoria of Big Sur and the colony of elephant seals subsided, we drove along the looooong California coast to savor its famous beaches! First, the magical town of Solvang, then upscale Santa Barbara, on to sunny Malibu, and then, finally, we turned into cosmopolitan Los Angeles.

One of our friends told us not to miss Solvang, the little Dutch America. So we went and found just what she described...a town with windmills on top of buildings, the museum dedicated to Hans Christian Andersen, lots of specialty outlets such as the Olive House, and little wine shops with joyful staff, great free food, and good jazz.

Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the US West Coast is Santa Barbara, lying between the steeply-rising Sta. Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Santa Barbara's climate is often described as mediterranean, and the city is sometimes referred to as the "American Riviera."

Our campground, however, a little way off the coastal city into the wilderness areas of Los Padres, beyond Santa Ynez. Huge oak trees that dwarfed our Star and three other RVs were the only ones in the vast acreage! When we went into town, we took Star because I could not ride Vino for longer than 15 minutes. So, we had to pay double parking fees!

I thought the shopping on State Street, the trendy main street of the city, can beat Rodeo Drive. And the Mission at Santa Barbara was truly one of the first (founded 1716). The wharf also looked so coooool! The following day we transferred to a state park along the coast just past the city and nestled quietly into the night with a beautiful California sunset to begin it.

And, soon after our start the following day, came 17 miles of scenic coastal drive on famous Malibu Beach. The beach homes are huge, some dramatically hanging off cliffs and some artistically jutting over the water. Then there was Malibu Pier, the historic landmark adjacent to Surfrider Beach, known for its three-point break that offers rides of 300 yards or more. And, even in that chilly October afternoon, the surfers were there!

Finally, we reached Los Angeles with its coral trees lining its boulevards. And how could we miss Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, the Scientology Center, the Kodak Theater, and the Grauman's Chinese Theater which opened in May 1927 with its red carpet and cement walk filled with signatures and palm prints of stars like Olivia de Havilland and Donald Duck?

Bill got to have his photo taken with Marilyn Monroe while I felt like I was another star on the Walk of Fame, a series of sidewalks on about 15 block segments of Hollywood Blvd. and 3 on Vine St., a permanent monument to great achievements in the entertainment industry. More than 2,400 stars are embedded at 6-foot intervals over a combined 1.7 miles.

Later, we dropped by Universal Studios and then took our own photo version of the Hollywood sign on the Hill! Despite all our excitement, the city did not make it to our select list of where we will settle after our RV cruising lifestyle is over. We couldn't afford it! So, we proceeded to our next stops: San Diego, Julian, and Ramona in southern California.