Lots of "T's" and one was coffee...

This is a shot as we raced across the bridge between Seattle and Mercer Island with Saturday's sun shining through the nearly cloudless sky. We stopped to help a friend of Jey-hu's solve a curious alarm problem. It was my first visit to the island and I can see why it is in such high demand as a place to live! We met two of the three family cats and I sat on a deck high among trees listening to the birds and boats - very relaxing -while Jey-hu and Mr. T discussed the cause of the alarm.

I only mention the alarm problem because it brings to mind the risk of using barbecue grills too near doors or windows of the domicile. Using compressed gas, these grills may give off CO2 aka carbon monoxide in deadly amounts. Please make sure you light the grill at some distance from the residence.

And even at a distance, check the direction of the wind to make sure it is not driving this heavier-than-air substance into the home. Without the CO2 detection device in this gentle man's dwelling, they might not have been warned that something was amiss.

Our next stop was at least an hour south of Tacoma and we realized too late that the new Link Sound Transit trains were having their debut running and we got caught up in the festival atmosphere near Martin Luther King Blvd.

Then we tried to take a short cut and found ourselves too close to Seattle's Safeco Field and all the sports fans - yikes! - and yet another detour landed us in the factory district, just west of

I-5, too far west from where we wanted to be. However, it looks like this area is being re-habbed and re-vamped so getting a chance to see some of the creative uses of the buildings made it not a wasted trip after all. It turns out that Tully's is quite a large company now and part of an ever larger establishment - as of last March - when they were purchased by Green Mountain Grocers in Vermont. Surprising to me to find this out as a drinker of lattes from another well-known Seattle firm, but this company has not been marketing as strongly as the other one.

And, the bigger connection for me was when we returned from Tacoma and we were on the freeway heading north. I saw the large "T" on the building and realized it was the coffee company. Now I will always recognize that spot on I-5, and probably want to stop!

The cherries are ripe!

Today I could finally begin picking the cherries off the tree that hangs over our deck. The birds have already started enjoying them and I could see places where they had pecked (instead of picking!) off the fruit, leaving only the seed.

When Jey-hu got back from working, he and I managed to collect about four pounds and after pitting them all, I cooked them. As lovely as they looked, they were toe-curling sour! With enough fructose I was able to pull a little sweetness from them and made a cherry pie and some cherry crumble. I don't have my favorite "Fanny Farmer Cookbook" to build these desserts, but did pretty well from memory.

Jey-hu told the neighbors to come over and help themselves as there is easily another eight to ten pounds of fruit to be enjoyed. When we had to run an errand later, and while I was waiting for him, I caught this pretty sunset in Snohomish, which is about five miles from where we live. A few nights ago we joined some friends for a Mexican dinner alongside the Snohomish River which is a pretty wide waterway that flows right into Port Gardiner Bay, which connects to Puget Sound. Here is a picture of the Bay that I took earlier in the week.....

Flowers along the way...

Since Jey-hu and I both enjoy photography, and we both seem to be drawn to capture flowers (and sometimes weeds) in their native habitat, I thought it might be fun to share some of the various colorful presentations we found as we drove from California to Oregon along the coast. This rugged little clump of yellow flowers (left) was found at Point Lobos, CA, amid many craggy rocks, boulders and sand. It caught my eye because it reminded me that sometimes it takes that kind of persistence to finally bloom and to be noticed because one is not in the midst of thousands of others.

And yet, masses of color are created when many gather (or bloom) at once... another sort of beauty. These trumpet-style flowers caught Jey-hu's eye because they were so tiny and the color was so deep.

There were many wildflowers along the roadways and just up from the beaches, especially in California. Here is an example of what we saw near Big Sur. So much of the coastline is in

danger because of all the building going on, it was quite delightful to see portions which were not impacted at all.

How interesting that all the greens and yellows go so well with the blues and greys of the ocean and sky... do we ever see discordant colors in nature?

Critters in the Park

Our stop at Point Lobos near Carmel, California, was a rewarding one both photographically and in terms of getting some exercise. We walked around on three of the longer trails around the park and saw lots of wildlife. This shot above is of a very healthy squirrel who had absolutely no fear of humanoids!

In fact, he came up to me and was within a few feet of me for several minutes. I don't know what type of squirrel he/she is, but there were others like it and equally 'friendly' if coming up close to you is a determination of 'friendship' in the squirrel kingdom. It is a serious violation of park policy to feed them, and I don't espouse exposing nature's critters to our mostly unhealthy foodstuffs, so it wasn't even a thought for me to risk getting nabbed by a park official.

But perhaps this little guy has been able to put the touch on others and expected the same from me.

The picture on the right is of another one which Jey-hu caught eating some item found on the ground, not anything given to it by us. We must have spent almost half an hour watching and photographing them. What was most interesting overall however, was watching the numbers of other tourists passing by who didn't even STOP but rushed on past to get to the next outlook on the ocean, apparently never even seeing the wildlife in the bushes beyond the paths they were on.

There were also several small groupings of deer, mostly does and fawns, either grazing or taking a nap in a clearing, but surrounded by fallen trees. Jey-hu was able, with his telephoto lens, to get this shot of a young one relaxing.

I was walking ahead on a path and because I tend to go into 'quiet mode' in these settings, I can walk so that I make minimal noise. I startled a small rabbit who tried to hide in the grass...

"Look, I have a blade of grass in front of me; I cannot be seen." Jey-hu came up behind me without knowing why I was stopped and spoke to me, which caused Mr. (or Ms.) Cottontail to lippity-lop away back into the bushes.

And there were lots of wonderful views of the ocean in turmoil, with all the rich colors of the sea and rocks, which I will share in my next blog.

Observations along the way

As we were driving out of Santa Monica, CA, heading up the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH to the locals), we noticed huge (really enormous) motor homes parked along the coastal road. To be sure, they were in designated parking slots - in fact, the state provides a sort of 'parking meter' for the weeks and months the leviathans on wheels sit there - but there were so many it was impossible for us to pull over to park even for a moment to take a picture. It was the beginning of my now-developed skill of shooting anything and everything through the sunroof. If you look closely at the photo above, you can see them stretching out along the entire beachfront. Further up the road, they park at an angle to allow more of them to fit in the alloted space - astonishing!

There were portions of the drive north that took us inland slightly where we saw lots of the commercial farms either being harvested or re-seeded for the next crop. It was a reminder of how dependent we are on the farmers and the workers to bring fresh fruits and vegetables to our tables. We often stopped at local farm stands to get fresh strawberries, raspberries or blueberries. And you could still taste the sunshine on some of those delicious fruits!!

One of our stops/rest breaks was at a long pier which was built in the 1870's and is still stretching out into the Pacific today. The planks are grey with age, but their 12-inch width and estimated 3-inch depth make for a sturdy walkway. It seemed like it was over 1000 feet long, but we didn't measure it. But when we got out to the very end, the heavy gusts of wind made the platform jiggle - somewhat unnerving.

We also saw hundreds of bikers, both motorcycle and pedal-type, navigating the twisty road even during the middle of the week. And some of the elevations of those narrow roadways must have made the rides pretty interesting for everyone. On our first day of driving we had the pleasure of warmth and sunshine, but as we inched our

way toward Big Sur, the air got cooler and of course the sun went down. Then it was really exciting trying to drive on an unfamiliar road without any lights (not even the moon!) knowing that on one side there was the potential for rockslides, and on the other side there was a chance to slide 200 feet down to the ocean! This was one of our last shots of the day.... and the one without the tree was truly the last one...

Hard to keep up a blog without Wifi

Our reports on the journey from Los Angeles have been interrupted by the lack of WiFi signals at some of the very special little spots we have found along the way, driving up U.S. 1 along the California western coast and the Pacific Ocean. For tonight I will offer up a little teaser with some of the fabulous sites we have seen.

We left L.A. on Monday, June 22, about noon. As we were heading north, I realized that the Solstice had occurred and now every day from here on will be shorter. Yikes! But we made the most of the daylight hours and drove all the way to Big Sur, stopping for dinner at a restaurant that is still in business after 35 some years - the last time I was there - and the food was still fabulous! Nepenthe is still perched on the cliffs at Big Sur, just up the road from Eselen Institute, and we were given great advice about where to find a place to lay our heads for that night - and got the very last cabin at Big Sur River Inn and Restaurant.

More about that adventure later, but suffice it to say that at least we didn't have to drive any more... and the road was very windy, twisty, narrow and dark by the time we reached our stopping point - without much hope of it getting better before midnight. Below was one of our last coastal shots of the day.