Category: Outdoors

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Daffodils and tulips

Barb and I drove north for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival today. I had been there once before which was probably 30 or 35 years ago. Barb had never been there.

We saw huge lines for the early exits and took the advice of the website:

Consider taking Exit 230 off I-5, near Burlington and north of Mount Vernon (there’s little traffic north of Exit 226).  Head west, toward Anacortes and at Pulver Road, turn left and stop in Skagit’s Own Fish Market for maps and directions.  Or, stay on Hwy 20 to BEST Rd, turn left, and continue to the roundabout…go east and you’re in the heart of tulip country, with Tulip Town a left hand turn in about a mile and RoozenGaarde a right hand turn a little farther down McLean.

I’ll bet we saved at least an hour of sitting in stop and go traffic. Those lines extended for miles.

We parked on the side a road next to a field of daffodils and walked a couple hundred yards to a field of tulips. There we walked the dirt roads next to the acres and acres of flowers.

The rest of our visit can be best described with pictures.

IMG_7940AdjustedThe daffodils were tall! They came up midway on my thigh.

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Snowmageddon

A week ago on Sunday afternoon (the 5th) it started snowing in the Seattle area. The higher elevations (300 – 500 feet) in particular usually get a dusting of snow one or more times each winter. But it only rarely accumulates more than an inch or two and only lasts a few hours or maybe a couple of days.

It turns out I had just started testing the webcam I plan to install at the Boomershoot shooting line and I captured some of the snow accumulation and melting. Click on the images to see a higher resolution version with the timestamp visible in the upper right hand corner:

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Monday morning the higher elevation Bellevue residents (where I live) had more than a dusting. Barb measured 9.5” of the white stuff:

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The skylight in my library was covered in snow and the lighting was really different:

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I checked my work email to see what the status was. Among other things:

Unless employees have an appropriate automobile, recommendation is not to come in.

…

If you will need to work from home please let your managers know the situation.

The road in front of my house had not been plowed. I’m pretty sure I could have gotten in to work, but why risk it? I worked from home.

About 10:00 AM:

landlord is on site clearing roads, 2 trees fell which they are cleaning up prior to getting back to clearing the snow

This was the scene outside the house about 10:00 AM:

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Work email at about 1:45 PM:

Power has returned. However, due to the overall instability of power in the Bellevue area we are asking all employees to leave now.

Security personnel, with support of Emergency Response Team members, are going to conduct floor sweeps to make sure people are leaving. Employees will be asked to leave by 3:00 pm on order for everyone to get home during daylight

At lunch time, even though it was still snowing, I shoveled the sidewalk in front of the house:

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Some of the trees and shrubs in the backyard were showing significant stress from all the snow so Barb and I knocked some snow off.

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My hat collected a significant amount of snow:

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It mostly melted off by Wednesday (the 8th) but I saw a small pile in the deep shade of tree on a neighbor on the way to work this morning.

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Mushroom time

Each year about this time Barb and I go hunting for chanterelle mushrooms. Today we came home with the biggest haul yet:

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It wasn’t without some minor obstacles. There were weather warnings about high winds and heavy rains and as of yesterday we had mostly talked ourselves out of going today. But Barb looked out the window after getting up and said she wanted to go. There wasn’t much wind or rain at the time so we were on the road by 8:50. We had our rain gear and although the trees and branches we had to step on and over were slick we made it in and out of the woods by 10:30 with no injuries and only minor cold and dampness.

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Hike to Annette Lake

Last June Barb had originally wanted to hike to Annette Lake for her birthday. But there was too much snow so she opted for her second choice, Cedar Butte.

Instead of 3.8 miles and 900 feet of elevation gain Annette Lake is 7.5 miles and 1400 feet of elevation gain. So they say. We discovered there was about 1600 feet of elevation gain and we reached an altitude of over 3700 feet. I’m not sure about the distance but 7.5 miles sounds about right.

It was easy trail to find and follow. Just follow the signs:

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Continue reading “Hike to Annette Lake”

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La Push day 2

We planned to leave the cabin at 10:00 and were very close to on schedule. We drove the short distance to the parking lot for the trail head for Second Beach and walked through the woods to the beach. Barb and I walked from one end of the beach to the other as did several others.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Continue reading “La Push day 2”

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La Push day 1

We left home about 11:00 AM, 15 minutes earlier than planned. We arrived at the Seattle ferry dock at 11:30 and were about car number five in line for the 12:20 ferry to Bainbridge Island. Had we arrived perhaps 10 minutes earlier we probably have been on the earlier ferry. No matter. There were no hard deadlines we had to meet.

We had a pleasant ferry ride and continued our drive. We arrived at our cabin in La Push at about 5:00 PM. We settled in and had supper then started finding other people.

Barb called it a snowball as we found more and more people and our group grew. Here is what it looked like when we had a little more than half of our group:

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Bob and family came in about 9:00. We stood around and talked with them for a while then Barb and I got a little chilled and tired of standing and snuck off to the cabin about 9:45. Max drifted off his cousins to the RV spot where Steve and family were parked. They had a fire pit and food so people hung out there until late.