Sunrise, Sunset, and the Next Day

After the pre-Christmas snow, we had a morning clear enough to see Mt. Baker. Just to give you a sense of scale here, it is about 130 miles from the front deck where I took this image and the mountain. While it is not as tall as Rainier, it is still a really big mountain.

Camano Island

Our weekly outing (actually, it's been more than a week), was off to Camano Island just a little ways north of us. A quick look at this section of beach on the island tells you that these trees must wash up pretty regularly. Otherwise, folks would pay to have the beach cleared off so they could enjoy it. I'm guessing they don't do that since it just comes back to this state.

By the way, that large looming white mound in the distance is Mt. Baker.

Hope Everyone is OK

It seems to be a good time to take a breath and touch base with everyone since we are all now in various stages of quarantine. Since we are in western Washington, in one of the worst places for the coronavirus, I'm sure many of you are wondering how it is going and we, of course, are concerned about all of you.

Lowell Riverfront Park

Since we now, finally, have some proper spring weather with real sunshine and everything, E and I went out to Lowell Riverfront Park to relax a bit in the sun. There's a place to stand where you can look north down the river and see Mt. Baker in the distance.

Skagit Valley

A drive north again to the Skagit valley. You may recall that this is the place where, back in the spring, we saw endless fields of tulips. Now all that is gone and the fields are empty of such colorful things. What has replaced the tulips is fields of grass and Snow Geese. With Mount Baker in the background on this sunny day, it is a mighty inviting place. Unfortunately, I was too slow to catch this flock of hundreds in the air circling for their landing. But we got to see it as we drove towards the field and it was pretty darned amazing.

Nooksack Falls

While on my tour of the now deserted-for-the-season Mt. Baker Ski Resort, I found an odd bit off to one side of a parking lot. This small hut is located here beside a giant tree for reasons I cannot fathom. Perhaps people came up here to hunt in the summer 50 or 75 years ago. It certainly makes no sense now.

After seeing this curiosity, I headed down the mountain and found a turn out to see Nooksack Falls.

Mt. Baker

After breakfast and filling up the car for climb up the hill, I started the drive up to the highest place I could drive, the Mt.Baker Ski Resort. The highest altitudes, all the mountains around are covered in snow. This is a new things to this littl' ol' southern boy, but it was pretty cool. I picked the perfect time to go. The clear blue skies and the warm temperatures made this a pleasant and safe trip. The roads were clear and dry.