Seaplane to the San Juan Islands, Washington

Last week I enjoyed a jaunt to the San Juan Islands, northwest of Seattle, to visit my sister-in-law, Corinne Davis. This was the first time I have flown all the way to the islands, having previously always taken a ferry the last leg of the journey. This time I took a seaplane from Seattle, having always wanted to experience landing in the ocean on pontoons. Corinne captured this picture of me at West Sound on Orcas Island, waiting for the plane. The water in the sound was smooth as glass, making our take-off feel like sliding on wet glass!

Now, to explain how it all worked. Below you see the plane docked on Lake Union, right in the heart of Seattle (about a block from the Space Needle). It was time to load and lucky me! I was assigned the co-pilot's seat! Taking off, right over the Space Needle and out into Puget Sound---what a trip!

Here is Smith Island, which is all by itself in the Sound. It looks deserted...old buildings indicate someone used to live there. It has some radio towers on it...

Now a view of one of the islands from a ferry---so very beautiful.

The seagulls and ferry windows will always remind me of going to this wonderful part of the world..

A view of a Washington State ferry as we were approaching Friday Harbor one day.

Approaching the Friday Harbor dock. Travis and Suzie: note the "rubber buggy baby bumpers" are gone. They have been replaced with flat mats of rubber bolted to the docks to absorb the shock of the ferries hitting them...they are noticeable in the next picture.

Corinne and Penny posed just before getting off the ferry---the rubber mats are just

behind us.

Later in the week we went off-island (to the mainland) for a little fling with some of Corinne's island friends. We had a fine time shopping...

and eating sumptuous food. Washington has great food...and wine...
We stayed with another of Corinne's friends, Rosie, on the mainland, who has a lovely house right on the water. Among the amenities of Rosie's house are toilets with a built-in bidet feature. They wash and dry and have warm seats---I'm thinking they'd be perfect for winters in Silverton! Here is the armrest control panel...one could love a toilet like this!
Outside my bedroom was a deck with this lovely view of the water!
Time to leave, regretfully. Here is the seaplane dropping by to pick me up...
Thanks, Corinne, for a wonderful visit! I shall come again!!!

Sorting Out in Silverton

Travis has stored a lifetime of accumulated treasures at our family home in Silverton while he has moved about the planet (college-Texas for an internship-time while he was a regional director for his fraternity-Ireland-Australia) but now that he and Maggie are settled in their lovely Denver home, he is gathering everything under one roof. It would probably be fair to say that this is partly due to his mother's urging! At any rate, Maggie, Finn, and Travis came for the weekend so that Travis could labor away, sorting and purging.

In the meantime, the rest of us had a lovely, relaxing weekend. Finn and I enjoyed time in the sun (it is finally shining here now and starting to melt all our snow!) in my backyard where he relished the activity of shoveling the snow from the snowbanks onto the grass, to "give the grass a drink, Grammie!"
Next came Travis' endeavor to get into the woodshed where he wished to locate some tools needed in Denver. The snowbank in front of the door was about four feet high so he and Finn shoveled and pried and finally were able to squeeze into the shed. Finn loved going into the dark and damp shed---actually sort of a creepy place.

Things were fun for a nearly-three-year-old indoors as well. Wearing a set of his dad's knee pads (for in-line skating, maybe?) was great fun. It made Finn look like a miniature motocross

biker! Tonka would have proud of him, too, for he enjoyed the fleet of Trav's old trucks to the max. The yellow dump truck is missing paint here and there and shows lots of wear and tear and Finn said, "Daddy, this truck is messy!" However, it still can haul fleets of little cars and trucks all over the house as well as several timing chains and gears that have now found their way into the toy box!

Sitting with Travis to "help him sort stuff" was popular, too---so the weekend went well. Maggie does not appear in the pictures as she had a lovely time reading a good book while Finn, Travis, and I kept each other entertained.

I may regret urging Travis to remove his things---what will we all do next time they come? Finn is hoping we're going fishing--------------me, too! Talk to you later, right here.....PDM