Category: great outdoors

When I was very, very young I used to love the Channel 4 series Northern Exposure and now all these years later we live just down the road from where it was filmed. Lots of it was shot inside a studio/warehouse in Redmond which is at the top of the lake we live by but the outside shots were all filmed in Roslyn – a small town just over the mountains to the east.

Today Harry had a soccer match over the cascades in Ellensburg and on the way back from the match, which the Gunners were very unlucky to lose 1-0, we stopped off in Roslyn. I probably should have watched a couple of episodes before I went there to refresh my memory as I haven’t seen it for about 17 years but I did recognize 2 or 3 places.

The most obvious was the cafe:

This was the radio studio where Chris used to broadcast the “Chris in the morning show” each morning:

And this was the tavern, which I think is one of, if not the oldest, continuously operating bars in the US at just over 100 years old – that’s ancient American history for you!

Fortunately we didn’t plan a day trip here as there was not much to see or do but I did see the odd fan about gazing at the buildings (the radio building).

Now I need to watch the series again just to get back into the swing of it and see what else (if anything) I recognize. Still, that’s another thing to cross of my list of places to go!

On the weather forecast this morning they were also giving pumpkin patch updates, so we decided we needed to investigate this further! After a quick Google we found a patch just the other side of Issaquah at Trinity Tree Farm.

After a quick visit to the Vasa Park fall craft show and making a few purchases we set off to our first pumpkin patch! When we arrived it was surprising how many people were there although they are apparently quite a tradition here in the US – which makes sense with the amount of fuss they make about Halloween.

We parked the car and walked down to the pumpkin field, where by Harry’s and Toby’s estimates there were about 100-300 pumpkins. I think there were a lot more. You could take a wheel barrow with you to load with pumpkins but we decided not to as Tracy had already bought a couple of whoppers from the supermarket.

After having a good look round we finally selected one small, long pumpkin and 5 mini ones (plus a couple of cookies!).

I like pumpkin patches! I might start a pumpkin patch website soon but I’m not quite sure what will go on it.

More pictures here!

After catching the ferry back from the San Juans to Anacortes I decided to take everyone on a magical mystery tour. I’d always wanted to go up Mount Eerie to see what is meant to be an amazing view across the San Juan Islands. I’m not sure anyone else was quite as interested in me though. Roger doesn’t like heights and we were pretty high. Tracy doesn’t like winding roads with steep edges and there were a few of them. But I like taking photos of views and luckily for me there were plenty of those, although I must be honest, that as good as the views were I could have done with a tree tops being chopped! The views were pretty awesome but they could have been absolutely gobsmackingly good with a little bit of chainsaw action!

So here we go, pretty good but could have been better!

Next time we happen to be up this way we will have to go up there again and see if someone has trimmed the tree tops!

I keep wanting to call them Turkey Burgers but they’re vultures not burgers! Maybe I’ve just been in America too long!

Having blocked the road to see what these big fat birds were it was time to snap some pictures. I think we saw these up on Grouse Mountain when we saw the wild bird show on our first visit to Vancouver but I’m not 100% sure.

There were at least a dozen of these things bashing about in the trees, making a right old racket. They were also pretty ugly things but nonetheless I found the whole thing very exciting. So without further ado, here are the vulture pictures to go with the osprey, eagle and hummingbirds. I think I could turn into a twitcher!

Gobble, gobble, gobble!

Another trip to Toronto meant another chance to take photo’s of mountains from the plane! It’s probably the sort of thing that children should do but I like to as well! I’d got a window seat and luckily the plan climbed high enough, quickly enough so that I could turn my phone on and start snapping! Next time I go I might try taking a few sneaky photo’s with a camera rather than the iphone they might be a bit better.

If you look carefully in this one there are actually four whopper mountains:

There had been lots of wild fires over the mountain in August due to the complete lack of rain and here is a little but of smoke rising:

There was also a lot of smoke mooching about up there from the fires:

For the next visit I must remember the camera!

I’ve always liked taking photo’s of the mountains and in particular Mount Rainier but this time I got it from a slight different angle. On Monday morning it was another beautiful day and I was heading off to Toronto. The flight left at 8am and we took off flying north from the runway, up the I-5 and then we turned right and flew along the I-90. We went over the floating bridge and then over home.

Even though we were not meant to turn any electrical items on the view was so good I had to sneakily turn my phone on. Fortunately the plane didn’t crash and I managed to get a couple of photo’s of Mount Rainier. Next time I may just take a small camera on!

The day after Tracy’s birthday last year the container turned up, was loaded with boxes and set off on its journey to America. The day after Tracy’s birthday this year, we all jumped in the car at 9:15am and set off in the sunshine for a day on Whidbey Island. What a difference a year makes.

After a brief stop off in Mukilteo to get me a birthday present (a bit early but that’s ok!), we boarded the ferry to Clinton. Unfortunately there were no leaping orcas or swooping eagle but it was a lovely journey in the sunshine nonetheless.

After arriving on Whidbey we went across to our usual beach just outside Langley. Being early in the year it was nice and quiet there, so we spent some time on the beach, finding crabs, sand bugs and enjoying the stunning view. At this point Grampy hadn’t been in a shop for a while so we went into Langley and visited the shops. A few modest purchases followed including a shiny rock from Madagascar, a top, a blanket, some sunglasses and a few other things that I’ve no doubt I’ve forgotten which obviously made us all very hungry. Ravenous in fact in the case of Harry who always seems to have his trips to Whidbey ruined by the fact that he is permanently starving!

We went to our usual restaurant – Prima Bistro – and between us enjoyed, tomato and clove soup, crispy pigs ears, croque monsieur and madame, risotto, noodles with parmesan, cheese burgers and a rueben. After that little lot we weren’t starving any more!

After lunch we had a short stroll along the beach and then it was time to head back to the ferry with another lovely Whidbey trip complete. Let’s hope the weather stays like this all summer – happy days!

And all the photos are here.

This afternoon was a working from home afternoon. So after getting home just after 1pm we set off to Skagit Valley to check out the tulips. Having read the field report yesterday, weather aside, now was the best time to see the tulips. The first bloomers were out in full blast (or whatever the technical term is), the middle bloomers were on show too and the late bloomers were just starting to bloom. It was bloomtastic!

The weather was overcast but when we got there – after taking route advice from the lady in the tourist office – but we managed to see a few fields with the mountains for a back drop. Soon after however  the rain began to fall and then it hoofed it down. But never mind. The fields were beautiful and a return trip next year with the sun shining is definitely remaining on the to do list.

For lots more tulips check the slideshow.

What a busy day – they should sleep well tonight!

The morning started with the internet connection playing up again so first things first we called Comcast and got an engineer scheduled to come out and fix it. The good thing with Comcast, unlike BT, is that we called them at 8:30am and the engineer was logged to come and fix things between 10am and noon.

Although this was clearly very good service it did mean that I had to stay at home while Tracy and the boys went swimming. They soon returned, just as Comcast arrived, and the morning was spent having the internet fixed – apparently it has never actually been working correctly since we’ve been here – and the boys having a quick play on the xbox before we set off up the mountain.

We packed the car and left just after 12:30pm. It was a nice day and the temperature was hovering around 50 degrees. We all took a guess of what the temperature would be up at the ski slopes and we all failed miserably! We all went for ~38 degrees but as it turned out, the highest temperature we actually recorded was 76! The sun was very warm up there and by the end of the ski lesson we may actually have had two boys who had caught the sun.

We got them both kitted up and waited for their instructors. Toby’s arrived first and took him off to get used to the skis again and took a little tour round the magic carpet. After a couple of goes round there, and with Harry still waiting for his instructor, Toby set off towards his first go in the chair lift and the up the slope called Holiday.

Harry eventually found his instructor, an older chap called Anchor. At least I think that’s what he was called! Anchor tried to engage Harry with some conversation. Silly Anchor. Harry turned into a mute and Tracy and I were somewhat concerned as the two of them set of to the Holiday slope as well. Would Harry answer any of Anchor’s questions across the next two hours or would he just shrug his shoulders!?

As it turned out we needn’t have worried as by the time we collected Harry two hours later they were chatting and they even gave each other a hug as we left!

We had seen both Harry and Toby going up the Holiday slope on the chair lift and we’d seen Harry come down once and Toby a few times – including a few bounces on his bottom! But it has to be said, for a first time on the actual slope Toby came on in leaps and bounds.

httpv://youtu.be/b5D6Iiwv4FY

While his parents were suitably impressed, the instructor did inform us that he needed to improve a few areas of his technique. Apparently the bottom half of his body is good but the top half has a tendency to lean and he keeps his arms behind his back. But he’s only had about 4 hours of lessons so the fact that he was coming down a slope by himself was pretty awesome!

We didn’t see much of Harry on the Holiday slope but this is because he and Anchor had clearly gone exploring all over the place! He’d been down Holiday, Gallery, Silver Nugget, Silver Fir, Black Diamond plus a little cross country between the different slopes. He’d also completed some ski-ing backwards, 360 degree spins and little jumps – all intentionally as well. Anchor informed us that Harry had worked incredibly hard and was a really good skier. So despite the lesson not starting on the best of terms, they parted with a big hug and Harry declaring that Anchor was the best instructor he’d had and wanted to have more lessons with him.

Amazing what happens when you start talking to someone!