Category Archives: Washington State

Pretty as a…

Picture Lake!

On Tuesday when we reached Picture Lake there was a breeze that made ripples on the surface of the water so the reflections were not as clear as they could be. The lake has a very nice 1/2 mile trail all around it. Picture Lake is at 4100 feet with a postcard view of Mt. Shuksan, elev. 9,131 ft.

You don’t even have to hike in to enjoy this spot. We parked right on the road next to the lake.

The weather was just right for us this day with no need for a jacket. Our next stop and my next post from our time on the Mt. Baker Scenic highway will be from Artist Point.

Meanwhile back at this old house Dear continues on some home improvement projects. We have new closet doors in our Master bedroom. I’m hoping to sort through my clothes before I put them back into the closet and face reality on which I’ll never wear again. In the last 7 days our water leak got fixed, the shingles on 3 peaks of our house have fresh stain on them, our overhangs are sanded and repainted and we have new closet doors. I’m thankful for my hard working husband.

Our kids from eastern Washington are on the Oregon coast far away from their smoky skies and heat. They sent us this photo of the three of them at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Now they have to beat all the solar eclipse traffic to get home.

Love these three and praying that their long trip home goes well for all of them.

What’s going on at your house?

Mount Baker Highway

On Tuesday morning bright and early we headed north on Highway 9 to see some sites on the Mt. Baker Scenic Highway. Our first stop was in Snohomish for breakfast at Jake’s Diner. Fueled for the day we headed farther north just below the U.S./Canadian Border.

“Rated one of the top hiking, skiing, snowboarding and scenic drives in America, Mt. Baker Highway takes your breath away.”

Our stops were at Nooksack Falls, Picture Lake and lastly Artist Point at the end of the highway.

From the falls we traveled on toward the Mt. Baker Ski area. We started the part of the road that in 10 miles climbed 3,200 feet.

I’m not sure what the significance of the raven sculpture on the sign is. Dear and my last and only time here was in 1988 or 1989 for a winter ski trip with friends just after we moved to Washington State from California. It looks a lot different in the winter.

Our next stop after the falls was Picture Lake and I’ll devote a whole post to it on another day.

Picture Lake is in the Heather Meadows Recreation Area.

Today we are awaiting news on who our next Senior Pastor will be. Our former pastor followed a calling to become a Navy Chaplain. We will get to meet the new candidate on August 27th. We are excited to see and hear him on that day. I’m tapping my feet and keep checking my emails to see the announcement. I’m not called the Wonderer for nothing! Hope you have a good day!

Update: Got the email from church at 1:00 pm and got to meet our new pastor candidate and we are encouraged and looking forward to the future of our church.

Barns and Critters…

Summer view from son’s mile long driveway.

We want to start a pool on when this barn is going to collapse.

A different view from our son’s driveway and part of the driveway, too, headed down to the main road.

All these photos were taken from places that have a Colville address in late June 2017.  Colville is in Northeastern Washington in Steven’s County. The next time we visit our Colville kids will probably be in August. They are coming here next weekend, woohoo! Addy’s first visit to Baba and Gramp’s house. During that same time a grand nephew will be making his first visit to Great Uncle and Great Auntie’s with his big sister who was here once before for Katie and Andrew’s wedding in 2012.

It is definitely summer here with sunshine and warm temperatures. I’ll need to get out and water again soon. I’ve started to pick blueberries off our large bush. It’s a race between me and the birds on who gets to the ripe ones first.

I’ll be Linking up to Saturday’s Critters with Eileen and The Barn Collective with Tom the Backroads Traveller.

Barn Collective

All these barns were situated along Highway 395 between Spokane and Colville.

Linking up with Tom for The Barn Collective. Thanks Tom.

Every chance I’ve gotten since Friday I’ve been working on restoring posts and replacing photos on posts dating back to 2007 because Photobucket has blacked out all my photos and it makes for a very ugly sight on my posts. I’ve also had to clean up my posts on Mennonite Girls Can Cook.  I’ll keep plugging away and determine which posts are worthy to save and which ones I should just delete and not spend extra time on. Hope you all are having a good weekend.

 

Mosaic Monday

This is my Mosaic Monday without linking up. On Friday the 23rd of June we traveled east over the Cascade Mountain Range along Interstate 90 to Colville.  When we reach Spokane we head north and connect to Hwy 395 to travel the last 70 miles of our journey. As we near Chewelah we see many familiar signs. In the summertime the streets in Chewelah and Colville are lined with flower displays in hanging baskets and along the road in planters. On this journey we stopped at our favorite Mexican Restaurant in Chewelah, El Ranchito for an early lunch.

Continuing north on 395 you can tell you are in logging country.

We took a back road to get to our kid’s home and enjoyed these great country scenes along the way.

Then we arrived to see who we really wanted to see. She charmed us with many expressions and moods.

Yawns galore before she had another afternoon nap.

Sometimes she needs to express herself and she gets all our attention. It was a nice drive and reunion.

We will have had three full days with the kids before we head home early Tuesday morning. Sunday was the hottest day so far here and today is another hot one with temps expected to hit 93 with possible thunderstorms. With no air-conditioning it gets hard to do anything but sit around in front of fans. It’s cooling down a bit the next couple of days.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world.

 

Skagit Valley Barns

All these views from the Skagit Valley in Washington State were taken from Wiley Rd. and Mann Rd. and at the Reserve at Fir Island.

I’d like to know the story behind this decoration on this out building.

At the end of Mann Rd. from the reserve heading back to Interstate 5 you could see Fir-Conway Lutheran Church on Fir Island Dr.

I’ll be away from the computer for most of Friday. Hope you all have a good weekend. Time will tell if I can link up to The Barn Collective with Tom on Sunday. Happy First weekend of summer!

Skagit Valley Wildlife Area and Fir Island Reserve

On June 17th we drove up to Skagit Valley for our first walk with the Wonder Walkers, a short term summer group from our church. The summer plan is a different walk in the Puget Sound area each Saturday until the end of August.

Dear and I had never been to this part of the Valley.

The weather cooperated with us and it ended up being a walk that we didn’t need jackets for.

I should have taken my longer camera lens and the next time we go I will. That’s a Heron on top of that bare tree.

Swallow

This area borders the Skagit Bay and the Skagit River.

This is a walk we’d like to do again since our time was limited and we didn’t walk down every path.

We are about 24 hours from Summer Solstice. The sun did shine here today. I hesitated to share but I’m on another kick to drop several pounds. This time around I am not weighing myself until I see some improvement in my body profile. I was brave enough to take a photo with my phone and when things look different I’ll weigh in and go from there. That will take a while. The reality right now is just to scary for me to attach a number to by stepping on the scale. My first goal is for my jeans to be roomier. After I reach that goal I’ll set another one. Dear and I are not eating anything after 5 pm unless it’s out of our power like celebrations. We also are limiting certain treats if we don’t hit at least 4000 steps on our fitbits. We are aiming for 10,000 a day. I’m counting calories but Dear is not. You won’t hear anything else from me on this subject until I reach my goal.

Enjoy the beginning of our summer season.

Colville Barns

When we were in Colville in May we took a drive along Artman-Gibson Road to Highway 20 in Colville where we saw these barns.

Linking up with Tom for The Barn Collective.

We have had a nice weekend. On Saturday we brought down our patio furniture from the loft of the garage and now we are set for time on the deck when the weather is right. On Sunday we put a pork shoulder in the crock pot before church and enjoyed an afternoon meal of carnitas tacos with our kids that live on this side of the mountains. It’s good to catch up. Hope you had a good weekend.

Catch-Up Collages

I have some catching up to do from the month of May. Country mosaics with barns and critters and a special baby girl.

Scenes while driving in central Washington State and Eastern Washington State in mid May, 2017.

The farm above with all it’s red out buildings was taken from the Sprague Rest Area.

On the drive from the Seattle area across the Cascade Mountain range into Central and then Eastern Washington on Interstate 90 you approach the 2nd largest city in population in the state of Washington. Spokane is 279 miles from Seattle and 70 miles south of Colville, our final destination. From the 2014 census figures Seattle has a population of 668,342 and Spokane comes in second with 212,052. Spokane Valley has 91,729. Colville has a population of 4,706. Once we pass through Spokane and head north there are no interstates or freeways, we drive on highways and country roads. On the 70 mile trip from Spokane to Colville we only encounter one traffic light in Chewelah which is approximately 20 miles from Colville.

The collage above shows the approach to Spokane on I-90 and some buildings you can see in the city with a mural on the side of an old brick building. There are a few grand churches in Spokane I’d love to explore and photograph.

Leaving Spokane we see more cattle, horses and deer along the country roads. Deer are one of the most dangerous road hazards in the country. The next collages are from Dan and Jamie’s and close to their home.

Hummers on our kids’ front porch.

This hawk might be the one who is eating our kid’s chickens. There’s a price to pay for being free-range.

A riding lawn mower and a good tractor are a must when you own 20 acres and have to tend to a mile long driveway to your home. I caught a glimpse of Dan mowing the brush around his property. Dear and Dan moved the chicken coup to have better access in the winter.

This little one gives us an extra draw to travel to the country. Thankfully Dan and Jamie are patient with us showing up on their doorstep more often. Soon I’ll be sharing several photos of Addy in some special dresses. Here’s a sneak preview of a haphazard elephant prop pose.

She is such a good sport!

These last shots are of some properties closer to our kids.

Congratulations on making it through one of my catch-up posts. I’ll be linking up to a few parties this weekend since Dear is in Chicago and I have lots of time to myself.

Linking up first to Eileen’s Saturday Critters. Next up will be The Barn Collective with Tom. Last will be Mosaic Monday with Maggie in Normandy. When the link ups become available I’ll add them so you can click over and see lots of critters, barns and mosaics from around the world. Thank you to Eileen, Tom and Maggie for hosting these blog carnivals.