Ha ha!
We took the ferry across Puget Sound again. Here are a few photos: Waiting in line to board the ferry. We arrived just 2 or 3 minutes before boarding began.
The wind was blowing really hard today (in fact, there are wind warning out on the news tonight for several areas here in western Washington). Mel and I went up to the top deck and we were the only ones up there. The ferry went over a wake produced by a ocean-going container ship that was traveling up the Sound to somewhere near Seattle. Rain, blowing, rocking with the waves of the wake - I loved it! Mel started feeling a little sick due to the wave actions and eventually went back down to the passenger deck to wait. I stayed up above as long as I could - until time to head back to the car, in fact! Here is a photo of the wake the ferry was leaving. 
I am very fond of the seagulls. Love to watch them glide along with the ferry. It was hard to get photos of them today because I was concerned about my camera getting wet, but here is a fairly good shot. 
When it was time to get back in our cars, I went down and followed Mel back to ours. The ferry was less than half full on the way back. Plenty of room to walk around. We were almost the last car on! 
And here is my favorite photo from today. Kind of hard to see, but that is Mount Ranier there on the horizon. We could see the bottom of it today, all covered in snow. I wonder when it's going to erupt again....in our life time? That would be an amazing disaster. 
Tje mountains to the east were in view as we drove up toward Everett. Beautiful dark purple with snow fields in view on several. And above them, purply-gray clouds. The light and the trees and the sky all reminded us so much of Alaska. The light is different here, even under gray and rainy skies. The trees are so beautiful - ever so tall and green and healthy looking. The grass is green and plants are growing all over the place. The only snow in sight was that seen way up high on the Cascades (I wonder if that one mountain was Mt. Baker, also a volcano?? Will have to check a map tomorrow). No flowers did I see, just those pretty purple and yellowish-white ornamental cabbages. Beauty everywhere I looked.
As we've been traveling, we've enjoyed a variety of ethnic foods: Aussie (ha ha) in Cheyenne, Mexican in Moab, American Northwest in Poulsbo, and Chinese here in Everett.
At the AAA Chinese Buffet tonight I thought it must be a taste of heaven there. NOT the food! I don't know enough about Chinese food to know if it was good or average. We enjoyed it, we got way too full - that is enough for me. No, the "taste of heaven" were the people there. Asians, Mexicans, Native Americans, Blacks, Caucasians. A sampling of the world, sitting down at tables, enjoying their meals. Families, several families - that was nice to see. Young people who dressed like gang members, older guys who looked like Hells' Angels, older people eating with chopsticks, Mel and me, little kids running around, Spanish, Chinese, English, possibly a Middle Eastern dialect all being spoken, laughter, talking, joking, others sitting in silence. While going back for more Walnut Shrimp, I accidently bumped into a guy that I thought might belong in a gang - and he apologized to me very politely and naturally. I felt very comfortable there. I was surprised, actually. I enjoyed it - and thought about how wonderful it will be when we get to heaven and are all living in perfect peace and unity with each other, our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior. Oh my!
I thought about that another time on this trip, too. We were at Arches National Park and were heading off to walk up a trail. Down the icy snow packed path came a young family, father and one kid first, mother and second kid several yards behind. As the father and kid passed us, the thought ran through my mind: In heaven we will not ignore each other. We will know each other, recognize each other, great each other in the name of our Lord. In heaven we will love "strangers" immediately, not be afraid of each other (I'm sure people are sometimes afraid when they first meet us - Mel is so tall and big and I'm just so big - we could be very intimidating!).
Yes, heaven has been on my mind a lot.
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