Into The Fog ... And Beauty

Mel and I went up to Mount Vernon, WA today. Then we turned to the east and drove up to the Cascade National Park area. I had hoped that we might see Mount Baker, a volcano, today, but really didn't expect to do so because of the forecast for rain. We did have rain off and on, but a lot of the time it was just very low fog and mist, and even a couple of times blue sky peaked through.

Such a beautiful area! So very different from anything I am really familiar with.
Wet
Drippy
Foggy
Mossy
Ferns
Lichens
Tall, tall trees that reach for the sky
Waterfalls by the dozens, big and small. In one place water was just pouring out of a crack in a huge boulder and I couldn't help but think of Moses and the Children of Israel.
Snow at the higher elevations

Beauty every where we looked. Following are several photos without commentary, as they say on Ukrainian television.

North Into the Rain

We left Poulsbo this morning and crossed Puget Sound again. We are now up in the Everett area. And it is raining. Raining and raining. A lot of rain. Breaking records kind of raining. Amazing! Washington coast and rain! Who'd a thunk it?

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.

Forest and Ocean

Yesterday we drove from Yakima, over Snoqualmie Pass and down into North Bend, WA, which is just east of Issaquah. The pass was snowy and icy, with a very strong wind blowing. If you can read the sign in this photo, you will see that they were warning people to drive slowly.The bad thing was, whatever they put on the road to de-ice it really messed up the windshield. Fortunately we had plenty of fluid and good wiper blades, but oh my! There were times when the road practically disappeared. This photo tells me I am in the Pacific Northwest. The only problem with it is that the trees are really small in diameter. Usually the log trucks we see have much larger trees, 18 inches being the smallest and up to 4 feet across. Amazing trees here! The reason this photo is so gray is from all the gunk on the windshield.

Once we were over the top of the pass, we took an exit at North Bend and went over to Snoqualmie Falls and got blasted by the wind, only this time we were outside of the car. Then we went into the gift shop and bought a couple little souvenirs. This particular photo was kind of hard to get because the wind kept knocking me and the camera sideways.

From the falls Mel let me tell him where to drive. I wanted to see some forest before we ended up in the big city, so I told him: go here, go there, drive up that road, turn up that one now, and so forth. This is where we ended up (and where I took one of my all time favorite photos - this one!): We went way up on the side of a very steep mountain and finally Mel said, enough! and we turned around and went back down the very steep mountain. For being only a mini-van, our van does very well as a jeep.:-) This photo was taken looking at the road, and the next one was taken looking down along side the road from the same spot. I told Mel, I love the desert because a person can SEE for miles and miles and miles (if you get up high enough). I am terrified of the Pacific Northwest forests because I feel like there are eyes out there in the forest watching me, but I can't see them at all. In the desert there are many poisonous and dangerous things, some I can see, some are hidden. But in the forest here, I don't know what is there. The unknown and fear go hand in hand for me, that is sure! I love to go into the forest like we did yesterday, but I am always glad to leave, too. I like the tingle of this kind of fear - it exhilerates me!! The forests at home in Colorado do not scare me - I know them, I am comfortable in them, I can see for many yards in them.

White fog lifts up out of the depths of the dark green forest here, whisping slowly up through the trees, hanging quietly in the tree tops, and then slowly drift up to join the dark purply gray clouds above. Mountain sides are littered with whisps of white. Beautiful, oh so heart-wrenching beautiful! A combination of fear and beauty.

We spent the night in Issaquah and left this morning for Poulsbo. Another one of my very favorite things in the world - taking the ferry across Puget Sound. I could take the ferry back and forth across the Sound all day long and never get tired of it. Today, after parking on the ferry, we left the car and made our way up 3 flights of stairs to the very upper deck. Mel went back down and got a couple cups of coffee and I started walking. I walked around the whole top four times. The last time we were here and on the ferry, I saw a woman getting her morning walk in that way. It takes half an hour to go across which means there is a good 20 minutes worth of walking time. And oh, what a wonderful place to walk! The views on all sides are incredible. To the north, up toward British Columbia. To the south, Mount Ranier: Behind us, Edmonds and the Seattle metro area. Ahead of us, Kingston and Bainbridge Island. The wind was fierce today, much more than the other times we gone across. It was easy walking toward the back of the ferry, but when coming around to the other side, the wind was very hard to walk against. I got a good workout.

And here are two more photos I took. I really like this first one simpy because it shows how fast these gulls move. :-) And I'm posting the second one because I love the way they look at they fly along with the ferry. Beautiful creatures, even if they are thieves and beggars!!