Rain and Clouds Return

Friday afternoon, we picked up Ashley and Scott and the four of us headed north for a weekend with extended family before Dave's nephew leaves for Jamaica. We got to Seattle about sundown and decided to swing by Seattle Center to take some night pictures. Dave took this picture of the Space Needle.
I’ve always loved these arches at the Science Center, but I’ve only seen them during the day. They’re even prettier at night.

Ivar’s is celebrating their 70th anniversary this year, so we thought we’d go down to Pier 54 and have some clam chowder. Dave remembers going to Ivar’s Acres of Clams when he was little.
It was late when we got to Mt. Vernon and we decided not to get up early to ride the ferry to Friday Harbor. Saturday turned out to be not just a gray day, but a rainy one too. We took the afternoon to wander around Anacortes, a Victorian coastal town that was founded in 1891. Today it’s considered the jumping off point for the San Juan Islands. Besides, the ferry dock, the town is filled with old buildings and turn of the century charm. Antique stores, galleries, and just quaint little shops abound in the downtown area.

Since raindrops and camera gear don’t mix, the first order of business was to get the rainsleeve on the camera. It’s just what it looks like—a plastic bag that you cinch around the camera to keep it dry. Sports photographers use them when they’re taking pictures in the rain. People in the northwest use them regularly between the months of November and June.

When you’re traveling with Dave, the first stop in any coastal town is the marina. He’s always wanted to haul Cougarblue, our sailboat, to Anacortes and sail through the San Juan Islands. I’ve always been opposed to the idea because it’s such a chore for the two of us to rig and launch it. However, Dave found a boat sling and mast hoist at the marina so I suspect we may be spending some vacation time sailing the San Juans next summer.

While Dave was checking out things at the marina, I noticed something interesting on the docks.

Fish in a can? No. Look again.

It’s a garbage can! They’re all around the marina and all over town. There are probably ten or twelve different renditions. I guess you can put art anywhere in any form.

We look forward to another visit to Anacortes and beyond, but hopefully on sunny, warm July days.

Squirrel Crossing

We live near a northwestern anomaly known as a greenbelt. For those who have never heard the term before, it’s a strip of trees or forest left untouched when an area is developed. Often we see deer in the field behind our house. They’ve also been seen grazing in our front yard in the afternoon or presenting a blockade between Brad and the garage door at curfew when he was in high school (how convenient). We hear lots of birds in the early morning in the spring and sometimes it almost sounds like we live in a jungle. It does take a little of suburbia out of suburbia, but there is one downside—SQUIRRELS!!!
I never really cared until I came downstairs one Sunday morning and found one sitting under my piano. That’s about the time our home came to be known as the Squirrel Crossing. Since then, I’ve been less than enamored with them. I came downstairs one morning this week to find Dave with his camera, telephoto lens, and tripod all set up and ready to shoot pictures of squirrels running across our back fence. Has it been a slow week at home? I would say so. This weekend we get a change of scenery as we head north of Seattle to see Dave’s nephew before he leaves on a two-year church mission to Jamaica. This will be good treatment for Dave’s cabin fever. His ankle is feeling good and he’s ready to get back to work on Monday after the stitches are removed.

A Sunny Day in the Rose Garden

Today was probably our last sunny and unseasonably warm day for a while. It looks like we'll be dropping into the 70s around here for the duration of September and that's okay, because that's how it's supposed to be. Dave's about had enough sitting around the house, so we took a drive today.

How you can collectively live in this area for 13 years and never have been to the rose gardens at Washington Park, I'm not sure, but we've managed. I thought it might be a nice drive and maybe there would be a flower or two to photograph.

Dave found a bench in the sun while I wandered through the upper part of the garden. I couldn't believe there were so many roses still blooming. What kind of friend would I be if I didn't get out my camera and share?

There was a lot of garden I didn't walk through, but I'm quite confident we'll be going back again and again. Today, my favorites were the rosebuds. That tells me there will be more roses for a while longer.

Dad's Star Boat

I was pretty sure Dave would be posting something on the blog before the end of the week. There really is a limit to the number of times a person can watch SportsCenter in one day. When there was nothing on TV, it was time to prop up the ankle and look through the files and CDs that contain years and years of photographs. For someone who uses the ringtone of "Son of a Son of a Sailor," this was a special find.

This is a picture of G'pa Crane and Dave's dad on his Star boat. This is the boat from the story Dave's mom tells of her falling in the water and his Dad had to pull her back in the boat. The picture was taken on Lake Coeur d'Alene in Idaho when his parents lived in Spokane before Dave was born. Dave's mom remembers this as a 17 foot boat. It looks like it has as much sail area as we have on our 25 foot boat--that's why the faster Star boats have been racing in the Olympics since 1932 and not slow, cruising boats like ours.

Roller Derby Update

Surgery number 4 from Dave's November 2003 roller skating "experience" went well on Wednesday. With the exception of the dime, this is what they took out of his leg. He is now officially happy to be hardware free. The doctor said there was also a LOT of scar tissue to remove and that was probably what was making him so uncomfortable. I would think that a broken screw in your ankle would be a little irritating too. He's in a boot for awhile and at home at least until they take the stitches out on September 22nd. He's been laying low for the last couple of days and using crutches to get around, but he seems to be feeling better this morning. We may have to go for a drive today to start treating his cabin fever.

Sleepless in Seattle

After a cool, rainy Labor Day weekend, summer returned to Portland last week. It was nice to go north on Friday to cooler temperatures in Seattle. Mid 70s and sunny skies are much more pleasant than the 90s that come with east winds out of the Columbia River Gorge. It's always fun to stop and take pictures at Pike Place Market when we get to Seattle. Fruit, vegetables, flowers, and seafood are everywhere.

Fresh red pears,

radishes in every color,
big beautiful sunflowers,
and lots and lots of seafood.

We thought about going to a Mariner's game Friday night, but since they're not having a very good year and we've already been to a game this summer, we decided to return to Pike Place and watch the sun set over Elliott Bay and see the city light up.

Saturday was all about the reason we went to Seattle in the first place. BYU FOOTBALL!!! Accessing a stadium that is surrounded on two sides by water is, to say the least, challenging. We scoped out the best way to arrive by land on Friday, but some fans come by water.

The boat in the lower right hand corner of the picture with the purple and gold flags is the water taxi that will pick you up at your boat and bring you to the dock at the stadium for $6 round trip. That's a lot less than the $25 that you pay to park in an E-1 lot. (You pay $15 if there are more than two people in your car.)

Turns out, that we were at the most controversial NCAA game in the country this week with BYU's 28-27 win over Washington.

If you watched any sports channel this week or even your local sports report, you've heard about "the over-officiating" of the PAC-10. Finally, a call that didn't go against BYU:)

As always. . .

GO COUGARS!!!!

Labor Day in the Dahlia Fields

With the boat put away, sailing was obviously out for Labor Day. There was a big swing in the tides all weekend which made crabbing too much work to be worth the gas and time to go. So what were we to do?

Every year in August, Swan Island Dahias in Canby, Oregon, which is about 20 minutes south of Portland, open their fields for two weekends for their annual Dahlia Festival. A sunny 69 degree day just screams grab your cameras and go! And so we did!

There are acres and acres of dahlias. It's unbelievable how many sizes, shapes, and colors they come in.

Some are small and tight,

while others are big and spindly.

They come in the deepest reds and purples,

while others are pure white.

They can be bright and multi-colored,

or softly muted to a rich center,

or even variegated.

I'm amazed by how perfectly each petal is rolled

and how uniformly they unroll as they open.

Some have this spikey look with all these petals

that never completly unroll when they're open,

while others just have a few petals

and they never open at all.

We planted small dahlias last year and they flourished and bloomed well into September. It was so wet and cool this spring that the nurseries weren't stocking them until almost the Fourth of July and by then we were on to other things. After revisting these gardens, I hope to be able to try again next year.

I don't know about Dave, but I'm excited for the Tulip Festival in Woodburn in the spring. We miss it every year, but next year you can bet we'll have our cameras and be ready to go, but before that we'll be heading to Seattle for the BYU vs. University of Washington football game this weekend. So many things to photograph and so little time.

The End of Another Season

In preparation for Dave's ankle surgery in a couple of weeks, we did something this year that we've never done before. We winterized the sailboat before Labor Day. With a cool, rainy spring and flat winds in the summer, we haven't done much sailing anyway. September may be a delightful month up here, but with Dave in a boot or a cast, sailing will be out.

It took a couple of years to figure out that a 27 foot mast goes down easier with the boat in the water. It takes about an hour to get it down and secured with Scott and Ashley's help. With all eight hands on deck, there are no action shots, just the end result.
The next step is to get a 5000 pound, 25 foot long sailboat on its trailer. It's not like when we had a catamaran and if it was a little crooked, you could just pick it up and move it. I can't tell you how excited I was when Dave called last Thursday morning and asked what I thought about having Schooner Creek Boatworks lift it out with their sling. In my mind, there's only one answer to that question--ABSOLUTELY!!!

You just pull up to the dock and

they secure it in the sling and up she goes!

They drive it into the lot,

pressure wash the bottom,
and then drop it on your trailer.
Oh so easy!
All I have to do is take the pictures.
After that the only things left to do are
take off the rudder, and the motor,
(with a little help from a son-in-law)
hang the mast in the garage when you get home,(with a little more help from a son-in-law and let me just tell you how thankful I am that he's so willing to help with all of this, because otherwise, I'd be having to help Dave and it would not be so seamless;))
and take all the other accessories out of the cabin.
After that, it's ready to drive over to the storage unit

and leave until next spring.
With the boat out of the water

and Dave in a boot or a cast,

whatever will we find to do this fall?

Who knows;)