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West Coast Wanderings - August 2021Pictorial record of an expedition to the Pacific Northwest in August 2021, with numerous sojourns along the way - the Bay Area, Stockton, and Angwin in California; Bend, Oregon; the Seattle area and Pasco, Washington.

253

Angwin, California

On August 6 we arrived in Angwin, where Sandie's younger son Lief lives with his lovely wife Janeta, and sons Liam and Jensen, not to mention their golden Lab, Leila. Angwin is located high in the hills above Napa Valley; it's a most picturesque and pleasant area, although in recent years the terrible California wildfires have taken their toll. We sojourned in Angwin for several days, staying gratis in a pleasant apartment, as arranged by Lief with his stepsister Michelle and his dad and stepmom, Arnold and Bethel, who most graciously made the place available. While Sandie spent most of her time visiting with Lief, Janeta and the kids in their little house on Toyon Street, I took the opportunity to wander around Napa Valley and shoot pictures. I also accompanied them to visit the palatial estate on Crestmont Drive owned by Lief's deceased grandfather, Yacob Nashed, which is now in escrow pending its sale. This was a very fortuitous opportunity - although I had visited the house on previous occasions, I had never taken any pictures of it, and this was the last chance I ever would have to make a pictorial record of this extraordinary property for posterity.

61 files, last one added on Sep 16, 2021
Album viewed 136 times

Napa Valley, California

Although the time I spent in Napa Valley coincided with our sojourn in Angwin, I decided to devote a separate album to Napa Valley because the Angwin album was already too large, and because despite their geographical proximity, in a sense they occupy different worlds. Napa Valley is packed with wineries and overrun with tourists come to savor the delights of the grape; Angwin is secluded, serene, bucolic. Although I've been through Napa Valley many times, about twenty years have passed since my last visit and many things have changed; I wanted to record some of the changes as well as a few of the attractions I've missed on previous visits.

31 files, last one added on Sep 16, 2021
Album viewed 91 times

Rees Residence - Stockton, California

Sandie and I visit the residence of two of our favorite people in the world, JoAnn and Doug Rees, in Stockton, California. The visit was arranged by our treasured friend of many years, Diana Howell, who happens to be JoAnn's sister. JoAnn and Doug are longtime litterateurs, and a few years back they purchased an old but venerable house in a pleasant Stockton neighborhood, which house they then proceeded to renew and remodel into a veritable Utopia. They graciously let me shoot a myriad of photos of their property, and I have assembled the best of them here, with the only qualification that the SD card where photos originally resided somehow became partially corrupt, so that I lost most of those shot in the back yard; fortunately the cream of those I shot inside the house have survived.

28 files, last one added on Sep 17, 2021
Album viewed 87 times

Bend, Oregon - High Desert Museum

Sadly, our schedule only allowed us one day in Bend, but at least we were able to fulfill my long-cherished ambition to visit the Bend High Desert Museum, which I had never managed to do during all of my previous visits. The Museum had cosponsored (with Oregon State University) the venue where we viewed the Great American Eclipse of 2017, and our hosts Chuck and Elouise Mattox, who are members, highly recommended it and even furnished the passes for our visit, one of the privileges associated with their membership, in addition to providing us with the benefit of their company (always a delight) on our tour of the Museum. We were not disappointed. We only had one complaint - the Museum is so extensive that we wore ourselves out long before we could see even a large fraction of what it had to offer, so we'll have to go back again...and again...

48 files, last one added on Sep 18, 2021
Album viewed 138 times

An Afternoon in Edmonds, Washington

On the second day of our stay in the Seattle area, Sandie and I, together with Sandie's elder son Nick, visited Chuck and Elouise Mattox's daughter Sarah and her husband Mike at their fairytale house on the shore of Lake Ballinger in Edmonds, Washington, which turned out to be only a few short blocks from our B&B. Although Sandie and I had been to Sarah and Mike's wedding celebration in Bend (2001), we hadn't seen them together since then and we were anxious to renew our acquaintance. Sarah performs as a mezzo-soprano with the Seattle Opera, and Mike is a senior software developer formerly with Microsoft, now with Electronic Arts, Inc., a leading publisher of video games, and they tend to be rather busy people, so I was uncertain that they would have room in their schedules to meet with us. As it turned out, I need not have worried; they most graciously hosted us on the patio of their lakeside residence on a Saturday afternoon, and we spent several hours engaged in civilized conversation of a kind we can only experience with a very few people of our acquaintance (although, to be sure, we visited several of the others on this trip). And the ambience of the setting was amazing. We had a fabulous time, and we're most grateful to Sarah and Mike for their hospitality and their company.

39 files, last one added on Sep 21, 2021
Album viewed 109 times

Fremont District, Seattle

On Sunday, August 15, 2021 Sandie, Nick, Jane and I hopped into Red Sonja and headed for the Fremont District of Seattle. I was bent on visiting two sites in particular: the Fremont Troll and the Statue of Lenin, located close together on North 36th Street. After that, I thought, we could go wherever our fancies took us (that turned out to be the Gas Works Park, to which I've devoted a separate album). In the captions to the pictures presented here I could record only a small fraction of the essential facts available on these famous (or notorious?) attractions; for more adequate information on the Troll, see for example the Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_Troll, and for the Lenin statue, a good account may be found at https://seattle.curbed.com/2019/8/27/20830552/seattle-fremont-vladimir-lenin-statue-history.

31 files, last one added on Sep 23, 2021
Album viewed 80 times

Seattle Gas Works Park

Although the Seattle Gas Works Park is properly part of the Fremont District, I have devoted a separate album to it because of the profusion of pictures I shot there; one album containing all the Fremont pictures would be very large and cumbersome. Also, the scenes are very different visually and topically, as you will see immediately.

15 files, last one added on Sep 23, 2021
Album viewed 66 times

7 albums on 1 page(s)

Death ValleyDeath Valley National Park is an awesome place and second only to Joshua Tree NP in ease of access for us. Sandie and I are fortunate in having friends who are quite knowledgeable and very enthusiastic about visiting it themselves and in our company. We chronicle our visits with many photos, with a separate subsection of this category devoted to each trip.

Death Valley, October 2019We arrived on Wednesday, October 23 and left on Monday, October 28. As in November 2016, we stayed at the Atomic Inn in Beatty, Nevada, which served as a very satisfactory base of operations for our forays into DVNP itself. We were fortunate in enjoying the company of JoAnn Rees, who organized the expedition, and her sister Diana Howell, among others. We went on excursions to Titus Canyon, Marble Canyon, Monarch Canyon and Keane Wonder Mine. And, coincidentally, we had the unexpected good fortune to be in town for the Beatty Days festival on Saturday, October 26, with a parade and fair-cum-flea market. Fun times!

164

Monarch Canyon, 10/25/2019

15 files, last one added on Nov 09, 2019
Album viewed 61 times

Titus Canyon, 10/24/2019

42 files, last one added on Nov 06, 2019
Album viewed 101 times

Marble Canyon, 10/25/2019

27 files, last one added on Nov 10, 2019
Album viewed 89 times

Beatty Days, 10/26/2019

50 files, last one added on Nov 12, 2019
Album viewed 109 times

Keane Wonder Mine, 10/27/2019

14 files, last one added on Nov 14, 2019
Album viewed 65 times

Shoshone, 10/27/2019

16 files, last one added on Nov 16, 2019
Album viewed 68 times

6 albums on 1 page(s)

Home, Family and FriendsDomestic Delights, Visits and Adventures with Family and Friends

Other Fun StuffLocal Events and Adventures

Midwest MeanderingsVacationing with Family and Friends in the Midwest

Southwestern SortieA road trip to New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, including a ride on a scenic train from New Mexico to Colorado, October 22.

308

Railroad Ramble

214 files, last one added on Jan 05, 2023
Album viewed 192 times

Dallas Depredations

51 files, last one added on Jan 05, 2023
Album viewed 166 times

Meteor Crater

43 files, last one added on Jan 05, 2023
Album viewed 92 times

3 albums on 1 page(s)

Random files - Domestic Diversions

Queen Anne District610 viewsThe northern section of Queen Anne, as seen across Union Lake from Kite Hill in the Gas Works Park. Queen Anne Hill and District take their name from the fact that many of the houses built in the late 19th and early 20th century were in the Queen Anne style, a variant of Victorian. (The name refers to the British queen who reigned from 1702 to 1714, though the style actually has nothing to do with her or her time.)

Pet Haven765 viewsThe Museum kindly provides a shaded area with kennels for visitors to safely put up their pets while touring the Museum.

On the Beach691 viewsThe beach on the east shore of Lake Ballinger, with the eponymous condos in the background.

Under the Spreading Mushroom Tree605 viewsA cute little dwarf mushroom tree nestles amongst the other greenery in the front yard. Actually, of course, I am lying and there is probably no such thing as a mushroom tree and if there is this isn't one. I forgot to ask our hosts what type of tree it really is.

Front Porch706 viewsI found the color scheme JoAnn and Doug chose for this house highly imaginative and pleasing to the eye.

Carport748 viewsSarah and Mike manage to get along just fine without a garage.

Cumbres & Toltec RR, Oct. 7, 2022750 viewsCumbres & Toltec RR, Oct. 7, 2022

Hemispherical Tree654 viewsAlthough it partially blocks the view of the lake, this stately tree is an essential accoutrement of the back yard as well as a feast for the eye.

Last additions - Domestic Diversions

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Event Horizon - Astronomical and Terrestrial Images