I’m no photographer and my now hopelessly outdated iPhone 4S is not much of a camera, but when you’re on vacation at one of the many dazzling garden spots of our world, it is right and proper to send a few postcards to friends and loved ones. Since I didn’t quite get around to doing so on this past week’s journey to Puget Sound (you noticed your empty mailbox, did you?), I’ll make up for my oversight now with a few snapshots that I hope you’ll enjoy.
So without further ado (and with brief accompanying commentary):
Ebey’s Landing is part of the National Park Service outside the town of Coupeville on Whidbey Island. Among its delights: a fort, a trail that hugs spectacular coastal cliffs, and a rocky beach that at some points gives way to tiny stones which make the incoming tide sound like the world’s noisiest bowl of Rice Krispies.
Morning comes to Samish Bay…
I think these are lilies but will happily be corrected. (Note: I have since been informed they are definitely not lilies, and after some flower scouring on the Internet, I am now suspecting daisies instead.) What I do know is that their bright yellow punctuated the blue water and the green of the grass that had just recently grown after some decent rains had finally broken through the long-running drought in the West. The property is a church camp just the other side of a small hill from the Samish Bay tidal basin.
There’s something both profoundly peaceful and en potentia about boats lying serenely on shore, alone for the moment…
Port Townsend: Now there’s an island! Leaving at the end of a long wandering day, I noted this lone sailboat, with its implicit urge for me to point and shoot. I always listen to sailboats…
Get just barely off the dock of the bay on Samish Island and you behold the ag community that stretches all around as if it were the most lonesome inland prairie…
Bellingham has a miles-long trail rimming the bayside of the city, quite practically beckoning you to come on down toward the dock and launch in…
Oh gosh, yes, I promise to breathe more deeply and be more peaceful, starting right now…
Do I pretend to adequately understand the relationship of barnacles and rocks, or the existence and nature of barnacles at all?
No, I do not.
There’s a bakery in the town of Edison (population 133 in the 2010 census) that would be a smash anywhere at all on this ultimately tiny planet of ours. Across from it, one espies this intriguing and locally illustrated sentiment on the wall of an arts and crafts collective. To which I would add only this corollary: “If you are not slack-jawed and amazed (and yes, sometimes enraged), you are not paying attention.”
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Twitter: @AndrewHidas
Deep appreciation to photographer Elizabeth Haslam, whose photos grace the rotating banner at the top of this page. Some rights reserved under Creative Commons licensing, see more at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhaslam/
All other photos by Andrew Hidas, some rights reserved under Creative Commons licensing, see more at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/93289242@N07/
If you’re wondering about the absence of any bird shots from this generally bird-laden land, I refer you to the description of my camera in the opening comments. Saw many wonderful egrets doing their slow Tai Chi dance while waiting for their prey to float by, but none of them close enough to show for my camera. But all is not lost: for thousands of photos of northwest bird life shot by a proper photographer, see a fellow blogger’s remarkable cache at http://www.lorenwebster.net/In_a_Dark_Time/
Great photos Andrew! I share your thoughts about barnacles… they are creepy to look at, and painful to step on. Love the clouds, one of my favorite photo subjects.
Wonderful pictures Mr Hidas – having grown up in Seattle and spent many hours wandering around these domains it was delightfully nostalgic to look at your pics, musings on barnacles and such… thanks for the post mate!
Looks like you had a good time.
Well Karen & Kevin, the post was not about barnacles, but I sure was tempted, given a few nuggets I uncovered about what I hadn’t even known was a living, somewhat breathing organism. As in:
“A barnacle’s testes are towards the back of the head, often extending into the thorax…To facilitate genetic transfer between isolated individuals, barnacles have extraordinarily long penises. They probably have the largest penis-to-body-size ratio of the animal kingdom…Barnacles have no true heart, although a sinus close to the oesophagus performs a similar function, with blood being pumped through it by a series of muscles.”
So: testes toward the back of the head, extraordinarily long penises and no true heart…
No, I will not entertain any sardonic comments about this paralleling the basic human male! Nor do any of us long to come back on the karmic wheel as a barnacle, I’m pretty sure. (Though I haven’t checked this out specifically with any of my mates…)
Where are the people?
But Joan, I’ve always sent landscape postcards! :-) Fortunately, landscapes appear to rule the northwest—rocks, barnacles, bays, waves, trees and mountains as far and wide as the eye could see!
I agree with Joan, where are the people? We want to see you lying by the boats or sitting next to the yellow flowers or waking carefully over the barnacles! But, I loved the photos, felt like a part of me got to go to Puget sound.