Sunshine and Wildflowers

I'm getting ready to travel again. Mail and paper and gym membership are on hold, sattelite TV suspended until November, suitcase packed, bike loaded on the car. Tomorrow morning Nancy, Gerry and I will drive to Spokane to spend several days bicycling and exploring. The idea was to go where the sunshine is, but now it seems a bit of a shame to leave here as we are supposed to hit.....really........ 70! this week!

We'll drive home next Sunday. The following weekend I will spend on Camano Island with Leslie and Dave, and the very next weekend I am off for Michigan. After a new radiator, new battery, new hoses, and tune-up, my old car is ready to be driven to its new home. I will leave it at my dad's house so I won't have to rent a car every time I'm there.

I've been out enjoying spring sunshine, which we've had an amazing amount of over the last month or so. Here are some pictures to prove it, all taken within a two hour drive (well, plus a ferry to Lopez) from my house. How lucky am I?

Fairy Slipper orchid, Watmough Head, Lopez Island

Iceberg Point, Lopez Island

Thrift, aka Sea Pink, Iceberg Point

Watmough Head, Lopez Island

Camas

Ebey's  Bluff, Whidbey Island
Truly one of the most beautiful places on earth, 35 miles from my house. How lucky am I?

Ebey's Prairie, Whidbey Island, with ferry in the distance

Broomrape on Goose Rock, Deception Pass State Park

Indian Paintbrush on Goose Rock

Eagle feeding on a carcass (deer?) at Parego Lagoon

 This eagle just ignored me while I sat on a log and watched from maybe 30 feet away. I thought of going closer, but it seems to me that if he or she did not like that, I would be fairly defenseless against those talons....

From the top of Watmough Head, aka Chadwick Hill

Although I have been to Lopez Island quite a few times, I'd never even heard of Watmough or Chadwick before this trip. Now I must go back and spend much more time there. We had already spent a couple of hours hiking around Iceberg Point and Watmough was a bit of an afterthought. But as you can see, it's astoundingly beautiful. The view, yes, but the hike to it also, a fairyland of open woods,big moss-covered rocks, and wildflowers. I could've spent a whole day just there.