Patty in Seattle

 

Olympic Sculpture Park

Patty at the Olympic Sculpture Park

Olympic Sculpture Park

Steve’s mother Patty came to stay with us for 10 days (9/4 to 9/14/) from Bay City Michigan.  Steve assigned Jordan 3 days to act as tour guide.  On the first of those days, Patty & Jordan took light rail to Pioneer Square.  They looked at the newly renovated King Street Station, toured the Klondike Gold Rush Museum & the Waterfall Garden, had lunch at the Grand Central Bakery in the Grand Central Hotel & rode in an antiquated elevator to the observation deck on the 42nd floor of the Smith Tower.  All of these structures were built 100 or more years ago.  Then they walked to the Pike Place Market & on up the waterfront to the Olympic Structure Park.  They were out for 5 hours & covered 3 miles.

Patty, Steve & Jordan drove to Lynnwood, a suburb of Seattle, to have dinner at the home of Steve’s friends Gary & Kevin.  Meat loaf, green salad with apples, dried cranberries & green beans were served. Kevin was on the paleo diet, so there was no starch.  We brought bread, which wasn’t served until Steve made Gary fetch it from the kitchen.

Seattle Japanese Garden
 

Patty at the Seattle Japanese Garden

Seattle Japanese Garden

Patty & Jordan went to Bradner Gardens Park where Jordan had a plot in the community garden. Patty wandered around while Jordan watered.  Then they walked down to Lake Washington through Colman Park, very nearby.  They had lunch at the Hi Spot in Madrona & walked around the small business district there.  Next they went to the Washington Park Arboretum & walked through the Japanese Garden & the Pacific Connections Garden at the Washington Park Arboretum.

Pacific Connections Garden at the Washington Park Arboretum

Patty & Jordan went to visit Jordan's parents Colleen & Seth in West Seattle.  On the way there, they toured the South Seattle College Arboretum & the Seattle Chinese Garden.  They took Colleen to Endolyne Joe’s for lunch, a restaurant near the Fauntleroy ferry dock.  Then Patty & Jordan drove to Schmitz Park Preserve where they walked through the ravine down to Alki Beach on Puget Sound.  They strolled along the promenade beside the beach.  It was high tide & breezy.  The waves slapped against the thin strip of beach.

South Seattle College Arboretum

South Seattle College Arboretum 

Seattle Chinese Garden

Steve took half a day off on Thursday.  He took Patty & Jordan to the state fair in Puyallup, a suburb of Tacoma.  Jordan got free tickets from Colleen, who got them from a woman in her building.  It was warm, but not hot.  We saw lots of cows & also a few goats, alpacas & llamas.  There were few displays of produce.  Mostly there were commercial displays of various products & businesses.  We did not look at those.  We didn’t stay long at the fair.  We had dinner at Matador, a Mexican restaurant in Tacoma.

Washington State Fair in Puyallup

Patty & Steve at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup

Washington State Fair in Puyallup

Steve had Friday off.  He took Patty & Jordan to the Triangle Recreation Camp, which is located in the Cascade Mountains, on the South Fork Stillaguamish River, in Snohomish County.  We were there less than 24 hours.  We walked around the campground, ate dinner, made a campfire & talked with Dean, who shares the campsite with Steve & Rusty.  Then they took Patty to a nearby B&B to spend the night.  She balked at sleeping in the tent when she heard the temperature had been 38 the night before.  It was cold that night. We picked her up in the morning & brought her back to the campground.  Jordan collected moss & mossy logs for our garden.  Steve & Patty gathered up camp gear to bring home.

Rusty was away in St Louis, where his mother died on the last day of Patty's visit.

Here are more photos of Patty in Seattle.

Triangle Recreation Camp

Patty at the Triangle Recreation Camp 

British Columbia

We boarded the ferry from Anacortes WA at 3 on Thursday 8/7.  The boat threaded its way through the beautiful San Juan Islands, where the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets the Strait of Georgia, near the Province of British Columbia.  We arrived in Victoria, the capitol city of British Columbia on Vancouver Island, at 6.  We liked our hotel, the century old James Bay Inn, located near the Inner Harbour, Parliament & central Victoria.  We had dinner at a seafood restaurant, then walked around the historic district.  We toured the area again on Friday morning 8/8.

Anacortes

San Juan Islands

Parliament

The Empress Hotel

Victoria BC

We drove to Butchart Gardens, the principal tourist attraction on Vancouver Island.  It receives over 1 million visitors a years.  It was tacky.  The fact that it was a huge garden made it all the more difficult to bear.  It was very crowded with tourists.  And to top it off, it cost us more than $30 each.  It was mostly filled with annual bedding plants in the style that was popular in the early 20th century.  We had lunch there, then drove 3 hours north to Nanaimo.

 Butchart Gardens

The 1970s modern Coast Bastion Inn in Nanaimo was lovely.  We had a large room on the 8th floor with a stunning view of Nanaimo Harbour & the 2 islands that enclose it.  We ate an excellent dinner in the hotel dining room, then walked along the harbour & main shopping street.  We left early on Saturday morning 8/9 for the ferry from Departure Bay to Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver, on the mainland.  That trip was also beautiful.  Although the waters of the Strait of Georgia are mostly open at that point, the mountains of mainland British Columbia loomed in the distance.  In case you are unaware of the geography of the northwest Pacific coast, Vancouver Island is about the size of the State of Connecticut.

Click here for more pictures of Vancouver Island.  

Nanaimo Harbour

After arriving at Horseshoe Bay, we visited Capilano Provincial Park, where we walked across a suspension bridge 230 feet above the Capilano River, the main attraction.  That freaked Jordan out a little & Rusty a lot.  There were hundreds of people on the bridge & it was swaying under their weight.  We were told the bridge could support 90 elephants, which was reassuring on an intellectual, but not really a gut level.  Capilano is a bit of a natural amusement park.  There is also the Cliff Walk cantilevered from the side of the cliff & quite sturdy.  We all enjoyed that.  The 3rd attraction is the Treetops Adventure, a series of 7 narrow suspension bridges attached to 8 huge Douglas-fir trees, at up to 100 feet above the forest floor.  Rusty skipped that.  Only Steve was comfortable with the main suspension bridge.

Near Horseshoe Bay on the BC ferry

The Cliff Walk

The Comfort Inn was a nice hotel very centrally located on Nelson Street at the corner of Granville Street, in or very near Yaletown.  We had dinner with Jordan's friend Jack & his friend Larry that night.  We met them at the PumpJack Pub in Davie Village, then walked to a Malaysian restaurant on Denman Street.  The food was good & the conversation was pleasant.

Buildings near the Comfort Inn 

On Sunday morning 8/10 we walked down Hornby Street to the aquabus & crossed to Granville Island.  That was fun.  A large complex of shops & restaurants in old industrial buildings is located under the Granville Bridge on the island.  We had lunch there.  That afternoon, we went to the University of British Columbia.  Rusty & Steve went to Wreck Beach to lie naked in the sand.  Jordan went to the UBC Botanical Garden & then the Nitobe Memorial Garden, both on the campus nearby.  It was hot that afternoon.  We had an excellent dinner that night in Yaletown. 

Click here for more pictures of Vancouver BC.  

Nitobe Memorial Garden

UBC Botanical Garden

The Aquabus to Granville Island

The Roundhouse in Yaletown

On Monday 8/11 we went to the VanDusen Botanical Garden in another, more distant part of the city.  It was a nice garden.  But again the day was hot & sweaty.  We stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant along the way back.  We did some shopping in the South Granville Business District near the restaurant. Late that afternoon, Rusty & Steve went out walking while Jordan napped in the air conditioned hotel room.  We met up in Gastown, the oldest part of Vancouver, where we had dinner in a Lebanese restaurant, did more shopping & took a cab back to the hotel.

VanDusen Botanical Garden

Gastown

  

We drove back to Seattle in the morning of Tuesday 8/12.

New Neighbors

December 2013

December 2013

December 2013

February 2014

June 2014

The last building in our development was completed across the alley from us at the end of June 2014 & new neighbors moved in shortly thereafter.  This building of 3 townhouses is exactly the same as the one next to it, except that it is painted slightly differently: tan where the other is white & white where the other is tan.  Construction started soon after we moved into our building in November 2013.  The couple in the unit directly across from us had 2 large parties within the 1st few weeks.  The couple who live in the middle unit are American & Canadian.  The Canadian lives in Vancouver most of the year, but is here for the summer.

July Sunset

The sunset from our garden on the alley.

Our house in July 2014.

We saw this extravagant display through the dining room window while we were watching TV one night.  We all went outside to take pictures.  It was during the mid-July heat wave of 84 to 90 degrees for 7 days.  At that point, it was 6 degrees above the normal average temperature for the month of July.

June Garden

Delphinium nuttallii (Larkspur) in the native meadow.

Penstemon serrulatus in the native meadow.

Achillea millefolium (Yarrow) in the native meadow.

Stachys cooleyae  (Hedge Nettle) in the native meadow.

Hemerocallis 'Bela Lugosi' (Daylily) in the patio garden,

Erigeron speciosus (Showy Fleabane) & Erigeron glaucus (Beach Aster) next to the garage.

 The native forest garden.

The garden was even more impressive in June, than in May.  Sand strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis) & woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca) spread by runners to cover much of the bare ground.  Showy fleabane (Erigeron speciosus) & beach aster (Erigeron glaucus) bloomed abundantly in the native meadow, while the yarrow (Achillea millefolium) & hedge nettle (Stachys cooleyae) grew tall.  It was constant amazement & delight.  Jordan began regular weekly watering.  He set up soaker hoses in some locations & used sprinklers in others.  Rusty & Steve brought rocks & moss-covered branches & logs back from the campground.  We sat out on the patio in the evenings watching the planes descend over Beacon Hill toward SeaTac International Airport.

Seattle Pride 2014

Capitol Hill Pride Festival

Capitol Hill Pride Festival

Rusty at Samurai Noodle on Broadway

Steve on Broadway

Rainbow flag atop the Space Needle

PrideFest at the Seattle Center

 Rusty & Steve at the Seattle Center

 

PrideFest at the Seattle Center

PrideFest at the Seattle Center

PrideFest at the Seattle Center

PrideFest at the Seattle Center

PrideFest at the Seattle Center

PrideFest at the Seattle Center

Click here for more photos of Seattle Pride 2014.

The last weekend in June was Gay Pride weekend, the 40th Gay Pride celebration in Seattle.  We went to the Trans Pride Festival on Friday night at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill.  On Saturday, we went to the Capitol Hill Pride Festival on Broadway, which was closed from E John Street to E Roy Street & filled with booths & people.  It was mostly a commercial event for the businesses there.  On Sunday, we went to the PrideFest at the Seattle Center.  We caught the tail end of the Gay Pride Parade on 4th Avenue at Seattle Center.  There was a huge crowd.  The booths were mostly groups related to the LGBTQ community, plus food vendors.  There were several stages with music.  It was a very festive atmosphere with people dressed in rainbow colors & some completely nude.