Chickadee Ranch

I actually took the Friday after Thanksgiving off this week, so I had a rare 4-day weekend.  The time off gave us an opportunity to enjoy all the work done on Old Mori Point Road.  The Park Service and many volunteers had just completed significant upgrades to this path and we had not yet visited.

It was a beautiful day for a walk; we parked in our usual spot, near the Moose Lodge and started on our way.  The path first takes you along the fences of the homes in West Sharp Park.  I always think this would be a cool place to live, the park is an extension of your back yard.

When you’re past the homes, you step into an open area, with Mori Point on the south side and the Pacifica Golf course on the north.  It’s still a work in progress, but I was impressed by what has been done.  The road is smooth and very assessible now.

The path had been regraded and a bridge was built over the wetland area to protect the rare California Red-Legged Frog and the beautiful San Francisco Garter Snake that live in the area.   The little flags mark new native plants, an information sign provides details about the progess.

The bridge is build to last, the Park Service always does a good job.

A nice touch is the open grid work, I’m sure it’s for drainage, but it also allows you to peak under the bridge.

Stay on the path and you end up at the ocean.

Now from this point, you can turn to the south and climb the path to Mori Point (you see the Point on the left of the beach photo), but we had to get home, so I’ll take to you to Mori Point on another day.

I did catch my youngest trying to capture the light rays with his camera.

Time to go, there’s lots of cooking to do.

Myriam

OK, another reason we’re so lucky to live here, Half Moon Bay Nursery.   I wanted to get a gift certificate for a friend so while there I took some photos for you.  The boys came along, they appreciate the nursery too.

Half Moon Bay Nursery is off Highway 92.

   Leave the dogs at home

  and enter from the parking lot;

you’ll be in the shade plant area.

From the shade plants you move outside to the shrubs.

The grounds are beautiful, a creek flows through the property, birds and frogs call from the trees and plants.  You can wander these aisles, finding any shrub or grass you’re looking for and once you’re done, you step into another series of greenhouses.

  In the center, the latest seasonal plants greet you.

To the right of the season plants, row after row of perennials await.

Completely on the other side, there are tables and tables of annuals.

From the annuals, you can enter another area where they keep the tropical plants.

   I was mightily tempted by this orchid, but I have a 100% record of killing them, so I refrained.

Of course, they sell more than plants.

Now everything is very interesting to me, but here is the boys’ favorite area.

How about some carnivorous plants?

Let’s get lost in a succulent,

or explore a cactus.

You could spend hours here and I have.  On this trip, I exercised supreme self-control and only purchased the gift certificate.  I’ll come back later for my winter plants.

Don’t pass it by if you’re in the area.  In fact, it’s worth a special trip if you have a bay area garden; hop in your car and make your way out there soon.

Myriam

In late August, on our anniversary in fact, the day looked perfect for a sunset. It was sunny, but not totally clear; all day long interesting clouds moved across the sky. So we did what any self-respecting Pacifican does in these circumstances – grab the camera and hit the beach.

  We went to Sharp Park and walked along the promenade in the area near the Pacifica Pier.

   The Pier reaches a quarter of a mile into the ocean.  It’s a great place to fish or crab, and during their biannual migrations, you can also watch whales pass through.  Now I have to admit, I’ve lived here for 15 years and I’ve never seen a whale off the beach, but as near as I can tell, everyone else has, or so they say.

We were with the sunset watchers, a group that on this day even included the mayor.  She was standing right next to us, her camera in her hand.  (Now, I don’t want to leave you the impression that running into the mayor is a big deal, it’s a small town and you see everyone, all the time.)

Those of us waiting for a good sunset were not let down.  The sun’s golden-orange glow filled the sky.  The strollers on the promenade, the people on the pier, everyone stopped and watched the sun sink behind the horizon.

As the sun reaches the horizon, it seems to speed up and the final moments happen so fast.

Until the sun finally slips out of sight, behind the western horizon.

But the final rays of light still filled the sky.  The orange, blue, yellow and purple was unbelievably beautiful.

A really perfect way to mark an anniversary.

Myriam

Halloween is a big deal in our neighborhood. First, some homeowners go all out with the decorations and haunted houses. Second, we live in a valley with only one way out, so it’s a safe place to drop the kids off. And last, but not least, it’s a generous neighborhood. 

We don’t go out of our way with the outdoor decorations, but we do have some old family decorations that we put up in the house every year.

  Little Demon

  Angry Bats

  Pumpkin Head Skeleton and Sad Ghost

  Granny and the Witch

We also carve our pumpkins, always including at least three types,

  Kitty Cat Pumpkin

  Standard and Scaredy Pumpkin

They invite you to the house,

where Joel does a terrifying character (Gutman from the Maltese Falcon this year) that many trick or treaters look forward to or completely avoid.

The weather forecast promised rain all week, but the day was clear and bright and continued into a perfect, not quite full moon, night.

The moon peeked through the dark trees

as my youngest and his friends went door to door,

  visiting neighbors

  and collecting goodies along with the hoards.

Until finally we came back home, bags full of candy.  Joel’s voice was going after a night of imitating Sydney Greenstreet.  We ran out of candy, so the candles in the pumpkins were extinguished, the gate was closed, friends went home and we retired for the night.

In Pacifica, the real horror of halloween arrives the next morning.  Open your front door, grab the paper and peek into the pumpkins -

Ewwwww, the banana slugs have arrived for pumpkin breakfast!

Myriam

Saturday August 15th was our last day in Seattle, our plane did not leave until the afternoon, so we had the morning through lunch to do a bit more exploring.  It was a pretty sunny day, so we packed and then took the hotel shuttle to Pike Place Market and walked to the Smith Tower.

  Our walk took us past the Washington Mutual Bank building.  As ruined shareholders, we stood for a few moments in front of the building contemplating this reminder of a bad investment.

One nice thing about Seattle is that art is everywhere.

  Hmmm, obviously I should have sold the Washington Mutual stock earlier and avoided the total melt down.

Even the manhole covers are beautiful.

We arrived at the Smith Tower before it opened, so we wandered a bit around the Pioneer Square area.  We found the Waterfall Garden which was built to honor the men and women of UPS.  This was the original site where UPS began.

After enjoying the cascading water, we traced our steps back to the Smith Tower.  While I liked the Central Library, I really a sucker for older buildings.  I love the classical symmetry and the intricate details and the Smith Tower did not disappoint.  When it opened on July 3rd, 1914, it was hailed as the tallest office building outside of New York City. 

I love the jucstaposition of the Smith Tower with the modern (ugly – just my opinion, yours may differ) black tower.  You can see the Smith Tower’s 35th floor open air observation deck in this picture. 

The deck wraps all around the building so you get a complete view of downtown and the water front

  Safeco Field, the Colman Ferry Terminal and Pioneer Square.

You get to the observation deck by taking the last manually operated elevators on the west coast.

When you get off the elevator, you enter the Chinese Room, so named because of the carved wood and porcelain ceiling and the elaborate furniture that were gifts from the Empress of China.

You could spend a lot of time just looking at the charming ceiling tiles.

The Smith Tower is well worth the visit.  We then walked around Pioneer Square.  Now some  consider this a sketchy part of town and there are homeless people in the streets and tucked away into alcoves, but it didn’t feel unsafe to us, we had no problems and were not accosted by anyone.  It’s an older part of town, with plenty of visual interest.

We stopped in a really good book store, Elliott Bay. 

We could have spent hours in this store, but Joel finally rounded us up and out.  We made out way back to Pike’s Place Market, being a weekend, it was considerably more crowded than the first time we visited.

Don’t even think of trying to park around here.

We worked our way through the crowds for a bit, but then realized that we needed to eat and get back to the hotel to be sure to get to our flight on time.  We had lunch at Cafe Campagne and I had one of the best quiches I have even had, incredible filling and crust.  After lunch, we walked back to the monorail and took it to the Seattle Center.  A couple more photos from the Seattle Center.

Vacation was over, time to go back to the Bay Area.  We loved Seattle and the Olympic National Park.  There is still so much we wanted to do, but that will have to wait for another Northwest vacation.

Myriam

The Fremont neighborhood of Seattle bills itself as the Center of the Universe and they have a marker to prove it.

This was our last full day in Seattle.  We began the day with breakfast at Silence-Heart-Nest.  This restaurant serves vegetarian food prepared and served by followers of the spiritual leader,  Sri Chinmoy.  It felt like being at home in San Francisco, another hotbed of Sri Chinmoy followers and restaurants.   After our tasty breakfast, we were ready to begin our walking tour. 

We started at the center of the center of universe.  The center of the universe needs an appropriate emblem and what could be better than a 1950 cold war rocket fuselage?

    The poor little building looks hardly able to support the 53′ rocket.  The Rocket bears the Fremont crest and un-official  motto, “De Libertas Quirkas” – “Freedom to be Peculiar.”  The bottom of the rocket shows some fine detail with cosmic cut-outs and colored glass. 

From there we walked down 36th Street

towards the Aurora Bridge, underneath the Aurora Bridge that is.  This bridge crosses the ship canal that connects the Sound with Lake Union.  Looking South towards Lake Union, you see some interesting architectural details:

Looking North, you see something much more interesting:

Of course, this can be no surprise, everyone knows that trolls live under bridges.  Obviously this one, in a fit of hunger, snatched a Volkswagen off the bridge.  Fortunately for future generations, he was not careful about watching for daylight, because he had no sooner claimed his prize, when he was turned to stone.  In case you’re wondering, that is a real, full-sized car.

After our visit with the troll, we walked on the Aurora Bridge.  From the bridge you get a bird’s eye view of Lake Union, and its ship and houseboats.

It was too high for Joel and he beat a hasty retreat.  We followed right behind him.

We made our way back towards Fremont place, and noticed a large statue; what could this be?

Why Lenin, of course.  It seems that a bronze sculpture of Vladimir Lenin, originally from Slovakia, has made it’s way to Fremont.  Some people don’t approve, but if you like it, it’s yours for a mere $250,000.

From Lenin, we went south toward the ship canal.  There is a path that follows the canal, and we spent some time watching the Fremont Bridge open to  allow a series of boats through.  This is one busy waterway, the Fremont Bridge raises 35 times a day and is supposedly one of the busiest drawbridges in the world.  Here it is in action.

Time to move on, we drove to Kerry Park in the Queen Anne District.  On a clear day Mount Rainer is visible behind the skyline, but not today. 

We had lunch at Ivar’s on Pier 54.  The fish and chips are suppose to be good, but honestly, it was not special.  The fish chowder was good and my oldest son had the lunch special, Alaskan Halibut with mushrooms, and that was excellent.  We enjoyed the view out the large windows.

All the running around for days was catching up with us,  We went back to the hotel for a rest.  After lolling a round for a couple of  hours, we decided on a resturant in Ballard for dinner.  So we went back to the Ballard Locks and this time, we spent more time in the gardens.

Besides the plants, there is a herd of Canada geese.  Watch your step!

The Gardens provide plenty of opportunity to practice your flower photography.

  We also visited the locks and the fish ladder again. 

We had dinner at Plaka Estiatorio, a Greek restaurant run by a charming family.  The food was very good and it was a very comfortable, inviting place. 

We drove back to the hotel and where did we end up?  Stuck in traffic; the busy Fremont Bridge was open, so we more more chance to take a picture as the ships passed. 

It seemed a very fitting  way to end the day.

Myriam

We spent the night in Port Angeles, a town that did not reveal any particular charms.   The town seems to be a portal to other places – Olympic National Park or Victoria.  We were there so we could get an early start on Hurricane Ridge.

Hurricane Ridge is a 17 mile drive to the high country of the Park.  It’s named after the 75 mile per hour winds that rip through the area during the winter.  Thirty to 35 feet of snow falls annually and lingers in the highest peaks through the summer.  Anyone who knows me knows that snow is not my friend, visiting in the summer to enjoy the vistas and wildflowers is much more my speed.

We stopped at just about every pull out to enjoy the views and flowers.

Indulge me as I share some tourist shots of the scenery.

At the top, we stopped at the visitor center.  At 5,242 feet, it’s almost exactly at the mile high point.  We checked out the visitor center and their telescopes and then hit the trail. 

Here’s a  sketch of the path we followed. 

It was not a long path, but it takes awhile.  First  there’s the super friendly animals; they are obviously on the park payroll, the friendliest wild animals you’ll ever meet.

A smiling rabbit, grazes right beside the path.

Then there was a deer that my youngest stalked; this was not too hard as she lead the way on the path for quite some time.

She let him get very close, and then with a wink went on her way.

Chipmunks scampered everywhere, they were not as easy to photograph, but my youngest is persistent.

But the one that blew us away was the blue grouse, or as it is now called, the sooty grouse.  This was a new life bird for our list and an adult female with her two chicks calmly meandered near the trail.

The adult is a large chicken-sized bird.

We were so close that even without a big telephoto lens, we were able to  capture the beautiful feather details.

In addition to the wildlife, the beautiful scenery invites you to linger.

Near the end of the trail, another sooty grouse did a toe dance on top of a pile of dirt creating by a ranger doing an archaeological dig.  I think birders can safely count on this area for sooty grouse. 

After the hike we went to the picnic area in search of the gray jay.  They were there doing their camp robber duty - checking out every picnic, looking for a snack.

Two new birds for my life list in one day, amazing!

We spent the morning and afternoon on Hurricane Ridge and then had to make our way back to catch the ferry to Seattle.  As we drove down the road, the clouds become thick and rain began to pour down.  It cleared as we neared the bottom.  We caught a late afternoon ferry and settled down for coffee and a snack.  In front of us, a man quietly played his banjo.

What a civilized way to travel. 

Myriam