Vashon Island retreat

Deb, Sandi, Sally, Jann (standing), and Linda at Lavender Hill

And me behind the camera! I brought along my tripod, but it was buried deep inside the trunk of Linda's car. The adventure began BEFORE this picture was taken of brand-new "skin" friends. Deb and Sandi drove north from southern Washington in Sandi's car, and Jann and I met at Linda's to drive to SeaTac and pick up Sally, who flew in from Colorado. The four of us set out for the Vashon Island Ferry. We promptly got lost, even though we had a GPS and two iPhones with maps. Getting to that ferry was an adventure in itself! We missed the ferry we thought we would be taking over to the island and, thanks to cellphones, we discovered that the other two got lost, too! They even ended up taking a different ferry that stopped at Fauntleroy ferry dock before going on to Vashon Island. By late afternoon, we all successfully ended up together.

And this farmhouse! It is the most beautiful place I could ever imagine. The late afternoon light is coming through the covered porch and lighting up the fall colors of the trees. You will be seeing more pictures of this wonderful place, but this morning we are waking up, taking showers, and getting ready to go out for breakfast. Back to yesterday: we still had the task of preparing dinner. Sandi brought the food, and three of us were happy to chop and stir, while the other three (one was me) sat and watched with admiration as the dinner took shape.

I went outside and caught this picture of our dinner coming together in this magnificent kitchen. Everything we could ask for, plus more! As we got everything together and sat at the dining room table to enjoy a fantastic dinner with each other, there was never a lull in the conversation. There was not one moment of thinking we were with "strangers." Thank you, Blogosphere! This is better than I could ever have imagined, and we have two more days!

Oh, and did I mention that we have a fantastic view of Mt. Rainier from the living room? We are blessed with perfect weather (if a bit on the chilly side), and lots and lots of adventures to come. Before I post this, I'm going to get some feedback from the others, and then YOU can join us!
:-)

Ptarmigan Ridge

Today ten Senior Trailblazers drove in three separate cars to Artist Point to begin our trip to Ptarmigan Ridge. In the picture above, you can see that we had magnificent views of Mt. Shukan today, as well as abundant sunshine on this hike that offers no shade whatsoever for the entire time we were out on the ridge. In the picture above, we had already hiked more than three miles and were just about to begin to follow the ridge to Camp Kiser, five miles from the parking lot and right to the base of Mt. Baker. I knew at the outset that I wouldn't be making the entire trip, since a few of us needed to get back earlier. We decided that three of us we would turn around after lunch at 1:00pm and head back to our car, while the others would go on.

The views were spectacular, and the fall colors blended with the skyline and snowfields left over from last spring. We were surprised to find this trail as free of snow as it was, but we still had to cross several snowfields that were hard as concrete. Last night must have been a really hard freeze up here, because our hiking poles didn't even make a dent in them. Some were pretty scary, but we knew that when we returned the sun would have softened them a bit.

As we followed Al up this snowfield, I thought it looked like we would be walking off the edge of the earth. But of course we didn't, and as we rounded this corner, we saw the final destination of our hike today. That's Ptarmigan Pinnacle on the right and Mt. Baker on the left. If you look carefully at the picture, you can see the faint trail that would take my fellow hikers to their destination.

We made it to a grove of trees that sheltered us from the cold wind and had a brief lunch, before Norm, Liz, and I turned around to head back. The other seven went the other way, and as we made our way back we met dozens of people heading up. It was such a beautiful day that I'm sure there were plenty of people with indoor jobs that simply blew them off and headed up to the High Country. The other seven ended up hiking more than ten miles round trip, but the three of us went somewhere around nine miles. I found this description of the entire hike here.

Just a few minutes before the three of us reached the parking lot, I looked back to take a last look (for today) at Mt. Baker shining in the distance, with the fall colors and our trail on the right. It was a simply wonderful day in the wilderness with my friends, and there was just one other great experience that I had to share: on the drive up to Artist Point, the three of us in Norm's car saw a mountain lion cross the road in front of us! It was huge, obviously a male, a magnificent cat that covered half the road before disappearing in the trees. We could not believe what we had just seen, but each of us agreed that it was a big cougar no more than a few car-lengths away from us. What a treat! And with that last thought, I leave you as I go to pack for tomorrow's adventure to Vashon Island!
:-)

Feeling better today

October roses

Well, I feel almost back to normal today. I went outside looking for something to take a picture of to decorate my blog post, and I saw that there are still some lovely roses blooming in our apartment yard. These are so pretty that it almost makes up for the fact that our daylight is diminishing by more than three minutes per day, every day, as we move inexorably toward the winter solstice.

I spent a pretty uncomfortable Saturday and Sunday, but when I woke yesterday I felt good enough to get back into my routine, but I still didn't feel quite up to snuff. Today, however, I woke feeling much better, so this afternoon my friend Judy and I will go out to see a movie and maybe even have dinner together. I'm pretty sure it was a simple cold, since I never had a fever, but I sure felt awful for awhile. It didn't seem possible to me that I could be so much better so quickly.

At the grocery store today, I mentioned at the checkout stand that I spent the weekend in bed with a cold, and the checker told me she had the same cold: sick for two nights and then waking up feeling pretty good. So it's going around, welcoming us to the fall season. I hope I've been able to keep anybody else from getting it from me.

Sunday night the phone rang about 8:30pm (I was already asleep), and it was Linny telling me what a GREAT time they had at the Drop Zone, making five excellent skydives together, and everything worked so well! She said everybody wondered where I was, and she told them I was sick. Hmmpff! If there had been any way at all I could have joined them, I would have. The least they could have done is not had such a great time without me! (not really)

Our weather has been spectacular for two months now, no rain and lots of sunshine. In fact, we have just had two record-setting dry months here in Bellingham, according to this article in the Bellingham Herald. And next weekend I am heading off to Vashon Island to have an exciting retreat with five other bloggers. I'm really looking forward to it, and of course you will know all about it, too. We're going to be staying at the Lavender Hill Farm on the island. (The link will take you to a photo gallery of this fantastic farmhouse that we're renting for the weekend.) The weather should continue to be good throughout. I've already started to pack. Six women bloggers who don't know each other: this sounds like a formula for a great adventure to me!
:-)

Early fall day

I woke this morning to clouds and sun. This view from my new front porch shows Mt. Baker obscured by clouds, but a lovely sky. I also, unfortunately, woke to the realization that I'm coming down with a cold. Sore throat and lots of sneezing. This means I probably will not be able to go skydiving tomorrow. Blocked sinuses are not compatible with going up to altitude in an unpressurized airplane. I know: back in the days when I couldn't stay away, I tried. Not a fun experience, plus I could damage my hearing. So I'm probably not going.

I went to the Farmers' Market to check out the produce and pick up a few things. I was impressed with all the lovely colors of these winter squash, and I asked my favorite farmer if it is appropriate for me to leave the delicata squash in my garden after the leaves have wilted. She told me yes, but be sure and harvest them before the first frost, or they won't keep well.

As I was leaving her booth, a man walked up to me and asked if I am "DJan-ity." I smiled and acknowledged that is me, all right. He said he never misses my blog and wondered how he might join our hiking group. I told him that he needs to join the Senior Center and meet us before 8:00am on Thursday. "Yikes! That early?" he said, so he may or may not join us. It is curious to realize that people I have never met feel like they know me because of my blog. It's not an unpleasant feeling for me, but it makes me realize that I need to be sensitive to what I write about others; privacy needs to be honored. I knew that already, but a reminder is always welcome.

My new next-door neighbor (who will remain anonymous) has these lovely geraniums on her front porch. They were vibrating from the rays of the sun and I couldn't resist a picture. Every time the early morning sun catches them, they light up the entire area. Aren't they pretty?

I have taken some cold medicine and am now ready to nestle into my easy chair and read a book. My short excursion out of the apartment was enough to make me realize that I need to rest today, wrap myself up in a nice blankie and hunker down.
:-)

Yellow Aster Butte 2012

Today twelve Senior Trailblazers headed up to Yellow Aster Butte, one of our favorite hikes of the season. This hike starts at a pretty high elevation and gains around 2,500 feet in about four miles of climbing. We get spectacular views of Mt. Baker (such as the one above) and the surrounding mountains as we ascend. Today it was another blue sky day with haze caused by the forest fires still burning in the east. As the day wore on, our view of the mountains became more and more obscured, but the picture above was taken fairly early.

It is late enough in the season that the fireweed plant has created cotton instead of pretty purple flowers. You can even see it rising in the breeze. As we headed up toward the summit of Yellow Aster Butte, several of us discussed the possibility of making a loop rather than returning down the same trail. Of course, this would mean that someone would need to get the cars from one trailhead to the other. This next picture shows the loop:

All twelve of us navigated the green section of the map. Once we got to the end of the green, some decided to stay and have lunch, and others hiked to the Yellow Aster summit (I went along with them). The higher we climbed, the more breeze we encountered, and because of the months of dryness that we've had, there was quite a lot of fine dust in our faces, as well as in our lunch.

I followed these hikers as we made our way to the summit. You can see the fall colors and the dryness around us. But even so, it was a beautiful hike, a very special kind of day when we could all follow the trail towards which we were drawn. I caught the picture below near the summit; the person in the left is someone who believed she was all alone in the vast expanse around her.

I love the beauty of these mountains; every time I come up here I am reminded again of the grandeur of this environment. We headed back down to consider our options. We gathered in this place, a light breeze in our faces and Mt. Baker and the surrounding mountains beginning to be obscured in the haze from the forest fires.

This is the last time all day that we were all together. Five of our hikers decided to follow the trail marked on the map in red, called the "Keep Cool Trail," to the road. We decided that we would drive two cars to meet where they would come out on the trail, and the other driver piled five people in his car to head back down to Bellingham earlier than the rest of us. I drove one car, and Ross drove the other, and we met our cohorts a few miles down the road. Here's three of them as they emerged from the trail.

As it turned out, we only had to wait twenty minutes or so for them to appear from this trail. Everyone was extremely happy with the way the day had turned out. Nobody had to wait long for us to get back together, and by early evening I had arrived home and am now writing this post so that everyone who reads it can be envious of the wonderful day we had! We hiked somewhere around eight to eight-and-a-half miles and covered 2,500 feet of elevation, at least, in full sun at the end of September! Now I can take a shower and watch the dust go down the drain.
:-)

What makes a skydive special?

Dave, Tyson, Kevin (back), Linny, Christy, me (front)

Sometimes on one of my skydiving posts, I am occasionally asked what might make a skydive a special one, when you've got more than 4,000 of them under your belt. Yesterday I had one that I won't forget any time soon. Christy made her 1,000th skydive on our fourth jump of the day. Tyson is the Drop Zone Owner (DZO) and arranged for us to have a video of it, which usually doesn't help us out much. (It seems every time a videographer joins us, the skydive doesn't usually go as planned, but this time it worked out very well.)

Walking through the skydive

Once we knew the number of people who would be on the skydive, we decided to do what Linny has dubbed "the six-way slide-by." It's almost like a do-si-do dance, but in the air instead of on the ground. We practice the skydive so we will know where we are supposed to be at every moment in relation to the others. The anticipation was high for this one, as there's only one time that you get to make your one-thousandth skydive. On board the airplane we worked out the final details so that everything would hopefully go as planned.

Snagged from Jason Richert's SkyDrive

Jason, our videographer, took lots of pictures and a video, which are all available to be viewed from the link under the picture. You need a hotmail account to see the video, which I don't have, but it's easy to sign up. We completed the entire skydive and started to repeat it again when we ran out of time. We had about a minute of freefall time to play in the air, and then we separated and opened our parachutes. There was a lot of whooping and hollering under canopy, as we were all so happy to have been together on this wonderful jump.

As it was getting late, I watched the video with the others and hurried to pack everything away in my car to begin the long drive home. Everybody else stayed and made at least one more jump and possibly two more, before sunset. I felt very fulfilled and smiled all the way home. This morning when I woke, I remembered the skydive and smiled some more.
:-)

First day of fall

Grey skies, muted colors at Lake Padden this morning. It's the first day of fall, and I took this picture right at the equinox, 7:49am as I waited for the other walkers to appear for our 8:00am meeting time. Around twenty of us walked twice around the lake, a total of 5.2 miles. I'm glad to have the cooler weather, but I'm still hoping that the "partly cloudy" forecast for tomorrow will allow me to get a few skydives in.

This morning was the first time I've joined the walking group in a couple of months, since my Saturdays have been filled with blue skies and week after week of being able to spend money at Skydive Snohomish. I just looked at the Harvey Field webcam and see that it's raining at the moment with skies that look similar to those around here. Although only 75 miles separate Bellingham from Snohomish, the weather can be completely different.

As I unlocked my car before leaving Lake Padden, I saw these pretty red berries (not sure of the plant), but they also make me think of the changing season from summer to autumn. Although I'm sure we have plenty of blue sky days ahead of us, today (so far) and yesterday we have not seen the sun or even had any sun breaks.

This afternoon I'm going to visit my Russian friends who have promised me they will have borscht made especially for me (vegetarian). I'm looking forward to it. Now that I have written today's post, I think I'll delve back into the book that is consuming me. It's Isabel Wilkerson's book about the Great Migration of blacks from the South to the North and West of the country. She follows the lives of three people, and although it's not a novel, it reads like one. The book is called The Warmth of Other Suns and I'm truly engrossed.
:-)