Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
I was in Southern California last month for my cousin Charlie's memorial service, who passed away in April. He was married to Sherry (the oldest of us first cousins), and next year would have been their 60th wedding anniversary. They have three children (and spouses) and eight grandchildren (with three spouses).
It’s that time of year for me to record a piano piece for my mom’s birthday. This one is a Chopin Etude, Op. 28, No. 9 in E.
This installment covers hikes from the past several months. We were in Arizona for a week in November and did a couple of hikes in Saguaro National Forest. In late January/early February, we went on a short road trip to the Leavenworth area and did some snowshoeing. The last couple of snowshoe hikes were in the Seattle area.
Melody signed up for a literary translation conference in Tucson, so I tagged along. We went a few days early so she could also play tourist for at least part of the time. Melody hadn't been to Tucson before, while it's been about 40 years since I was last in the city.
Autumn marks the end of the hiking season in the Pacific Northwest. We ended getting only a handful of hikes over the past several months, but Melody did hike several times with a weekly group.
Most of our hikes in May were during our trip through the Columbia River Gorge, but we did sneak a hike early in the month to Wallace Falls. We intended for that early hike to get us used to elevation gain (knowing we would have 2,500+ ft gain hikes), but it also ended up being very long. And the last hike was snuck in before several busy upcoming weeks.
Ask almost any person who doesn't live in Seattle about our weather and you're almost always going to hear the word “rain”. In reality, we don't get a lot of heavy rain but have many days where there's at least some. This past week, however, was very different, as we had a historic heatwave.
Spring is a good time to go looking for wildflowers, so we did that in the Columbia River Gorge. We did a bunch of hiking and a little bit of playing tourist. The weather was mixed, but the worst we had was a little rain, a little hail, and big winds. Yes, we did see lots of wildflowers, as well as a lot of views of the Columbia River.
After a couple more outings on snowshoes (one at Blewett Pass and one at Stevens Pass), we went up north towards Bellingham for the first hike of the season.
This year’s recording for my mom’s birthday is the first movement, Modéré, of Ravel’s Sonatine in f# minor.
We were able to fit in one more hike in November 2020, then switched to snowshoeing starting in January. In addition to a couple of outings in the Snoqualmie Pass area, we also spent a couple of nights in the Lake Wenatchee area and got in some great snowshoe hikes there.
A new year always means a presentation by the Seattle Times, celebrating their Pictures of the year and Videos of the year. Predictably, this year's event wasn’t held in person, so instead of arriving extra early to make sure we get a good seat, we settled down on the couch to watch the show. The video is available online.
We did a lot of hiking in September and October, with all but Snow Lake on a trip we took to the Mt. Baker area and Leavenworth. I only tracked the larger hikes, which is why there isn't distance/gain data or graphs for the short ones.
We took a few hikes in July and August, with a couple along Highway 2 and another near Mt. Rainier. They were each more challenging than the first two hikes of the season.
We managed to fit a couple of hikes in late May and June. We normally go on a few hikes during the season, but are doing more since we didn't do our usual longer vacation. Some of the hikes are ones that Melody has done with her mid-week hiking group (which is not active this summer).
Once I saw that Comet NEOWISE was going to not only be visible but also somewhat bright, I figured it would be worth a look. And after seeing people’s photos, I knew I would try to find it. It took a couple of tries, but I finally saw it.
It’s my mom’s birthday again, so here’s another stab at recording my piano playing.
When the Seattle Times does its Pictures of the Year event, it's a must-see for us, and this year’s event a couple weeks ago was no exception. This year's presenters were Steve Ringman, Ramon Dompor, and Dean Rutz.
One night last month, Melody’s mom left a message. We found that she had done the same with Melody’s brother and sister, but no one was able to reach her. Melody finally connected and found out that Jean’s husband Ron had leukemia and didn’t have long to live. He passed away not long after, with all of his kids around him.
For our last full day in Berlin, we took it easy with a short walking tour near where we were staying. After spending time in a bookstore, we went to an organ concert in the French Cathedral.
