Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
Our spring and summer hiking went in spurts, then we did several during a week-long road trip. We even made it to Idaho for the last hike.
Melody’s sister Celeste was in town for about a week, and we took the opportunity to do a bit of travel. It was a whirlwind week, and we got a lot done. We started with a couple of nights in Packwood, WA so we could hike in Mt. Rainier National Park, then went to Yakima to visit Melody and Celeste’s mom, then to Spokane to visit their uncle.
My mom’s memorial service was this weekend. I have another page which contains parts of the service (a life history, a slideshow, my memories of my mom through letters, me playing her favorite piano piece, and images of the program), but I’ve included the slide show below. While I have a lot memories I could write about, there are certainly too many for here; I think the ones I shared during the service cover a good cross-section.
Our last full day in Toronto was quiet, with me catching up on things and Melody going to her last conference day. Our travel day back to Seattle was pretty non-eventful, too.
I ventured further away from our room than on previous days to look at bluffs on the lakeshore. Melody didn't have any extracurricular activities at her conference this day, but she did join people for dinner.
Another split day. Melody went to her conference and went on an art walk near the University of Toronto, while I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario. It was still hot.
Another full conference day for Melody, and I went to a castle. We both avoided the rain but not the heat.
Melody's first conference day, so I walked around a bit. Since she didn't have anything in the afternoon, we went down to the Financial District to do a walking tour.
This was the first of our "split" days, where Melody and I do different things. At least for part of the day. I went to a Blue Jays game while Melody walked around a bit and had dinner with some people at the conference.
We often try to do a day trip when traveling, and that’s what we did this day. The last time I was at Niagara Falls was almost 50 years ago, and Melody had never been, so we figured it would be a good thing to do. We were prepared for crowds (a weekend day during the peak summer season) and were able to get plenty of time looking at the falls from two countries.
Our first full day in Toronto included going through the Royal Ontario Museum and doing a walking tour of Chinatown and Kensington Market.
Melody wanted to go to a week-long book group event in Toronto, so I tagged along so we could make a vacation of it. The last time we were there was almost a quarter century ago, so it seemed like an opportunity to revisit the city.
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.
