Letterboxing and Sunset

 Annika and I went  letterboxing in Boulevard Park, when I was in Bellingham on Wed.  The first one we looked for seemed to be missing, but it was in a high traffic area, so it's not to surprising.  We followed the clues to the second hidden box and Annika spotted it right away.  It was quite a walk to get to where the next box was hidden, but again we found it right away.  The last box, hidden in the area, was down a steep bank down by the water, and since it was getting late and I didn't want to go down the bank, we skipped it, but had fun finding the other ones.

 Later on my way home, I got off the freeway and took this picture of the foggy field and the sun setting.  I took this one a little north of Mt. Vernon and by the time I got to my exit...

...I saw this scene.

Bike Ride and Fish

Friday afternoon, we picked up Saben and Annika after school and brought them to our house for the weekend.  We brought their bikes with us, so after we got to our house, we headed out for a bike ride on the Centennial Trail.  I took the picture above while riding my bike behind them.  I was surprised at how well it turned out!

We rode 1 1/2 miles to this bridge where we thought we'd see salmon spawning in the river.

I stayed on the bridge while the others hiked down to the river.

This is the view from the bridge.  It was pretty there, but there weren't any salmon in the river, although they did see one dead one on the bank.

This is a view of the trail just past the bridge.

Another view of the river looking the other way.

After we got back to the car, we drove down the river a mile or so and found a spot where a lot of salmon were spawning, along with more dead ones.  I call this picture "Dead Fish and Dead Leaves; It's Fall and It's Smelly".

You can see some of the fish were still alive and swimming in the river.  I was surprised to see so many here and none at the other spot!

Pictures taken by the river.

Fall Colors Rafting Trip

 Groupon had an offer for a 2 person fall rafting trip a couple of months ago, so we bought one, made a reservation for a Saturday, and hoped it would be good weather on the weekend we chose.  As it turned out, the Saturday we chose, which was yesterday, was a rainy day, the first one in months, of course.  Luckily, we had been watching the weather forecast, so I borrowed some water repellant gear from Kari and Ken bought some pants to wear with the jacket he already had.  While we were getting our life jackets, getting loaded onto the rafts and getting started down the river, it was raining pretty hard.  (We did consider backing out, but we weren't sure when we'd be able to go again, so we decided to go ahead and go.)

 Rafting down the river, with our guide manning the oars, behind us.

 You can't see the moss hanging from the tree very well in this picture, but I liked the colors of the leaves with the moss hanging in it.

 The rain did let up for awhile, so at least half of the trip was done without rain.  Luckily, the temperatures were pretty moderate, plus I had 4 layers of clothing on the top half of my body and 3 layers on the lower part, so I stayed pretty comfortable!  I actually didn't get cold until we were off the water and heading back to the car.  This is an area half way through the 3 1/2 hour trip, where we took a quick break to eat a snack supplied by the rafting company and to stretch our legs.

 An intrepid pair of rafters.

 We saw quite a few bald eagles on the trip, which we always enjoy seeing.  This is a picture of an eagle nest.

 Is he smiling or gritting his teeth?  Nice color beside the river.

 Further down the river, there was fog on the river.

 You almost couldn't see the raft ahead of us in the fog.

 Another tree dripping with moss.

 2 eagles in the top of this tree.

 A brief sun break, that made the yellow trees shine.

The cloud in the background seemed to catch up with us and we got a little more rain before the end of the trip.  We had a good time in spite of the weather, so we were glad we went ahead and did the trip, although it did take us the rest of the day to really get warmed up again.

Some Scenery Pictures From Jetty Island

I liked this picture of the castle we made with the low tide flats behind it.
Rose hips from a wild rose on Jetty Island.

Driftwood, grasses and yellow flowers.