April Seattle Trip

A week or so ago, I ventured up to the Pacific Northwest to visit my friends, Tim and Melody, in the Seattle area.  Just posting a few pictures of the highlights of my trip.

First stop after landing was downtown Seattle to Pike's Place market to purchase some essentials:  handmade pasta, lemon infused olive oil, beeswax lotion bars from Moon Valley Organics, and handmade soaps from the Olympic Peninsula lavender farms. A beautiful warm, sunny day in the PNW.

 The fish sellers in Pike's Market are a big attraction. 

Final destination of the day -- Elliot's on the bay -- for the best raw oysters ever and the a little kettle of New Zealand mussels.  Absolute heaven.  Oh, yes, Mel and I imbibed on mango mojitos.  One is enough! 

 Kubota Gardens in the south of Seattle.  What?  Another sunny warm day.  What gives?

 The trio posing for a picture.

So many of the trees and flowers were in bloom -- but the Rhodies weren't quite ready.

Mel and I spent a few days in Bellingham, just below the Canadian border.  We took a nice walk at Larrabee state park, right in Bellingham on the Sound.  A view out towards the San Juan Islands.

A view from the trail.  You can barely see them, but there are some secluded houses out on that point.  What a beautiful place to live, although you probably have to enjoy drizzly overcast weather.

And right in the heart of Bellingham is an amazing park at Whatcom Falls.  This is a rain forest in the middle of town.  This is the bridge over the river.

Moss covers everything.  So different than dry deserty Southern California.

A very bad picture of Whatcom Falls -- from the bridge.  The glare off the water was too bright.

And into the forest we go.  

On the trip back to Seattle, we made a detour off the I-5 to enjoy the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.   Many, many fields of tulips.  We went to Tulip Town, one of the farms.

The weather was drizzling, freezing cold, windy.  We donned rainboots to slog around in the slippery mud.  Thank you, Mel, for thinking ahead.  We would have ruined our shoes.

The colors of the fields were spectacular, even in the gloomy weather.

Bye, bye PNW.  And here I am back into my almost daily routine of walking on the San Clemente beach trail.  What a contrast in climate and environs.  No moss growing here.

While in Seattle, I managed to do a good amount of knitting and crocheting.  I also helped Mel finish her first pair of socks (started on my last trip there) and taught her how to do entrelac patterning.   A little treasure bag I started on the airplane.

A scarf using my handspun baby camel/merino/silk in a "Fleuret" pattern from one of the Barbara Walker books.

And a crocheted triangle shawl, using my handspun yarn.  I ran out of yarn so I will have to spin more to complete this project.