Good-bye Washington; Montana, here we come – Post 31 of our August Seattle Trip

Here is the final catch-up flashback post from our August vacation to Seattle. On the last day of August, we bid a fond farewell to our West Seattle home for the month, and our excellent hosts, Amy and Ian. We plan to be back!

On the way home we decided to stop at Flathead Lake, Montana. It was a bit out of our way, but it was recommended by a friend of mine who is from Montana and goes up there every summer. It’s a huge lake, very clean and beautiful.

We arrived in the evening and after we got our camper van situated, we took a quick walk in the dark to see the water.

The next morning was beautiful.

The highlight of our short Flathead Lake side trip was when John rented a small sailboat for the afternoon. He wanted to see how Biska does on a sailboat, because we are thinking of taking her with us to Florida in February.

Turns out she does just fine!

We didn’t have a lot wind that day, but it was enough to sail a little bit.

It was fun being out on a sailboat again. It was a similar size as ours – a little one.

We stayed in a bay and didn’t go too far out in the lake.

It was mostly rural around the lake, but this huge mansion on an island gave us something to gawk at.

After awhile the wind picked up, which was useful at first, but with the wind came afternoon thunder clouds. I don’t like the prospect of lightning when I’m in a sailboat with the mast pointed into the sky, so we headed back.

And that’s the last of the posts from our excellent summer trip up north. I hope you enjoyed the series. We certainly enjoyed the trip.

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism

September Highlights

Now that Laura and Alex are on their way back home from Italy, let me catch you up with how John and I are doing.

As you remember, we spent August in Seattle, coming back in early September via Montana. Which, by the way, I never finished posting about and still have some great pictures. I don’t know if anyone is interested in seeing them after this much time has elapsed, but maybe I can still swing back and post those one of these days soon.

After getting back to Albuquerque we went out to Tucson to check on the remodel and have my CT scan done. The remodel was discouraging, but the scan was encouraging, so that’s good at least.

Then we went back to Albuquerque and enjoyed September, which is generally one of the best months in Albuquerque. Although there are mosquitos in Albuquerque this year – which is unusual. We must have brought them from Tucson! Here’s some September highlights:

Happy Birthday to my friend, Tara.

Tara and I celebrated her birthday with a trip to the botanical garden and the aquarium.

That weekend we went hiking with my friend Amy, who was visiting us from Tucson:

Meanwhile we’ve been monitoring our remodel from afar. Here’s pictures of floor tile that our contractor sent. It’s hard not to be there, but it’s also hard to be there. Ideally we’d have a rental in Tucson nearby, but that’s not our reality. At least we have somewhere to stay, even though it’s 7 hours away!

The next weekend we went to Globalquerque with my friend Anjie.

We try to go to Globalquerque every year (except pandemic). It is an excellent indoor and outdoor music festival featuring musicians from around the world.

Pictures don’t really do it justice. Being a music event, it’s more about being there than seeing it! We did take some videos but the sound quality is poor. You’ll just have to come to Albuquerque and see for yourself someday! It’s always about the last weekend in September or the weekend before the balloon fiesta starts.

Next up – the balloon fiesta!

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism – ASD

Countertop saga drags on

Remember how we were having countertop woes? Our fabricator-install guy said he put a “hold” on the countertop we wanted in Phoenix, but then he quit answering our phone calls. We waited anxiously for awhile, but when I noticed online that the countertop suddenly went on clearance, we called the slab yard. Turns out the “hold” was basically meaningless because the slabs hadn’t been paid for. Anybody could buy them at any point. Then what would we do?

We were still in Seattle, or maybe on our way to Montana, but wherever we were, it was nowhere near Phoenix. We debated – should one of us fly down to Phoenix to look at the countertop in person, or should we just buy it over the phone with a credit card?

We had managed to figure out we needed three slabs. Or at least I think we do – we are hoping that’s correct. We still don’t actually have a fabricator. We did not know how long it was going to take to find a fabricator. So should we hold off on buying anything and keep trying to find a new fabricator, or just buy it sight unseen from the internet pictures?

They don’t actually like selling slab sight unseen (for obvious reasons) and discouraged me when I had called from Seattle looking into the possibility. But I had looked at so many slabs for so many months that I felt like I knew what we wanted.

After all, we’ve bought houses sight unseen. If we can buy a house without looking at it first, we can definitely buy three slabs of quartzite. And the only time we’ve backed out of a contract was due to a serious issue that arose during inspections – such as the septic failure in Placitas in 2017.)

I knew the slab was good enough. We didn’t want “amazing”, we wanted something with a natural feel that would blend well with the burnt adobe brick, the terracotta floor tiles, and the cabinets we had already purchased.

I didn’t want someone else to buy it, particularly now that it was on clearance. I had looked at hundreds of slabs, some in person, many on the internet and I had not been able to find anything that we both liked that was the right colors to go with the other materials in the kitchen.

We weighed our options, pulled together our courage, and bought the slabs over the phone. And they let us do it! When John called he kind of implied, without actually saying it, that I had seen the slabs. “Yes, I’m calling to buy the slabs that my wife picked out…” Lol. They gave him the clearance price too.

About two weeks later, on our way back to Albuquerque after getting my CT scan done in Tucson, we stopped by Phoenix to see the slabs we had bought. They were actually very difficult to see in the noon glare. But they seemed fine. They were exactly what I was expecting except – in my mind I didn’t blow them up big enough.

We’re used to seeing small internet pictures of household sized items. But this was a small internet picture of something very, very large. In my mind I had blown the pattern up a few times – but these slabs are something like 10 feet long by over 6 feet wide. They are huge! I knew that intellectually, but it was still hard to picture. So the pattern was less condensed than I had imagined.

Here’s the internet photo; subtly beautiful I thought:

Here’s us trying to hold up our cabinet sample against a slab in the noon Phoenix glare. It’s all washed out and you can’t really see the color.

Here it is with our floor tile sample:

It was very squinty and hard to see.

Bottom line is we’re not really going to know what it looks like until after it’s installed. And then we’re going to have to like it! Or learn to like it. Because we are not going to be changing it!

It should be fine. It has a slight bluish-greenish tinge in places to tie in with the sage-gray cabinet, and rust streaks to tie in with the terracotta tile. And it’s a natural stone, so it looks and feels natural. And the pattern isn’t too crazy. I think it will be perfect.

Speaking of crazy patterns, John had to get his photo in front of this monstrosity.

In addition to being drastically ugly (the quartzite, not my husband), this slab is enormously expensive. Don’t worry, we didn’t spend even a fraction of that amount per slab on our quartzite.

I guess it’s beautiful in an artistic way, but can you imagine having to process that before you’ve had your coffee in the morning? It’s a bit of a visual assault. It would wake you up, that’s for sure. I’d be like, “Eh, mind already blown enough for the morning; I don’t think I need any coffee after all”.

Oh, and no, we’re not using that greenish octagon backsplash John’s holding. Or at least not in the kitchen. Maybe in the bathroom around the tub, but it’s not calm enough for the kitchen.

We’re keeping it simple! Or trying to at least.

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Our poor house

When we went to Tucson for my scan, we stayed in a rented Airbnb because we knew our house was too torn up to live in.

When we stopped by our house to take a look at how the remodel was progressing, it was hard to see it in such a state.

Yes, we did this by choice, but it’s still upsetting to see. If we had seen this house on the market and it looked this way we would never have bought it. And then we go and do this to our house ourselves!

Even our yard is trashed.

Remember there was a flood when our contractor was demolishing the old kitchen? Not only was it “not his fault”, he also didn’t do anything to try to save our stuff. Fragile items were just laying around and spilling out of half-opened, soggy boxes. All our cookbooks are ruined. A flokati rug was ruined. Everything was such a mess.

This was not how everything was packed. John and I are neat, careful packers. The wet boxes were just dragged and tossed around by our contractors.

We didn’t want any further damage done, so John got some more boxes and quickly repacked everything, regardless of condition. We’ll just have to sort it through later and replace what isn’t salvageable.

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Another Epic Hike – Post 26 of our August Seattle trip

After staying the night at a nearby campground, we were ready to get an early start on our big hike. Originally we were going to hike to Annette Lake, but that trail was closed. We quickly chose another local hike; Denny Creek trail to Melakwa Lake.

It started out beautifully.

Early on the trail took us under the freeway. It was one of the stranger starts to a wilderness trail, but it did not end up predicting the quality of the trail. We soon left the freeway behind.

I misunderstood something John said, or maybe I was remembering Annette Lake or another trail we had considered, but I had the gist of the trail wrong. In my mind, we would get a view of a beautiful lake about halfway up the trail. Therefore, I planned to hike halfway up. The total elevation gain was a 2,500 ft climb, and a round trip of 10 miles. (Or so I thought.) I figured half of that would be no problem.

We hiked and hiked and hiked and I kept thinking it was time to turn around, but I also kept thinking we had to be almost there. How hard can two and a half miles be?

This waterfall puzzled us. It looks like a shoot of water is going sideways out of the rock about halfway down.

What could possibly cause that? A pipe, out here in the middle of nowhere? Even so, it couldn’t possibly have enough pressure to make the water flow like that. We zoomed in. What the heck is that?

Finally after we walked a little farther, we were able to see from a different angle that the water was running along a ledge.

Mystery solved.

We kept walking. We walked and walked.

Finally we were at the pass, and I thought, ok, lake or no lake, I have to turn around. But a crew of young people repairing the trail assured me that we were only “5 minutes” from the lake. Maybe for them. But I am twice their age and it took about 20 more minutes.

We finally reached the Melakwa Lake, and yes, it was beautiful.

It turns out the lake is only halfway up the trail. But the entire trail is 12.5 miles long, not 5 miles long. And the entire trail (to the peak) has an elevation gain of nearly 5,000 feet! So our measly little “halfway” was still 5 miles in, for a round trip of 10 miles, and an elevation gain of 2,500 ft. No wonder I was so confused and exhausted. 10 miles with a 2,500 ft elevation gain is a lot for me nowadays. Especially when I was expecting half of that! Instead of halving the length of the trail, I had somehow managed to halve the half. So our route to the lake was twice as long as I expected. No wonder it was taking so long!

We didn’t stay long at the lake. It was clouding up and we were worried about my ability to get down off the mountain with my bad knee. And I was already quite tired. I got out my knee brace and walking stick and we started down. But even with a walking stick and a knee brace, I suffered. Trying to favor my knee going downhill turned out to be more work than the climb up.

On the way up the mountain, Biska walked with me, but going down John took Biska so she wouldn’t pull on me or destabilize me. We need to keep her leashed if there are any other people or dogs out hiking, because she is overly friendly. She wants to dash up to other people and dogs and jump all over them in joy, but not everyone appreciates that. She means well, but is really in-your-face. I am working on training her, but she is still behaving like a puppy.

I took this next picture of the path because I was very intrigued by the layer of ash. The gray streak you can see curving along the left side of the path is ash. The ash shows up all along this trail, particularly along edges of slopes where the top layer has filtered down off of the ash layer.

I wonder what the layer of ash was from? Could it have been from a relatively recent big forest fire? I couldn’t see any sign of a recent burn. Could it have been from the enormous Mt. St. Helen’s eruption in the 1980’s? That was a long time ago and fairly far from this mountain, but the volcano did spew ash across a large distance. We got ash all over where I lived in Oregon as a kid. Seems like so long ago.

John took tons of pictures of the back of me on the way down, probably because we were going so slowly that he was bored.

As is common in the afternoons in the mountains, the weather was starting to get threatening. I was doing my best to hurry down.

This flat stretch of creek and rock had been filled with picnicking families we passed on our way in. By our return trip in the late afternoon, everyone had left. It was a beautiful spot and I could have used a rest, but by that point I just wanted to get back to the van. I sat down briefly but no more than a minute or two.

You can see here that I’m too exhausted to be willing to put on a fake smile for the camera. It’s the “Kristina is not a happy camper” stare, lol.

Almost to the trailhead. Whew, I made it! Biska isn’t even tired.

I had expected a 3-4 hour hike; it took us 7 hours. After the first couple of hours this one wasn’t fun anymore, but I did get some beautiful pictures. Hopefully you enjoyed them! I am pleased that I was strong enough to complete the hike, even though it really was more than I should have taken on.

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Scan results are good

My CT scan results were essentially unchanged from before, which is good news.

They are still watching a few very small nodules in my lungs, which have not grown, and are probably not cancer, but they can’t tell for absolute sure. They are too small to biopsy and are likely just scars from some sort of lung irritant, like the time I had pneumonia when I was a child.

There are also still cysts in my liver, which is fine as long as they are just cysts and not cancer. Some people just have liver cysts for no apparent reason. My theory is I’ve taken too many over-the-counter painkillers, like Tylenol, for a lifetime of migraines. I made that up, so don’t quote me on that. But I know that stuff isn’t good for you. At any rate, as long as they’re just cysts and not cancer tumors, it’s fine and don’t need to do anything about it.

They also did blood work. My white blood cell count is still low and slowly dropping; they don’t know why, but they are now thinking that it may just be normal for me. I would be more comfortable if I could see an up and down pattern. They were low before we discovered my cancer, rose slightly after treatment and have been slowly dropping since. My doctor says not to worry because even though my white blood cell count is low, the differentials (the percentages of the different kinds of WBC, such as neutrophils and lymphocytes , etc.) look fine, and apparently that’s what matters. I’m not entirely convinced, but worrying won’t help anything.

My CEA (Carcinoembryonic Antigen), which is a general cancer marker and not particularly accurate – is still very low (low is good). It is ever so slightly rising over time, but well within expected variation. I would like to see it moving around up and down, rather than just slightly up over time, but it’s still very low and considered fine. Again, I don’t like the pattern, but the absolute number is quite good.

My doctor is going to look into doing a new blood test called Signatera. I had read about the new test, but assumed I couldn’t do it because it looks for DNA from your own particular tumor. Well, my tumor was taken out over 2 years ago. I assumed we were too late to do this new test. But apparently it is standard to keep a bit of everyone’s cancer tissue after surgery. Seriously – they store everyone’s cancer somewhere forever?! My doctor in Tucson is going to contact my doctor in Boston and get that info. Then once they have the DNA from the tumor that they took out of me two and a half years ago, they can look for that same DNA currently circulating in my blood.

Here is more information about the new test: https://www.natera.com/oncology/signatera-advanced-cancer-detection/

Our first signatera reading probably won’t actually tell us much because it won’t be zero. There’s always a few cancer cells floating around. We’ll need to see what it does over time. We just want the amount to be stable – not climbing. Climbing can indicate that the cancer has established itself somewhere and started growing.

Bottom line: they did not find any cancer, yay! Caveat: it’s never simple or straightforward. We are not out of the woods yet, but it is still looking good. There is no treatment we need to do right now; we are just watching and waiting. My next blood test will be whenever they are ready to do the new signatera test, and my next scan will be in 6 months.

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Camping at Tinkham – Post 25 of our August Seattle trip

I apologize for the August flashbacks this late in September. The combination of a broken computer screen and too much traveling has hindered my ability to keep up with my blog. So we’re going to do Seattle flashbacks for awhile yet.

We did two epic hikes in August. The first one was beautiful but buggy, and we had trouble finding somewhere to camp. This time, we reserved a spot at a campground ahead of time. We found a spot at Tinkham campground, which was right off of I-90. We could clearly hear the freeway. But we didn’t mind – the point was to be near the trails so we could get an early start the next morning.

The campground was very pretty.

As soon as we got there we took a walk on a short trail near the campground.

Even though there was a swamp, there were almost no mosquitoes. At all! It was such a relief from the previous hike! In the Pacific Northwest the mosquitoes are worst early in the season when it is still cool and damp, and then mostly go away later in the season when it is hot and dry. The tricky part is – the season depends on elevation.

At higher elevations the snow melts later, so the mosquitos arrive later and can still be peaking in August, even though at lower elevations they are gone by August. We went on our buggy hike only a week or so before this hike, but we were at a higher elevation, so it was effectively much “earlier” in the season, hence the dense swarms of mosquitoes. Here it was at a lower elevation, so the swarms of mosquitoes would have been there and gone – probably sometime in July instead of August. We were happy to have missed them!

That was a fun little walk. The big hike comes in the morning.

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

In The News

I’m going to interrupt the ongoing Seattle sequence again in order to stay current. Here’s some recent random newsflashes from John and I and the Sullivan/Wood clan. This is actually like 10 or 12 posts all in one, because I’m that far behind! After this, I’ll get back to the rest of those Seattle posts I want to finish.

Computer Woes

I wrenched my computer and messed up the screen! Towards the end of our trip I was sitting in a camp chair near the van door, and when I went to close my laptop computer, I encountered a slight resistance. A string hanging from our van’s mosquito netting was laying across the inside of my laptop, up near the hinges, preventing closure. I move the string and closed my computer. I didn’t think anything about it until the next time I went to do something on my computer and encountered this:

What a sad moment! We weren’t even done with our trip, and I had lots of blog posts to do and no working computer. That’s one of the reasons I’m so far behind with my posts. (The other reason is we were doing so much stuff in Seattle!)

Once I got to Albuquerque I was able to hook my computer up to an external monitor and it works fine that way.

I plan to take it in to get it fixed, but I want to wait until I can get my old computer that is stored away in a closet in Tucson. Then I won’t be computer-less while this one is getting fixed.

Summer Weather

John sent me this weather map; he was impressed by how dry it was in August in the proverbially wet Pacific Northwest compared to how wet it was in August in the southwest desert (due to monsoon rains). I think he finally understood why I booked our trip to Seattle in August – and only August!

The fate of a could-have-been house

There’s a house in Albuquerque about a block away from our house that went on the market when we were house hunting in the summer of 2020. I noticed it in particular because it had a pool, which is fairly unusual for Albuquerque, and I was very determined to buy a house with a pool.

It also had city lights views, which I’ve always wanted.

I didn’t like the fact that a large house was on the hill above it, looking down on it, but the pool area was in front of the house and not visible from the house above. The pool was high enough off the street that it wasn’t visible from the street either. (Unless you had a drone, which is what was used to take this marketing shot, which I got off the internet.)

This house was also very affordable and large, at 3,600 square feet, with 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. Lots of room for guests! And those solar panels you see on the roof were owned and paid for – not leased.

That house had a lot of great things going for it, but we weren’t sure if we wanted to stay in Albuquerque. Maybe we were going to move to Tucson? Or Sacramento? As you know, we picked Tucson. This house sold in August of 2020 and we bought our house in Tucson one month later.

I don’t know what happened or when, but yesterday as I was walking Biska in the neighborhood, I saw this:

The house burned. We must have been in Tucson when it happened (or Seattle or who knows; I don’t know when it happened). Both levels of the house are completely burned out and it looks unsalvageable to me. It just seems so sad!

Emily’s Copperhead

This was in her backyard!

If I had seen this snake, I would have assumed it was a very large garter snake, and I would have been very, very wrong. Garter snakes are striped, not, uh…uh…that is a viper. holy shit.

Emily, who is skilled at reassuring panicked emergency-room patients, and frequently uses that skill with her family as well, told me that “they are the least venomous pit vipers so not as bad as rattlesnakes.” I have no reason to doubt her assessment, but give me a rattlesnake over a pit viper any day! Actually, give me no snakes – any day!

I guess it’s just because I’m much more familiar with rattlesnakes, but my comfort level with the idea of a rattlesnake in the yard is somewhat higher than a freaking pit viper, omg. I have had rattlesnakes in the yard more than once, in rural areas of the desert. For example, I had one nearly drop on me at the front door of the house we rented down the hill from John’s house in Placitas, and there was a big one in the dog run area of an airbnb we rented on the rural west side of Tucson prior to buying our own house (which we bought in a more central location, hello!) I was worried about the safety of the 3 little dogs I had at the time. But Emily has three little girls! Much more important than 3 little dogs!

This type of viper is endangered, so the dens are closely monitored, and many of these snakes are microchipped. The animal control officer got out to Emily’s house in about 20 minutes and caught the snake and took it away. The officer didn’t think there’s a snake den in Emily’s yard. Well, I hope not! What if there was? It’s an endangered species. If it was denned there, would they just have to leave it there, in my sister’s backyard in suburban Boston?!?

Emily didn’t initially realize what it was, and took that photo while wearing sandals. After she ID’d the snake and called for help, she went in and changed into her tall rain boots to go back outside with the animal control officer. When the officer arrived, she told Emily her rain boots weren’t going to do her any good because when vipers bite, they leap up really high. Not a good image!

Apparently anti-venom is hard to come by; sometimes one hospital in Boston has it, otherwise the closest is Rhode Island. Why is this the case? I don’t know. I’m an environmental scientist and I believe in living with the local wildlife, but this is a bit much.

Emily said they’re going to clear all the vines and sticks out of the wooded area of their yard, “so if there is a venomous snake back there it will have a harder time hiding.” Yeah. My vote is for no snakes in my sister’s yard at all, ever.

Laura’s party

On a more cheerful note, Laura’s company had a big annual weekend retreat at the beach. Here’s a picture of Laura and Alex at a fancy dinner event. Looking good!

Dawn’s lights

Our sister-in-law, Dawn, sent these amazing photos of northern lights, the aurora borealis, taken by a camper at their lake resort in Minnesota last week. Wow! Wish I had been there. Maybe next summer, how about it Dawn?

Albuquerque Roadrunner

I wasn’t surprised when I saw a roadrunner while out on a morning walk with Biska in our neighborhood in Albuquerque. That is not uncommon at all. We have lots of roadrunners in Albuquerque. I’m surprised I even bothered to take this picture. The roadrunner is far in the distance; you can barely see it in the road at the foot of a driveway.

But then as the roadrunner dashed away to safety, it ran towards us rather than away from us, clearly heading towards the house that we were standing right in front of. Why did it go in our direction instead of away from us?

Then I saw all the roadrunner signs and artwork at that particular house. It’s hard to tell in this zoomed-in photo, but that’s a roadrunner mural in tile on the wall. And a roadrunner crossing sign.

Can you can see the real roadrunner there, on the edge of the lawn along the front path?

Obviously the owners love roadrunners, based on their signage and their mural. Lots of people in Albuquerque love roadrunners. And some people have them in the neighborhood, just like we do. But when that roadrunner saw me and my dog, it ran towards us, in order to get to that specific house. So here’s what I want to know. How did the people who live there manage to attract their very own resident wild roadrunner? I don’t have one, and I like roadrunners too!

Sweetpea

Biska has a new friend! Sweetpea is an albino Catahoula Leopard dog. As albinos often are, she is deaf, and she is also partially blind. Sweetpea is about 6 months old, and already a little heavier than Biska, who is 26 pounds and mostly full-grown at a year old.

No, we didn’t adopt Sweetpea! This is just a neighbor’s dog. Lol, why would you think I’d adopt another dog? (hehehehe)

Sweetpea’s owner was happy to see her doing so well with Biska. Catahoulas are often reluctant to make friends with other dogs. And they often do best as the only dog in the household.

Speaking of Catahoulas, Laura’s dog, Zane, is a Catahoula Leopard mix. You can see the unknown “mix” (possibly pitbull) in that one hilarious pointy ear, but his markings and temperament are all Catahoula.

I love pictures of Zane camouflaged on their living room rug; it’s just so funny.

He’s a great looking dog.

Is my tree dying?

John says it’s fine, because John employs optimism to keep his to-do list from getting impossibly long. But regardless of our already brimming to-do lists, I think the tree is in dire need of immediate help of some sort. Any theories?

Biska’s new friend, Jackfruit

Biska and I were on a walk at the local park in Albuquerque when we came across – a pot bellied pig named Jackfruit!

His owner (whose name I didn’t get) was happy to pose for some pictures.

Jackfruit is 2 years old and I forgot how heavy his owner said he is. He lives in the house with his owners and their dog. He loves summertime and hates snow, and is generally very calm and in good spirits.

His owner told me that they named him Jackfruit because that’s what Asian restaurants often serve in place of pork in a vegetarian dish that would traditionally be a pork dish. They call him Jack for short.

Biska was super curious and would have loved to play with Jackfruit but I was wary of those tusks.

Jackfruit’s owner says they have a dog at home and he didn’t think there would be any issues, but we were at the park and Biska isn’t behaved well enough to be off-leash (she would run and jump on everyone). So she had to be content with a brief meet and greet – of her first pot bellied pig friend!

Chirstina’s New Job

And last but not least, Callan’s partner, Chirstina, has a new job and starts towards the end of this month. Congratulations, Chirstina!

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Random Seattle Photos – Post 24 of our August Seattle trip

I’m finally done with the Tacoma Glass Museum posts (whew)! We’re actually already back in Albuquerque, but I’m not done with all the Seattle posts yet. We did a lot in Seattle and I’m very behind with my posts! Here’s some random Seattle pictures, and then I’ll move onto some more Washington trips in subsequent posts. Hopefully!

Here’s a crazy flower that is growing across the alley at the neighbor’s house.

Biska in front of the garden shed, with our van on the right:

There’s lots of snails. They usually stay outside, but uh – how did it get almost all the way into our kitchen garbage? That was one determined, hustling snail.

Early morning tracks on the outdoor patio carpet:

The Fauntleroy ferry terminal.

Lincoln park

An unexpected view of the Seattle skyline while on a walk in our neighborhood.

We didn’t go up in the Space Needle. We just happened to be nearby when going to the Chihuly glass museum. I’ll post those pictures in the next post – there are too many for this post. I got excited and took multiple photos of every single thing in the museum.

And of course I can’t go to Seattle without ordering crab. Not just crab cakes, oh no, actual real chunks of just crab. (It came on a salad, whatever, at least it was on top!)

Later we found cooked crab in the meat department of the grocery store. I had remembered that from my younger years when I lived out here, but we hadn’t initially found any. So I didn’t know that it was still available in the grocery stores. Yep, it is, at the QFC, which is nothing fancy, just a normal supermarket, a subsidiary of Kroger. I forgot to take a picture of our grocery store crab, but it came whole! Here’s the photos of the salads we made after John generously volunteered to crack the crab meat out of the crab for us.

We’re not only eating seafood though. Here’s a photo of John at another café.

Here he is a few minutes later with his fancy milkshake. Now look at his smile! He went from alright to alright!

Fog over the water on an otherwise completely sunny day.

Oh, and between all the fun stuff, we are still working on the Tucson remodel. Here’s a photo of a bathroom medicine cabinet display at the local West Seattle Home Depot, lol. I knew you wanted to see that!

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Bridge of Glass – Post 23 of our August Seattle trip

Surely I’m done posting about the Tacoma Museum of Glass? There was a hot shop and a gallery and the kid’s designs. It was a great morning! We ate lunch on the restaurant patio and were about to call it a morning well spent. But John had seen something mentioning a glass bridge and wanted to look around to see if we could find out what that was.

Could the bridge of glass have something to do with this installation?

When we arrived earlier in the morning, this pond of glass was shockingly ugly, in my opinion. It was dirty and brownish-gray, rundown, completely depressing. I thought it was an example of some of the worst public art I’d ever seen. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of it, because I don’t usually take pictures of things I don’t like. But in hindsight I should have taken a picture of it when it was in its dirty, gray and lifeless state, because it would have made an excellent contrast photo. When the sun came out later in the morning, the installation came to life. It sparkled and glowed and was suddenly beautiful.

I don’t know what its name is, but I’m naming it “mood reflecting pond”, because it does exactly what my mood does. Lifeless and dull when its cloudy, coming to glittering life when the sun returns. Whatever it’s name, it wasn’t “Bridge of Glass.” So what was?

We wandered around looking for some mythical glass bridge. We saw bridges, yes, and glass, yes, but no glass bridges.

Well, there’s a bridge over some railroad tracks and a freeway.

I was skeptical because it looked like it was just a pedestrian walk between the local neighborhood the museum, but there were greenish-blue tall things that could be glass on the other side of the bridge. Might as well check it out.

Wait – what’s this? We found the bridge of glass art!

It was amazing.

And there’s the tall blue columns that led us in the right direction.

But wait – it’s not over yet! Past the tall blue glass columns we found – a glass ceiling of Chihuly glass! My favorite thing!

(Yeah, that’s what my hair does in the humidity, lol. It coils like an orange yarn mop.)

All of this was on the bridge over the freeway, accessible to the public for free. If you’re ever in the Seattle area, it’s definitely worth going down to Tacoma for the glass museum and hot shop aaaand…bridge of glass!

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.