Fidalgo Island Crossings

With a health care occupation, working holidays is standard.  Since I usually work Christmas, I get Thanksgiving Day off.  For the past few years, I have started the holiday over at Deception Pass to look for photo ops.  This year I found myself looking forward to my Thanksgiving Day visit.  I guess that's how a tradition gets started. Deception Pass is less than 10 minutes from my home.  I was up early and headed off a little after 8:00 AM.  I stopped at one of the pull-offs along Highway 20 and got this shot of the bridge.  This is the first spot along the road where the Deception Pass Bridge comes into view.  You can click or right-click the photos to view them full size. It had been raining all week, and Thanksgiving morning brought us heavy overcast.  But the  Olympic Rain Shadow  kept us dry for the holiday. I continued across the bridge and stopped again at the parking area at the south end.  This is a photo of the long span over Deception Pass looking north.  B

Ginnett Hill (right) from Mount Erie I think the annual First Day Hikes at Deception Pass State Park can now be called a New Year's Day tradition.  This year's hike will be the fourth.  The event will take us to Ginnett Hill, one of my favorite places in the park.  It will be difficult to top last year's hike up Goose Rock, but 2015 may accomplish that.  I am very excited about this year's choice. Descending Into Naked Man Valley I have attended all three previous First Day Hikes at Deception Pass: 2012:   Bowman Bay to Lighthouse Point 2013:   Bowman Bay to Rosario Head 2014:   North Beach and Goose Rock Summit I am certainly not going to miss this one.  I can promise the Ginnett Hill Trail is something very special.  If you appreciate the unique nature of the Pacific Northwest, this hike should not be missed. The Gargoyles My first visit to Ginnett Hill was in January, 2014.  I found a temperate rain forest right here in the midst of the Olympi

A series of windstorms have blown through the Pacific Northwest over the past week.  Last Saturday evening I lost power for about 20 hours.  Of course, this took the weather station offline. I made it through yesterday's storm without any problems.  This morning, the Skagit Bay sunrise was a welcome change.  It brought promise of calm weather for a while and two days without rain. A few moments later, both the sky and bay were painted in pastels.