Doors & Windows

 Here's a whole bunch of pictures from the Fort I talked about yesterday,these are the last ones from vacation I swear!  I was obsessed with all the interestingly rusted doors and windows. Not a new thing, I've always had a thing for taking pictures of doors, but there were so many there, all in one place, and each one differently shaped and colored than the next one.  So a bit of an overload in this one post, but rather than dragging it out, I thought I'd inflict All of The Doors on you at once.

A Ramble In Fort Worden

 One of my favorite things we did in Port Townsend was to go for a long ramble in Fort Worden State Park.  This is a late 19th century fort which was designed to protect the nautical entrance from the Pacific Ocean into where all the shipyards were located further in up the sound from an invading navy.  Which navy? I'm not sure at that point in history, but anyways, they left behind a pretty cool place to walk around.  This first picture is taken from downhill of one of the bunker/gunsite complexes. In this picture it looks like a modern art piece to me somehow.
And, Yes, that is indeed a perfect lawn to roll down, guess how I know?  I have the incriminating video to prove it, but I promised I wouldn't upload it.

Here's what was at the top of that hill, it is where one of the guns was attached.  I think this might make a cool rubber stamp image (puts in reminder-to-self file).

Alex and I decided this would be one helluva place for an enormous game of hide-and-go-seek.

Here's the view from the top of the fort, there was about a 240 degree vista.  Pretty handy for a fort I suppose.

I noticed these beautiful thistles growing all over the place.  They deserved a picture since they're different than the ones I struggle with in my garden at home.

See what I mean about a good hide-and-seek place?

At one point we found this tunnel that went uphill.

I wish I'd taken a movie while I was in it because the sound was just amazing.  It was the most sonorous tunnel I've ever been in, such beautiful tones just from us walking.

A rust stalactite! Or something, I don't know what you'd call it.

Walking through some of these tunnels in the old underground living spaces was slightly creepy.  There was one like this, but it was dark and closed off but there were open rooms off to one side, completely dark, ooooh  that was scary.

Some of the buildings left behind are being reclaimed by the forest.

Beautiful decay.

Port Townsend, Town, Sea and Sky

 Hey, how about some more pictures from our recent road trip to Washington.  This is Zach relaxing in Port Townsend.  We had many opportunities on our trip to try Bubble Tea as Alex is rather obsessed with it, I like the color combo of these two with the blue sky.    I took a lot of photos of the cool old buildings in Port Townsend, but  I didn't like how they turned out, too many overhead power lines in the way obscuring everything and breaking up the images, so none of those from me today.

 One of the docks in Port Townsend, with gulls perched on the pilings.

 This building looked like it was trying to blend in with the sky.

 The lighthouse out at the point, horizontal and vertical.

 My two boys in the water.  Shortly thereafter a huge discussion ensued about whether it was warmer or colder in the ocean at home, and why or why not that would be.  It ended with a lot of kelp tossing at each other so I'm not sure they ever resolved it...

Again with the horizontal and vertical views, couldn't decide on which one I liked better.  The cloudy sky was so beautiful that day.  I'm glad I was able to capture a bit of that expansive feeling in these photos.  I love that one glowing line of sunshine on the water before the horizon.

Sunrise on 280

Sunrise captured at 80 mph on highway 280 coming back from the San Francisco airport.  Almost worth getting up at 3:30am to see.
I rarely see a sunrise during the summer, so this was a nice surprise, and worth capturing with a picture.

On the Road Again

 I'm out of the studio and on a road trip with my sons, we're just driving, listening to music, talking, stopping when we feel like it.  So with wifi at our hotel, I'm going to inflict some vacation pictures on you, just because they're so different than what I usually post. 

On this trip at first it was just my youngest (Alex) and I, because my oldest (Zach) had flown up to Washington a few weeks ago to visit with friends and go to a music festival.   So we drove up to Port Townsend to pick him up and then drive back home again.  What a treat it is to get to spend this time with just us together, I'm really enjoying it, I love that my boys are so much fun to talk to and be with.

Zach is going to be moving up to Washington for college pretty soon in the fall, so we wanted to spend some time up here getting to know the area a little better.  Alex and I were noticing it is a really long drive up from where we are in California, it just takes a loooong time to even get out of our state (about 6 hours!) and across the border.

But I'm reminded from all those many driving family vacations I went on as a kid, that it is fun to take that slower pace instead of flying and see more of our country and talk to people in new places.  Alex got to go to Walmart for the very first time, seriously, he'd never been to one, what a concept huh?
   
On the second day of our trip driving through Olympia, Washington (state capital), we noticed that you keep seeing the capitol dome everywhere, around every corner it seemed.  So a picture had to be taken while we were in pursuit of lunch.  And note the blue sky, seems that was all we're going to see for a couple days.

 Because here is how it looks this morning from our hotel room in Port Townsend. greygreygrey.

 With masts appearing over rooftops like bare trees.

The shore is grey, the water reflects the grey fog, the coast in the distance is grey too.  Good thing I like grey.

Eggs-actly My Point

Just because it is a Sunday here is a completely off-topic post all about eggs.
We love keeping chickens, the fresh eggs are the best, so tasty and fresh, the chickens like to eat weeds and kitchen scraps, make regular contributions to the compost pile ingredients, they aren't too much trouble, and I find their antics and noises very entertaining. 
There was a big hubbub in the coop recently and I gathered the eggs afterward.  I think I figured out what the upset was, look at the size of that egg.  It is huge, almost twice the size of the others.  Let's just say, that I'd have been squawking extra too!
I had to take this picture to prove it to those who weren't around to see it.  Because we then had to open the egg up immediately just to see what was inside.  Just a double yolk.  With our first chickens we once got a huge egg like this, and inside was another egg (weird!), no picture of that unfortunately.  I liked how this picture turned out with the green towel and the shadows.

The lid of the egg carton wouldn't even close!
That reminds me I need to take some pictures of this new group of chickens, one of them is really huge compared to the other two.

The Rest of Maker Faire

 A last day of pictures from Maker Faire.  These blow up asparagus inspired sculptures were waving like kelp undersea, made by OhYeahToys.  I really love how they looked all lit up, softly waving and so mysteriously yet familiarly shaped.

 How about outlining your applique in "neon"?  Pretty cool application of new technology.

 We got to hear Adam Savage from Mythbusters talk about filming their recent episode at the White House, very interesting, and of course very funny.

 My son Alex liked these poseable figures with soda bottle heads, you could buy a kit to assemble one.

 One of our favorite vendors was B.Coole Designs, so many great embroidered patches to choose from...This one we got for my son Zach who currently wants to become an organic farmer.

 I couldn't stop giggling when I saw this one, so I had to get it for myself.

 So much geeky humor in this one booth!

 The Lego truck was there, so awesome.  An old mail delivery truck covered in Lego board with zillions of Legos to play with.

 This moose-ish/mossy creature was about 10' tall and quite elegant and stately as it moved through the crowds.

 A gigantic steam-powered contraption, what was it powering this year?

 A player piano of course!

 I loved the whimsy of this sculpture, using a boat to contain the water.

It really was beautiful, all those old instruments, with the beautiful metal and curves under the splashing water, just lovely.

That's it for this year!  Can't wait for next year...

Wood Works

 At the Maker Faire this year there were a lot of cool and unusual wood things. Like this giant Tiki. 

 Or how about wooden bicycles?

 I really appreciated the beautiful wood combination in the seat, and  the swoopy curved designs.

 They were pretty darned heavy though.

I'm guessing this was wood laid on top of a motorcycle gas tank. At least I hope so!  Pretty though..