I am visiting my parents in Bellingham, Washington. I am having a lovely time reminiscing and meeting their friends. On Sunday Mom and Dad took me to see the Museum of Northwest Art in La Conner. What a treat that was.
All I had previously known about La Conner, Washington was that it was across the river from the Native reservation and not far from Mt. Vernon and Burlington where my Grandparents and Great Grandparents had lived at various times. Boy, was I surprised when I saw the quaint Victorian downtown area full of upscale boutiques and enticing restaurants.
After a delicious lunch of freshly baked bread, salad and a spicy chicken and black bean soup, we walked down to the museum. The narrow brick building apparently dated to the early days of La Conner, but inside it rivals any modern art museum anywhere in class, space, lighting and display.

"When you move through the waters with your mind . . ." Mud Bay, Dec. 31, 2005 (Photo: Mark Zeiger).
Continue reading 'Museum Meditation'»
This week we have wonderfully high tides. In mid-winter that could be a scary thought…when the winds whip up and the power of the water can move large rocks around on the beach. But the weather this week has been fairly mild. Of the four days in a row that the high tides were 19.4 to 20.3 feet, only one had too much wind to use a canoe or kayak. To make the good fortune even better, the highs were in the mid-afternoon.
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Hauling via canoe in 2006. (photo: Mark Zeiger)
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The lack of wind was not good news for Mark, Dave, and Anke who were in the process of sailing here from Juneau, but it was great news for the residents of our little peninsula. We all used the tides to transport heavy goods across the bay, and in our case, around the point to the house. On our beach we can pull a boat ashore at the boat ramp at about an 18 foot tide. Lower tides require dealing with large jagged boulders, barnacles, mussels and slippery black algae.
Continue reading 'When High Tides Work For Us'»