Vacation in May

We have been planning this one since January. We flew out of Cedar City at 6:00 this morning, and were in Seattle by 9:30 local time. After a little adventure at the car rental operation, we drove north toward Anacortes, where we catch the ferry through the San Juan islands tomorrow and move on to Victoria for a few days. After months without photos, we are going to overwhelm with this post.

Almost as soon as we touched down, Bubb announced that she wanted some fish. I talked her out of eating at Pike's Place Market, so we settled for Ivar's, a Seattle standard, in Everett. It was on the way, and the grilled halibut was fresh and delicious.

The year that Booty and Laur moved to Texas, we took a vacation with them to Canada, and that is the inspiration for this trip. The adventure began with a night's lodging at the Ship's Harbor Inn, then, so that is where we are staying on this trip.

Not much has changed. We even ended up in a room near where we stayed with Booty and Laur on our previous trip. It is an absolutely glorious day here, and we have been loving being out in the weather.

It is seriously spring in the PNW, and we have seen a ton of lovely flowers and trees. Bubby kept seeing these in everybody's yards and wanted to get a closer look.

Our host recommended that we take a hike in Washington Park, so off we went. There was a lovely little walk that we took, and of course the vegetation was amazing. The ferns were particularly impressive.

There were little flowers on one plant that Bubby thought were "bleeding hearts" which isn't anything I could confirm or deny.

We were able to get some amazing views of the ocean and the San Juans on our walk, and we even talked some girls into taking a photo for us.

More beautiful flowers. I even got some photos of bee-butts for Larry Davis, the master of such images.

After Washington Park we drove to Mount Erie, and got some great looks at Mt. Baker, northernmost of the Cascade chain. Mount Erie topped out at 1,278 feet above sea level, enough to get a view, but nothing like Brian Head peak. Lots of adventure ahead. We are even driving a grey Toyota Carolla, in Booty and Laur's honor. Buboppy