Cats and Trails and Garden Tales
Musings on cats, travel, gardens and life
Tiger’s Corner – It’s me again.
A few words from Tiger on a lazy Friday.
Up in a Redwood Tree
Earlier this month on a very rainy day we went to Lincoln Park for a walk.
We took the trail up to the top of the bluff
and found shelter in a grove of Redwood trees.
So did this little fella.
Shared with Becky’s Squares Up!
~ Susanne
Morning Crazies in the Office
“What gets into you Benji?”
“What do you mean Sue?”
“In the morning I mean. You become a different animal. Like a wild cat.”
“Pent up energy. Just like you Sue.”
“Huh?”
“You were a wild woman this morning. The way you turned this office upside down. It was pure chaos. I was concerned.”
“That’s different Benji. The chaos was only temporary. It had a purpose.”
“Huh?”
“Better feng shui. Can’t you feel it?”
“Sure Sue. Whatever you say. Now if you don’t mind, all that whirlwind activity made me sleepy. Could you turn out the lights on your way out?”
“Sure Benji. Glad you like the new office.”
~ from the office of Susanne and Benji
Only the Best Clouds in Seattle
Did you know that Seattle is the cloudiest city in the country? Not the rainiest city no, but often ranked #1 for days with heavy cloud cover.
Suffice it to say, I’ve seen a lot of cloudy days in my life.
And many of those days are dull and gray, skies covered with a wet milky blanket leaking rain like today. But there are other days – when oh! – the skies are filled with billowy bulbous magical clouds! When you look carefully and see a giant’s head, a teddy bear, or monster in a spaceship, cartoon shapes floating above like a Macy’s parade!
See here now a team of horses flying above the rest – and a horned ram’s head trailing below.
A poofy ball spins across the sky laughing at its imaginary pursuer, a wisp of a cloud a fraction of its size.
Here you see the hand of a child stamping cotton ball clouds on construction paper sky and green sprigs pressed as trees.
Sometimes a tree holds up a cloud as this one did below – a fluffy ball supported by a twiggy stem to be plucked up and used by any giant nearby.
Yes you can see I love the clouds as long as a trace of blue remains. And there is always blue somewhere and sunshine too if you go high enough to find it.
As back in the day when we flew on planes taking travel for granted
always happy to be greeted by the mountain and even the clouds on our return.
Inspired to share my love of clouds by this week’s Sunday Still’s Photo Challenge.
~ Susanne
Upside Down at Nolte
Today we took advantage of a mild winter day and went for a walk at Nolte State Park where the trees reflected perfectly in Deep Lake.
So perfectly in fact I thought they looked even better upside down.
How about you?
For Becky’s SquareUp Photo Challenge.
~ Susanne
Jurassic Hawaii
I’m feeling a bit of Covid wanderlust on this cool January day so I thought I’d take you WAY back in time to Hawaii – all the way back to Jurassic Park.
You probably already know that Jurassic Park was filmed in Hawaii and most of it on Kauai, the Garden Isle.
I was fortunate to visit Kauai a few years ago and got a look at the Na Pali cliffs which were featured in the Jurassic movies. Though the best views of the cliffs are from the coast by sea or air, we got a decent look at them from the Kalalau Overlook.
The prominent waterfalls in the movie (Manawaiopuna) were only accessible by helicopter so I didn’t get to see them – I’m helicopter averse. But I did see Wailua Falls which you could easily drive to.
Jurassic Park was in production on Kauai in 1992 when the most powerful hurricane in Hawaii’s recorded history, Hurricane Iniki, hit. So the final scenes had to be moved to Oahu and they became some of the most iconic in the movie.
We toured the beautiful Ka’a’awa Valley at Kualoa Ranch last year, where a herd of dinosaurs were chased by T-Rex, and Grant and the kids took cover behind a fallen log.
Many other movies were filmed here as well going back to Mr. Roberts in 1955, and more recently Jumanji, and Kong: Skull Island. It’s a fun area and well worth a visit.
But let’s move on to Maui, where we came across this view of Keopuka Rock at the Garden of Eden, which featured in Jurassic Park.
The nearby waterfall didn’t but it’s pretty so it made it into my story anyway. 🙂
Finally, I’ll wrap up the Jurassic tour of Hawaii with the Big Island. Even though I don’t think it featured in the Jurassic movies, it certainly could have, don’t you think?
That’s enough of Jurassic Hawaii for now.
Till next time.
~ Susanne
A New Day Has Dawned
~ Susanne
Poulsbo, Port Ludlow and Hood Canal – a Trip in Glacier Blue
After returning from our getaway last week I noticed how many of my pictures were blue, blue, blue! So I thought they’d do nicely for this week’s Sunday Stills Photo Challenge, Glacier Blue.
Our destination was Port Ludlow on Puget Sound which would be our base for exploring the area. We started our trip by ferry from Edmonds to Kingston and were greeted by the Olympic Mountains.
We stopped by Poulsbo for lunch, a charming town with a Scandinavian vibe, founded by a Norwegian immigrant in the 1880’s.
After eating our takeout pizza in the car, we split up for an hour of shopping and I found some lovely things to buy to support the local economy – I do what I can.
Next we crossed the Hood Canal Bridge and headed to Port Ludlow where we stayed the next two nights. Our hotel was near the marina on Ludlow Bay and we had wonderful views of the Olympics when the clouds parted in the morning.
Yes, those were the Olympics. So I was surprised to see Mt. Baker on my morning beach walk, looking quite lovely in the morning light. At 10,778 feet, Mt. Baker is the tallest mountain in the North Cascades and third tallest in the state. With 10 glaciers it is second only to Mount Rainier which has 26, the most glaciers of any mountain in the lower 48. In fact, only Alaska has more glaciers than Washington State.
Port Ludlow was a lovely place to stay and had fabulous sunsets. But there wasn’t much to do – for that we drove to nearby Hood Canal. Our first stop was at Point Whitney where Bob fished and I wandered the oyster littered beach – the State has a shellfish lab there. But I found the best views looking up – can you believe those clouds??
We stopped by another spot on the Canal before returning to Port Ludlow for the night and saw more mountains. Surely the Olympics right?
Wrong! These are the North Cascades and even I – a born and raised Washingtonian – wasn’t sure. Too many mountains and too many coves, bays, and inlets in all directions!
I have more adventures from Hood Canal to share with you but this will do for now.
~ Susanne
Sunset in Pink
In the middle of a very rainy January we managed to find two days of good weather for an escape to Port Ludlow.
The first morning I caught a hint of pink over the Olympics at sunrise, a foretaste of what would come later that day.
For just after sunset the clouds turned brilliant pink against a darkening blue sky.
Pink is always best when paired with blue.
More to come about our trip later.
Shared with Cee’s Midweek Madness Photo Challenge.
~ Susanne
Hoist a Paw
It’s late afternoon and I’m in the kitchen making dinner. The boys hear the pantry door open and show up with eager eyes. I know why.
“Who wants a snack?” I say. “Raise your paw.”
They answer by dancing around.
I find the treats in the yellow package and dispense their allotted portion of the nuggets. Benji finishes first then helps Tiger with his. When they understand there will be no more treats they scoot outside.
But sometimes they linger hoping for more, as Benji did this week.
“C’mon Sue. You know how I love them.”
“Sorry Benji. It says right on the package only 10 pellets a day. Out you go, to run it off.”
I can’t blame him for trying. I sometimes eat more treats in a day than I should, too.
Now in case you wondered – I really did say, ‘raise your paw,’ but I didn’t invent it. The inspiration comes from my college days and a professor, an authority on Northwest Coast Indians, and an expert in their native languages.
Wearing a tweed jacket, he addressed us properly as ‘ladies and gentlemen’ with a smile in his eyes and a pipe in his hand.
“Hoist a paw,” he said, if we had any questions.
I wish I’d paid more attention to his lectures though I do remember the fragments I put to song.
‘”Queets, Quinault and Upper Chehalis are all Salishan,” reminded me that the native tribes on Washington’s coast spoke Salishan. So did the professor as I recall and we occasionally heard him speak it.
So when I ask my cats to raise a paw and they start to dance around, I remember the well spoken professor with the smiling eyes asking us to ‘hoist a paw.’
And that is all for today. 🙂
~ Susanne
Cats and Trails and Garden Tales 