When we decided to spend Veterans Day weekend in Leavenworth, Silvette said she didn’t want to go if it was going to be a rainy weekend. If we were going to cancel our reservation, we had to cancel a week ahead. However, the weather forecast kept changing so we didn’t cancel. Wouldn’t you know it, we woke up Saturday morning to a wet and drizzly day. It was just what Silvette had wanted to avoid. Despite the weather we were…
Continue Reading “A Day Trip from Leavenworth to Sunny Wenatchee”
Leavenworth is a popular weekend destination for people from the Puget Sound region. Located in the eastern foothills of the Cascade Mountains, it was a city in decline until the 1960s when the city adopted a city wide Bavarian theme. Storefronts were transformed to look like Bavarian locations. Stores began to sell gifts and items from Germany. Restaurants started to feature bratwursts, and the town began to attract tourists looking for a unique experience. Along the way the town set…
Continue Reading “An Autumn Return to Popular Leavenworth, Washington”
Last week I described the first half of our walk around Lake Union known as the Cheshiahud Loop. We started at the north end of the lake at Gasworks Park. From the park we traveled east and walked along the east side of the lake. This week I will share about the rest of our walk as we continued back to Gasworks Park. As we got closer to the south end of Lake Union, we came across a more industrial…
Continue Reading “Seattle’s Cheshiahud Loop: South Lake Union to Fremont”
Travel articles often suggest that one needs to look at their own region through the eyes of a tourist. Since I am not always traveling to distant places to write about, I often look around the Seattle community to find experiences and places to share. That recently led me to discover Cheshiahud Loop, a route that goes all the way around Lake Union. The online information stated it was a six and a half mile walk. We figured that would…
Continue Reading “Seattle’s Cheshiahud Loop: Pipes, Bridges, and Houseboats”
Seattle is a city practically surrounded by water. To the west is Puget Sound while to the east is Lake Washington. Water activities are an important part of life here. Historically the early pioneers used the waterways for transportation. As a result one of the early decisions was to connect Lake Washington to Puget Sound by digging a canal. When they realized that Lake Washington was higher in elevation than Puget Sound, they knew they needed to built locks for…
Continue Reading “Ballard Locks: Boats, Salmon, Gardens and History”
One thing that many people outside of the Seattle area may not know is that the Puget Sound region has a strong emphasis upon art through glass. Dale Chihuly was born in Tacoma, Washington. He became a forward thinking glass artist whose works can be found all over the world. They include huge chandeliers of glass that stretch five or six feet downwards as well as glass pieces in outdoor gardens. His contribution to glass making has had a big…
Continue Reading “Tacoma, Washington’s Colorful Art Glass Scene”
Most of the time when I write a blog post, I write about myself and my experiences encountering other locations and cultures. In this post I want to reverse that. I thought I would share my experience as a sort of personal tour guide for someone from the African country of Malawi. In January of 2020 I went to Malawi for two weeks to teach pastors at a Bible school. That came about after meeting Bern the director of the…
Continue Reading “Being a Personal Tour Guide in Washington State”
In June my brother contacted me and asked me if I wanted to go on a nine mile hike with him to Lake Ingalls. That seemed a very long hike for me, but I know I can easily walk five miles on the trails around here so I thought I would probably be able to manage a nine mile hike although I knew it would be a challenge. My brother David is almost exactly a year older than I am.…
Continue Reading “Surviving a Challenging Hike to Lake Ingalls”
For many people the main reasons to visit Arizona are the Grand Canyon and Sedona. Others may come for baseball’s spring training. Of course other folks come just for the sunshine and warmth, especially in the winter. My parents spent time in Yuma, Arizona for that very reason the winter before my mom died. However, like most states, there are actually quite a few unique and different places to enjoy in Arizona beyond the Grand Canyon and the baseball fields.…
Having spend two days in Death Valley, it was time to head to Las Vegas and our flight home. However, we had two more places to see before returning home. Both of them were wildlife refuges. The US Fish and Wildlife Service manages refuges across the country. Their purpose is to protect and preserve native wildlife. We had visited wildlife refuges before in Washington and Hawaii. For the two that we visited in Nevada, the purpose was to protect desert…
