Vacationing - Mosaic Monday

One of the nicest places in all of our county is Whatcom Falls City Park.  Bellingham has great green spaces and for every acre of land devoted to new construction, the same amount must be designated for parks and green spaces.  It keeps our city of nearly 100,000 from being over run with only housing and businesses and provides refreshing places for everyone to enjoy.

We spent a day here with our oldest daughter, our son and their families.  I had been wanting to get photographs of the falls this summer, since we are in a drought and the flow is very low compared to years with normal or above average rainfall. The beauty and sound is astonishing.

The falls are on Whatcom Creek,which flows from Lake Whatcom.  The park includes most of the creek, a developed pond that is a fish nursery for the fish hatchery in the park and all of the falls area and miles of hiking trails.  The creek continues on down through town and into Bellingham Bay.

The park is 241 acres, with four falls.  We only visited the main falls

The top of the falls

Plunging to the rocks below

All the area - over to the people on the left top of the photo, is usually flowing with water - you can see how reduced the flow is this summer

The small pond at the bottom of the falls - the boulders have been made smooth by the pounding of the water

This area is completely dry.  Not sure how those holes got in the boulders

Ben and Donnie posed nicely for me on the bridge over the falls.

No matter how you view it - the falls are magnificent.

During the depression the New Deal Works Progress Administration paid workers to move the Chuckanut sandstone arches from a downtown burned-out building to the park. In 1939 the sandstone was used to construct the stone bridge, which is usually covered in mosses and lichens, but not this dry summer.

Mosaic Monday

Collages were made at ipiccy.com and fotor.com, both free sites for making collages and editing photos.

The Barn Collective

Today we have some barns that are currently in use.  So many of the barns in or area are in disrepair - it is nice to see useful barns.

 The owner has added a large garage door to this barn, not sure if that means he is storing his RV in the barn or just wants a convenient modern door.  It is good to see that it is being used for something.

 Well kept barn

 A wonderful barn with apple trees nearby and interesting dormer windows - though the barn does look like it is showing its teeth.

This appears to be newly built and probably was never used as a barn, but the design mimics the old fashioned concept of attaching the barn to the living quarters.  The two large doors suggest another barn being used for a garage.

The Barn Collective

An Extended Vacation

After our son and his family left we still had five days of vacation left - so we went exploring. Just before the kids arrived from West Virginia Don had been in the hospital for five days with mysterious symptoms - by the time the vacation started the doctors had diagnosed the problem and he was doing so much better - but doctor's orders were to take at least 3 weeks off work - and who is going to argue with that.

He was feeling great once again and we decided on some day trips to finish up the vacation time.

 A ride to Skagit Valley took us past the raspberry harvesting machine

 The machine has slowly rotating "fingers" near the front that gently shake the ripe berries from the vines

 They come up over the conveyor belt and one picker takes out the bad ones and any leaves that might be in with the berries

We always like to stop and thank the workers for the berries they provide.  They work hard - often in hot sun or pouring rain.  They travel miles to get to the harvests , live in small cramped quarters, and do jobs that no one else will do. Thank you again!!!

 With sunshine on vacation we had many occasions to see Mt. Baker.  Love the view through the ripe heads of the Canary Grass. It grows up to five or 6 feet tall along the roads and in the untended fields.  The ripe seed heads are a favorite with Goldfinches - the Washington State Bird - which are often called wild canaries - hence the name of the grass.

 On this day trip we drove through LaConner - a small town south of here.  There are many charming homes and this blue one caught our attention.  It reminds us a lot of the farm house we lived in, in Blue Lake, CA.  We painted our house these same colors - it had been hot pink and burgundy.  What were they thinking????

 A pond in a local community has a fountain that they turn on in the summer

 Looks like it might be fun to row out there and cool off

 Along a road we saw this Cairn. There are now international competitions in Cairn building and though they are no longer necessary to finding our way, they do add interest.  One should be cautious about building Cairns - don't destroy nature just to move stones out of their natural resting place. There are instances in National Parks where so many Cairns are built in an area that the natural beauty is destroyed. Please be sensitive to your surroundings.

 Pretty roses - always a summer favorite

More Vacation Fun

We really packed a lot into our two week visit with our son and his family -

 We went to the Friday Creek Park - Donnie had a grand time wading in the shallow creek

 Grampy supervised the rock throwing with helpful hints

 It was the last of the really hot days during vacation - good thing we made it to the creek that day

 Another day we took a picnic and went to Whatcom Falls Park - it is in the middle of Bellingham - very close to our house

 Ben and Donnie sitting on the bridge over the falls - Jahn wasn't able to come with us that day - we missed him.

 We took a picnic with us to the Falls

 And of course the boys had to play in the park too

And back to the picnic for more food.

 What a grand vacation!!