Providence

As promised, here's the pics from my adventure in Providence, Rhode Island. First off, I never ever thought of going to Rhode Island. At all. But it is the east coast, and I've always wanted to go there! Providence was very different than Seattle as far as large cities go. The people were friendly. Sometimes a bit too friendly! Anyway, here's my trip in pics.

Mount St. Helens from the plane during take off. I sat next to a wonderful naval pilot and a mission doctor from Cambodia. They were awesome.

Mount Rainier from take off.

Signs on a street in Providence across from the First Baptist Church of America.

View from the hotel, the Radisson on the Harbor.

The First Baptist Church of America, founded in 1638 by Roger Williams.

An eagle carved into the pillars of the gate at the State House.

Columns are a common sight in downtown Providence.

A trumpeter swan on the Woonasquatucket River.

The braziers for the Waterfire show. I missed it because I was flying back to Seattle the afternoon of the event.

Buildings on Westminster Street. This street was beautiful.

Loved this shot from the Skybridge between the Westin Hotel and Providence Place Mall.

Me in front of the State House. And yes, I found a Starbucks the moment I got into town!

Dorrance Street was one street I crossed the most. It was right between Starbucks and the Convention Center. It also was quite beautiful.

View of boats on the harbor from the hotel.

A black and white rendering of the red door on the Grace Episcople Church founded in 1829.

Another great view from the skybridge. I'm not sure which of the churches belong to these steeples.

Leaving Rhode Island. I was told that this is the bridge between Newport and the mainland.

Black and White of Philadelphia as we were flying out. The original picture was sooo hazy and cloudy, you could barely see anything at all. I did some serious work on this to clear it up, but black and white was really the only way to see it well.

A meandering river somewhere in the middle of the USA. Could be the Mississippi, I suppose, but I'm not sure.

Mountains and glaciers and an alpine lake still frozen over. Not sure if these are the Rockies or the Cascades. I'm thinking they're the Rockies.

Don't know which mountains these are either, but I like the perspective, how they stretch on and on.

The final bank coming into SeaTac Airport. This was a beautiful sight to come home to!

NEXT POST: Kittitas County Fair and Life through Orange Colored Cameras!

Best of Summer 2009

Here's some pics from my summer. Went hiking. Lots. And to Mary T's cabin twice. And to Rhode Island (those pics will be in a separate post). So enjoy the pics!

Ducks huddled together at the cabin.

Sunrise at the cabin

Sunrise at the cabin.

Earlier sunrise at the cabin.

Algae at the Yakima River

A little pond that appeared on the river walk.

Wild river water

Panoramic Yakima River (This is 3 photos stitched together)

Sunny Yakima River

Clouds over Eastern Washington

On our canoe adventure, Mary and I saw a momma loon with a baby hitching a ride on her back.

Little lizard up at Red Top Mountain

Red Top Mountain Lookout. Yeah. We went all the way to the top.

View from the lookout tower.

Jeep ride up the Manastash

Vintage Kittitas Valley

Waterfall near Lake Kachess

Lake Kachess. No hiking due to snow and logging.

Gingko Petrified Forest and Wild Horse Wind Farm

It was Saturday, May 16, 2009. A beautiful, slightly hazy warm day in eastern Washington. There was a bit of a breeze. After a short pounce down to the Farmer's Market and a spendy stop at Mountain High Sports, Mary, Stefan, Jubal, and I took to the hills between Ellensburg and Vantage. The desert flowers were in bloom and the sage smelled sagey... LOL! Anyway, it was a super fun day. We stopped at the interpretive trail hike about 3 miles west of Vantage and took a roughly 3 mile hike up a little hill.

A picture of Mary taking a picture of the landscape from the trail

Some very pretty flowers along the trail.

A petrified douglas fir. All the wood has been placed by silica.

Stefan and Jubal. Your standard Point and Shoot shot. :)

After the trail hike, we found our way to the Gingko Petrified Forest Interpretive Center and saw some amazing examples of petrified wood, rocks, geodes, agates, etc. And a really interesting movie called The Trees of Stone. It's one theory of how the trees became petrified, though not terribly accurate.

The view of the Columbia River from the Interpretive Center.

Some petrified logs at the center with the Columbia River in the background.

Some petriglyphs. We came up with our own interpretation of the symbols.

The iron horses on the ridge on the other side of the river. My zoom was a bit better than I thought!

Stefan and Jubal at the Gem Shop, posing with the dinosaurs.

Me and the river.

Flowers up at the Wild Horse Wind Farm. They were really pretty.

The view from the Wind Farm. I drew an arrow to show where Mount Rainier was. Click on the picture to make it large enough to see... if you squint reeeeeaaaally hard... and use a bit of your imagination. LOL!

The Chickens Have Landed

Houston... We have chickens! LOL! These five little furry gals are soooo cute! And since I took these pictures last week they've grown tremendously! They even have real wings with feathers now! The chick in the picture at the top of the page is mine. She's Spartan 117 or Sparty for short. The orange and black chick below is Pippin and the orange and gray one standing behind her is Naruto. You can see Bombur in the back corner and the beak and forhead of Sparty on the far right. Merry, pictured by himself, was very obliging and stood still for her picture. Right now the lot of them are in Mary's kitchen. So far the cat and dog haven't been overly interested in them. Yeah!

Maria from Jerrol's stopped by work on Friday before Mother's Day and gave us some beautiful carnations. This is a picture of mine. I love the way the light shows through the petals. Pretty!

The lovely staff at HopeSource congregated at Olmstead on Friday and helped prepare the flower beds for seasonal visitors. We weeded and weeded and weeded! It was an amazing day weather-wise (though I did get a rather nasty sunburn!) and we had some yummy snacks, provided by Ada Graaff, my boss Susan Grindle's lovely mother. She provides our office with the most delicious cookies every Thursday or Friday. And she was recently honored with the Spirit of the Red Cross award at the American Red Cross Real Heroes Banquet at The Lodge at Suncadia. She has been volunteering with the Red Cross since WWII and is just now retiring.

Below is the picture of the Olmstead homestead.


On Saturday, Janelle, Mary and I attended the Fiber with a Twist Spin In down in Richland, WA. It was another beautiful, warm day. The place was pretty crowded with folks spinning and vendors. Lots of great people and great wheels. I purchased four bumps of handdyed merino... from Janelle! LOL! All the way down there and I bought stuff from the person I went down there with! The wool was too gorgeous to pass up. I also bought a bump of Potluck in Midnight Mulberry that I will spin fluffy, knit big, and felt into a purse.

Our stuff awaiting the doors to open.

Janelle's half of the table she rented.

So also this weekend, I finished my black cardigan and made a cute red camisole top to wear with it. The cardigan was very easy to knit, though it took much longer than I anticipated. The sizing is perfect. I made a large and it fits exactly like I wanted it to. The camisole is from McCall's Easy Stitch 'n Save pattern number M5787. It's a little big, but I like it too much to alter it. I used one yard of Kona Bay fabric and some red solid left over from an apron I made last year. It worked out perfectly.

EYELET CARDIGAN
PATTERN: Eyelet Cardigan from Blue Sky Alpaca
DESIGNER: Alison Williams
YARN: Julia from Nashua, an alpaca/wool blend
NEEDLES: Size 7 24" circulars
NOTIONS: Yarn needle, fabric-covered buttons