2017 Annual Report

There was time (and cause) this year for a bit of protesting.  Here's Patti at the Seattle Women's March,  and the Seattle Gay Pride Parade.  (I hope Patti's not thinking about reformatting ... not that there would be anything wrong with that).  Patti commented, "This pretty young woman was in a group next to our Unitarians.  She just looked so much more interesting than any of us.  Fun parade."  And Patti got grandson Anchor an alphabet book for his second birthday.  You can never start too young.

At the end of February Patti took a short trip up to Alaska to visit her long time friend, Sandra, Purser aboard the Alaska Marine Highway System ferry Tustumena.  She flew up to Anchorage, where she spent a day exploring, then over to Homer to meet Sandra aboard the Tustumena for its run out to Kodiak, arriving there in the morning.  After the day in Kodiak, it was back to Homer, in very rough seas.  The waves built up ice on the decks of the Tustumena, which had to be chopped off by the crew.  The bad weather necessitated a longer alternate route back to Homer, and Patti had to hustle to catch some later flights back to Anchorage and Seattle.

Patti also did some more traveling and looking after Sandra, who was dying of cancer.  Here they are in the tulip fields up in Skagit County.  Sandra passed away in October.

I sold our 12 year old Subaru Forester (with nearly 200,000 miles) in April and bought a brand new.... click here.  Keep in mind that we're from Seattle.  We've already put almost 15,000 miles on it.

North Rim of the Grand Canyon:   Patti and I kept putting off, for variety of reasons, our springtime vacation until it was almost summer.  Finally in early June  we packed up our brand new car and headed south.

We installed some big tubs in Patti's garden.  Too bad she couldn't get anything to grow in them.

In July cousins Peter Barschall, Kristi Stoddard, and families stopped by for a visit to Dog's Breath Acres.  My mother bought the flag at an Army/Navy store in the early 1950s: it's a US Navy #0 Ensign, probably used on battleships, and made entirely of wool.

The really big deal of the year, and of a lifetime, was the total solar eclipse across Oregon (and the rest of the country) on August 21.  I took a chance on good weather and drove down to Kate and Carol's in on the Oregon Coast, right under the path of totality.  Weather there in August is usually pretty good, particularly just inland away from the Pacific.  Patti, on the other hand, wanted to be 100% sure grandkids Sienna and Kiara got to see it, so she and Allison booked a spot outside Madras, in Central Oregon, which almost always has clear skies in August.  Here are the stories:  Patti and kids         Tom at the coast

Lydia and I were on our daily walk one morning in the nearby Paradise Valley Conservation Area when we came upon a bear and cub in the woods, about 20 feet away (Warning: the distance will decrease every time I tell this story).  The cub scooted up a tree and the mother bear stood up and huffed at us.  Lydia and I decided to keep on walking, and the mother bear ran away.  Lydia claims she never noticed the bears, but I have my doubts.

Taos and the Southwest:  In October we spent a week in Taos, New Mexico, with Patti's brother and sisters.  Plus I did some camping through Colorado, Arizona, and Utah.

My hiking mileage goes down a little bit each passing year; my bones and joints will soon be past the point of no return.  But I still took plenty of pictures.  And I bumped my Lifelist by more than a dozen birds this year.  However, all but one were thanks to the ABA adding Hawaiian birds to their list.  That new one was the Swallow-tailed Gull in Seattle that apparently got lost flying out of the Galapagos.  Here are a few more pictures: the Oregon coast in August, and the Washington coast in September.

Again this year we traveled down to Kate and Carol's in Neskowin for Thanksgiving, and again we stuffed ourselves.  But maybe the best stuff was the birthday cake that Kate made for herself.

We're looking forward to a quiet New Year's and a quiet 2018.