Sylvia Goes to Thailand and Laos.

<p> Trip Notes: <a href=Part1.htm>Part 1</a> -<a href=Part2.htm>Part 2</a> -<a href=Part3.htm>Part 3</a> </p>

Sylvia and Eric's 4th date!&nbsp; A bike ride on the Sammamish River/Burke Gillman Trails from Marymoor Park to Gasworks

We left Marymoor Park at about 9am.&nbsp; Here we are at about half way into the bike ride.

On our way to gasworks, we stopped at the University of Washington to peruse the stacks in the library.&nbsp; Sylvia wanted to see a collection of Horatio Alger books as well.&nbsp; Here is a view down the mall.&nbsp; Mt. Ranier is lost somewhere in those clouds!

We found some 'interesting' sculptures in the library.&nbsp; At least they made cool sounds when we pounded on them.

Here we have one of the reading rooms in the main library.&nbsp; Evidently reading is not the only pastime here.

There were some neat looking, old-style chairs here as well.&nbsp; Sylvia figures this would be a neat piece for her father to replicate in miniature.

After the University, we finally made it to Gasworks Park.&nbsp; Needless to say, our rear-ends were quite sore from the 28 mile trip!

After tooling around gasworks for a bit, we rode into Fremont and had lunch at at a Greek restaurant. Just outside the restaurant was a bus stop with some 'permanent' patrons.

Eric and Sylvia go canoeing on Lake Sammamish

Eric and Sylvia went to Ginko State Park. They also went across the Columbia river to take a look at the Vantage Horse Sculptures. After that they went to Snoqualmie Falls. Needless to say, it was quite a busy day!

Eric and Sylvia went to the Hoh Rain Forest in the Olympic Mountains as well as stopping at the beach on the way!

Eric and Sylvia take a hike to the top of Tiger Mountain!

Eric and Sylvia go to Newcastle Golf Club for range practice and lunch with Rich and Jane

Sylvia and Eric go to San Juan Island.

Eric at American Camp on San Juan Island

Sylvia and Kristen in condo in Friday Harbor

Sylvia at Grandmother Cove on San Juan Island.

Eric climbing on the abundant logs scattered at Grandmother cove

Sylvia at Grandmother cove

The former officers quarters at American Camp.

Eric having lunch on a big boulder at American Camp.

Misc pictures

Bike camping on Lopez Island.

Eric relaxing against driftwood at our Spencer Spit State Park campsite...right on the water.

This tent really does hold 2 people pretty comfortably.&nbsp; Eric is lofting up his new sleeping bag on top of the tent

The rest of the campsites, and Orcas Island are in the background here.&nbsp; Sylvia is competing for space with the rest of our junk.

After we set up the tent, we went for a bike ride WITHOUT the backpacks (they were really heavy, and threw our weight off when biking, but fortunately it wasn't too far from the ferry landing to the campground).&nbsp; This is Eric overlooking Fisherman's Bay.

This is back at the state park, after our bike ride.&nbsp; This is right outside our campsite.

We met some people digging for clams on our walk around the spit.&nbsp; There were two families, with a bunch of kids.&nbsp; Their legal limit would have been somewhere around 70 pounds, but they weren't going for that much.&nbsp; Apparently some species are good steamed, and some are best fried.&nbsp; You can tell where the clams are by looking for their little breathing holes among the gravel. Plus, sometimes you can see them squirt water out of the hole.&nbsp; Notice the piles of clams.

This is Sylvia at the tip of Spencer Spit.

This is a cabin on Spencer Spit.&nbsp; Evidently a guy called Spencer built it.

On Monday we biked south on the island.&nbsp; Lopez Island has lots of farm and pasture land.&nbsp; These cows weren't very friendly--wouldn't eat my grass offering.. There were lots of calves around--maybe that's why.

This is Sylvia at Agate Beach, the furthest south we got.&nbsp; This is an old seldom-used dock.

Action shot--Sylvia riding her bike right around Shark Reef Park.

Shark Reef Park had a lot of beautiful outlooks.&nbsp; You could see the lighthouse on San Juan Island, where we were about 3 weeks ago.&nbsp; There were some serious rip currents between the islands, to the point of having whitecaps on the water.&nbsp; Looks like there's a couple rivers in the water.

Sylvia at Shark Reef Park.&nbsp; San Juan Island is the one on the right--you can just barely make out the lighthouse on the tip of it.

On our way back we stopped at Bucky's Grill for a late well-appreciated lunch.&nbsp; Eric is happy.&nbsp; He is not on his narrow hard bike seat.

Back at the ferry dock.&nbsp; We misread the times and got in a little early.

...just in time to meet and chat with the designer of this Vision brand recumbent bicycle.&nbsp; This guy on the right just bought one, the designer is out of the picture.

Taking the ferry back.&nbsp; I'm not pregnant, I just have a bunch of junk in my pocket.

Pictures of flowers at Bellevue Botanical Gardens.

Eric and Sylvia went to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens on Friday night.&nbsp; Photographic experimentation was the name of the game that night.&nbsp; Here follow some of the flowers and plants they saw.

Here are pictures of Sylvia and a pig at Kelsey Creek Farm Park.&nbsp; Oink!

Eric and Sylvia go canoeing on Lake Washington and also go to Greenlake Park.

We went canoeing Saturday close to the University of Washington.&nbsp; Lucky for us, we had our own canoe, and didn't have to wait in line to rent a canoe.&nbsp; Evidently, from the announcements on the PA system, there were more than a hundred people waiting.

There's lots of bird life around there--it's kind of a wetland area.&nbsp; Heron...

...LOTS of Canadian geese (a big pest around here)

...and I think this was a young bald eagle.&nbsp; Eric, however, thought it wasn't.&nbsp; Who was right?&nbsp; I was.

Here's another heron, this time with Mt. Rainier in the background.

There's some really beautiful waterfront houses around this area, called the Laurelhurst area.

We fed some ducks at the Arboretum.

...and then went to Greenlake, thinking of renting some rollerbladed.&nbsp; Ended up not doing that, just walking around.&nbsp; For some reason, Eric's beard had a session of really heavy growth right around then.&nbsp; See below.

More canadian geese...otherwise known as rats with wings.

A hike up Little Mt. Si.

On Sunday, we went for a hike up Little Mount Si near North Bend.&nbsp; On the way up, we came across some folks climbing a rock face.

This is a view from the top of Little Si of North Bend.

Here is a zoomed in shot (with 4X digital zoom thrown in as well) of a neighborhood where we think Bret and Victoria live (friends of ours).

Here is another shot of downtown North bend.

On the way back down, we saw the strangest thing.&nbsp; A guy was hiking up the mountain with a Siamese kitten following him!&nbsp; Turns out he was the owner of the cat, and he had taken to brining it with him unleashed.&nbsp; The kitten was quite good about following closely!&nbsp; The kitten's name is &quot;Sticky&quot;.

Eric's birthday!&nbsp; And a trip to Cannon Beach, Oregon for the annual Sand Castle Building Contest.

Eric and Sylvia drove down to Cannon Beach, Oregon, to see the annual Sand Castle building contest.&nbsp; Rain was coming down in sheets on the way down.&nbsp; Luckily we had a brief moment of clearing right as we got there.&nbsp; From where we parked, you were able to drive your car down to the area where the contest was held

All kinds of cars...

Some lucky dogs were carried...

A brief moment of clearing lets us get a great shot of Haystack Hill (or something like that).&nbsp; It's an unusual type of rock formation fairly common on the Oregon/Washington coast..

After a little walk we got to the contest area.&nbsp; There was a pretty wide range of skill levels, from church youth groups...

...to little kids who got inspired from all the digging and carving and decided to make their own sculptures.

The really skilled groups had their plots further north on the beach. Some were really well done.&nbsp; One group had a really cute bear looking into a car.&nbsp; Here's some pictures from their plot.

Another group had a &quot;big top&quot; circus theme.

One had a living room theme that was quite realistic.&nbsp; Note the beer can on the table.&nbsp; The couch didn't look all that comfortable, though.

The dot com scene also made an appearance

Castles, not surprisingly, were also pretty popular, ranging from the simple to the much more elaborate.

And we had all kinds of animals, fish, dogs, dinosaurs, dragons, you name it.

Tools ranged from shovels to drywall trowels to feather dusters

This one was cute--Fish 'n Ships.

A couple times Eric had to lift me up so that I could get a good view.

Last year they did this one face up, this time the poor guy was face down in the sand.

Check out the Fremont Solstice Parade and Fair!

The most famous part of the Fremont Solstice Festival is the parade.&nbsp; We saw some pretty unusual people in the neighborhood, as we walked towards the Fremont area.&nbsp; These people here were obviously participating in the parade.&nbsp; Their kid, in the middle here, made a point of walking at least 10 feet behind them before we took a picture.

The Fremont Troll is right underneath the 99 bridge.&nbsp; Note the VW bug is has clutched in his hand.&nbsp; The other guy is the picture is Joe Beda, a friend of Eric's who accompanied us to the fair.

Along the parade route, people were setting up early to get good seats.

Some people were really well prepared.

We decided not to stake out our claim to early, and instead walked around the fair.&nbsp; Lots of food for sale

Vendors selling balloon sculptures.

This guy has been a fixture at the Fremont fair for many years.

The Communist Party was out in force--note the Quotations from Chairman Mao.&nbsp; I bet you can't even get this in China anymore.

Dig the dog...

As we finished with the fair and were walking towards the parade area, we passed the Weird Car parking lot.&nbsp; Note the Jurrasic Park theme on this car...

And then we have the floating sculpture car...

And the broken ceramic tile car...

This one has everything plus the kitchen sink...

Floating babies?

A portable office, with phone, answering machine, everything you could need...

Finally we got our spot along the parade route.&nbsp; An unofficial tradition of&nbsp; the Fremont fair is for naked people on bikes to zip around the parade route right before the more official floats.&nbsp; Check them out!

Another pre-parade attraction is the Bubble Man, who twirls around swinging his bubble wands in the air, creating bubbles and suds for people

Then a guy next to us had some kind of seizure, blocking the parade for quite a while while the ambulance and fire truck got in.

Finally, here's the parade itself.&nbsp; There were no motorized floats allowed, so everything was somehow human powered.&nbsp; These guys put together a massive 4-man bicycle.

Note the men pushing the float at the back.

Planet of the apes?

Here's the rest of the pictures, in random order.

A wonderful trip to Stehekin, on Lake Chelan, in the dry eastern part of Washington State!

Eric poses in front of the 3D relief map at Fields Point, where we caught the ferry.&nbsp; What a long lake!

A guy from the park service gave a little talk on the ferry.&nbsp; He's a school teacher from Missouri, who works for the park service each summer.

Notice people trying to huddle behind the enclosed area.&nbsp; It was actually quite chilly out in the open, exposed to the wind.

Most of the landscape along the lake was like this...quite dry, with scattered pines and lots of rocky outcrops.

We saw the occasional snow-capped peak as well.

Eric managed to sneak into this one...he's right under the flag.

We were dropped off at Moore Point, from where there's a trail to Stehekin.&nbsp; The ferry beached itself on the rocks, and then the crew dropped off a walkway for Eric and I&nbsp; to get to the shore.&nbsp; Then they backed out...

...and took off without us.

We had lunch right at the Moore Point campground.&nbsp; It's a former resort, with swimming pool and all.&nbsp; The swimming pools is now all filled in, and really all you can see of the resort is some flat areas with no trees.

These are the remnants of the old dock.

We found some monster dandelions right off the trail.&nbsp; They have a funny concave shaped seeds.

This is one of several streams that flow into the lake.

About 2 seconds after I said &quot;I wish there were some other people around so that they could take our picture!&quot; these 2 folks came up.&nbsp; We of course immediately asked them to take our picture.&nbsp; They took the first one while I was taking Eric's glasses off...

Eric got some blisters.&nbsp; The bandages didn't stick very well, unfortunately.

At least there was a good view while we were adjusting footwear.

This picture is pretty washed out. However, that boat in the water is a high-speed catamaran that does the whole distance from Chelan to Stehekin in 45 minutes. That's about 4 times faster than the ferry we took.

This is some kind of parasitic plant. Notice the complete lack of leaves, or anything green.&nbsp; Usually this type of plant lives off the roots of other plants.&nbsp; The stalk was somewhat sticky.

This shrub was very common--it's called the Mock-orange.&nbsp; You could tell that it was around before seeing it because it had a very strong sweet scent.

The water looked so inviting that we took off our boots and socks and dipped our feet in when the trail dipped to the shore.&nbsp; Chilly!&nbsp; But very refreshing.

When we got to Stehekin, we got the last spot at the Purple Point campground.

Dinner was Ramen noodles with cheese, cooked on a super light-weight stove that fits in a container that was about 4&quot; by 1.5&quot; by 1.5&quot;.

Me and the lake.

Sunset in Stehekin.

This is the exact same spot where, last summer, Hans and Holly got married!

If this shot looks posed, that's because it is.&nbsp; Eric balanced the camera on a fence post, set the self-timer, and then rushed over to sit on the bench with me.

This is about the cutest little cabin that they have in Stehekin.&nbsp; Wonder if they rent it out?

This is the Honey Bear Bakery Express delivery van...I don't think it's been driven for a while.

The next morning we rented bikes and wandered around.&nbsp; This was at the playground of the Stehekin School.

Eric's inspecting the apples at Buckner Orchard.

Lots of old apple processing machinery was laying around.

Eric risked life and limb and camera to take this picture of me while biking.

All too soon, it was time to leave on the ferry, back to Fields Point.&nbsp; In the background are the &quot;3 B's&quot;, Mt. Boston, Mt. Buckner, and Mt. Booker.

Eric snuck this picture of me, asleep on the ferry.

There was some kind of cow art exhibition in New York involving cows.

There was a public art project involving cows...lots of them... in New York while we were there.&nbsp; And here's a quote:</p> <p>The cows are the brainchild of CowParade Worldwide Inc., an international organization comprised of Swiss and American concerns. They are life-size, fiberglass cows designed by local artists. CowParade is set to debut on Broadway on June 15, 2000. Through the efforts of CowParade Worldwide and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, the cows will appear throughout the five boroughs of New York City through Labor Day. Following the exhibition, the majority of the cows will be available to the public at auction with the proceeds earmarked for charity.</p>

Bright lights, big city--New York!

The main reason for heading to the East Coast was to attend Eric's grandmother's 90th birthday party.&nbsp; It was a huge family gathering, everyone in the Vasilik clan attended.

Here's Eric's parents, brothers, and grandmother.

We weren't the only ones taking photos...

After spending Saturday and Sunday in Clifton, New Jersey, spending time with the Vasiliks, we went on to New York City on Monday.&nbsp; Our hotel was great--we had a wonderful view of Central Park from the hotel window.

Monday was our ethnic neighborhood walking tour day.&nbsp; We started out taking the subway to Chinatown.&nbsp; This is a surreptitious subway shot--the camera we had allows you to take a picture without actually holding the camera up to your eye, by looking down at the LCD screen.

Here's some street scenes in Chinatown

There were dozens of outside vendors selling fake you-name-it.&nbsp; The most popular counterfeit was watches (Rolex for $30?)

This woman was selling counterfeit music CDs.&nbsp; I believe all of these people are illegal immigrants.

There were also people selling fake DVDs.&nbsp; Eric has watched a DVD bought from one of these vendors, and apparently they're very low quality.&nbsp; Notice her stand--on wheels so she can quickly move away in case the police come.

Fake perfume was another hot item.

Check out the &quot;doughnut peaches&quot;.&nbsp; They were quite flat, and very sweet and tasty.&nbsp;&nbsp;We bought a couple--luckily they didn't get crushed before we could eat them.

We walked through Little Italy, which is now exclusively a tourist area, chock full of &quot;authentic&quot; Italian restaurants .&nbsp; The next goal was a Hasidic neighborhood which was supposed to be close by according to my guidebook.&nbsp; We walked around that area, but only saw a couple Hasidic Jews, not the crowds we had expected.&nbsp; I asked one of the Hasidic Jews if we were in the right area...he got insulted.&nbsp;&nbsp; Too bad I didn't get a picture of him. On our walk we walked by about a dozen restaurant equipment supply stores, selling used and new deli and restaurant machinery.

Bikes are a popular way to get around in NYC.&nbsp; We saw lots of them locked up with massive chains.&nbsp; I think another means of deterring thieves is having a really ratty bike, like most of them were.

Sometimes chains didn't help.

More street scenes from our walk...

We took a walk to Alphabet City/Thompkin park, because I wanted to see a rougher neighborhood.&nbsp; Eric surreptitiously took these pictures of a big group of young anarchist/punks that were all congregated in one area.

Here's some pictures for you dog lovers out there, especially the ones who have access to dog friendly parks like Marymoor.&nbsp; This is a New York dog area... all 300 square feet of it

That night we met up with Eric's friend John and girlfriend Eva.&nbsp; We went to a French restaurant.&nbsp; Service was...French.&nbsp; The peppered steak was great, though.

Eric MADE them pose for this picture.

Tuesday we went through Central Park.&nbsp; Lots of exposed rock there...

This is in Central Park looking back to the area where our hotel is.

What do you know...we asked a couple to take a picture of us in Central Park, and he turned out to be a patent attorney from Seattle.

We rented some bikes and toured the park that way.&nbsp; There was a footrace going on in the park, the Tommy Hilfinger 4 mile race.&nbsp; By the time we got there, the adult portion was over, but we were just in time for the 3 to 4 year old races.

The Marines had participated in the race as well.

This is the northern end of Central Park, poking into Harlem.

And here's the big lake right in the middle of the park.

&quot;Fleet week&quot; was going on when we were in NYC, so there were lots of Navy men around, doing the touristy things just like us.&nbsp; We asked these guys if we could get a picture with them, and they were quite friendly.

We went to the little pond where you can rent remote control sailboats.

This is me on the Alice in Wonderland sculpture.

This lady was doing the &quot;silent sculpture&quot; act for money right outside of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.&nbsp; When I put a dollar in the bucket she stretched out her hand to me and smiled.&nbsp; It was a little embarrassing.

And here's the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Here's some knights in shining armor from the Met.

And here's my knight next to some shining armor...

The Guggenheim Museum is famous for it's architecture. You see the paintings as you walk down a spiral, inside the building.

You weren't supposed to take pictures, but the spy feature of the digital camera came in really handy here.&nbsp; We would pretend to be admiring a picture, while around waist level we would actually take a photo.

This was Eric's favorite.&nbsp; We got caught taking this one by the guard, and so had to take it from a different angle which wasn't as good.

Around 2 that day, we met Eric's friend David Bau.&nbsp; We walked around 5th Avenue a bit, looking into stores, which were mostly closed.

Glitz capital of the world?

These are from around the Rockefeller Center.

And this is Times Square.&nbsp; Very, very crowded, but I'm not sure I understood what all the crowds were there for.

There were still tons of vendors selling all kinds of counterfeit goods.&nbsp; Oakley sunglasses were very popular, all sold by very dark-skinned Africans.&nbsp; They had the sunglasses in large garbage bags with the sides rolled down neatly, and would pack up and move as soon as they saw police in the area.&nbsp; We actually saw this happen.&nbsp; The cop below was posing for us...

...and later walked up the street where the counterfeit goods vendors were.&nbsp; They packed up immediately, but as you can see below, were selling again seconds after he left.&nbsp; You can still see the cop in this picture (horseback on the street, with the light blue helmet) and the black vendor on the right side is just about to put his bag of sunglasses down again.

Eric got us tickets for the David Letterman show--we were to be part of the live studio audience!&nbsp; I was psyched.&nbsp; Unfortunately, there were absolutely no pictures allowed inside, and the had guards along just about every other aisle of the seats, plus along the back, so were weren't able to sneak any photos.&nbsp; This will have to do.

We saw one of these tiny electric cars as we were waiting in line for the Letterman show.

Wednesday we went to the Financial district...Wall Street!&nbsp; After a pretty hefty wait we were inside the observation area, looking down at all the traders in the pit.

Then we walked to the World Trade Center, and went up.&nbsp; 107 floors!&nbsp; This is looking north to the Empire State building.

The goodyear blimp!

This is us, looking north again

And this is the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

This is me and the World Trade Center.

Then we took the Staten Island ferry--free!&nbsp; You get a great view of downtown Manhattan, and the Statue of Liberty

This barge had a huge digging shovel on it, and was dredging the canal.

The Staten Island Ferry...

This is a Navy or Coast Guard base next to Manhatten.

Out and about in Seattle parks.

Eric's in his new office, with a view of the mountains.

We were going to rent kayaks on Lake Union, but it was a little too windy for comfort, so we wimped out.

Here's the view of Mt. Rainier from Seward Park in Seattle. I think this was one of the clearest days in recent history.

Eric was teasing the Canadian geese, throwing them bits of grass and pretending it was bread.

These people were actually feeding the geese for real.

Some pictures with Mt. Rainier in the background.

In the afternoon we went to Discovery Park in Seattle, to watch a production of Henry IV, Part One by Greenstage, a local amateur theatre group.&nbsp; People came with blankets and picnics.

This is the final fight between Henry and Hotspur.&nbsp; Henry kills Hotspur, and holds him in his arms while he dies.

Later in the evening we did some massive batch cooking, planning on freezing most of it.&nbsp; Eric doing some double-fisted stirring here.

Hiking the middle fork of the Snoqualmie River.

The trail was pretty flat, so there weren't any great views, but there was the Snoqualmie River.&nbsp; Right at the beginning of the trailhead, there was a beautiful wooden footbridge.

A closeup each of us.&nbsp; That funny thing on my tongue is a salmonberry.&nbsp; They come in two varieties, one pink colored (like salmon flesh) and the other a dark red (like the one on my tongue).&nbsp; They're not that flavorful, but they are plentiful in the woods.

Here we are having a snack on the riverbank.&nbsp; Nobody else was around to take our picture together, so we took each other's picture.

Here's was the view from our lunch spot.&nbsp; Maybe the back end of Mt. Si?&nbsp; Probably not.

On the way home I went swimming at Chism Beach Park on Lake Washington while Eric took pictures.&nbsp; The water was great!&nbsp; There's a superb view of Seattle from the park.

Luckily my sports bra doubles as a bikini top, and my shorts as a bikini bottom.

Ah...refreshing.

Bike camping trip to San Juan Island.

Here's Hans, Holly, Angela, and Eric (Bultemeier) at the start of the trip in Friday harbor.&nbsp; After 3 weeks of bright sunshine, the 22nd dawned rainy and cool.

Angela and Eric take a look at the view on the road towards Limekiln State Park.

You can see Vancouver Island, Canada in the background here.

This is at Limekiln State Park, on the west side of San Juan Island.&nbsp; We asked a guy to take a group picture of us in front of this Madrona tree, but when we looked at the camera, it turned out that it didn't take.&nbsp; So we did one with the self timer.

We went looking around in the tidepools at Limekiln, and found this unusual starfish, with skinny red arms.

The park contained numerous madrona trees.&nbsp; The outer bark of these trees peels away, and leaves a very smooth reddish inner back

The Limekiln lighthouse.

Limekiln is supposed to be a really good place to watch for killer whales (orcas).&nbsp; We didn't see any, but one of the park rangers was doing a program about the whales, and had this handy display of a dorsal fin as a visual aid, so here's the next best thing to a whale.

I thought this tree looks a lot like a face...

The weather started clearing a bit as we left Limekiln State Park.&nbsp; Here's some views south down the coast--some very desirable real estate.

Next we biked to San Juan County Park.&nbsp; It used to be an old farm--below is one of the barns, now used as a signpost..

Eric found a crab, and was playing with it.&nbsp; (okay, okay, it was a dead crab--it's a posed picture)

This park, like Limekiln, is big with scuba divers.

The view looking north of San Juan County Park.

This was a funny little structure right off the road on the way back to the campground (Lakedale).&nbsp; I believe it's a bus shelter for kids to stand in.

Fixing dinner at the campground.

Marshmallows on an open flame.

The next morning dawned a lot brighter.

On the way to English Camp National Historical Park, we found a big patch of thimbleberries.&nbsp; Thimbleberries are very similar to raspberries, but sweeter, with almost a nutty taste.&nbsp; They're very delicate, too, and are usually crushed in the process of being picked.&nbsp; This is probably why they're not commercially grown.

This is English camp.&nbsp; They restored a lot of the buildings to just how they looked when the camp was in operation, all whitewashed.

The camp also includes a formal english garden.

This is a huge broadleaf maple tree on the grounds.&nbsp; Very impressive.

All too soon, we were headed back.&nbsp; It was completely sunny by now.&nbsp; Below are our bikes on the ferry.&nbsp; With bikes, there's no wait whatsoever to get on the ferry.&nbsp; With a car, though, you could wait for hours.

This is the condo we stayed in during our last trip to San Juan Island.

This floatplane says Expedia.com on it.&nbsp; That's some expensive advertising...

Bye bye, San Juan Island!

Weekend trip to Whistler.

This trip inaugurated a new camera, a Cannon Elph.&nbsp; Here's some of the very first pictures from it:

And here's the view from the road on the way up, between Vancouver and Whistler.&nbsp; Quite scenic!

Eric and I weren't alone on the trip--there were some other couples and families with toddlers and babies who came as well.&nbsp;&nbsp; Here's some (not all) of the small fry that came with on the trip.&nbsp; This is Jordan:

And this is Hannah:

We stayed with Rich and Jane at their condo up on Whistler Mountain, in Creekside.&nbsp; The view is outstanding!

The condo feels very homey and lodge-like.&nbsp; Here's some of the rooms:

There was a ongoing moose theme in the condo.&nbsp; If you look closely, you can see 2 moose in the bottom picture.

Rich and Jane's dog Madison enjoyed the cool stone floors on during the heat of the day.

Jane, Rich and Eric went golfing at the Whistler Golf Course Saturday afternoon.&nbsp; I hung out with them for a couple holes while they played.&nbsp; The view was tremendous!

Saturday afternoon Gary and Grace, and Eric and I rented bikes and took a ride around Whistler.&nbsp; I'm happy in this picture because I found a patch of ripe and juicy thimbleberries.

This is all of us with Green Lake in the background.

You could take an float plane tour of the Whistler area from Green Lake.

Late Saturday afternoon we used Gary and Grace's lift tickets and took the lift up to near the top of Whistler.&nbsp; The view kept on getting better the more elevation we gained.

There was a large cafeteria at the top, but it was closed that late in the day.

One company offered helicopter rides for something like $79 dollars for 8 minutes.&nbsp; We contented ourselves with taking some pictures of the helicopter.

Eric and I hiked up to a little mini peak--it was one of those things where when you get to what you think is the top, you see that you've actually only reached a little knob of the ridge.&nbsp; It was good enough for us, though.

Saturday evening we had dinner at a great restaurant called Quattros in Whistler.&nbsp; There were 8 of us, and we had a separate room all to ourselves.&nbsp; Superb food!

On Sunday, Gary, Omri, Eric and I went on a guided mountain biking trip.&nbsp; Jeff was our guide.&nbsp; He's lived full time in Whistler the past 3 years, the past couple years he's worked as a lift mechanic assistant in the winter, but this year he's hoping to be a snowboard instructor.

Omri and Gary riding down the the mountain

Sylvia finally got up the guts to go over this sew-saw type thing that's supposed to build your skills.&nbsp; She did it successfully 3 times before...

Yeoch!&nbsp; That's a grimace of pain, not a smile.&nbsp; And Eric took this picture before comforting her...

That wasn't the only fall we had.&nbsp; Omri had a couple falls to his name.&nbsp; Here's the evidence.

Excursions around Seattle (Chittendon locks, blackberry picking, Boeing Surplus Store).

Around August 3rd, I took some excursions around Seattle with my dad and brother, and sometimes Eric. Chittenden Locks was the first destination.&nbsp; This is how ships travel from Lake Union and Puget Sound.&nbsp; See the water level changing?

The pleasure boats are lined up, waiting to get through.

Right outside the locks is a very nicely done garden.

There's a salmon viewing area at the locks as well, where you can watch the salmon jump up the fish ladder.

Later that evening we went blackberry picking at Marymoor Park. We found some great spots, with big luscious ripe blackberries.

Tom did a little bit of climbing on the climbing wall at Marymoor.

On Saturday we went to the Boeing Surplus store. It's where Boeing gets rid of all it's excess supplies.&nbsp; You find all kinds of weird stuff there, from dozens of slide projectors to strange airplane tools.&nbsp; It's fun to look at, but there's usually not too much a person can use.

Fort Worden and Port Townsend.

This is the lighthouse at Fort Worden, an old military base.&nbsp; Apparently this is where part of An Officer and a Gentleman was filmed.&nbsp; Below is the lighthouse.&nbsp; The roof of the lighthouse-keepers house, right next door, is all white with seagull droppings.

Here's a closer view of the lighthouse

There's a very interesting and huge area of military fortifications that were built in the early part of this century as part of the costal defense system.&nbsp; Here's assorted pictures from the fortifications.

Here's some of the displays they had.&nbsp; Check out the old WWI style helmets

My dad

Here's the former barracks.&nbsp;&nbsp; I don't know if they're occupied now, but somewhere around here is where they filmed An Officer and a Gentleman.

Port Townsend is a fun little artsy town, lots of galleries.&nbsp; </font> Here's a little wooden box that my dad is going to make for me...

The harbor at Port Townsend

Day trip to Mt. St. Helens.

The weather wasn't that great when we went to Mt. St. Helens, but at least it wasn't raining.&nbsp; On the way out there on highway 505, there was a little tourist stop where they had on display a half-buried A-frame, completed just before the eruption.

This is how it looked before the volcano dumped 5 feet of additional mud in the valley.

This area is also a hotbed of &quot;Big Foot&quot; legends.

We saw a cheesy film about the eruption at the gift store, and took some pictures of it:

Another tourist stop on the way to the National Volcanic Monument offered&nbsp;helicopter rides.&nbsp; The gray surface&nbsp; in the valley is left over from when the volcano send millions of tons of melted glaciers mixed with debris down the valley.

This is a bridge along the way which has since been rebuilt.

This is from the area around the Johnston Ridge Observatory and Visitor Center, where we went for a hike on&nbsp; Boundary Trail.&nbsp; The visitor center was very crowded, but it's amazing how much people thin out when you walk out half an hour.&nbsp; Here's some views of Mt. St. Helens and the blowout area--unfortunately the top of the mountain was clouded over.

Note the blown down trees here.

A guy we met hiking found a really old can of coke.&nbsp; Here's a <a href="http://www.nostalgiapubs.com/mark/special98-1.html">link</a> to when the can was actually made (look down on the page).&nbsp; I'll bet it was caught in the mudslide..

Here's some of the wildflowers we saw.&nbsp; Alpine lupine.

Pearly everlasting

Fireweed--very common.

The red flower is Indian Paintbrush.

Sylvia on some blown down trees.

Here's what a tree stump looks like close up.&nbsp; They were all blown over by the explosion.&nbsp; Fascinating how it splinters like this--you never see this in a normal tree stump.

Spirit Lake.&nbsp; If you strain you can see the logs choking up the lake--they're from the explosion.

I was picking up pumice for a souvenir, and felt a little bad about it because there really wasn't too much pumice around.&nbsp; But then I found whole fields of it!

Eric juggling pumice

Okay, so I didn't always stay on the trail.&nbsp; But it was Eric's idea...

This trail felt a lot steeper than it looks here.

The clouds never did disperse from the mountaintop, unfortunately.

After the Boundary Trail, we hiked around an area where the main landscape feature was hummocks.&nbsp; Much of the mountain exploded into dust and ash, but there were also massive chunks that were blown out, without disintegrating. Here's a hummock, showing signs of the rapid erosion that is characteristic.

Sylvia sitting on a hummock, with more hummocks in the background.

You can really see the erosion here.&nbsp; Not only were the hummocks&nbsp;eroding away very rapidly, but there was also 60 to 100 ft of ash and mud deposited in this valley, which is eroding at an enormous rate.

Eric and Sylvia at Coldwater lake--a completely new lake, formed when the explosion created a dam in front of a stream.

Lopez Island Juggling Festival at Steckler's farm!&nbsp; Check out the nighttime naked juggling pictures!

We started the trip with a ferry from Anacortes.&nbsp; Here's Eric and me, close to the ferry terminal.

When we got to the Steckler Farm on Lopez Island, the juggling festival was in full swing.&nbsp; Lots of interesting people!

There was, of course, lots of juggling going on.&nbsp; Here's me, concentrating on juggling 5 balls.

I was REALLY concentrating...

Eric juggling 5 balls.&nbsp; He's a lot more casual than I am.

Eric juggling 7 clubs with John.

Eric and I juggling

We took some breaks as well.&nbsp; I put this flower in Eric's sunglasses.&nbsp; Cute!

This is John, juggling 4 clubs.

Ben, juggling 5 oversized rings

There was lots of club passing going on at the festival.

This guy was a little eccentric, but an amazingly good juggler.&nbsp; He had 3 clubs down to an art--very graceful, like a dance.&nbsp; Too bad we didn't have a video!

Amazingly enough, this one-armed man was a great juggler.

This 16 year old was only only juggling 3 balls here, but he's very, very good.

This is generally what the scene looked like.&nbsp; In the background is the Steckler house.

A local Lopez Island band came and played as well.

There was a lot of non-juggling action going on as well.

This little girl was pretending to be a cheetah.&nbsp; She came around to us, and ripped out Eric's entrails.

This is me trying out what's called &quot;poi&quot;, which is basically a set of balls on a string that you swing symmetrically.

Rope twirling

Umbrella balancing

Cigar box manipulation

Diablo

Stilt walking.&nbsp; Notice the guy with the kilt.

Eric and I took a long walk around Hummel Lake before dinner.

Here's folks preparing the corn-on-the-cob for dinner.

Before dinner, we stood in a circle for the pre-meal ritual of singing.

Around 9 that night, the NAKED FIRE JUGGLING began!&nbsp; The photos aren't that great...but Eric says &quot;At least you can tell the boys from the girls!&quot;.&nbsp; At first there was a big group juggle of torches, then there were smaller acts.

Here's 2 guys manipulating staffs, lit on both ends.

These 2 women did a club-swinging routine.

Assorted trips in November including Seahawks football game at Husky Stadium and a hike up Mount Si.

The fit and trim Dinarte Morais.

We went with Dinarte to a Seahawks game at Husky Stadium.&nbsp; The mascot came into our area here.

A bike ride along the Samamamish River Trail.

Teasing Kassi Kat with turkey

On a hiking trip to Mt. Si with Jean and Kelly Kincaid, Jean found a mushroom that we thought was a false morel.&nbsp; I looked up the false morel online, though, and it doesn't look like this.&nbsp; Jean is taking a mushroom class at Bellevue Community College.

This is the biggest mushroom we found--didn't know what it was, though.

Jean and Kelly on top of Mt. Si.

Jean and Kelly freezing on top of Mt. Si, about to eat lunch.

It was sunny while we were on top of Mt. Si, but on the way back home it looked like it was about to start snowing there.

Eric's company, Crossgain, had a company movie event that I went to.&nbsp; This is Adam Bosworth, the founder of Crossgain, sticking out his tongue for Eric's picture.

A Crossgain company sponsored flight to beautiful San Juan Island.

John Seghers at the controls of his plane at Paine Field.

Lopez Island

American Camp National Historical Park on San Juan Island.&nbsp; Click <a href="http://www.guidetosanjuans.com/maplg.gif">here </a>for a map of the San Juan Islands.

Friday Harbor on San Juan Island

Approaching the runway at Friday Harbor.

Watch out!&nbsp; Eric's at the controls.

Deception Pass

The San Juan Islands

Hey Dad!&nbsp; This would be a good chair for you to make in miniature!

Part of the Crossgain gang in front of the Spingtree Restaurant in Friday Harbor

Sylvia in John Seghers plane

Eric and Sylvia in front of John's plane

John Seghers and Steve Brandli in front of Steve's plane

John Wadlow, John Schneider (facing away) and Ryan Hennig

About to land in Paine Field.&nbsp; Notice the ferry.

We drove to Eastern Washington, hoping to go apple-picking.

We were going to go apple-picking in the Wenatchee area, but it was a couple weeks too late.&nbsp; So, we just went for a drive and checked out the (mildly cheesey) Washington Apple Commission.

This is the new way of growing apples--on heavy-duty stakes in the ground.&nbsp; This is a demonstration plot at the Washington Apple Commission.

We did pick a backpack full of&nbsp; apples, too, from an orchard that had been picked already.&nbsp; They must have been frozen a couple times, because the temperature had gone down to the 20's a few nights in a row, but they were still great.

This is one of the fans that's used in freezing weather to prevent cold air from killing the blossoms.

Feeding the cats some beef jerky.&nbsp; Their motto: &quot;I'll act like a turkey for some beef jerky.&quot;

A walk in Grasslawn Park is an excuse to take some photos.

A walk in Grasslawn park is an excuse to take some photos.

A cold weather trip to Woodland Park Zoo.

The gray mousy-looking bird is called a Specked Mousebird.

This looked like a mating dance to me...

We figured that the water for the hippos must be heated--the temperature had gone down into the 20's the past few nights.

The Komodo Dragon.

A close up of the Komodo Dragon's tongue, which they smell with.

This is an &quot;enrichment exercise&quot; for the orangutans, so they don't get so bored.&nbsp; Basically one of the employees came around and showed her little toys.

Eric looking cool and studly in front of the elephant area.&nbsp; We're waiting to get into the baby elephant area.

This is the baby elephant, as yet unnamed.&nbsp; Cute!

...and playful!

A birthday party at the zoo while we were eating lunch.

Penguins--they love the cold water.

The grizzly bears were pretty slow...

and lethargic.

The otters, on the other hand, were a lot of fun to watch.

Wolves

Baby kangaroos

The snow leopards (mother and two young ones) were very playful.&nbsp; About to attack...

Mother comes by...

And walks on.&nbsp; She doesn't care anymore.

A tiger, watching us intently.

A Gila Monster

An iguana

At Terry and Sue's home, with their family.

Thanksgiving at Terry and Sue Lucas house was great.&nbsp; Unfortunately we didn't get a big family shot.&nbsp; Here's Terry and Gregory

Rachael with Cupcake.&nbsp; Cupcake is huge!&nbsp; I wonder who weighs more?

Bill and his two daughers, Terry and Maggie.

Sylvia with Cupcake.&nbsp; Look how long that tail is!

This cat is getting a lot of camera time here!&nbsp; It's because the thing was so massive and sleek, like a panther.

We spent two days in Vancouver, seeing the sights.

The suspension bridge at Lynn Canyon Park.&nbsp; It's not as big as the Capilano suspension bridge, but then again, it's free.

There was an area of Lynn Canyon Park where people have build hundreds of rock cairns.&nbsp; It was very eerie looking.

This one looked a lot like a bird to me

Here it looks like a wall.

Some of the builders incorporated wood into the cairns

Eric is inspired and builds a cairn

The finished cairn.

This is where I lived (middle apartment) for 2 months in Vancouver, in 1993.&nbsp; Not the best of neighborhoods.

The apartment manager lived in this apartment.&nbsp; It looks as junky as it did then, so I assume the same manager lives there.

After that I moved next door, to a newly renovated building.&nbsp; Top floor here

In the evening we took a walk around Robson Street, and ran into a group of people demonstrating against consumerism.&nbsp; Apparently they're trying to make the day after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year, into &quot;Buy Nothing&quot; day.

We saw another guy doing ballon sculptures.&nbsp; Homer Simpson turned out great!

Here's the balloon sculptor, underneath Mickey Mouse.

The next morning, we had breakfast in the revolving restaurant on top of the Empire Hotel.&nbsp; Here's a view of Robson Street from the restaurant.

The building that has straps on it, below, is supposed to be very earthquake proof, because the straps hold the building suspended on a central cement column.

We fed some seagulls leftovers from breakfast.&nbsp; As soon as we went on the balcony, they flocked around us.

They were very acrobatic, trying to catch the pieces of muffin we threw them.

A walk in Stanley Park along the seawall path, looking at a yacht club.

This is part of the old zoo in Stanley Park.&nbsp; Most (all?) of it is now abandoned.

There were peacocks wandering around Stanley Park.&nbsp; This one wasn't shy at all.

In the distance, the freight cranes of North Vancouver.

The Totem Pole area in Stanley Park, now closed to visitors.

Sylvia with the sulfur piles of North Vancouver in the background, and a lighthouse.

There's a colony of raccoons in Stanley Park. I've never seen raccoons this unafraid of humans!

One of them went for the camera strap that was hanging down while Eric took this picture.

Some love nibbles

Eric pretends that he has something to feed them.

I let this hotel in downtown Vancouver use my name.&nbsp; I hear it's done wonders for business.

We took some pictures with the self-timer around Jericho Beach Park.

Before we left Vancouver, we drove around the University area, checking out some of the neat houses there.

Eric's new startup company has its first Christmas Party.

A trip to Kelsey Creek Farm and Farm.

Sylvia working on her goals for the next 3 months.

Eric tempts Kassi and Zuzu with beef jerky for stimulating cat photos.

That afternoon, we went to the Kelsey Creek Park and Farm.&nbsp; We found your basic set of farm yard animals.&nbsp; Moo, oink baahh, neigh and cock-a-dodle-doo.

They were quite tame!

Scratching for worms

All bundled up for winter

This not-so-little piggy has not yet gone to market.

Clearly, this horse has had experience posing for pictures!

The horses really enjoyed being fed grass!

The grounds of the park are quite nice.

We then went to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens for some picture taking.

Christmas decorations at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens.

The Bellevue Botanical garden was brightly lit with fanciful flowered decorations made with colored lights.

We went to see the lights with Jean and Kay (pronounced Kai)

Here are some more lights!

Can you tell what kind of animal is made of lights here?

Entertainment was provided by a group of singers &quot;in training&quot;.

The grounds of the gardens was once owned by Cal and Harriet Shorts.&nbsp; Evidently they donated the buildings and grounds to the city for the gardens.

Eric and Sylvia visit family in North Carolina for Christmas.

Eric's mom Ann making some braided fruit and nut bread.

For the 2000 Christmas Holiday, Eric and Sylvia visited their families in North Carolina.&nbsp;Eric's parents are in Asheville, Sylvia's in Charlotte.&nbsp; Most pictures are below. And here's some <a href=/pictures/alois/part4>pictures of miniature furniture</a> that Sylvia's father Alois made.

Eric's brother Kevin with his Jack Russell Terrier, Jessie.

Christmas tree at the Vasiliks

Sitting down for a multi-course Christmas dinner

Brian is happy with his waffle maker

Eric's dad Ken is happy with his sweater

Missy hiding underneath the tree.

The whole family after all the presents were opened

View from the dining area Christmas morning

Eric helps his mom out with dinner

Rolling out biscuit dough

At the entrance to the Biltmore Estate

Taking a tour of downtown Asheville

Eric's brother Brian, pictured next to his alter ego, Lollapolluza the Clown

Eric and his mom in Black Mountain, standing in front of the Seven Sisters mountains

A woodturning shop in Black mountain

Ann prepared some tasty appetizers

...as well as colorful borscht soup

Sylvia is mad at Eric because he wouldn't stop gloating over his win at Monopoly

Brian juggling lemons

Eric and his dad look remarkably alike in this picture

Frittata for breakfast!

The walls in the guest bedroom were very uniquely decorated!

Sylvia and the Vasiliks

Sylvia with her father Alois

At the Moestl place

Sylvia's old play house

Sylvia's mom Inge

Sylvia, Mom, and Les

This is where Tom is staying right now, right outside Earthhaven

Also, here's pictures of a visit to Earthhaven, a land-trust cooperative that Sylvia's brother Tom lives at.

This mother and baby goat live at the house as well.&nbsp; Tom built the structure behind them.

Tom is hoping to renovate the old school bus as a living space.

The inside of the bus

We went for a walk to central Earthhaven.&nbsp; There are lots of old unused roads that used to lead to homesteads in the area.&nbsp; We used one of them as a path.

Here's an old crossroads

Tom cleared off the path as we went

Eric and Tom, with some of Tom's friends.&nbsp; Danielle is on the right.

Another nearby house in Earthhaven, with passive solar construction.

Tom on his homesite.&nbsp;&nbsp; He had it graded recently IMG_4869.JPG He has plans for building a nautilus-shaped building on the property

A view of the &quot;tree garden&quot; (in the back) and greenhouse from the homesite.

The greenhouse.&nbsp; Tom painted the mural on it.

Some semi-hollow bricks he made

Bridge he built across the creek that divides the tree garden from the homesite

He had somebody weld these propane tanks into a bell set.

The old Twin Oaks hammock is still there, a little bit worse for the wear

Tom in his outdoor kitchen

The store (unmanned) at Earthhaven IMG_4905.JPG Some funky buildings in the main village of Earthhaven mg: IMG_4911.JPG

There were some problems with the building inspector over this one.&nbsp; They compromised by putting the side supports in

Tom's old house, with his junk still piled around it.

Another view of his house

Tom left this chimpanzee relief inside his old house.

Eric and Sylvia visit Sylvia's brother Tom.

This is where Tom is staying right now, right outside Earthhaven

This mother and baby goat live at the house as well.&nbsp; Tom built the structure behind them.

Tom is hoping to renovate the old school bus as a living space.

The inside of the bus

We went for a walk to central Earthhaven.&nbsp; There are lots of old unused roads that used to lead to homesteads in the area.&nbsp; We used one of them as a path.

Here's an old crossroads

Tom cleared off the path as we went

Eric and Tom, with some of Tom's friends.&nbsp; Danielle is on the right.

Another nearby house in Earthhaven, with passive solar construction.

Tom on his homesite.&nbsp;&nbsp; He had it graded recently IMG_4869.JPG He has plans for building a nautilus-shaped building on the property

A view of the &quot;tree garden&quot; (in the back) and greenhouse from the homesite.

The greenhouse.&nbsp; Tom painted the mural on it.

Some semi-hollow bricks he made

Bridge he built across the creek that divides the tree garden from the homesite

He had somebody weld these propane tanks into a bell set.

The old Twin Oaks hammock is still there, a little bit worse for the wear

Tom in his outdoor kitchen

The store (unmanned) at Earthhaven IMG_4905.JPG Some funky buildings in the main village of Earthhaven mg: IMG_4911.JPG

There were some problems with the building inspector over this one.&nbsp; They compromised by putting the side supports in

Tom's old house, with his junk still piled around it.

Another view of his house

Tom left this chimpanzee relief inside his old house.

In and around Anchorage

Here's some pictures from the flight to Anchorage from Seattle.&nbsp; We had some truly awesome scenery on the way--all kinds of glaciers and mountains.

We went to the Anchorage museum first.&nbsp; Just outside there were some ornamental cabbages, ones that normally grow about half the size of this one.&nbsp; All that sunshine in the summer really makes them huge!

My dad, in front of the museum.

Earthquake park, west of the city of Anchorage, is where you can really see the signs of the serious 1964 earthquake.&nbsp; There were also some very nice looking (but poisonous) fly agarica mushrooms.

The Chugach State Park is one of the largest state parks in the country.&nbsp; We went to the Eagle River Visitor Center north of Anchorage, and took some walks from that area.&nbsp; Great views of the Chugach mountains from there.&nbsp; One huge pond had been created by a beaver dam

They call this flower Butter and Eggs, for obvious reasons.

This was the biggest field of cow parsnip I've ever seen.

Later we drove to Ship Creek, right in the middle of downtown.&nbsp; It's a big salmon creek, not because there's necessarily a huge amount of salmon in it, but it's so convenient that lots of people fish there.

Late in the evening, we drove up to another location in Chugach State Park were you get a great view of Anchorage.&nbsp; The view in the other direction was better, though, kind of like a moonscape.

From Anchorage to Seward

On the 7th we drove from Anchorage to Seward.&nbsp; It's actually only about a 2 hour drive, but we stopped so often it took us about 7 hours to get there.&nbsp; Seward is the southern terminal of the railway.

At one point there were about a dozen cars and tour buses stopped at the side of the road.&nbsp; We stopped as well, and saw what they were looking at, a bunch of Dahl sheep.

A salmon fishing spot off the highway

In Girdwood, there was a jade shop.&nbsp; This one boulder of jade is being processed.&nbsp; You can see the saw cutting through it.

This is the Portage Glacier area.&nbsp; The glacier has receded a lot, to the point that it's not touching Portage Lake anymore.

This is another salmon viewing area, although you can't see too many salmon in this picture.

This is the outhouse at a&nbsp; rest stop we pulled off into.&nbsp; A tour bus had just happened to stop in at the same time.

Here we are in Seward.&nbsp; Seward is a a favorite stop for cruise ships touring Alaska

It's also a big fishing town.&nbsp; Walking around the harbor, almost all the ships you see are fishing boats.&nbsp; It seems the water is too rough to make pleasure boating a very pleasurable experience.

We drove out to a shipyard outside of town.&nbsp; It looks like it's partly a ship graveyard, and partly a spot where they repair boats.

In and around Seward

We explored the Seward area on the 8th.&nbsp; These are some pictures from our drive out towards Lewell Point

There was an old abandoned barge on the shore.

Tom and I took a hike to Tongira Creek.&nbsp; There were, as usual, lots and lots of salmon in the creek, in various stages.&nbsp; It was a beautiful spot.

Later on we drove out to Exit Glacier, where you can actually walk up to the glacier.&nbsp; Here's some pictures from the area.

The glacier has been receding the past couple hundred years.&nbsp; The park service put up signs marking where the glacier was at a particular year, so you can see how it receded.

From Seward to to Valdez via Ferry (Prince William Sound)

On the 9th we drove from Seward to Whittier, and then took the ferry from Whittier to Valdez.&nbsp; You have to take a tunnel from Portage Lake to Whittier, which up until a couple months ago was only open to trains.&nbsp; At Portage Lake, we saw our first iceberg (actually, I don't think they're called icebergs when they're this small).&nbsp; Later on the same day, we saw many, many more.

This is the town of Whittier.&nbsp; We had some time to kill before taking the ferry to Valdez, so we walked around.&nbsp; It was super windy, but a very beautiful day.&nbsp; Highly unusual this time of year.

The building in the background was an old military building that was built to house troops in WW2.&nbsp; It's currently abandoned.

The ferry trip was stupendous.&nbsp; Lots of people bundled up and sat on the observation deck, where they had lounge chairs.&nbsp; The ferry actually has a naturalist on board from the park service, and stops at various locations to give explanations about what we're seeing.

It seemed as though every slope had a dozen waterfalls cascading down the side.&nbsp; Very beautiful/

This is one of the glaciers we saw from the ferry

Tom and my dad.

Looks like some great spots for kayaking.

Those brown spots you see is colony of sea lions.

And even more sea lions...

I thought the color of the water turned out great here.&nbsp; And check out those caves and arches in the rocks!

The beginning of the icefields!

Looks like a little bear, maybe?

The boat had to maneuver pretty well to avoid the ice.&nbsp; We only hit one piece that I heard...everybody made Titanic jokes!

And here we're arriving in Valdez.&nbsp; You can see the pipeline terminal off in the distance.

In and around Valdez

On the 10th we explored the Valdez area.&nbsp; When we were there, there were tons of salmon and, of course, the salmon fisherman weren't far behind.&nbsp; This is from a salmon viewing area just outside of town.

On the other side of the bay from the town of Valdez is the pipeline terminal, and also a salmon hatchery.&nbsp; The sea was alive with fish.

They were very easy to catch, even with bare hands.&nbsp; Tom let it go after he caught it, though.

Tom picked up a handful of salmon eggs from the water.

We drove around the backroads of Valdez some, where the old town of Valdez used to be (before the earthquake of 1964).&nbsp; There were more salmon streams there.

Horsetail falls, outside of town on the Valdez highway.

Tom and I took a hike up Goat Trail, which was an old gold mining route over the glacier.&nbsp; It wasn't build for the views--this is pretty much the only decent view we had.

Later on we walked around the harbor.&nbsp; We saw this fishing boat rolling up it's nets.

There's a &quot;clean your own salmon&quot; area right outside the harbor.&nbsp; It was a treat to see people fillet the salmon quickly and skillfully, with extremely sharp knives that they sharpened every couple minutes.&nbsp; This gentlemen is from Fairbanks, but is planning on retiring in (guess where?) Seattle, and wintering in Arizona.

Much of the fish is wasted when you cut fillets off a salmon.&nbsp; The waste was thrown off a ramp into a cage in the water.&nbsp; I wondered what happened to it afterwards.

Dad and I took a drive on a dirt road out of town, in an area that's also a ski area in the winter.

Later on in the evening, we drove to the salmon hatchery area we'd gone to in the morning, because we'd been told that in the evening the bears come out.&nbsp; Didn't see any bears, but there were many more salmon, even though it was hard to believe.

Sunset over Valdez.

Driving back to Anchorage

On the 11th, we drove from Valdez to Anchorage.&nbsp; This is the bed and breakfast we'd been staying at in Valdez, called L &amp; L's Bed and Breakfast.&nbsp; The blue car is our rental car, a Kia.

The best scenery of the drive was going throught the mountains north of Valdez...magnificent!

Worthington Glacier is one you can access just off the highway.&nbsp; They'd completely redone the whole parking area and paths.

This is me in front of the glacier.

This is one of the many places you can see the pipeline. It's interesting to see how they made it relatively earthquake proof--the pipeline can slide around on the platform, and has flexible fittings.

An old, non-functioning gas station in Copper Center

A lot of the drive was through boring tundra.&nbsp; Miles and miles of short little spruce trees on either side.

This is getting closer to Anchorage, and the Chugach range.

You can see a typical braided riverbed down below.

This is the Matasuka Valley glacier (I think.

I found some raspberries bushes right off the road--loaded with beautifully ripe raspberries.

A junkyard (antique store) that we stopped in just outside of Anchorage.

All the Thazi pictures

Unique site containing thousands of temple ruins, from around 1000 to 1200.

Thousands of years ago, Bagan was a religious center.&nbsp; There are thousands of ruined temples there, in various stages of disrepair.

I rented a horse cart for a day of touring around.

Often jewels are hidden in Buddha statues.&nbsp; Somebody tried to dig these out.

These are images of Buddhist hell.

Another temple.&nbsp; This one was still being used as a temple.

There's a few scattered Hindu temples among all the Buddhist temples in Bagan.

In a lacquerware shop.&nbsp;&nbsp;Most of the lacquerware is exported to Thailand, for sale to tourists there.

Some lacquerware has gold leaf put on it, in a pattern.&nbsp; The finishing step is to wash the gold leaf off that doesn't belong in the pattern. The water that it's washed in is saved and sold to people who get the bits of gold leaf out of it again.

The view from the horse cart.

Abandoned temples

Lunch at a Burmese style buffet.&nbsp; At first I was amazed at the waste, because we ate less than one tenth of this.&nbsp; But my guide told me that whatever we didn't eat went right back into the pot.&nbsp; The women working here were very chatty and open--it turned out that they were part of a group that sang at wedding receptions and other celebrations.

Watching a movie on a VCR.

Dhammayangi Paya was my favorite temple.&nbsp; It was huge and cavernous, with massive echoing hallways and bats flying around.

There were spooky walkways throughout the temple.&nbsp; A good place for a movie.

Evening shot of an unnamed temple

A reclining Buddha

I watched the sunset from the Shwesandaw Paya.

There were some other foreigners there for the sunset as well.&nbsp; The woman on the left was Israeli, the guy on the right French.

On the way to Mt. Popa, a center for spirit worship in Burma, we stopped to watch a field being plowed with oxen.

Sugar palms are cultivated in this area.&nbsp; We stopped at the hut of one of the workers and watched the palm sugar sap being boiled down.&nbsp; I bought a little woven basked of palm sugar candy (basically, just the boiled down sap) for about 25 cents.

To harvest the sap, they cut slits in the palm sugar flower and put bowls beneath the slits.&nbsp; The sap runs into the bowls.

A nat (spirit) temple at Mt. Popa.

All the statues around the edge of the building are of nats.&nbsp;&nbsp;There's an odd combination of Buddhism and nat worship--notice the Buddha statue in the middle.

As part of a religious ceremony, money was thrown into the crowd. It's just about to happen in this picture, that's why there's so many men hanging around.

This picture is a little dark, but the person in the red dress is a man dressed as a woman.&nbsp; Apparently the nat spirits will take possession of a person only if it is a man dressed as a woman, or a woman.

Mt. Popa.&nbsp; There's a staircase to the top, where the temples are, that takes about half an hour to climb up.

Some of the 37 nats that are worshipped.&nbsp; They each died a violent death.&nbsp; My guide's father told him, &quot;Why should we worship nats, if they're not even powerful enough to protect themselves from a violent death?&quot;

This spirit is an alcoholic--notice all the bottles left as offerings.

Praying at the top of Mt. Popa.

There's a well-fed and bold troop of monkeys at Mt. Popa that wait for handouts from tourists.

My room in Bagan.

Gambling at a temple.&nbsp; They throw shells in the bowl, and then win or loose depending on how many of the shells land on one side or another.

Sunset from another temple

Lake region, fascinating stilt houses, rowing with the legs, and unique crafts.

The toilet at the bus stop between Thazi and Inle Lake.&nbsp; It's actually pretty easy to use.&nbsp; You're supposed to wash up with the water in the trough there.&nbsp; I used toilet paper, though.

Pear-apples and flowers for sale at the bus stop.

My hotel room in Inle Lake, at the Remember Inn.

Selling roasted sunflower seeds and a strange large bitter nut, steamed.&nbsp; I tried it, and although I didn't like it at first, it kind of grew on me.

My guide and I took a bike ride (using clunky one-speeds, but comfortable seats) around the lake area.

Tutu at a rice mill.&nbsp; He's standing on a pile of rice hulls, and next to him is a tractor that's used in the rice fields.&nbsp; I don't think it was working, though.

A water buffalo

Inle Lake, from a hilltop temple

We biked through a monastery, and saw Buddhist novices, doing road work.

These little sheets drying in front of a house are made out of cooked and mashed up beans.&nbsp; They're eaten in curries.

Here the beans are first ground, then cooked into a paste, then steamed, dried and sliced up for use in curries.

(In case you haven't guessed yet, beans are a huge part of the local economy here).&nbsp; Beans, roasted like popcorn with salt as a snack.&nbsp; I bought some--very tasty.

This woman is rolling bean paste into balls, which were then flattened and dried.

An oil mill, with the owners. They pressed oil out of peanuts and seasame seeds.

We hired a woman to take us on a short tour of the lake.&nbsp; Here's she's doing the leg rowing that's traditional in Inle Lake.

I met Stephie in Bangkok, and we ended up traveling together a little.&nbsp; Here she is with the &quot;bible&quot; (the Lonely Planet guidebook to Burma).

More leg rowing, with the fish traps that are traditional to this area.

Stephanie and I and two other women took a boat trip around Inle Lake.&nbsp; These souvenir vendors in small canoes held on to the boat as soon as it slowed down, either 2 or 3 canoes on each side, and tried to interest us in their wares.

Pao tribeswoman, in their traditional black costume. Here they're selling pickled tea and sesame seeds.

Myra, bargaining with a souvenir vendor.&nbsp; They didn't know numbers in English, but had numbers written down sequentially in 1000s on a cigarette carton, and would point to them.

A typical house on stilts at Inle Lake

The round gold things in the picture are Buddha images.&nbsp; They've had so much gold leaf plastered on them that they look like shapeless blobs.&nbsp; Notice the &quot;ladies are prohibited&quot; sign at the bottom.

Spinning silk.

One long thread of silk is wrapped around a frame, and then pieces are separated by being tied off so they can be dyed individually.&nbsp; It formed a very distinctive pattern when it was woven.

This is the dyed silk being woven.&nbsp; Her hands are moving very quickly!

At a blacksmith shop, making crude knives.

Cutting cowbells out of a 55 gallon drum

Inle Lake is famous for its floating vegetable gardens.&nbsp; These are tomatoes.

The monks at this temple on Inle Lake got bored, and trained cats to jump through hoops.

I never knew this, but apparently the fiber from lotus flower stems can be extracted and woven.&nbsp; The extraction takes a long time, and the cloth is extremely expensive.

A recliner with a swing-out foot rest.

Transporting large baskets on the lake.

I tried to carry this woman's load, which sounded like a bunch of recycled bottles.&nbsp; What does it feel like to carry something on your head?&nbsp; Not very stable, at least for me.

A black market gas station.&nbsp; These were everywhere on the road, because gasoline is rationed.

Second largest city in Burma, north of Yangon

An early-morning street market in Mandalay

This is a typical taxi in Mandalay, a three-wheeled pickup-type contraption.&nbsp; I took them a couple times, but it seemed like the exhaust was piped directly to the passengers in the back.

A shop selling thanaka, a yellow paste that's used on the face.&nbsp; My guide is in there buying some for his female relatives.

Woman at the market, carrying things on their heads.

A monk supply store, with everything a monk needs--fan, begging bowl, monk undershirt.

Woman praying at the Mahamuni Paya in Mandalay<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; mso-fareast-font-family: Times New Roman; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">.&nbsp; This is a temple where women were not allowed in closer to the Buddha image.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>

A revolving spirit shrine.&nbsp; You toss in money, and try to get it into the bowls.&nbsp; I assume that if you get it into the bowls, your wish is more likely to be granted.

I bought some custard apples at the market.&nbsp; It's a strange fruit--you break it open, and there's these little nodules inside that you suck the flesh off.&nbsp; The large brown seeds are in the middle.

The eastern side of Mandaly palace, surrounded by a moat.

At the base of Mandalay Hill.&nbsp; The outside of temples often have lions like this.

On the left is the taxi driver that took me to the top of Mandalay Hill.&nbsp; Notice the swastika on his shirt.&nbsp; It's a traditional symbol here, but I've gotten mixed reports on what it means.

Sunset from Mandalay Hill.

On our way to Amarapura (we were on bikes) we stopped at a marble carving workshop.&nbsp; Here the worker is finishing up a Buddha statue.

The man who normally carves the faces has been out ill.

This is a very old teak bridge near Amarapura.&nbsp; No bikes were allowed to be ridden across it, in order to preserve it.

A monastery near Amarapura.&nbsp; The monk is washing his hands after eating (they eat with their hands).

The monastery kitchen.

Many pilgrims travel throughout Burma in groups on buses (if they have a little money) or trucks (if they have less), visiting the more famous monasteries.&nbsp; At this monastery close to Amarapura, some pilgrims invited me to lunch.&nbsp; The pilgrims sleep and eat at an area set aside for pigrims at the monastery during their stay, and cook their own food.

The first supermarket I ever saw!&nbsp; They had bar code scanners and everything. I actually found some dental floss here.

Nuns, on one of the two days each month that they go around, asking for alms.&nbsp; Most restaurants and shops have a stack of small bills (very small, less than a cent) that they hand out, or sometimes bananas.

Trishaws normally transport people, but this kid is transporting some corrugated metal.

This game is a lot like hackey sack, except it's played with a large wicker ball. You can't see it in the picture, it's a blur.

Billboards...advertising a fruit drink, and pig food.

Houseboats on the waterfront.&nbsp; This was a very poor part of the city.

Normally there's lots of water buffalo at the waterfront, but I missed them this morning.

Hauling a barrel on a boat

While we were waiting for a ferry, Tutu and I came across an opening ceremony for a building.&nbsp; Lots of soldiers and schoolchildren.&nbsp; Apparently opening ceremonies are a big deal for the government, and they get schools to send over children to attend and provide a crowd.&nbsp; Right after this photo I was told to stop taking pictures, but later I was able to get in close and watch the actual ceremony.

Looking for lice.

Another very poor area on the water.

Scenes from the ferry.&nbsp; These sailboats carry sand that's dug up from sandbars in the river, and used for construction.

Notice the man carrying sand on his head.

Using sail power and rowing

Me with my pet praying mantis.

Mingun Paya--a very impressive old ruin, very much damaged by earthquakes.&nbsp; It was huge, but originally intended to be much bigger; it was only one third finished.

My guide and I climbed to the top.&nbsp; Since we went barefoot (as is always done in temples) Tutu grabbed some leaves to stand on.&nbsp; The sun on the dark bricks was very hot!

We rented an ox cart to take us back.

There's an old age home close to Mingun Paya that we stopped at. Most old people in Burma are taken care of by their family, so these people must feel very neglected.

I went with the women I met in Inle lake--Stephanie, Myra, and Ricki--to a movie theater showing Mission Impossible 2.&nbsp; Notice the hand-painted movie poster.

On our way to the airport, we stopped at some workshops.&nbsp; In this one, gold leaf was being produced.&nbsp; This man is pounding a leather booklet containing a piece of gold leaf in each page.

There's no fans or air conditioners in the gold leaf workshop--it could blow the gold leaf away.&nbsp; The women sweat!

This was a Kalanga workshop.&nbsp; Kalangas are the sequined, stuffed tapestries that Burma is famous for.&nbsp; Most of these were exported to Thailand, for sale to tourists there.

At this brass foundry, almost exclusively Buddha images were made.&nbsp; The brass is poured in between two molds, then the molds are broken and the brass statue remains.&nbsp; The mold in the pit is a seated Buddha image.

This huge statue was commissioned by the biggest movie star in Burma.&nbsp; The hands in this position are supposed to ward off evil, represented by the snakes below.

City in central Burma. Here I visited my Burmese friend Soe's family.

Some kids waving to me as I passed through a train station on the Yangon-Thazi train.&nbsp; I was a real oddity there as a foreigner, and some people pointed at me and stared.

Water vendor, selling to passengers.&nbsp; The vendors would run up as soon as the train slowed down, and try to sell things to people on the train.

Selling roasted chicken to passengers.&nbsp; One guy carried the chicken, the other carried the rice.&nbsp; As soon as you showed even a flicker of interest, they were all over you.&nbsp; It seemed really unsanitary, though, and I didn't try any.

My compartment.&nbsp; Notice the military officer on the right.

Selling bananas to passengers on the train.

In Thazi, I stayed with Soe's family.&nbsp; This is Soe's mother, grinding thanaka to use on the face and arms.

Here I am, with thanaka paste on my face!

Soe's father, mother, and brother in front of their restaurant/guesthouse.

Thanaka for sale at a market.

Soe's father, at his office.&nbsp; He's the local manager of a bank.

Soe's brother and sister, and some of their friends.&nbsp; The two on the left were boyfriend and girlfriend, but you'd never know it--look how she's leaning away from him!

Soe's sister, Nini.

My room.&nbsp; It had air-conditioning, but the electricity was so unreliable that I used the fan instead.

A Buddhist procession outside the hotel.&nbsp; They were asking for donations for the local temple.

Soe's mother and I, both in a typical Burmese style wrap-around skirt worn by both men and women, called a longyi.

I showed Soe's mother how to make an origami crane.

There were three little kids who worked at the guesthouse.&nbsp; They also tried making origami cranes.

Capital city, full of colonial archicture and the huge Shwedagon Pagoda. Lots of pictures of street vendors.

This is a typical bus in Yangon, except it's usually a lot more crowded.&nbsp; Often men are hanging 2 or 3 deep off the back.

These fans have Buddhist doctrine written on them.

These are some of the many street vendors you can see everywhere in Yangon.&nbsp; This woman is selling vegetables for curry.

Fish for sale on the street.&nbsp; Notice this old woman smoking a cheroot, or Burmese cigar.&nbsp; You can also see the scale she used to weigh her fish in the red plastic basket.

More sidewalk vendors.

This trishaw boy hangs out at the entrance to a food market, hoping someone will hire him to take them home with their purchases.

Peeled and spiced (with chili, I believe) pomelo for sale.&nbsp; A pomelo is like a very large grapefruit, but a little less tart.

Selling a glutinous rice/coconut snack on the street.

These boys are playing a game very much like the Italian Boccia.&nbsp; They threw a large stone out, then tried to throw smaller stones as close to it as possible.&nbsp; They were betting--you can see the folded up bills in their hands.&nbsp; I threw one, and did pretty well.

A movie theatre, looks like it was build in the 20's.&nbsp; I think it's an Indian movie, there were a lot of those playing.&nbsp; A substantial minority of Burmese have an Indian heritage, and speak Hindi.

There's so much rain in Yangon!&nbsp; Some buildings were covered with moss and weeds growing out of cracks in the buildings.

Government-sponsored billboards like this were posted in all major cities.&nbsp; This has &quot;dictatorship&quot; written all over it.

Fried shrimp for sale.&nbsp; The frying was done right there on the street.

These three boys hung around me and wanted to be my &quot;guides&quot;.&nbsp; The one in the middle is of Indian heritage, you can tell because he's very dark skinned.

This woman is selling betel nut, which is chewed for a slight high.&nbsp; It's sold wrapped in a leaf, with a coating of lime.&nbsp; It makes your teeth really red, and the sidewalks are full of brick-red stains where people have spit the juice.&nbsp; Notice also the woman has yellow thanaka paste on her face.

I met Angela when trying to figure out what the white paste packaged with the betel nuts was.&nbsp; (It's lime).&nbsp; She learned English in a convent school as a little girl, and speaks it very well.&nbsp; This is Angela and me, having lunch at a restaurant in Bogyoke market.

This is part of our lunch.&nbsp; You dip greens in some hot sauce.&nbsp; The bowl with a spoon is a desert, with coconut jelly and some other stuff.&nbsp; Tasty.

Pomegranates.&nbsp; I bought some, but didn't like them very much.

These were a treat!&nbsp; Lotus flower seeds.&nbsp; I bought a small package for 50 kyat (about 12 cents).&nbsp; The seed is about the size of a blueberry, and you pop the husk off, and eat the inside.&nbsp; Very tasty!

Frying and selling eggs on the street.

A little roadside teashop.&nbsp; The chairs look tiny to western eyes, like they're meant for children, but everyone uses them, and just squats down really low.

This is the computer setup at the Yoma Hotel, where I was able to send email.&nbsp; Notice the fitted green velvet computer covers.

Water, available on the street.&nbsp; People set up these water stations as a public service, to gain merit (in the Buddhist sense).

A rice and oil shop

Notice that the numbering system on this bus is not the standard Arabic numerals that we're used to, but rather the Burmese numbering system.&nbsp; It made it very difficult to catch buses, read prices, etc.

A pickup, with seats inside, is also used as a bus..

A cold water seller.

Another little street-side restaurant.

Pirated software for sale.&nbsp; Notice the Office 2000 package.

Shwedagon Pagoda.&nbsp; Lots of people hang out around the temple, resting. chatting, and praying.

Buddha statues at the Shwedagon Pagoda.&nbsp; The glass cases are for donations.

People resting in Shwedagon.&nbsp; Notice the pictures close to the ceiling. They represent episodes in the life of Buddha.

This is at Shwedagon Pagoda, a Buddhist temple, but it's actually a nat, or spirit shrine.&nbsp; People pray for specific things here, and then lift a rock.&nbsp; If the rock feels light to them, their wish has been granted.

Intricate wood carving at Swedagon Pagoda.

I hired Tutu as my guide in Shewedagon.&nbsp; He ended up being my guide throughout most of Burma.

The actual stupa, centerpiece of Shwedagon.&nbsp; Too bad it wasn't sunny!

These girls work at the temple, earning about 200 kyat, or $.50, a day.

People come from all over Burma to worship at Shwedagon.

Another nat shrine.&nbsp; Notice in the bottom right corner...

...there's cigarettes stuck in the tray.&nbsp; This spirit is very fond of cigarettes, apparently, so to please it, they light cigarettes and stick them there.

Pouring water over this Buddha as an act of religious devotion.&nbsp; Depending on what day of the week you were born on, you use different shrines.&nbsp; Also, Wednesday morning and Wednesday afternoon are separated out into different shrines as well--I don't know why.

A brick walkway outside the temple.&nbsp; Along this walkway were restaurants, places where the monks lived, and small workshops.

A guava seller on the street.

Bamboo shoots for sale in an evening market.&nbsp; The red ones have been dyed.

The sticks you see below are pounded and used as shampoo.&nbsp; The plastic bags filled with brown liquid is the pre-pounded version.

Get your chickens, fresh!

The seafood section. Some of the women were shy and didn't want to look while their picture was taken.&nbsp; However, when I showed them the picture using the playback feature on my digital camera, they were very interested!

Mushrooms

Fresh shrimp for sale.

Gambling on the street

This is the apartment of a friend of Tutu, my guide.&nbsp; The barrel of water in the back is for bathing--you stand in the concrete basin on the left, and pour water over you from the barrel.

An old art deco style chest of drawers, probably worth lots.

Tutu's friend's father, listening to the Voice of America on the radio in Burmese.

A fake TV.&nbsp; Apparently these were common, and were put in for decoration. The family also had a real TV, though.

Tutu's friend and I.&nbsp; I'm headed back to the hotel, in a trishaw.

A closeup of the trishaw and driver at the hotel.

I bought some mangosteens on the street.&nbsp; They're my absolute favorite fruit here.&nbsp; The taste is hard to describe, but oh-so-good!

The view from my hotel.

Tutu in a teahouse.&nbsp; Notice the plates with snacks on them in plastic bags.&nbsp; These are so the flies don't settle on them.&nbsp; The snacks stay out until somebody eats them.

A monk going begging.&nbsp; They wear their robes a special way when they beg, rolled up around the neck. Also, when they beg they don't use umbrellas, only their fan.

Astrologer row in Yangon, with rows of palm readers and astrologers.

The train runs right along the astrologer's shops.

I have my fortune told for the first time by the fortune-teller that Tutu consults.

A shop outside a temple, where you can buy gilded coconuts and bananas to give as offerings.

Nat worship.

Buddhist nuns, begging on the street.

Schoolchildren in the standard green/white costume.

Here I'm having a very civilized &quot;high tea&quot; at the Strand, a fancy renovated old hotel.&nbsp; Rooms are $400 a night, but only 2 out of 32 are occupied.

Little girls playing a guessing game with custard-apple seeds on the street.&nbsp; They grab a handful, and try to guess whether the number of seeds is odd or even.

This game is similar to pool--the players try to knock the chips into the corner holes.

A public phone in Yangon.

Climbing around the ruins of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, and a short visit to Stanford.

These are from the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Big Sur, California.&nbsp; There had been an old house, called &quot;Waterfall House&quot;, on the cliff which had fallen into runs.&nbsp; We weren't supposed to climb around it, but it was too tempting...

Staircase leading up into poison oak and eucalyptus

There was an old tramway going down from the highway.

Eric weaing my jacket to add a little color to the picture.

Looking down at the pounding surf.

View that they would have had from the house

If you strain, you can see the waterfall in the middle, that the house is named after.

There's a lizard in the middle of this picure...there were tons of them at an overlook, scattering as we walked the paths.

Eric and Sylvia at the beach

Sylvia at the beach

We took a trip to Stanford and the Silicon Valley just to see it.&nbsp; This is the Stanford campus.

More Stanford campus

A round of golf at Pebble Beach Links with Rich, Jane and Nancy Clayton.

A group shot of the golfers (and golf groupie).&nbsp; From left to right we have Rich, Sylvia, Eric, Nancy and Jane.

Eric and Jane pose at the beginning of the round.&nbsp; See how happy they look?&nbsp; Wait 'till later!&nbsp; Notice the tree in the background.&nbsp; It is near the 7th tee.

The Claytons pose for a shot.&nbsp; Note that the 7th tee tree is getting closer!

Eric and Sylvia.&nbsp; 7th tee is closer still!

Here we have Eric at the 7th tee, stretching for his tee shot.&nbsp; Behind the tee, swimming in the ocean we found sea lions.&nbsp; In particular, there was a mother teaching it's child to swim.

Waiting on the tee for the previous foursome to clear the green (not that we hit greens in regulation all the much).&nbsp; Note the guy sitting down and the guy to the far right.&nbsp; These are our caddies, John and Bart.&nbsp; They made the experience at Pebble that much greater.

Here we have Eric putting, ball in mid flight.

Eric sizing up a chip shot.

Rich teeing up at the 18th.&nbsp; Over the years, the ocean has taken a lot of the fairway.&nbsp; Most of the coast along the course has been cemented (quite tastefully) to prevent further erosion.

Cool ocean views and squirrel drop kicking!

This is the Lone Pine, on the 17-mile drive in California.

Sylvia at one of the 17 Mile Drive stops.

Another stop on the 17 mile drive.&nbsp; There were lots of squirrels around, begging for handouts.&nbsp; Some of them were huge!&nbsp; First I tried tricking them with pieces of paper, but then I found some chocolate to give them, and they went nuts over it.

Eric decides to temp the squirrels to come a little further than they normally would have.

Nine squirrels accost Eric.

Eric drop kicking a squirrel.

Eric and Sylvia build a cairn to mark their visit to Pebble Beach.

Eric and Sylvia balance on the fence.

Arriving in Istanbul.

Our friend Soe drove us to the the airport early in the morning. Thanks, Soe!

We flew through New York, and had a great view of Manhattan on the way in and out.

Our hotel in Istanbul, Hotel Sebnem, had some great handmade embroidery in the rooms.

On our first day, we took a walk along the Bosphoros, very close to Old Istanbul, where we stayed.&nbsp; It was packed with fisherman, trying their luck.

We took a ferry along the Bosphoros.&nbsp; After we saw this palace along the water...

...we asked this man, who looked very Turkish to us, in Turkish, what the building was called (using our phrase book).&nbsp; He stared at us blankly for a few seconds, then said &quot;I don't speak Turkish&quot;, in Australian English!&nbsp; We all had a good laugh over that.&nbsp; The name of the place was the Dolmabahce Palace.

This is the view from the outside patio on which we had breakfast at our hotel.

Just outside the Topkapi palace, which was the living quarters of the sultans from the 1400 until the early 1800. Many of the tourist facilities are heavily guarded, because the Turks want to protect the tourism industry from potential terrorist attacks.&nbsp; This guy was a lot friendlier than he looks.

The road into Topkapi palace.&nbsp; Very pleasant.

We went through a full security check, with metal detectors, upon entering the palace.

The interior courtyard was beautiful.&nbsp; Early in the morning like this, there were very few tourists.

Eric and I at Topkapi palace.

We took a tour of the harem inside Topkapi palace.&nbsp; Some of the most interesting things to see there were the old-fashioned and ornate plumbing facilities, used by the sultan.

This is a Turkish style squat toilet, with facilities for hand washing.&nbsp; Only the best marble for the sultan, of course.

This is the Emperors Chambers.

Many cabinets looked like this, with mother-of-perl inlaid with tortoiseshell.&nbsp; According to our guide, often the sultans made these cabinets as a hobby.

Eric, in the sultan's bedroom&nbsp; Notice that there's no pictures anywhere, only patterns.&nbsp; This is because in Islam, it is forbidden to make images of people or things.

The sons of the sultan studied in this room.

We stopped off at the weapons museum at the palace.

Lunch was at the museum cafeteria, overlooking the Bosphoros.&nbsp; Eric has just taken one too many photos of Sylvia.

These 2 photos are from separate little buildings within the palace grounds, built to commemorate military victories.

Eric is getting a haircut here.&nbsp; Part of the haircut is to burn off hair on the face and the ears.&nbsp; Pretty scary!

The Aya Sofia started out as a Byzantine church built in about 500.&nbsp; In 1453 it was converted to a mosque, and in the early part of this century it was converted again, this time to a museum.

Right outside the Aya Sofia are the ruins of another church, from around the year 400.&nbsp; Excavations appear to be ongoing, and debris is scattered about outside.

This is the inside of the church/mosque/museum.&nbsp; Notice the huge Islamic placards hung up to make it less church-like.&nbsp; The placards show the names, in Arabic, of God, Mohamed and the 4 caliphs.

There's a massive reconstruction effort underway, with some very impressive scaffolding.&nbsp; Notice the elevator going up (the red box near the bottom).

This structure was put in after the church was converted to a mosque.&nbsp; Sermon were given from it on Fridays.

The matched marble panels are original, from around 500 BC, ordered by the emperor Justinian.

There's a little hole in this column, just big enough for your thumb.&nbsp; Legend has it that if you put your finger in the hole and make a wish, it will be granted if it comes out moist..

Here's the upper floor of the church.

The Aya Sofia had some great mosaics.

We guessed that this device measures cracks in the walls, to see if they're getting bigger.

There were many crosses around, since the building was originally a church.&nbsp; All the crosses were obscured in some way, though.

Outside the Aya Sofia were faucets where faithful Moslems are supposed to wash their hands and feet before prayer.

I'm sure these were flat slabs of marble to begin with, but after thousands of people sitting on them, there's a definite butt-shaped imprint in them.

Just a few minutes walk from the Aya Sofia is the Blue Mosque, which is still a functioning mosque.&nbsp; All mosques have a place where worshippers can wash themselves before prayer.

The courtyard inside the Blue Mosque.

Here's a panoramic picture of the Blue Mosque.

The interior of the Blue Mosque.&nbsp; We had to take our shoes off before entering.

Some people use the mosques as a place to rest.&nbsp; The shelves on the side are for storing shoes.

This is at the Hippodrome, close to the Blue Mosque.&nbsp; This is the Obelisk of Theodosius, carved in Egypt around 1500 AD.&nbsp; It's amazing what good shape the carvings are in--I guess that's what happens when you carve something from granite.&nbsp; Evidently the obelisk was at one time three times as tall as it is now!

We took a walk around Old Istanbul.&nbsp; This is an old Islamic cemetery, in a mosque courtyard.

The shoe-shiners often had a very elaborate setup, with burnished brass jars of shoe polish.

Breakfast at the Hotel Sebenem.&nbsp; Breakfast was generally very good, but very standard--bread, butter, honey, jam, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, and a hardboiled egg.

I just had to get a picture of this store--a snapshot of a snap shop :-)

This is at the famous covered market, or grand bazaar.&nbsp; Most of the shops appear to cater to tourists, so of course there's dozens of places to buy a carpet.

There were small hidden courtyards all around the market.

We stopped to have Turkish tea, always served in small, tulip-shaped glasses, at a cafe within the market.&nbsp; We got charged about twice the normal price for the tea.&nbsp; Should have learned by this time to always ask the price before having anything.

This man was selling pirated software, close to the covered market.&nbsp; There was a cop right next to him, chatting with the vendor, but he walked away when we took out the camera. Notice the guy looking at us anxiously.&nbsp; He appealed to the cop, to try to stop us from taking the picture, but the cop just laughed.&nbsp; He put away his pirated software right after we took this picture.

This is a typical scene in Turkey--lots of men, just hanging out.&nbsp; I wonder if they're unemployed.

We walked to the university, which was originally the Ottoman War Ministry.&nbsp; We got directions to the cafeteria from some friendly students, and had lunch there.

This is the Beyazit Mosque, close to the university.

More worshippers, performing their ritual ablutions.

The Egyptian Bazaar in Istanbul. Just before we took this picture, Eric was accosted by somebody waving pictures of naked women right around his chest (where his money pouch was hanging inside his shirt) pretending to try to sell him something.&nbsp; It was pretty obviously a robbery attempt.

Dinner at a restaurant close to our hotel.&nbsp; Chairs and tables were very low--can you tell?&nbsp; I'm having one of my favorites--lentil soup with mint.

This is the waiter at our favorite restaurant-- a very friendly guy.

Bursa, Izmir and Bergama.

We took the ferry from Istanbul to Bursa.&nbsp; On the ferry we met Zeki Bayramoglu, a salesman for a clothing dye company.&nbsp; He goes to Bursa every week to sell dye to the towel factories out there. Zeki is a very generous and charismatic man.&nbsp; He'd been to America for about a year, and really loved it there.&nbsp; He spent the whole day driving us around, showing us the area, and bought us lunch and dinner.

This is one of Zeki's favorite fish restaurants, the Pinar Alabalik, on the road to Bursa. The trough behind is is where the fish are live right before they're eaten.

Zeki drove us up Uludag, a mountain that rises up behind Bursa.&nbsp; Along the road was a farmer selling his products--quinces, apples, and walnuts. He presented us with a large bag filled with everything he sold, as a present.&nbsp; It was the first time we'd tasted quinces--they're tasty, similar to apples, but very hard and a little more acidic.

Zeki and Eric on Uldag.

Eric testing the waters at the Huzur Hotel, which is where we ended up staying.&nbsp; The Bursa area is very famous for its hot springs, and the nicer hotels usually have a facility for &quot;taking the waters&quot;.&nbsp; We ended up not using it, though--too hot and claustrophobic.

Zeki took us to a fish restaurant that evening.&nbsp; If you look at the larger version of the picture, you can see that the fish have their gills pulled over their mouths, to show how red the gills are (and thus how fresh the fish is).

At the fish restaurant.

This is in the covered market in Bursa.&nbsp; It wasn't at all touristy--as a matter of fact, away from the Yesil Cami mosque (the main tourist attraction in Bursa), we saw only 2 other tourists the whole time we were there.

A whole area of the covered market was dedicated to wedding dresses.

20 guesses as to what this is for.&nbsp; Can't guess?&nbsp; Well, around the age of&nbsp; 8 or 9, boys are circumcised in Turkey.&nbsp; There's a big ceremony and party, and the boy gets to wear this special suit. (Oh boy, that sure makes up for it!)

At the Yesil Camii, this young man came up to talk to us.&nbsp; Nuri Yildiz was his name<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; mso-fareast-font-family: Times New Roman; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">--</span>he's a 5th year English student at the university, and he comes and talks with tourists at the mosque to practice his English.&nbsp; Eric has a container of Aryan in his hand--it's a drink made of yogurt, water, and salt, that's sold everywhere.

We bought a scarf so that I could go into mosques.&nbsp; This is me in front of the Yesil Camii.&nbsp; Cute!

Eric met Omur Onan right outiside the Yesil Camii<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">.&nbsp;</span> He spoke English very well--he had lived in New York many years, getting damaged carpets to repair from museums and carpet stores, sending them to Turkey for the actual repair, and then bringing them back. He showed us some of the repair techniques used.

That evening there was a heavy thunderstorm.&nbsp; Eric spent about half an hour trying to get a picture of the lightening.&nbsp; This is the best one.&nbsp; Needless to say, you have to be fast!

The next morning we took a bus to Izmir.&nbsp; The bus stations are very modern, like airports.&nbsp; The 5 hour bus ride cost $7.50 per person.

This is at the Otel Antik Han, where we ended up staying.&nbsp; The hotel is right in the middle of the bazaar.&nbsp; They were very friendly.&nbsp; The posted price for a double room was $70, but they asked for $29 and we settled on $26.&nbsp; You bargain on almost everything in Turkey.

Next door was a sausage and olive shop.&nbsp; There's a tremendous variety of olives here!

Also in the bazaar was a shop which sold roasted nuts and seeds.&nbsp; We had some excellent pumpkin seeds here, and also pistachios.&nbsp; The owner really knew his stuff, and gave us some Turkish Delight, a soft jelly-like candy, for free.

This is our first few minutes in our new rental car, a Renaut Sahin.&nbsp;&nbsp;Eric misses the big V8 engine in his car at home!

This is the car in Bergama, the site of the ancient Greco-Roman city of Pergamum.&nbsp; Pergamum is at the top of the hill in the background.

The Red Basilca is right in the middle of town.&nbsp; It was originally a temple built to Serapis, an Egyptian god, around 200 AD. Later it became a Christian basilica, and currently part of it is used as a mosque.

On both sides of the main building are towers you can climb up a short ways (most of the stairs have crumbled away).

Right next to the basilica was an olive tree.&nbsp; Later we saw thousands of them, but this is my first close up of an olive tree in Turkey.

This is the hilltop acropolis of Pergamum.&nbsp; Parts of it are very well preserved, like this city wall.&nbsp; It was really exciting to climb on walls that have stood there for millennium.&nbsp; Great views of the area, too.&nbsp; Notice the clouds looming above.

These kilns were everywhere.&nbsp; We wondered what they were, and later discovered that in the middle ages, people took marble from ruins, and burned it in these furnaces.&nbsp; The resulting material (lime, I believe) was used to make the whitewash.

Part of the old city walls.

The weather is about to turn really nasty on us here.

Eric was hit by lightening!&nbsp; It wasn't a full on strike, but he was charged with electricity, and felt it discharge from his body through this foot.&nbsp; Needless to say, we went downhill very quickly.

This guy came up to us and wanted us to take a picture of him with the snail.

What a cool set of doorways!&nbsp; There's been a lot of reconstruction in this area, which was part of a temple complex.

Some of the site was behind bars such as these.&nbsp;&nbsp; Notice the gap in the middle, though?&nbsp; I was able to squeeze through and take a peek at what was behind the bars.&nbsp; There wasn't much, really, but it was fun being there.

Here's me getting out of the restricted zone.

This is the theater at Pergamum.&nbsp; I was very impressed--it was our first theater. Normally they're wider and not as high, but this one was built up.

Eric pretends to be a Roman gladiator.&nbsp; Ericus Maximus!

Sylvia among the columns.&nbsp; This area is all reconstructed.

It started raining, and how!&nbsp; We huddled among the ruins for a while, and escaped the worst of it.

This is a great view of the Temple of Zeus, and Bergama in the background.&nbsp; Most of this building was moved to a museum in Berlin in the 1800s.

Another shot of the theater. The steps are pretty well preserved in this part of the theater, the seats less so.

This is the Temple of Dionysus, right next to the theater.

We met an American from Michigan who took this picture. He was going to go to Egypt through Israel, but I bet he wasn't able to go through Israel, because right about then is when the troubles there started.

Similar shot, in the sun--what a difference!

The theater, and a adjunct building, from below.

Notice the holes in the stone blocks?&nbsp; Apparently, in the Middle Ages metals became very expensive because of a general breakdown of mining.&nbsp; So people dug into the walls, and ripped out the bronze connectors between blocks.&nbsp; We saw this in many ruins.

The road to the middle city.

There's still some excavation going on in the middle city.&nbsp; This must have been a guard dog.&nbsp; Luckily he was tied up.&nbsp; See how friendly he is! -- NOT!

We didn't know what this was at the time we saw it.&nbsp; After seeing many more ruined cities, it was obvious to us--it's a bath!&nbsp; People walk into the water on the steps.

The middle city, with Bergama in the background.

If you look closely, you can see the steps in this picture.

Eric and a freestanding arch.

This was the gymnasium in the middle city.

There's something that looked like an underground tunnel with the top fallen in here.&nbsp; It was huge!&nbsp; We never figured out exactly what it was for.

Sylvia, posing on a column.&nbsp; What a Goddess!

Eric, posing on another column.

This little puppy followed us around everywhere in the middle city.

These blocks look like they've been individually fitted into one another.

More columns in the middle city.

A very well preserved cupola in the middle city.&nbsp; Can you find Eric in this picture?

After Bergama, we drove back to Izmir.&nbsp; We stopped in a huge grocery store, just to see what they were like.&nbsp; I took a few pictures, but this security guard told me to stop.&nbsp; Only later did I realize that we had him on film, telling us to stop taking pictures!&nbsp; The grocery store was incredibly crowded, and huge.

Ephesus, Kushadasi, Priene, Miletus and Didyma.

The next day we drove to Ephesus.&nbsp; Ephesus is probably the largest and best restored ancient city in Turkey, and it has the tourist crowds to match.&nbsp; It was interesting, but not as fun as Pergamum, mainly because you weren't supposed to go into so many areas, and there were so many tourists.

A helpful person on the Internet translated this for us. It says: <p> <table> <tr><td>..... STO.STRO:S.. <tr><td>...PLATEIAS TAUTE:S<td>of this street <tr><td>..O ENTHEN EO:S TOU EU-<td>from this point as far as the <tr><td>KTE:ROU OIKOU TOU AR-<td>prayer-house of the <tr><td>CHANGELOU GABRI-<td>archangel <tr><td>E:L EPI IO:ANNOU<td>Gabriel at John's <tr><td>KAI LEONTIOU TO:N<td>and Leontias's the <tr><td>LOGIO:TATO:N<td>most learned <tr><td>SCHOLASTIKO:N<td>scholars <tr><td>KAI PATERO:N<td>and fathers </table>

This looked like a huge birdbath.&nbsp; I really don't think it was, but I don't have any other ideas.

Here's some of the tour buses at Ephesus.

An ancient road, lined with columns.

This is the theater.&nbsp; Quite well preserved.

Another ancient road with columns.

Supposedly this foot points the way to the red light district in Ephesus.

This is the Library of Celsus, all renovated.&nbsp; The statues in the walls are copies--originals are in Vienna.

The public toilets.&nbsp; Very cozy and intimate.

We had a hard time figuring this one out, then asked somebody with a detailed guidebook.&nbsp; Turns out that this was something like the steam room in a bath.&nbsp; Hot water circulated between the stacks of bricks, upon which a marble floor was supported.

Walking up the Curetes Way.

Lots of cool old Roman roads are still visible on the hillside.&nbsp; Too bad you can't walk up them!

After Ephesus, we drove to Kusadasi.&nbsp; We stayed in what we thought at first was a great hotel, with a nice view of the water, but it turned out that they had no hot water.&nbsp; So that's why they wanted us to pay in advance!

That evening we walked around town.&nbsp; It had rained heavily just before, and I slipped and fell down a marble staircase. I stopped myself with my right hand.&nbsp; You can't really tell here, but the palm of my right hand swelled up tremendously.

The next morning we changed hotels, and took a shower.&nbsp; We also washed clothes, which we'd been doing in hotel sinks the whole time.

Here's the view from our new hotel.&nbsp; You can see the harbor quite well.

After spending some time looking for the supermarket, we found the outdoor market.&nbsp; I haven't seen flattened cabbages like this before.

Walnuts and grapes for sale.

All kinds of peppers for sale.

We have the olive section here.

All kinds of nuts and dried fruits.

Spices for sale.&nbsp; Oddly enough, although we saw spices for sale everywhere, most Turkish food we had didn't seem very spicy at all.

The view from Pigeon Island (within walking distance of Kusadasi), which has a small stone fort on it.&nbsp; It was definitely the place for young couples to hang out--we saw about 4 of them there.

The stone fort on Pigeon Island was locked up, but we were able to poke the camera in a hole on the door, and take a picture of the inside.&nbsp; This is what it looked like--looks like storage for a restaurant.

Kusadasi was a really touristy town.&nbsp; About 2 or 3 cruise ships stopped in every day, and the whole place was oriented towards servicing them.

Sunset from the hotel.

Sunrise from the hotel the next morning. You can see one small and one huge cruise ship coming in, with Pigeon Island between them.

We toured 3 ancient sites today--Priene, Miletus, and Didyma.&nbsp; They're much less crowded than Ephesus, and thus much more fun.&nbsp; Priene was my favorite--it's set high up on a hill, with pine trees everywhere.

This staircase has a gutter built in.

This column had some Greek inscriptions on it.&nbsp; I really wish I knew what it said!

This was the Council Chamber, something like City Hall. As you can see, it was in superb condition.

Another view of the council chamber, with Mt. Mykale rising behind it.

Eric and I, using the self timer on the camera to get some photos.

I imagine some citizens of Priene had problems with slipping on the stone steps as well.&nbsp; Look at the anti-slip grooves carved into the steps here!

An ancient road, with a covered gutter running down the side.

Mt. Mykale, and the city walls.

You can see here how the trees contribute to the crumbling of the ruins.

Gutters ran through houses as well.

Mt Mykale, with pieces of crumbled columns in the middle.&nbsp; We started a game here--to get from place to place, you had to step on pieces of ruins.&nbsp; We called the broken up fluted columns &quot;gears&quot;.&nbsp; They look a lot like gears, don't they?

More gears, looking down on the cotton fields in the distance.

The 5 standing columns of the Temple of Athena.

The theater, with front seats reserved for VIPs.

...such as Eric!

Another view of the theater.

Gutters were kind of a theme here.&nbsp; We thought this looked like the influx for a couple different pipes.

The cotton harvest was in full swing when we were here.&nbsp; Here's a tractor loaded with bags of freshly picked cotton, on the road between Priene and Miletus.

This is the theater at Miletus.&nbsp; This was by a long shot the largest and most complex theater that we saw on our whole trip.

The theater from inside. Notice the upper and lower walkways, some partially collapsed.

Here's the view from inside one of the theater walkways.

Behind the theater was a Byzantine fortress.&nbsp; The building style changed in Byzantine times, and more flat bricks were incorporated into structures.

This was a bath, with hot water pipes running through the walls to keep the bath hot.

A tree growing among the ruins.

The entrance to the Baths of Faustina

A close-up of the doorway to the Baths of Faustina.&nbsp; Eric and I theorized that the holes in the blocks were used to fasten marble slabs.

In this section of the baths there were individual little rooms, where people could relax and bathe.

This is the swimming pool, complete with steps in the corners leading into the water.

The last ancient city of the day was Didyma, which actually wasn't even a city at all, but a temple occupied by a famous oracle.&nbsp; These 2 columns aren't reconstructed, and have remained standing for 1500 years.

Inside the temple was the inner courtyard

Some of the carvings that decorated the temple are still relatively intact.

These utility poles didn't have wires connected to them, nor were there any houses around.&nbsp; I think it's a part of the strange building habits in Turkey, where you see hundreds and hundreds of houses and condominiums that are half completed, but no longer being worked on.

A ruined Byzantine monastary on Lake Bafa.&nbsp; We turned in here for the small village of Kapikiri, on the lake.

The first pomegranate tree I'd ever seen.

In Kapikiri, we stayed at the Agora Pension.&nbsp; It was kind of what I'd imagined a small village Turkish hotel to be like--bathroom and shower downstairs, overgrown with grape vines, very rustic.&nbsp; Overall, it was very charming.

Bafa Lake, Seven Brothers Monastery, Kapakiri, Euromos and LaBranda.

The walkway on the second floor of the Agora Pension.&nbsp; The other guests that night were an archeologist studying the ruins here, and a group of Belgian tourists who'd hired their own van and driver.

A great view of Bafa Lake from outside our door.

This is part of the Temple of Athena, overlooking the lake.

Over the years, people have torn up many of the old buildings to use in fences and buildings.

The mountain that towers over Kapikiri is Besparmak Mt., or Five Fingered Mountain.&nbsp; Notice the solar water heater on the house.&nbsp; They're very common here--I think most water heating in costal Turkey is solar.

Village life in Turkey.&nbsp; Take a good look at the rocks that make up the stone wall--many of them are from torn-down ruins.

Donkeys were everywhere in this village.&nbsp; Maybe this was the one that brayed loudly all throughout the night, and kept us up!

Just outside the village, there were the ruins of a Byzantine castle on an island in the lake.

Leading cows to pasture.

This is the the base of the Temple of Athena.&nbsp; The rooms at the bottom are now used as enclosures for cows.

We took it easy in the morning.&nbsp; There were some books in the pension about the ruins in this area, and I took notes on how to get to one of them, the Seven Brothers Byzantine Monastery (Yediler).&nbsp; We started in the village of Golyake, 4 kilometers from Kapikiri.&nbsp; This goat was tied up in the village.

We had a hard time finding the path up at first, because there was nobody to ask.&nbsp; Maybe they were all working in the fields.&nbsp; But we found one very friendly man who managed to convey to us &quot;follow the arrows&quot;.&nbsp; We found the starting arrow, and the rest was very easy.&nbsp; This ended up being one of our favorite days in Turkey, because it was a wonderful walk with superb views, a great ruin, and we were the only ones there.

Great views, stone walls everywhere, olive trees.&nbsp; Mt. Besparmak was visible almost everywhere.

Sometimes the trail went between two stone walls.

Fences were always homemade affairs, made of brush, branches, and twisted wires..

A view of Lake Bafa from the trail.

If you look closely, you can see the Byzantine monastery in this picture.

There were unusual double-arch windows or doorways at the monastery.

The ruins of the monastery extended over a couple acres.

This fresco, painted under a rock, would have been impossible to find had we not met an older German couple coming down when we were going up who gave us directions. The overhang of the rock was plastered, and the fresco was applied to the plaster.

Many of the faces have been partially hacked off.

Eric took a panorama to get all of the frescos.

Lunch on the rocks.&nbsp; Lunch usually consisted of a loaf of bread, some cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese, often some apples, and pistachios or some kind of nuts.

The monks lived in these small cells.

Very small...

But with a really good view.&nbsp; Although I imagine this must have been bricked up a little more--it would be too cold otherwise.

Eric is in the throes of a moral dilemma here.&nbsp; Should he or should he not take a genuine Byzantine brick from the ruins here?

It's such a pretty brick, too.&nbsp; He eventually decided not to bring it. I think the words that did it were &quot;Midnight Express&quot;.

There was quite a drop-off after this arch.

Much of the monastery was built right on top of the boulders that littered this area.

A view of the monastery from below, with olive trees.

Great views on the return trip.

In this picture you can see Bafa Lake, and the Temple of Athena in Kapikiri if you view the higher resolution picture (click on the picture below to get it).&nbsp; We could hear the call to prayer from the village like it was next door!

More great views of the lake area.

The man with the photo had wanted to be our guide up to the monastery, but we had no problem finding it ourselves.&nbsp; The photo he's holding in his hand shows him, pointing out some prehistoric painting that we'd missed along the way.

Back in Kapikiri, it was time for the cows to go home.

Cows and donkeys are kept right in the middle of ancient ruins.

We had dinner with Christoph Loehr, the German archeologist who's on a 2 month contract here, cataloging the ruins right around town.&nbsp; It was great to talk to him and ask him all our archeological questions--I wish I'd written them all down!

We took a walk around town to see the ruins of Latmos, which we'd missed.&nbsp; On the way we saw this typical Turkish oven.

Here's the theater.&nbsp; Some of the seats and steps were carved directly into the rock.

A great view of Kapikiri and Bafa Lake.

Part of the city wall around the ancient city of Latmos.&nbsp; I wonder why they used this particular pattern, with the narrow stones and then the broad ones.

The city walls went high up into the hills.&nbsp; It would have been a really fun hike to go up there and try to follow the walls.

If you look closely, or look at the higher resolution picture (click on the one below) you can see the Temple of Athena and Kapikiri below.

After Kapikiri, we drove up an unmarked side road, looking for other ruins.&nbsp; Didn't find any, but we did find lots of olive trees, with little stone walls around each of them to prevent the earth from eroding away.

These are the ruins of Euromos, not too far from Bafa Lake.&nbsp; In this picture you can see both the finished (fluted) and unfinished (unfluted) columns.

The theater was a little tough to find, but we found it.&nbsp; There isn't much left now, just some seats carved into the rock.

Another one of the unfinished (and un-worked-on) building around here.&nbsp; This one is outside Milas.

We went grocery shopping in Milas.&nbsp; Bread is always sold like this, in glass cases outside the stores.

At the market we bought our usual, tomatoes, cucumbers, and apples.&nbsp; I wish I could pay Turkish prices for fruits and vegetables in the US!&nbsp; This woman is selling persimmons, which I haven't seen in Turkey before.

Next we went to the ruins of Labranda, which Christoph, the archeologist, particularly recommended.&nbsp; The views were outstanding.

A wide set of steps leads down to what I think is the First Andron (a men's religious gathering place).

The caretaker/ticket seller had a nice garden right next to the ruins.

Our best guess at what this was is something like a pipe fitting, where a sewage fixture takes a 90 degree angle.

The caretaker is drying walnuts on top of his roof.

Eric is taking a rest inside the Temple of Zeus.

Looks like the ruins will shortly become even more ruined soon, with these vines tearing them apart..

Eric thought this snake was dead, because it didn't move when he threw a small twig at it.&nbsp; Turns out it was just injured, because after he came closer, it hissed at him.&nbsp; The caretaker smashed it with a stick, saying that it was poisonous.

At home, we posted a question on alt.pets.reptiles.snakes, and were told it's probably an Ottoman viper (Vipera Xanthina), a venomous species found in Turkey. Supposedly extremely rare.

This Roman tomb had a section above, which was apparently for children.

Inside the tomb.

Next to the tomb was a huge boulder with steps carved in it.&nbsp; We climbed up...

And had a great view of the valley.

Bodrum, Stratonikea, Mugla and Fethiye.

After Labranda, we drove to Golkoy, on the Bodrum Peninsula.&nbsp; I had to take a picture of these very weakly constructed docks because they contrast so strongly with the massive megadocks that you see on Lake Washington.

The season was almost over.&nbsp; Many of the tourist facilities were shutting down.

We drove around the Bodrum Peninsula, stopping here and there to take some pictures.&nbsp; These cisterns were everywhere, even though they're not in use anymore.

In Gumusluk, we waded across a little straight to get to an island with some ruins on it.&nbsp; Probably our only venture into the water during the whole trip!

Apparently this wasn't always an island--from the top, you can see the old road that used to lead to the mainland.

Another set of unfinished buildings on the Bodrum Peninsula.

These windmills were set up on high passes, where there was a constant wind.&nbsp; I assume they were for milling grains.

I don't know what these camels were doing here, but here they were, right off a major road in Bodrum.&nbsp; Maybe they give rides to tourists in the high season.

On the way to Mugla, where we spent the night, we stopped in Stratonikea.&nbsp; Stratonikea is a very unusual place.&nbsp; It's a old ruined city, surrounded by a Turkish town that was abandoned in the early part of this century for reasons that have to do with a nearby coal mine.&nbsp; This is the town mosque.

This is inside, taken from an open window.&nbsp; I wanted to go in, but Eric thought it was too dangerous.

Inside a nearby house. It looks like it was a bakery, with the oven and what looks like shelves around it.

I think this was the fountain for men to wash before praying.&nbsp; I would have expected it to be a little closer to the mosque, though.

You can see how the houses were constructed where the plaster fell off.&nbsp; At least one of the houses was wired for electricity--really old wiring and switches, though.

If you click on this to get the closeup, you can see the pomegranates on the tree.

A Roman tomb.

Another broken down building

Some of the stones in the ruins had Christian crosses scratched on them.

The ruins are in the middle of the Turkish village.&nbsp; Notice the half-columns carved onto the wall.

We saw some old bits of pottery like these around.&nbsp; I imagine it's from Roman times, although it does seem odd that it is still relatively intact.

You can see here the holes where people dug out the metal connecting the blocks together.

The theater at Stratonikea. In the background is the abandoned Turkish village, and further off the coal mine.

Many rocks in the ruins were painted by archeologists with marking indicating where they were thought to come from.&nbsp; This one is from the ruined theater.

We drove to Mugla that night, and went out to eat.&nbsp; We stopped at an ice cream stand and got to know Havva Koca (on the right) and Selcan Makas.&nbsp; Havva started talking to us in English--both of them are studying English and teaching at the university.

The main activity of the day was driving into Fethiye.&nbsp; We got some great views along the costal road.

We stopped off at the quiet village of Gocek, which seems to be mainly a yachting port.&nbsp; Here's some of the boats we saw.

This is the marvelous view from our hotel in Fethiye.&nbsp;&nbsp;It was one of our favorite hotels.

Walking around town, we saw this sign--ketchup Cheetos??

We sat at the same table as Pat and Charles Newman for dinner, and ended up talking with them for about an hour.&nbsp; They were a very charming and friendly English couple that has come to Turkey about 10 times over the past 10 years, and have seen many changes.&nbsp; They seemed to have made friends all over town--about 3 groups of people stopped by and said hello to them while we were eating.

We took the road up from Fethiye to Seki today, looking for some ruins that were on our maps, but not in our guidebooks.&nbsp; Turned out they weren't marked, on the road, either.&nbsp; But it was a very beautiful high-plateau area.

We parked and hiked up a trail that looked like a tractor road.&nbsp; This would be a great place for some longer hikes.

This area is used as pasture by lots of goatherds-the ground was covered with piles of goat droppings

The pine trees in the area had really interesting shapes.

A pincushion-type cactus plant that we found.

Marble, called mermer in Turkish, is extracted in this area.

...and processed here as well.&nbsp; It must be really cheap--in Mugla, even cheap restaurants had marbles floors.

Pinara, Patara, Kayakoy, Olimpos and Teremessos.

We did some laundry in Fethiye, but Eric's all-cotton undies and socks didn't dry very well. So, the rear window of the car worked well as a dryer.

Pinara was one of my favorite sites in Turkey.&nbsp; Unfortunately I was feeling a little under the weather with a cold, so we didn't do a lot of hiking.&nbsp; It was beautiful, though.&nbsp; If you click on this picture, you can see the rock tombs carved into the mountain, as well as some ruins in the foreground, and the ubiquitous olive trees.

Eric found this unusual branch, connected to the tree at both ends.&nbsp; How could that have happened?

A very old olive tree.

These are the ruins of the theater in Pinara.

Some close-ups of the theater

The edge of the theater had some neat interlocking rocks.

From higher up in the city we had great views of the theater and surrounding mountains (the Taurus range).

Eric climbed into one of the Lycian sarcophagi that were scattered everywhere, either from earthquakes or tomb robbers.

Here's one that remains relatively intact.

The construction of walls in Pinara was not what we've seen normally--all the blocks being identical.&nbsp; These blocks are all individually fitted to one another.&nbsp; It must take a lot longer to complete.

Eric in one of the tombs carved into a cliff.

This is what the inside of one of these tombs looks like--there's shelves, usually two or three of them, for the body.

There were lots of tortoises around this site.

Here you get a better idea of what the mountain behind Pinara looked like--it was riddled with tombs.&nbsp; It would have been fun to spend a couple days here, and hike to a few of these old tombs.

The view from the top of the middle ruined city.&nbsp; The hike up was a little steep, but on the way down we found the path that we should have taken.

More tombs, these somewhat more elaborate, carved into the hillside.

A Lycian sarcophagus

More tombs carved into the rocks.&nbsp; The insides of them were covered in soot, and have obviously been used for shelter over the years.

That night we stayed in the Otel Beyhan in Patara.&nbsp; There was a great view, but mosquitos got into the room, and Eric went on a middle-of-the-night rampage to get rid of them.

The next day I was still feeling sick, so Eric went alone to the beach and the ruins of Patara.

Much of the ruins are in a swampy area.&nbsp; Probably that's where all the mosquitos breed...

The theater in Patara has sand encroaching on it.

Later on in the day we went to the abandoned village of Kayakoy.&nbsp; Apparently in 1922, there was an exchange of population between Greece and Turkey--the ethnic Turks in Greece were to go to Turkey, and the ethnic Greeks in Turkey were to go to Greece.&nbsp; This village used to be a Greek village, but after the Greeks left, it was never resettled.&nbsp; It's an eerie place to walk around.&nbsp; The buildings have all been stripped of anything useful, and many of them look like they've been destroyed on purpose.&nbsp; None of them have roofs.

One of the abandoned Greek Orthodox churches had some interesting inlaid mosaics, made of black and white pebbles.

The roads often had steps in them--I guess this would be pre-automobile.

Every building had a stove like this...

...and a cistern like this, where water from the roof ran down a gutter into the holding tank

I figured that these cement basins were laundry facilities.

There were many sheep wandering around the village.

Eric, checking out one of the smaller churches.

This is the other main church of the village.&nbsp; The floor is black and white pebble mosaics, but large portions of it have been torn up.

A view from the drive between Patara and Kemer.

We parked and walked down into this gorge off the highway.&nbsp; Unfortunately we couldn't go back very far.

Along the way we saw some more ruins off the road, and had to stop.&nbsp; This picture is very typical of the area--greenhouses (most likely growing tomatoes), beehives, which were everywhere, and the Lycian sarcophagi, also everywhere.

The inside of one of the greenhouses, with tomato plants.&nbsp; It was incredibly hot in there!&nbsp; Hard to believe how anyone could work inside.

One of the beautiful coves along the road.

We stopped and waded into the sea at one point.&nbsp; My toe is pointing to strange looking creature that looked like a sea centipede.

One of our planned stops along the way to Kemer was Olimpos, a very fine and scenic set of ruins.&nbsp; This is an unplanned stop--it's a treehouse hotel/hostel, catering to young travelers planning on staying there for a while.&nbsp; There were some very funky buildings.

There were also sitting areas, for people to hang out, read, and chat in.

The Olimpos site. Lots of tombs, all broken into.

This one was unusual--some very nice carvings on it.

Eric climbs the walls...

...and sits in a window

...as does Sylvia.

A stream runs through the site to the ocean.&nbsp; Very senic.

This is the remnants of a canal system for the city.&nbsp; It made a great walkway.

Eric examining the mosaics in one of the ruined houses.

Steps carved into a rock, leading to a platform that perhaps held a sarcophagus.&nbsp; In the background is the beach, and one of the boats that carries tourists to the beach.

We had a brief chat with a guy at the beach, who was a German juggler.

We spent the night in Kemer.&nbsp; The next morning we stopped at a grocery store to get some lunch supplies.&nbsp; I don't think this name for a sandwich spread would work in the US!

This is Termessos, the last ruins we visited in Turkey.&nbsp; I think this rock won't be there after the next earthquake.

Some of the city was covered in ivy.

We noticed this unusual design cut into some of the rocks--don't know what it means, though.

This is part of what's left of the gymnasium.&nbsp; The mountains provided a very dramatic backdrop here.

Eric, making lunch.

A cupola, still partly standing, close to the gymnasium.

This looks like it was an old stone bridge.

Here's the view from underneath the bridge.

This is what a wall looked like in one of the ruined houses--squares carved into the rocks, presumably for wooden floor supports, and narrowed windows--for defensive purposes, perhaps?

A pile of ruins--fun to boulder-hop around.

Here a panoramic shot of the theater, which had an amazingly dramatic location.

Some more theater shots.&nbsp; This theater was by far my favorite among all that we've seen.

I believe this is from the Temple of Zeus.

Very solid looking walls here

We found these releifs on a toppled column. It was unusual to find something like this--normally it would have been taken to a museum.

A great view of Antalya, a large city, towards the south.

One of the most interesting parts of Termessos was the water system, including cisterns.&nbsp; There were huge tanks built into the ground.&nbsp; They probably could have withstood a long siege.

I was able to climb into one of the tanks and take a look around.

One idea we had about these stones extending out was that they were perhaps there to get an idea, at a glance, of how much water was left.

More stone sarcopgai, laying around, either broken open by grave robbers or earthquakes.

If you click on this to get the higher-resolution picture, you can see that all of the individual dots of white are sarcophagi.

This is a relief, depicting Alcetas, a successor of Alexander the Great.&nbsp; Our guidebook listed it as the most famous sight at Termessos, but I was much more impressed by the theater.

Back in Istanbul.

Back in Istanbul, we were walking on Istiklal Caddesi, a major pedestrian street, when we ran into this demonstration.&nbsp; We got conflicting reports from people we asked questions of on the scene, but here's a report from Amnesty International about it: <a href="http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/EUR440171998">http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/EUR440171998</a>.&nbsp; There were lots of armored police around.

The protesters were immediately hauled off by police on a bus.

Eric was standing on a planter to get these pictures.&nbsp; Here, he inadvertently got a picture of us.

A knife sharpener on the street.

We met Zeki again today--he picked us up at our hotel to bring us over to his family's house for dinner.&nbsp; On the way, we went to look at a few sites, such as the harbor.

We stopped in a massive grocery store to pick up some things needed for dinner.&nbsp; Eric found some really HUGE containers of yogurt here.

Eric and I in line at the grocery store.

At Zeki's parent-in-law's apartment.&nbsp; They lived in Germany for about 20 years, and speak German well, so I was able to communicate with them.

Zeki with wife Jasmine and son Pasha.&nbsp; Pasha was born in the US when Zeki and Jasmine worked there for a brief period of time.&nbsp; They both liked living in the US a lot, and would like to return someday.

The whole family, including Zeki's sister-in-law and her daughter.

Eric holding Pasha, for just a few seconds before the outburst occurs.

We thought Zeki was joking when he told us that Sunday was a national census, and all Turkish citizens had to stay in their homes all day long to be counted in the census.&nbsp; Turns out he wasn't kidding -- you could be put in prison if you were on the streets that day, unless you had a special license.&nbsp; The only people who could apply for this license were those who worked in the tourist industry.&nbsp; Tourists didn't have to stay inside.&nbsp; This street is normally very busy, but today, absolutely nothing.

We saw this census taker going from door to door.&nbsp; Some of the questions they asked were, how many bathrooms are in this house, how many children do you have, are you working, can you read, what is your occupation.

The carpet shops put little kittens in the window to attract tourists to the window.&nbsp; Then the store owners will chat with them, and invite them inside to drink some tea and look at carpets.

This is the Four Seasons hotel, very close to where we stayed, but costing at least 8 times as much.&nbsp; Very deluxe, though.

We're interviewed on Turkish television!&nbsp; We were hanging out in our room, when the guy from the hotel reception desk called and asked us if we'd like to be interviewed for a news program.&nbsp; Here's the cameraman.

And this is the reporter.

We watched the Flash TV program for about half an hour, thinking that they had probably edited us out.&nbsp; But finally, there we were! Here's Eric and I looking at the picture we'd just taken of the reporter on our digital camera.

The hotel receptionist translated for the reporter, who spoke no English.

Eric gets his time in the spotlight.

And here's a random sampling of the cats we saw all over Turkey.

A Quick Overview of our favorite pictures.

Just outside the Topkapi palace in Istanbul, which was the living quarters of the sultans from the 1400 until the early 1800. Many of the tourist facilities are heavily guarded, because the Turks want to protect the tourism industry from potential terrorist attacks.&nbsp; This guy was a lot friendlier than he looks.

This is a Turkish style squat toilet in the palace, with facilities for hand washing.&nbsp; Only the best marble for the Sultan, of course.

Eric gets a haircut.&nbsp; Part of the procedure is to burn off hair on the face and the ears.&nbsp; Pretty scary!

This is the inside of the Aya Sofia in Istanbul, which was first a church, then a mosque, and now a museum.&nbsp; Notice the huge Islamic placards hung up to make it less church-like.&nbsp; The placards display the names, in Arabic, of God, Mohamed and the 4 caliphs.

The courtyard inside the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

The shoe-shiners often had a very elaborate setup, with burnished brass jars of shoe polish.

This is at the famous covered market, or Grand Bazaar.&nbsp; Most of the shops appear to cater to tourists, so of course there's dozens of places to buy a carpet.

We took the ferry from Istanbul to Bursa.&nbsp; On the ferry we met Zeki, a salesman for a clothing dye company.&nbsp; He goes to Bursa every week to sell dye to the towel factories out there. Zeki is a very generous and charismatic man.&nbsp; He'd been to America for about a year, and really loved it there.&nbsp; He spent the whole day driving us around, showing us the area, and bought us lunch and dinner.

Zeki drove us up Uludag, a mountain that rises up behind Bursa.&nbsp; Along the road was a farmer selling his products--quinces, apples, and walnuts. He presented us with a large bag filled with everything he sold, as a present.&nbsp; It was the first time we'd tasted quinces--they're tasty, similar to apples, but very hard and a little more acidic.

20 guesses as to what this is for.&nbsp; Can't guess?&nbsp; Well, around the age of&nbsp; 8 or 9, boys are circumcised in Turkey.&nbsp; There's a big ceremony and party, and the boy gets to wear this special suit. (Oh boy, that sure makes up for it!)

In the ruins of ancient Pergamum, these kilns were everywhere.&nbsp; We wondered what they were, and later discovered that in the middle ages, people took marble from ruins, and burned it in these furnaces.&nbsp; The resulting material (lime, I believe) was used to make the whitewash.

This is the theater at Pergamum.&nbsp; I was very impressed--it was our first theater. Normally they're wider and not as high, but this one was built up.

We didn't know what this was at the time we saw it.&nbsp; After seeing many more ruined cities, it was obvious to us--it's a bath!&nbsp; People walk down the steps into the bath.

This was the gymnasium in the middle city of Pergamum.

The public toilets in Ephesus.&nbsp; Very cozy and intimate.

In coastal Kusadasi, the first hotel we stayed at had no hot water.&nbsp; The next morning we changed hotels, and took a shower.&nbsp; We also washed clothes, which we'd been doing in hotel sinks the whole time.&nbsp;&nbsp;After this, we always tested hotel rooms for hot water before checking in!

Spices for sale.&nbsp; Oddly enough, although we saw spices for sale everywhere, most Turkish food we had didn't seem very spicy at all.

Sunrise from the hotel in Kusadasi. You can see one small and one huge cruise ship coming in, with Pigeon Island between them.

In the ancient city of Priene, this was the Council Chamber (something like City Hall). As you can see, it was in superb condition.&nbsp; Notice Eric leaping to the speakers column.

An ancient road in Priene, with a covered gutter running down the side.

Mt Mykale, with pieces of crumbled columns in the middle.&nbsp; We started a game here--to get from place to place, you had to step on pieces of ruins.&nbsp; We called the broken up fluted columns &quot;gears&quot;.&nbsp; They look a lot like gears, don't they?

The theater at Miletus. Notice the upper and lower walkways, some partially collapsed.

In the small village of Kapikiri.&nbsp; The mountain that towers over the village is Besparmak Mt., or Five Fingered Mountain.&nbsp; Notice the solar water heater on the house.&nbsp; They're very common here--I think most water heating in costal Turkey is solar.

Donkeys were everywhere in this village.&nbsp; Maybe this was the one that brayed loudly all throughout the night, and kept us up!

We took a hike up to the ruins of a Byzantine monastery near Kapikiri.&nbsp; Fences along the path were always homemade affairs, made of brush, branches, and twisted wires..

There were unusual double-arch windows and doorways at the monastery.

This fresco, painted under a rock, would have been impossible to find had we not met an older German couple coming down when we were going up who gave us directions. The overhang of the rock was plastered, and the fresco was applied to the plaster.

More great views of the lake area from the monastery area.

Cows and donkeys are kept right in the middle of ancient ruins.

A typical market in Turkey.&nbsp; We bought our usual, tomatoes, cucumbers, and apples here.&nbsp; I wish I could pay Turkish prices for fruits and vegetables in the US!&nbsp; This woman is selling persimmons, which I haven't seen in Turkey before.

We drove around the Bodrum Peninsula, stopping here and there to take some pictures.&nbsp; These cisterns were everywhere, even though they're not in use anymore.

These windmills were set up on high passes, where there was a constant wind.&nbsp; I assume they were for milling grains.

This is in the ancient city of Stratonikea.&nbsp; You can see here the holes where people dug out the metal connecting the blocks together.

In Fethiye, we sat at the same table as Pat and Charles Newman for dinner, and ended up talking with them for about an hour.&nbsp; They were a very charming and friendly English couple that has come to Turkey about 10 times over the past 10 years, and have seen many changes.&nbsp; They seemed to have made friends all over town--about 3 groups of people stopped by and said hello to them while we were eating.

In the ancient city of Pinara, we found a sarcophagus that's remained relatively intact.

Here you get a better idea of what the mountain behind Pinara looked like--it was riddled with tombs.&nbsp; It would have been fun to spend a couple days here, and hike to a few of these old tombs.

From higher up in the city we had great views of the theater and surrounding mountains (the Taurus range).

Later on in the day we went to the abandoned village of Kayakoy.&nbsp; Apparently in 1922, there was an exchange of population between Greece and Turkey--the ethnic Turks in Greece were to go to Turkey, and the ethnic Greeks in Turkey were to go to Greece.&nbsp; This village used to be a Greek village, but after the Greeks left, it was never resettled.&nbsp; It's an eerie place to walk around.&nbsp; The buildings have all been stripped of anything useful, and many of them look like they've been destroyed on purpose.&nbsp; None of them have roofs.

One of our planned stops along the way to Kemer was Olimpos, a very fine and scenic set of ruins.&nbsp; This is an unplanned stop--it's a treehouse hotel/hostel, catering to young travelers planning on staying there for a while.&nbsp; There were some very funky buildings.

A stream runs through the site to the ocean.&nbsp; Very senic.

Eric, making lunch in Termessos.

The theater in Termessos.&nbsp; This theater was stunning, and by far my favorite among all that we've seen.

One of the most interesting parts of Termessos was the water system, including cisterns.&nbsp; There were huge tanks built into the ground.&nbsp; They probably could have withstood a long siege.

Back in Istanbul, we were walking on Istiklal Caddesi, a major pedestrian street, when we ran into this demonstration.&nbsp; We got conflicting reports from people we asked questions of on the scene, but here's a report from Amnesty International about it: <a href="http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/EUR440171998">http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/EUR440171998</a>.&nbsp; There were lots of armored police around.

Zeki, whom we met on the ferry to Bursa, invited us to dinner.&nbsp; This is the whole family, including Zeki's sister-in-law and her daughter.

The day before we left was a nationwide census.&nbsp; Everyone except tourists had to stay inside all day to be counted--no kidding!&nbsp; We saw this census taker going from door to door.&nbsp; Some of the questions they asked were: how many bathrooms are in this house, how many children do you have, are you working, can you read, what is your occupation.

We got onto Turkish television!&nbsp; Some reporters wanted to interview tourists and see what they thought of the census, so they went to our hotel and happened to find us.&nbsp; This is a photo of the TV show, which we watched that night.

Misc events in January, 2001.

Sylvia's good friend, Judy, spent a night during her visit to the Northwest.

The next week Eric and Sylvia started taking skate skiing lessons at Snoqualmie Pass

This is the new lodge at the Nordic Center at Snoqualmie.

A few weeks later we went by ourselves on a trail.&nbsp; This is a view of bunch of tree stumps with Highway 90 in the background.

At the midpoint, we stopped in a hut called &quot;Yurt&quot;.&nbsp; It was very nice.&nbsp; Eric had steam coming off him from the exertion!

Sylvia feels a bit cold.

Dagney Layman's 3rd Birthday party with Dominick, Perry and Baby John (and their parents!)

Dagny in a jester mask, opening up her present from Gunar, Angelica, and Dominick.

Perry and Dominick playing trains

Linda playing with the hamster puppet Dagny got from Eric and Sylvia

Perry working on a puzzle

Dagny blowing out her candles!

Perry working on the birthday cake

Dagny and Dominick

The view from the living room

Dagny as a princess

Perry (cowgirl) and Dagny watching Eric juggle

Eric and Perry, juggling

Andrew is busy taking photos

Sylvia shows off her juggling skills as well

Dominick does his best imitation of juggling.&nbsp; It was cute!

Eric visits Terry's new Beach house.

Eric and Terry take the ferry to Whidbey Island.

View of the garage.

The front door.

Terry must sure like to booze it up!!

The great room is nice and large ...

... with a great view of the sound!

Terry's neighbors.

There is a sea wall protecting the houses from erosion.

Terry: master of his own domain!

A view of the ocean.&nbsp; Sometimes grey whales can be seen swimming here!

Behind the house is a cliff

Eric shaves his beard for the first time in about 10 years.

The nervous subject

How the heck do you use one of these?

What do you expect if he only shaved 5 times in his life?

The finished product.&nbsp; How handsome!

Eric and Sylvia walk in Marymoor Park.

Sylvia at the Marymoor climbing wall.

Taking a walk on the east side of Lake Sammamish.&nbsp; This is where the trail ends in private property.

We found this skeleton, but couldn't figure out what it was.

Back at the climbing wall.

Sylvia's father celebrates his 70th Birthday.

Dad's 70th birthday dinner was at a German restaurant in Pineville.

Tom and Maedi Falley came, as well as Helga and Guenther Trummer from Virginia.

The next day, Helga and Guenther came over to show pictures of their kids, and we had lunch on the back porch (it was warm out).

Eric and Sylvia visit Chris and Judy Beaudette.

We actually had some snow the morning that we left (from Seattle), and the plane had to be de-iced.

This is Chris and Judy's apartment in Dover, New Hampshire.&nbsp; They're renting the top left-hand apartment.

This is Gert (sp?), the van that Chris and Judy drove east across the US.&nbsp; It has some engine problems now.

Eric and I took a walk around the neighborhood and took some photos.&nbsp; It's a very nice old-fashioned New England town, with a lot of great Victorian looking houses.

There's some really old houses here as well.&nbsp; The small sign on the left says Dame Tebbett's Tavern, circa 1730.

This is the Dover public library.

Here's the inside of Chris and Judy's apartment, looking towards the kitchen/dining area.&nbsp; It's very sunny and roomy.

And this is the living room, with Eric in it.&nbsp; Also very sunny.

Judy and Chris, back from their run.

Eric playing with Fractal.

Later in the day, we went for a walk in a Odiorne Point State Park&nbsp;&nbsp; Very chilly!

We all made shadow people.

Sylvia and Judy on the rocks

Sylvia and Eric on some driftwood.

Eric trying to pull at an abandoned anchor.

We found lots of old lobster traps on the beach.

This majestic looking old hotel is being renovated.

We stopped at an old cemetery (they're scattered everywhere here) and marveled at the old tombstones

We met up with Chris (he had to work) at the Cafe Kilim, a coffeehouse with a Turkish theme.

On the way home we stopped at Shaws, a grocery store, to pick up some steamed lobsters.&nbsp; Because Eric and I were taking pictures of them, the guy behind the counter asked Chris and Judy, &quot;Haven't they ever seen a lobster before?&quot;

A lobster dinner.

Chris demonstrates the way to get the meat out of the lobster.

On Sunday, we drove around Dover to take some pictures.&nbsp; This is the famous Leaning Barn of Dover.

And here's the local covered bridge.&nbsp; We didn't take a very good look at it, because it was so cold and windy Sunday that we didn't spend more than 5 minutes outside the car.

Dover is a mill town.&nbsp; The mill has been converted to office space, but they left the smokestack.

The waterfall next to the bridge.

The Dover municipal building

We climbed up this green tower to get a view of Dover, but didn't stay up more than a minute or so.&nbsp; Although it was sunny, it was very windy, and, as they say out here, &quot;wicked cold&quot;.

The bundled up figures on the right are Sylvia and Eric.

Chris and Judy pulled off their scarves so that they could actually be recognized.

The Dover Delite ice cream shop, closed for the winter.

The Loyal Order Of Moose in Dover.

We took a drive up along the Maine coast, and stopped a couple times along the way.&nbsp; This couple crossing the road provide a graphic illustration of how cold it was.

This is a lobster pier that Chris and Judy have eaten lobster at a few times.&nbsp; Eric and I learned that a lobster pier is a place you can go to where you can buy steamed lobster, bring your own side dishes, and eat right there.

Another beach park that we stopped at, driving up around Maine.&nbsp; Only Judy and I got out.&nbsp; Eric timed us--we were out 4.5 minutes before we got too cold to continue.&nbsp; It's funny to smell the ocean smells, and see snow at the same time.

We also stopped at the Nubble Light House in Maine.&nbsp; Judy stayed in the car, keeping it warm for us.

The lighthouse has a cable trolley to the mainland.&nbsp; Previously, supplies were transported to the lighthouse via buckets hooked on the cable.

On our way back home, we stopped for lunch at a cafe in Portsmith.

This is the view from the back of the cafe.

Judy was telling me to keep an eye peeled for a widow's watch, and we finally saw one.&nbsp; It's the glass-enclosed structure built at the very top, where the &quot;widow&quot; can look to the sea to see if perhaps her husband's ship has come in after all.

Back at the apartment, we have some hot cocoa.

This is Chris and Judy's new car, a snazzy Toyota Corolla wagon.

This is a chair that I thought might look good in miniature.

Eric, Judy, and I went for a walk around town Monday morning, and checked out the covered bridge again.&nbsp; Most of the construction, especially roof, looks pretty new.

Eric and I, about to head to the Manchester airport.

Eric and Sylvia share heart shaped pancakes.

For Valentine's Day, we made pancakes with a heart motif!&nbsp; The technique is to put batter into a squeeze container and use it to make a heart outline, then fill in the shape.

I suppose this is more environmentally correct than carving our initials into a tree, or spray painting them on an overpass!

We had bananas and strawberries with the pancakes.

Eric also removed his goatee the day before.&nbsp; Funny how that happened right before Valentines day!&nbsp; Sylvia was quite startled by the dramatic difference in appearance.

Kitten-Kat wants part of the pancake action!

Eric and Sylvia take a FREE tour of the Univeristy of Washington.

This junk heap is actually considered art!

There is a status of George Washington to whom the University is dedicated.

This is Red Square, the center of campus.

There is a parking facility beneath Red Square which requires ventilation.&nbsp; Because a single stack looked weird, they built three!

These cameras take photos which are placed on the web so that students can check if it's raining out.

Here we have architecture from the 20's, 60's and the 90's, respectively, left to right.

One of the largest libraries is undergoing earthquake retrofitting!&nbsp; We just had a 6.8 magnitude in the past week!

More &quot;art&quot;

This is the Physics building with more &quot;art&quot; representing an orbital of electrons.

Here is a Foucault Pendulum.

A cool sundial design.

Forestry management is big in Washington State.

The original pillars brought from downtown Seattle where the University first got it's start in the 1860's.

Ivy covered building - very university like.

This is (was) the home-economics building.&nbsp; There are statues of women all over the corners doing varieties of tasks.&nbsp; There is a single status of a man.&nbsp; Can you guess what he is doing?&nbsp; Let me tell you that this was built at the turn of the century!&nbsp; Answer:&nbsp; he's directing the woman with a list of tasks!

The original university building which used to house students, classes and the administration.

A walk along the beach to Alki Point.

Much of Alki Beach has a great view of the Seattle area.

That's why many of the old houses along the beach are being replaced with these expensive city-view condos.

There's a lot of abandoned old piers along the Alki waterfront.&nbsp; You can see the <a href="http://www.spaceneedle.com/generalinfo/default.html">Space Needle</a> and the Seattle skyline in the background.

The Alki Beach area is extremely popular with scuba divers.&nbsp; This appears to be a whole class of divers, coming in from the water.

This young daughter of a scuba diver wanted to reclaim her boulder.

The first white settlers in Seattle came here, to Alki Beach. They didn't like it here, though, and ended up moving to Seattle, across the bay.&nbsp; Plaques along the walkway commemorate these events.

Here's my attempt to take some artsy pictures.

In the fifties, the boy scouts erected this mini Statue of Liberty along Alki Beach.

There were a lot of sailboats in the bay.&nbsp; I think there was a race, because they all seemed to be going in the same direction.&nbsp; More divers as well.

Believe it or not, this is Seattle's oldest house, built around 1858.&nbsp; With the vinyl siding, though, you'd never know that it was old.&nbsp; We talked to one of the neighbors who said that the floor is completely wavy.

The Alki Point lighthouse.

Walking around the Madison Park Area of Seattle.

Madison Park had some easily climbable stone animal sculptures that we played around on.

We happened by the Pioneer Association of Washington Museum on the one day a month that it was open.&nbsp; There were about 4 older volunteers there, very friendly and eager to show us around.&nbsp; I felt bad that we didn't do the whole tour with them, but it was sunny and we wanted to see the neighborhood.

The waterfront has very small public beach access areas every quarter mile or so.

Houses around this area are expensive and grand looking.

The ivy growing on the wall was cut away to form this pattern.

A view from the waterfront

One house had an old boot stuffed with plants on their garden wall.

Houses ranged from the very traditional...

to the very modern...

To the very quaint.

I'd love a view like you see through this window!

TulipFest, Deception Pass, Terry and Sue's Widbey House

Workers in the fields were gathering tulip stems just before they bloomed.

On Easter weekend, we headed for the Skagit TulipFest.&nbsp; It&nbsp; was fine when we got there around 10:45 am, but within half an hour, it had become so crowded we were inching along the rural roads.&nbsp; We gave it up and had lunch at Deception Pass, then went to visit Terry and Sue at their Whidbey Island vacation home.

Apparently they will last in cold storage for 2 weeks.

We chatted with this field worker from Mexico for a while.&nbsp; He noticed that I was shivering and said, in Spanish, &quot;It's not cold!&quot;, not expecting that I would understand and reply.&nbsp; A very friendly guy, he's been the the US since 1972 without learning English.

Experimenting with macro photography.

Tulip fields

And daffodil fields

They had pony rides as well.&nbsp; This little girl never got used to it, and cried the whole time.

Deception pass was beautiful and uncrowded, unlike the TulipFest.

It was a windy day.&nbsp; I didn't have a barrette, so I tied a blade of grass around my hair.&nbsp; It worked, too, for a while.

Limpets in a&nbsp; tide pool.

A little too much sky in this picture.&nbsp; Next time we ask someone to take a picture, we'll ask them to include the feet--that way we won't end up with too much sky.

Great views around the point.

This guy didn't look like he had any fear of heights at all.&nbsp; Eric and I got this close as well, but we were on our stomachs.

The Deception Pass bridge.

In Oak Harbor, on Whidbey Island, there was a huge display of support for the 24 servicemen and women held in China, who were returning to Whidbey Island that day.

At Terry and Sue's house on Whidbey Island, their daughter Rachael does the hula hoop

A bald eagle out on the water.&nbsp; The sand was dangerous here--it looked solid, but if you stood in one spot for a while, it could sink in on you.

The bald eagle flew into a nearby tree when we got too close.

Gregory looking for crabs under rocks.

Sue and the new puppy, Lucky Lady.

The whole family.

Here's the area underneath a rock that we moved.&nbsp; You can see tons and tons of little crabs if you click on the picture and bring up the large image.

We found a shrimp under a rock, too.

Some of the houses on top of the cliff used to have stairs leading down to the water.&nbsp; None of them were maintained, though.

The root of this tree had some large stones embedded in it, which survived the uprooting and a stay in the ocean before the tree drifted to shore again.

On the (12 minute) ferry trip back.

Eric and Sylvia go for a bike ride on the Sammamish River trail.

A typical stretch of the Sammamish River trail

An old railroad bridge

In addition to building another bridge across the Samamamish River, a lot of (expensive!) salmon habitat restoration work was done.

Long stretches of the trail are straight and would be uninspiring if you were walking.&nbsp; Biking is about the right speed.

We saw these two men in Army uniform, and asked what they were doing.&nbsp; They have to do a physical fitness test every year or so and have to run 2 miles in around 19 minutes, depending on age.&nbsp; They used this straight stretch to time the runs.

Further down the road we passed the Army reservist who was being tested. He was walking, and we did not think he was going to complete the neccesary 2 miles in 19 odd minutes.

Turf farms are along the trail...

...as well as horse pastures.

These tree trunks in the creek are supposed to be for salmon habitat restoration.

More tribute to salmon.

This is where Eric and I stopped on our fourth date, about a year ago, and had a snack.

We stopped at a different park for a snack this time.

Canoeists on the Sammamish.&nbsp; Not too many of them go the whole way; there's too many long straight stretches.

The first Bothell schoolhouse, from the late 1800's, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

On the way back, we stopped at the Chateau St. Michelle winery.&nbsp; Apparently these grapevines are just for show, and they buy all the grapes that they make wines with.

The sides of this little stream were cut straight down.

There's some peacocks wandering the grounds.

This woman was taking her bird out for a walk.&nbsp; The colorful stuff on the back is a harness.&nbsp; Her boyfriend walking with her had a gray parrot.

We met Eric's friend Ramin, who worked with him at Microsoft, running along the trail.

Everybody was out today.&nbsp; The woman with the golden retriever is Susan Bosworth, wife of Adam Bosworth, who is the founder of Crossgain, Eric's new company.

The RV Expo at the Puyallap Fairgrounds.

Gillian demonstrating one of the mini-showers.

Some of the RVs were pretty luxurious

This was the only one we saw with a U shaped kitchen

I like the idea of a slide-out pantry

This cabinet...

...converts to a bunk with very little head room

This one hardly looks like an RV. It cost $225,000...wow!

Innovative design--a deck on top of the RV.

Eric and Sylvia visit Seattle's Museum of Flight.

Before any crowds formed, Sylvia and I took a tour of an old Air Force One.&nbsp; It was used by Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

Lots of space to have meetings!&nbsp; Or, in Kennedy's case, Marilyn Monroe.

The super-secret phone!

This is a mock up of Eisenhower in action! &quot;Nuke 'em!!!&quot;

This lavatory was remodeled for Jackie Kennedy.&nbsp; Evidently she had a really wide butt.

This is the communications center for the aircraft.

Of course, a picture of the cockpit is a must.

Next to Air Force One there was an old A6 Intruder.&nbsp; It has two crew who sit side-by-side.

This is a Fiat G.91.&nbsp; If you thought Fiat cars were small, so were their aircraft!

We then went inside the Museum where we took advantage of a free tour.&nbsp; There were a large number of retired Boeing workers who were giving tours, or just available for information.&nbsp; They were very friendly.

This is a mock up of the original Wright Flyer, mad by students of the UW in the 60's.&nbsp; Evidently it is airworthy, but no one was brave enough to test fly it.

This craft does not have material on its wings to show the detail of it's construction.&nbsp; It's amazing what they did with wood.

I found this plane to be really amazing.&nbsp; It is an early Italian plane which was left un-renovated.&nbsp; What was strange about it was that the nose cone is attached to the propeller and the two spin together.&nbsp; Must have been error prone.

The main skill needed by the airplane builders was working with wood, of course.&nbsp; Here the tour guide demonstrates an original lathe.

Here is the second version of the famous Albatross which was human powered, and was flown across the English Cannel.&nbsp; It weights about 75 pounds!&nbsp; Which is probably just a bit more than the hang glider next to it, but it's wingspan is many times larger.

This is a tri-motor Boeing.&nbsp; Very classy for its time.

This is a replica of the first airplane made by Boeing.&nbsp; Evidently the U.S. Government did not think much of it, so two were sold to the Australians and used successfully.

Much of early flight was dedicated to the delivery of mail, which was dropped off and picked up without the aircraft landing.

This is a very small unmanned plane which travels at about 50 mph, and flew around the world with less than 2 gallons of fuel!

This is an old-fashioned glider, the predecessor to modern day hang gliders.&nbsp; It was built by Cessna!

This was the newest plane on exhibit.&nbsp; A spitfire.

A Corsair.

This helicopter has no tail because it is powered by jets on the tips of the propeller!

A cruise missile.&nbsp; Capable of cruising just above the tree-tops, using a computer and landmarks by which it navigates.

A flying car!&nbsp; Early Americans thought that an aircraft would be something the average person would be able to own and operate.

One of the coolest aircraft at the museum was the SR-71 Blackbird.&nbsp; A Mach 3+ craft.&nbsp; A real cockpit to one was available for pictures.&nbsp; Evidently it is the remains of one which crashed upon takeoff.

It has two HUGE engines which consume 4,000 gallons of fuel an hour.&nbsp; Flying fast does not come cheap.&nbsp; It had to be refueled every 2 hours or so.&nbsp; Must have been very tedious to fly.

These engines were only ever used on the Blackbird.

Upstairs we found the tribute to propellers!

They were carved from wood.

Eric and Sylvia check out the Folklife Festival in Seattle (many hippies) and then have dinner at a Chism Park with The Burds

In general, the street performers weren't that great. A lot of them had about 5 seconds of actual tricks such as juggling, etc, then 5 minutes of back and forth with the audience

This guy gathered an audience by laying down on beds of nails and broken glass.

Another performer, juggling long knives surrounded by men supported by eachother's laps.

Playing the violin and doing the hula hoop at the same time was this girl's stunt

This bluegrass musician has quite a collection of harmonicas! Lots of impromptu bluegrass jam sessions happened at the festival.

The bluegrass groups looked like they were having the most fun.

There was a craft section, where kids could make small kites

Painting henna designs

Jumping rope with a very short rope to make it extra challenging, to the beating of drums.

The central fountain shoots off water in a somewhat random pattern designed to get you to try to time it so you can run in, touch the fountain, and run away without getting wet.

Here's Eric trying to touch the fountain.

And me about to try it.

The girl playing the violin was very good.

This boy knew how to perform. He would look people in the eye and smile. A born showman...

Eric liked the sound of this group

Working on the frame of a fabric-covered kayak.

These guys got pretty acrobatic in their dance.

We listened to this group quite a while. Lots of listeners around this group were doing what I'll call the Grateful Dead dance, for lack of a better word (very unstructured, swaying around)

At Chism Beach Park, Hannah had lots of fun playing in the water and going down the slides.

Eric did too, when he remembered to pull his head in because the roof was very low. Hannah said, "Again, Eric!", wanting him to go down the slide with her so many times that Eric got exhausted!

She needed just a little bit of help getting up the ladder.

Lots of Canadian Geese around, these with half-grown goslings. You could see (and step in) evidence of the geese everywhere...

Eric and I pulled out the juggling clubs towards evening.

Gary got a great shot of us juggling against the Seattle skyline.

Eric and Sylvia visit the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Seattle.

The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks lead from Lake Union out to Puget Sound. Here's a map of the area:

These huge pistons open and close the locks.

Boats heading into the lock.

Aligning themselves...

Now the gates are closing

And the boats are rising as water is let in

The salmon ladders, unfortunately, were out of commision when we visited.

Another set of boats heading through.

Eric and I take a walk around areas at Microsoft where he used to work.

Building 25

Eric worked on various projects at Microsoft, foremost among them Internet Explorer 4.0 and Internet Explorer 5.0. He started at Microsoft in February of 1995, and left in March of 2000. Here's a chronological list of the buildings he worked in.

Building 2

Building 27

Eric at Building 31

Eric's old office in Building 31. Great office, high ceilings that were good for juggling 7 balls.

Building 10

Eric's office in building 10 (2nd floor in the corner).

Eric worked mainly on Internet Explorer 4.0...

and Internet Explorer 5.0

A lot of new buildings have been built since this map was made!

Eric asks Sylvia to marry him! Sylvia says yes!!

This is what the area at Marymoor looks like...

After Eric and I took a walk around Marymoor park, Eric said we should sit down and talk. Then he popped a ring out and asked him to marry me. We didn't have the camera with at the time, so this is a recreation.

And this is the ring...

At first I was very surprised...

And then I said yes!

We're planning on living happily ever after. Hmmm ... looks like there is more room on the bench!

Eric and Sylvia travel to North Carolina to surprise Eric's mother on her 60th birthday.

On our way out we had a great view of Mt. Rainier above the clouds.

Ann cutting her birthday cake.

We had a good time at the party.

Ann likes the oval shaker boxes, made by my dad, that we gave her for her birthday.

She also got a Panamanian Mola (traditional indian embroidery).

Ken works on the bbq

Eric's brother Brian is a clown in his spare time.

He makes ballon sculptures as well!

Sunday we went for a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was kind of a hazy day

Eric's Dad and Mom on the left (Ken and Ann), and brother and girlfriend April and Kevin on the left. This is on a short path just below a lodge along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Cold Mountain, the location of the book by the same name.

This is the quilt garden at the Arboretum and Botanical Garden

The whole gang (minus Brian) at the Botanical Garden

Eric got a great close up of a bumblebee

Lotsa color here!

Ann next to one of her pictures hanging at the Botanical Garden.

A view of Mercer Island on the way home

Eric sells his 12 year old Nissan Maxima.

I bought the Maxima in 1989, my first new car. It had clutch problems throughout its lifetime, but it was a great car nonetheless. I sold it to a young boy (his parents bought it for him) from West Seattle. Hopefully it will have a long, happy, life :-)

Eric and Sylvia join Jean and Kay to go cherry picking in the Yakima Valley

You've got to get up into the trees to get the good cherries.

Jean, Kay and Eric

The Seafair Milk Carton Derby at Green Lake, Max Parmacek's birthday, the Heritage Festival at Marymoor.

These two boats were in the racing competition, look very sleek and fast.

I think this one was a family entry.

This one is cute--it's modeled after the "toe truck" in Seattle.

The hula girls with their hula boat.

A modified swim float

This lady is the official milk carton derby inspector. She goes around and makes sure that people don't use too much duct tape, etc.

This flimsy contraption competed in the adult races. They didn't do too well.

My guess as to what a "sheriff explorer" is some kind of boy scount career exploration thing.

A very heavy-duty paddle boat

These boys did pretty well in the kids racing category.

The Pringles man. No free samples, though.

Sparky the Wonder Dog has his own web site.

A modified exercise bike provides the power for this one

Eric next to one of the seafair hydroplanes.

This group of guys competed in the racing category, but they were very slow!

This man's boat was modeled on a crewing skiff, very sleek. He put a sliding device from a rowing exercise machine that he got at a garage sale onto it. Other materials came from the Boeing Surplus Store. It was designed by his dad, a retired Boeing engineer.

He won, of course.

The crowds watching the race

These kids used fin-power!

A modified bicycle works as a power source as well

Some boats got turned around. Others fell off their boat and had to hang on to it.

Sylvia and Victoria at Max's 3rd birthday party.

Max enjoyed his cake!

Younger brother Parker enjoys chewing on anything.

The kids have fun playing in the sprinkler. They would get some water in the cups, put it in their mouths, and spit it out again as far as they could.

Visiting some garage sales on the way home.

In the afternoon, we went to the Heritage Festival at Marymoor park. Here I am throwing an ax at a display they had on old-time recreations. I didn't do too well.

The Washington Civil War Association put on a recreation of a civil war battle at Marymoor, complete with canons and calvary.

Lots of women were dressed in period outfits.

Later, at the encampment, the soldiers were dismissed.

A high-ranking officer and his wife.

They also staged a mock operation on a wounded soldier. Sanitation was not the best.

Old surgical implements.

Bike ride on Preston Bike Trail with Kristen

The trail follows an old railroad grade, so it's mostly flat.

We saw a llama farm along the way.

We also saw a beautiful modern industrial-style house.

A view of Snowqualmie falls from the end of the trail.

Kristen had a sunburn that was peeling in a big way. She got some really good-sized pieces off!

Flying with Steve and Roger to visit Fry's electronics in Portland Oregon.

This is Steve.

This is Steve's plane.

Steve has a special relationship with his plane. He describes it as a love/hate relationship. He loves flying, hates paying so much for it!

Fry's Electronics is a HUGE computer and consumer electronics store which is popular in California's Silicon Valley. To many, it is "Nerdvana".

Roger got shotgun on the flight to Portland. Roger has a private pilot's licence.

Here you can see Mount Ranier in the distance.

It was quite clouded over on the flight out. Fortunately, we got above most of it at 13,000 feet.

Here you can see the airstrip in Portand quite clearly. On the return trip, we could not see the air strip until we were practically past it! Steve is a very good pilot.

Obligatory shot of the lovely couple by the aircraft.

On the flight back I played the role of copilot. This is what I got to look at. Lots of cool dials!

On the flight back, we accumulated a small bit of ice. Steve called it "Light, Clear Ice".

If you look carfully at the wing, you might see some ice on the leading edge. Steve used the de-icing equipment to crack some of it.

Steve uses a special electric cart to push his plane into the hangar.

Rod and Shannon Chavez were kind enough to host our engagement part at their beautiful custom-designed home. The best closeups here are from Gary Burd, who just got a new digital camera.

Before the guests arrive

Andrew and Linda, with daughter Dagney

Linda taking some pictures with Andrew's new camera.

Eric and Adam Bosworth

Settling down to eat BBQ

Gary also recently got a new camera

Rich and Jane, with Kristen on the right

Jean and Kay, Soe, Mei, Michael

Gary, Dinarte, and Grace

Victoria and Brett on the left, Donica on the right

The kids are being read to in Bobby's bedroom. From left to right, Max, Bobby, Hannah, Dagney

They also did somc crafts.

My engagement ring (on the wrong finger, because it's a little too loose on the ring finger)

Rachael and Joe Beda

Dinarte and Eric

Andrew and Rod

Shannon and Bobbie

Terry and Sue

We watch an outdoor production of the Shakespeare play The Tempest

Ariel is about to cause a storm

The ship is going down

Caliban

We went to the WOMAD music festival in Marymoor Park. There we met Grace and Gary Burd and their daughter Hannah, and Mei Poon.

Hannah puts sunglasses on me. After some practice, she got pretty good at putting sunglasses on herself and other people.

Hannah having fun with her mom Grace

Gary and Grace

The main stage before the Peter Gabriel performance

Peter Gabriel, as seen on a picture taken through binoculars.

Folks twirling colored cloth with a weight on them. It's the latest thing at these kind of festivals.

Getting a cucumber facial for free at the festival

These punks stood out amidst the majority of more hippie style festival-goers.

The main entrance gate to Womad.

Selling hash pipes close to the camping area.

We were hoping to see a real Grateful Dead parking lot type scene in the Womad camping area, but everyone was at the festival, so it was very quiet. Some of the vehicles were interesting, though.

These long ribbons on flexible poles were used to make colorful patterns in the sky, like writing in cursive.

These dancers on the outskirts of the crowds did a very unique, highly personalized and spacey dance.

Earlier in the day we made a quick trip to the Bellevue Art Festival. They have some high quality arts and crafts there. Too bad it's in a parking garage.

Eric and Sylvia go on a three day guided kayak trip around San Juan Island.

This shows a lot of the route that we took. We put in at Snug Harbor, kayaked around more or less clockwise, and camped both nights on Jones Island.

This is the Springtree Restaurant in Friday Harbor. A friend of Eric's that owns it has had management problems and is selling it. We spent Friday night in a hotel close by.

Getting ready to take off on the kayaks

Our guide, Christian

Here we're passing along a shipping channel as a huge container ship passes us.

A colony of nesting birds. It really stunk around there! The white on the rocks is all bird droppings.

If you really strain here, you can see the seals resting on the rocks.

Passing through a field of bull kelp. This was quite difficult to paddle through, but great to hold onto to anchor the kayak.

Eric and I in the kayak. We called it the "Crimson Tide".

This house has a great location, with it's own beach, and an attached peninsula

Our first lunch on Posey Island. We were definately well fed on this trip!

Strolling around the island.

This was the view from the kayak a lot of the time.

Coming up to our campsite on Jones Island. It's a state marine park, with a pretty active moorage there.

The deer on this island were almost domesticated. They would come right up to you if you had food and literally climb on you trying to get it. Apparently they even get into tents.

Another set of kayakers were camped on the south shore of the island.

Taking a walk around the island, we sat down, and Eric leaned back onto a little cactus, native to the San Juans. Very painful! I was picking thorns out of his back that evening.

These cactus plants are quite inconspicuous.

Some pictures of the madrona tree. Very beautiful, with bark that peels similar to a birch tree.

Some of them had weird knobs sticking out.

The western shoreline of the island.

We found some USGS survey markers in rocks on the island.

Some pictures of Eric and me.

It doesn't show up very well in the picture, but it was a beautiful evening.

The outhouses on the island were very well set up. But they still stank.

Mat and Erica eating dinner. Dinner was some kind of chicken curry, with a desert of cake cooked in an backpacking oven (with frosting of BUTTER, brown sugar, and nutmeg.)

This is a rock that was dislodged from the embankment when moving the picnic table around. Apparently it missed smashing our kayak by mere inches!

Breakfast the next morning was omlets with salmon, avocado, sour cream, etc. Very rich.

Christian cooking breakfast, with Alexa helping.

This is the backpacking oven. We also had cinammon rolls for breakfast.

On another walk around the island, we saw this decaying tree trunk. You can really see that the part of the branch that goes inside the tree doesn't rot as fast as the rest of trunk.

More beautiful madrona trees.

A weird twisted tree. Lots of trees were downed in the area, apparently there had been a heavy windstorm in 1991.

These holes are caused by woodpeckers. We heard them early in the morning.

The dock on the north shore of Jones Island.

Sunday we paddled along Shaw island mostly. There were some beautiful houses along the shore.

A fancy spiral staircase leading to a mini-beach.

This cabin had totem poles built into it. Apparently there was some kind of indian preserve there.

A racoon, hunting for mussels or crabs, perhaps.

A teepee and tent

These lucky people had their own seaplane--they could probably get here from Seattle in about half an hour. We speculated that the device on the wing was to scare away seagulls.

Alexa and Hal

A very strange-looking bent tree.

A many-legged starfish.

Roasting marshmallows in the campfire.

Monday morning dawned fairly sunny and bright. Eric was very grumpy though because he hadn't slept well. He's faking the smile in this picture.

The whole gang, minus our other guide Ryan. From left to right, Mat, Erica, Alexa, Rachael, Sylvia, Eric, Felix, Hal, and Christian lying down.

Back on San Juan, and packing for the homeward journey. This is our other guide Ryan.

Labor Day weekend hike on Mt. Rainier

We saw this from the road on the way to Rainier. I was going to make some guesses as to what it is, but I have no idea.

The weather Sunday was wonderful--hardly a cloud in the sky. We got up early and were there by 10:00 AM. Lucky thing, too, because when we got back to the parking lot after 4 hours of hiking on Skyline Trail, there were dozens of cars clogging the parking lot as they trolled for a spot.

We see Mt. Rainier all the time from Redmond. The view is really different from the south side.

A deer in the meadow on the way up the Skyline Trail. The last time we saw deer was in the San Juan Islands. They were about half the size of this one.

Eric and I in front of some glaciers.

Along the trail.

A funny rock column. It didn't look very volcanic to me.

Just beyond the flat area is where Camp Muir is, the halfway point on the climb up Mt. Rainier. With binoculars, we could see people trudging up the mountain towards it.

Lunchtime!

We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, leftover cake from our engagement party (it had been in the freezer), hard boiled eggs, crackers, brie, and carrots.

A panorama of the view from our lunch spot. Mt. Adams is the large peak on the left, and Mt. St Helens is barely visible above the clouds far off on the right, with a rounded top.

If you click on the picture to get the larger version and look carefully, you can see a dark streak in the sky, which is actually the shadow of the cloud.

Lots of little streams coming from the snowfield melt

Eric with Mt. Rainier in the background.

There was an abundance of gorgeous little wild streams.

Lenticular clouds to the east of Mt. Rainier.

The trail is really well built-up, with fancy bridges even for small streams.

Another babbling brook.

Some more lenticular clouds. If you really want to see some fantastic pictures of lenticular clouds, click <a href=http://www.crystalinks.com/lenticular.html>here</a>.

A strange corona of clouds formed above Mt. Rainier in the afternoon.

Mt. Rainier above Myrtle Falls.

We saw this strange rock formation as we were driving away from Paradise. The most likely cause would have been dynamiting away rock for the road, but I'd never seen that before. However, after posting a question on a geology newsgroup, the consensus was that that was exactly what had caused it.

This is Reflection Lake. It was a little too windy for a reflection, though.

A view of Box Canyon, a narrow slit of a canyon

At the Grove of the Patriarchs. There were some huge old trees there, some of them still standing.

Some of the wildflowers we saw--Magenta Paintbrush...

Beargrass

Purple Aster

Examining Western Anemone and Mountain Lupine.

The Western Anemone looked like the end of a mop to me. Another name for them is "towheaded babies". Yet another that Brian Pendleton told me: "Mouse on a stick".

Ranger's Buttons

Corn lily

I couldn't figure these 2 out...

We drove to Langley and Fort Casey on Whidbey Island

On the ferry over to Whidbey Island.

We spent some time wandering around the antique and craft stores in Langley. This is a chair my dad was thinking of reproducing in miniature.

This is where we ate lunch.

I really like this cactus arrangement that I saw in one of the stores.

Downtown Langley.

The lighthouse at Fort Langley.

The coastline off Fort Langley. You can see the bull kelp out in the water.

This is the lens that was used at the lighthouse.

Eric in one of the concrete bunkers that make up the fort.

Many of these holes were scattered all about the fort. They're the remnants of speaking tubes, the precursors of telephones. When they were operational, they were labeled with the location at the other end. They could actually still be operational today if they hadn't been plugged up.

All kinds of watchtowers, bunkers, and cannons.

The business end of the cannon. Notice the spiral pattern inside. This caused the shell to rotate for greater accuracy.

We figured somebody must of used the cannon for target practice at some point.

Many of the bunkers had stalactites coming from the ceiling.

This is from inside the lookout tower.

My dad and Eric and the beach.

Eric can't resist the temptation to juggle when he spots some well-sized driftwood.

My dad collected stones to use in mounting artwork.

Deception Pass.

Looking east from the bridge over Deception Pass.

Eric got vertigo on the bridge. Is it any wonder, taking pictures like this?

We found out about the World Trade Center collapse.

As we were turning on the TV to do our workout, we happened to turn to the news, and saw what was going on in New York and Washington

Eric sold his pool table on Ebay.

Mike from Portland (in the foreground) bought the pool table on Ebay. His alias on Ebay was "PoolGod". Needless to say he is very much into pool, already has one pool table, and apparently has a t-shirt that says something like "Pool is Life, the rest is all details".

I had no idea a pool table could be disassembled like this.

Mike is planning on re-using the felt, which is of a very high quality.

Three separate pieces of slate were used for the table.

Everything goes into the truck. Good thing Mike brought 2 strong friends!

After packing up the pool table, Mike disassembled the light fixture. Good thing he's an electrician.

We take a ride on the Spirit of Washington dinner train.

About to take the Spirit of Washington Dinner train.

We had some fancy flavored butters with our bread.

A view down the train

A large skateboard park. I wanted to get a better picture, but we were going by too fast.

Boeing on Lake Washington.

Looking across to Mercer Island.

Looking west over I-90.

Downtown Bellevue

It's funny seeing stores that we go to frequently from a different angle. This is Home Depot.

Larry's Market.

This little kid was among the many that waved to us from along the way.

Looking out at Hunts Point and Yarrow Point.

The turf farms along the Sammamish River.

This is a park along the Burke Gillman trail. Eric and I stopped here on our 4th date.

My dad an I the Columbia Winery.

We did a quick tour of the winery. This is the destemming machine.

Hundreds and hundreds of barrels of wine. They're all stacked up on one another, without any vertical supports.

On the way home.

We went on a charter salmon fishing trip out of Shilshoe Bay Marina

We got up at 5:15 to get an early start on the fishing. We left the marina at about 7, though, because we were waiting for another customer. Our boat was the "Fishful Thinking", the skipper was Steve.

This was the fishfinder. The small black dashes are fish.

It was chilly out there! We should have brought warmer clothes.

I caught the first salmon. Frankly, there wasn't much to it, Steve set everything up then I reeled in the salmon when it bit.

This device keeps the lure at a specified depth.

My dad, with his first fish.

Eric reeling one in. As you can see, he got a lot of help.

Steve filleted the salmon for us.

Our last fish of the day

On the way home we went to the Ballard locks. Three salmon are jumping out of the water in this picture!

Salmon in the fish ladder.

The railroad bridge in the background had to go up in order to let the Icy Bay through.

In the gardens.

A tame squirrel. The snack truck parked there sold peanuts specifically to feed to the squirrel.

Cutting up the salmon to freeze

Checking out the Space Needle and the Seattle Center.

The Space Needle

View of Lake Union

The blob below is the Experience Music project, as seen from above.

My dad and I.

I didn't know that cruise ships dock in Seattle...

Downtown Seattle. My very first contract was for Midcom, in the building directly to the left of the large building on the right that has a pyramid on top.

This guy was walking around the outside of the Space Needle. I wonder if it's additional security due to the Sept. 11 events?

We walked around the Seattle Center a little afterwards. It was almost empty.

There's a small memorial next to the International Fountain.

A rainbow in the fountain.

Eric finally solved the puzzle!

Starting at Sand Point, the Friends of the Library Annual Book Sale, biking back home to Redmond.

I woke up early--the sunrise was picturesque.

Kassi cat takes an opportunity to crawl into a box...

Eric managed to fit the bikes into the back of the BMW.

We started out at Sand Point Magnuson Park. There was a display of works of art from young artists. I have to say, I wasn't very impressed.

Eric wasn't impressed either.

This was also the weekend of Friends of the Library Annual Book Sale. It was fantastic. Hardbacks for $1.00, paperpacks for $0.50. Lots of great stuff there, but I ended up buying only a couple reference books, including some on sewing.

More art...

Formerly, this was a military installation.

There's sculpture garden, made of parts of submarines partially buried in the ground. Pretty interesting.

Eric and I at the top of the kite hill.

Eric took a backwards biking picture, over his head, while we were biking on the Burke Gilman trail.

On our forth date, we stopped in this very same spot and took pictures...

More biking/photographic acrobatics. Eric took this picture of us holding hands while biking.

Beautiful trees along the trail.

We stopped at a field right off the trail where enthusiasts get together and fly radio-controlled gliders.

Some are launched with the aid of rubber catapults

Others are flung into the air like throwing a discus.

One kid stopped by to show us a "magic" trick.

Later that night we had dinner with Rod and Shannon Chavez.

Soe Htun and I try to find our way up Snoqualmie Mtn.

Soe on the hike. At this point we'd already missed a crucial turn-off.

There's quite a few caves in this area--it's called Cave Ridge.

This is Snoqualmie Mountain, which we wanted to hike up.

I think this might be Guy Peak.

Another one of the caves, which actually had a register.

Unfortunately, a rock had fallen into the entrance.

More great views.

Interesting rock formation--looks like a child's picture of a whale.

Tree trunk

Great place for a campsite.

Yet another cave. I don't know if I would have trusted these ropes.

Lunchtime.

This was really beautiful when I took it, but it was towards the sun. Eric thinks a polarizing filter would help.

Soe is hoping to win a photo contest by the maker of this backup.

You can see the ski slopes down below.

I believe this is the trail we were supposed to be on.

Beautiful fall colors.

We took the ferry to Southworth, then biked to Port Orchard.

It was chilly on the ferry trip over from Fauntleroy!

They're very paranoid about bags left without people around them. We left our backpacks while we walked around outside, and they requested over the intercom that the owners of the backpacks return to them.

When the ferry docks, they reverse engines to slow down. Really churns up the water.

The road right out of the ferry dock in Southworth is very cute and windy. This houses had a cozy outdoor swing.

It went right along the water most of the way. Too bad the weather wasn't partly sunny, as predicted.

Fancy paint job on this house.

Lots of ducks in the water!

--Bummer! We didn't charge the camera battery properly, and since it was so cold, it went dead, so we couldn't take any pictures. Later on, when it got a little warmer, we were able to take some more pictures. But we didn't get any of Manchester State Park (great little park on the water, with old military fortifications and an old torpedo warehouse). -- tIn Port Orchard, we went to the Sydney Museum, which has some historical artifacts from Port Orchard.

A witch with a spider ring banged into a tree.

A manmade pond, well-done with all kinds of greenery around it.

A neat fort.

Rolling sushi with Hans and Holly, pumpkin carving with the Bultemeiers.

Eric rolling sushi. A very delicate operation, especially when you stuff so much in it!

Holly pressing the sushi roll so it sticks.

Hans is getting ready to make some nigiri sushi, basically raw fish (although we used smoked salmon) on rice.

The collection of yummy sushi!

Eric Bultemeier with the turkey (very tasty) at the Bultemeiers turkey dinner/pumpkin party.

They had a very lively 4 month old cat, Otus. Very camera shy, though--took off as soon as the pre-flash came on.

Pumpkin carving action. Later on we roasted pumpkin seeds--tasty!

Farmer Angie, enjoying some desert.

Superman and his pumpkin.

Some people hanging out

There were 4 Erics at the party. From left to right - Eric, Eric, Eric, and Eric.

The assortment of pumpkins

...and in the dark. Notice the Shrek on the right--pretty cool!

Close-up of Shrek.

Eric holding our "scary eyes" pumpkin.

We took a bike ride, starting at Gasworks Park, going across the canal at the Ballard Locks, then coming back from the South.

At Gasworks Park. These concrete structures look like they might have supported a large pipe.

Some of the old machinery. The park was formerly a plant that converted coal to gas. I'm kind of hidden here because I wasn't actually supposed to be climbing these.

Eric climbing on some old machinery.

Skateboarders, with the Seattle skyline in the background.

More of the old plant

Biking around Fremont we saw this small houseboat. I'd love to live in a boat like this.

Below the I-90 bridge.

The dinosoar sculpture along the trail in Fremont.

The Ship Canal is really beautiful this time of year.

I love this house. Simple, clean efficient, and with an awesome roof balcony.

Crossing the locks, we noticed this scuplture. I don't remember it being there the other times we've visited.

We stopped and had ice cream at a place right across from the restaurant we ate at on our 4th date (also a bike ride).

We saw the Fremont bridge going up...

Biking from Rattlesnake Lake, near North Bend, to Hall Creek.

A "stumpscape". This lake is obviously lots higher in the summer.

We were kind of excited over this "cougar" track. Then after we saw a couple thousand like it, we reluctantly decided they were dog tracks.

Plenty of stumps to support the camera for this picture!

This is the bike trail, a former railroad track. By and large, pretty straight and boring.

Some cool bridges across the valleys.

And some climbers as well.

On the way back, Eric coasted the entire way downhill (7 miles).

Mossy tree trunks.

I believe these signs were left over from when this was still an active railroad track.

Back along Rattlesnake Lake, an old road had been partially covered up to make a walking path. You can still see the painted median.

The old town of Moncton lies beneath these waters. It was a logging/railroad town that was submerged by water leaking from a damned up lake uphill.

We went to the Seahawks/Raiders game with Dinarte Morais

From the left, Charles (the father of a friend of Dinarte's), Dinarte, me, and Eric. The ice sculpture in the middle says "Go Hawks".

Whenever the Seahawks made a touchdown, these guys would run across the field with huge Seahawks flags.

The view from the 50 yard line.

Eric and Sylvia drive up into the mountains to get the centuries best viewing of the Leonid meteor shower.

Eric gets ready for a long night of picture taking. His friend, Joe Beda, lent him a non-digital camera which is capable of much longer, controlled exposure, than our little digital camera.

Sylvia shivers from the cold. Even though we had lots of warm clothes, we were still freezing.

Every once in a while a car would drive up the road we were situated on. Mostly these were other meteor watchers, looking for a good place from which to watch. However, the headlights would overwhelm the exposure.

Off in the distance, Seattle casts light up to the clouds.

This one was caught behind some power lines. The location from which we were watching was a service road for power lines.

The Lucas family invited us to their Whidbey Island home for Thanksgiving.

Eric was a favorite with the girls. Rachael and a neighbor Sydney are sitting next to him

The next morning Eric picked Rachael, Angela, and Sydney up all at once.

Then they attacked with pillows.

Vanquished!

Later we went to Fort Casey State Park.

The Lucases and Angela.

Gregory, Angela and Rachael on top of a cannon

Eric and the kids on top of one of the towers.

The Lucases at the lighthouse.

Everone!

After visiting the lighthouse, we went to some bunkers that are off the beaten path at the state park. This one kind of looks like an Aztec pyramid.

Some of the doors were open, leading into the passageway that looped around the hill. Since we didn't have the flashlights, Terry, Eric, Gregory, and I explored to the dark end by using the flash of the camera - taking a picture, remembering how it looked, walking forward a few steps, and taking another picture with flash.

The end of Fort Casey!

Somerset house, hike in Cougar Mountain Regional Wildlife Park

We stopped at Eric's office on the way down for him to do some work. Someone there had little electric scooter that I tried. What fun!

We're looking for a new house. Earlier in the week I had fallen in love with this one, in Somerset. Unfortunately, even though it was still listed, it had already been sold. I was very, very disappointed. Because I refer it so often as "the house I really love", Eric gave it the name "Ralph" for the sake of brevity.

The Somerset area has a great view of Seattle.

Cougar Mountain Regional Wildlife Park is close-by, yet very isolated and private. You could hike there for days.

An old abandoned fruit tree. Very gnarled

On a little bridge in the park.

A former Nike Missle launch site in also in the park. You can't see much of it - at least in the area that's not fenced off.

This holly tree would have made a great Christmas picture.

At the entrance to the trails we got some free maps. We walked the Bagley Seam Trail, Red Town Trail, Quarry Trail, Fred's Railroad Trail, Clay Pit Road, and Military Road Trail.

Traditional Indian Molas

Eric with the Kuna Indian woman who sold us the molas we bought in El Valle.

Molas are created by a reverse appliqu� process in which two to five layers of cloth are basted together, then patterns cut through the layers, exposing the cloth below. <p> We bought 7 Molas for $32 in El Valle from a Kuna woman, and another 7 for $15 in Panama City. <p> For more information, check out <a href=http://www.panart.com/mola_gallery.htm>www.panart.com</a> and <a href=http://www.conexus.si.edu/kuna/eng/toc/indexie.htm> www.conexus.si.edu </a>. Try <a href=http://www.conexus.si.edu/kuna/eng/make_mola>making your own Mola</a>.

Panama City, Taboga Island and the Panama Canal

Anand was nice enough to come in the early hours of the snowing morning to take us to the airport.&nbsp; Six to eight inches of snow fell that morning.

Deicing the plane.

In Panama City, we walked down Avenida Central, the main shopping area.&nbsp; Here they're selling medicinal herbs. The big ones are aloe.

This is a strange fruit that I've never seen before, for sale on the streets of Panama.&nbsp; I asked the name of it, but didn't write it down.

Authentic chicheme for sale here.&nbsp; It's pretty good--it's like a thick blended sweet corn drink, with vanilla and other spices.

We'd lost our compass (very handy for finding your way around a city), and bought a new one from Joseph Berger, a Polish immigrant who runs a army/navy store.&nbsp; Very friendly guy.

Here's another strange fruit we tried.&nbsp; Probably wouldn't try it again, but it was interesting.&nbsp; The outside looks like a small round eggplant, and the inside is filled with large seeds with an edible pulp around them.&nbsp; It left a strange gummy paste on my lips.

This is in the Casco Viejo section of Panama city.&nbsp; It's the old colonial part of the city, with lots of tourist potential, but it's also very dangerous because of gang activity.&nbsp; We were pretty nervous when walking around, and finally decided to get out when a police officer on a bike gave us detailed instructions on where to go and where not to go.

Many of the buildings were empty shells, although Eric thought he saw families living in them.

The cathedral.

Plaza de la Independencia

Eric at an old abandoned military building, with a view of the financial district.

You can see the cops in the shade here.&nbsp; They told us they were there to prevent criminals from taking over the building.

Old colonial street

Calle de Pacifico.&nbsp; Many young couples hung around here, sitting on the benches.

The ruins of an old convent.

Outside the San Jose Church (it has a famous golden altar that didn't look too impressive to us), we met a group of young kids who wanted to have their pictures taken.&nbsp; Just from looking at their poses, with the menacing gestures on the part of the boys, they seem very influenced by the world of gangs and rap videos.

This is a street the police officer who was warning us about the area told us definitely not to go into.

Many of the local buses were very colorfully painted.

Writing up notes in our hotel room at the Hotel Covadonga.&nbsp; It seemed pretty basic at first, but after we got back from the provinces, it felt deluxe!

The next day we took a trip out to Taboga Island, an island inside the Bay of Panama.&nbsp; The ferry went through the last part of the Panama Canal, and under the Puente de las Americas (Bride of the Americas) which is part of the Pan-American highway .

On Taboga Island, there's an overlook where you can see all the ships waiting to go through the Canal.

This was our hotel room (Hotel Chu) on Taboga island.&nbsp; Pretty basic, but clean and friendly.

The sitting area at the front of the hotel had a definite 50's style, plastic covered couches and all.

This was the first of these little dugout canoes that we were to see everywhere.&nbsp; They're tiny!

The street our hotel was on. The island, aside from 2 little minivans, was basically pedestrian only.

This cemetery is supposed to date from the 1600's, but we didn't find any old headstones.&nbsp; Most of the graves were in bad shape.

Paul Gauguin stayed on this island for a few months.&nbsp; He worked on the Panama Canal for some time.

Right next door and reachable at low tide from Taboga Island is Isla El Morro.&nbsp; It was the headquarters for the Pacific Steamship Navigation Company, that ran steamships between Chile and Taboga.&nbsp; There's all kinds of leftover equipment and ruins on the island.

Eric with an old propeller

Ruins of the wharf.

A boiler, maybe?

The black thing is the base of an old hand blown bottle.&nbsp; It's amazing how the bottles, over the years, melt into the old iron until it seems like they're a part of it.

Back at the restaurant that belongs to the hotel, we had some delicious papaya (right), pineapple, and fried yucca.

We took a walk on some of the old paths around the island.&nbsp; During World War II, this was strong US military presence here, and you can see many old buildings and foundations.&nbsp; This is an old Quonset hut, built into the dirt.

Here's the entrance.

One of the paths had a really under-engineered utility line along it.

The paths were very fun to walk along.

One of them led us to a great deserted beach, with huge stones.

On the way back, the tide was very low.&nbsp; The wreck of an old boat was on the beach.

I think this is the wheel from a steamship.&nbsp; It was completely exposed at low tide.

Another wreck, and more steamship equipment

The seed on the right was everywhere on the island.&nbsp; They twirled around when they floated down similar to maple seeds.&nbsp; Only later did see where it came from--this large seed pod on the left.

For dinner--mixed seafood soup, with lots of octopus.

The view from the hotel.

These ships are waiting to enter the Panama Canal.&nbsp; The pipes at the bottom are sewage pipes from the hotel.&nbsp; On the Atlantic side, since the difference between low and high tide is only about a foot or so, the outhouses are built directly over the water.

We hiked up to the top of the island one morning.&nbsp; There's an overlook there (formerly a World War II defensive outlook) with an awesome view

On the way, there was a house built onto the hillside.&nbsp; The interesting part of it was that there was a concrete slide down to the house from the road, so they didn't have to carry down the supplies.

We found this strange fruit along the way.

....and this seed pod from some legume.

It was a little tough figuring out what the white things were at the top here of the mountain, but we decided that they were a set of airplane navigation beacons.

Also at the top is a World War II lookout.

with some great views...

This is Isla El Morro, which has the Pacific Steamship Navigation Company ruins on it.

Later in the day, we watched from the restaurant of our hotel while a bunch of kids got ready to go to deliver lunch to the men working on the ships waiting to pass through the canal.&nbsp; Apparently the islanders have a contract to do that, and the kids really enjoy going out to the boats and delivering the lunches in person.

I didn't quite understand the financial aspect of this (maybe it was in exchange for the lunches?) but some of the ships waiting to pass through the canal are fishing boats, and they give the less desirable fish to the islanders, who clean them right at the waterside.

The trash pickup is one of the few motorized vehicles on the island.

There's also a wildlife refugee on the island.&nbsp; Unfortunately, on the road that we thought leads there, we found the island dump.&nbsp; It was quite a disappointment to find that.&nbsp; It was on the one place which would have had a great view, too, because it was such a steep slope.&nbsp; Presumably that's why they used that spot, because there was such a large drop-off that the trash would drop down a long ways.

The funny reddish shadow on the water beyond the trash dump is from the smoke of a big fire burning on the mainland.&nbsp; Lots of fires are set here, mainly to clear out underbrush.

These are more ruins from US installations built during World War II

I'm looking at the spider in this picture...

On the way home we caught up with a group of kids on scooters.

At dinner (I think we were the only ones around--definitely not many tourists there) we found that we could combine the binoculars with the digital camera to make something like a zoom.&nbsp; It worked much better than expected.&nbsp; This ship is way out in the water.

Leaving the next morning, these are some views of Taboga from the dock.

Back to Panama city, and renting a car.&nbsp; Our first driving experience in the city (trying to get out of the city) was pretty nerve wracking, although Eric likes driving aggressively.&nbsp; This car pushed right up in front of us, and then had to back up to turn.

We went out onto the causeway, built right outside Panama City from the dirt and rocks taken from when the canal was built.&nbsp; There's a Smithsonian sponsored wildlife center there, and formerly a military installation.

These climbing cactuses were all over the place in drier climates.

There was a tank with sea creatures in it that you could touch.&nbsp; Eric's holding a sea cucumber here.

And here, a sea turtle.

It's hard to see, but in this middle of this picture is a sloth.&nbsp; You can click on the picture to get the full image.

After the causeway, we went to the Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's the last set of locks on the canal.&nbsp; Luckily we were there after 1 PM--before then, there's no ships going through the canal.

These locomotives pull the boats through the canal.&nbsp; The engine is made by Mitsubishi, and cost 2.3 million dollars apiece!

Notice how much the ship goes down

Out to the Pacific!

Surrounding the canal is rainforest, necessary to provide the fresh water that's drained into the canal whenever a boat goes through the locks.

Eric with the car we rented.

Another view of some of the freshwater lakes right around the canal.

Portobelo, Rain Forest, River Kayaking, Carnival in Penenome

We left that same day for Portobelo, on the Atlantic coast.&nbsp; Portobello is mainly known for the ruins of old Spanish colonial fortresses (they were defending the looted gold), and also snorkeling and diving.&nbsp; We rented a cabin on the water.&nbsp; Here's Eric relaxing in a hammock.

This German couple in the cabin next to ours were traveling with 2 girls, one an infant and the other about 2 years old.&nbsp; It seemed pretty tough.&nbsp; Apparently they were having some health problems, so they left the next day to find a doctor.

This is our cabin.&nbsp; It looks very sweet, but was somewhat cramped indoors.

This is the San Juan de Dios Church, built in the17th Century, right in the town of Portobelo.

These are old bridges.&nbsp; I'm not sure if they ever held water, but right now it's basically muck.

This little girl was bathing at an outdoor sink

Turkey vultures were everywhere!

An enclosure for a guard to stand in, inside one of the fortresses.

Most of the fortresses were made from what's called reef rock, or sawn coral blocks.

Eric at one of the old cannons.

There were whole rows of cannons left at the fortress.

These outhouses were typical of the area.&nbsp; They just dropped everything right into the water, for the tide to take out.

There were the overgrown ruins of yet another fortress up on a hill.&nbsp; It actually looks a little like just a hill in this picture, but from another angle you can see that it's an old fortress.

The arch of Santiago Fortress.

This fortress was surrounded by an impressive moat.

More views of the fortress.

We had a brief conversation with this American couple who lived in Portobelo.&nbsp; I really wanted to talk with them at length, because I wanted to know what it was like to live in Panama.&nbsp; They were pretty disinclined to chat, though.&nbsp; We theorized that they were involved in the drug trade.

Walked up to an unnamed fort in the hills above Portobelo, and found these flowers on the way.

This one has a moat as well

It was a little tough getting in.&nbsp; We didn't trust the &quot;bridge&quot; (a couple planks) leading over the moat, so we jumped in and climbed up.

The well inside the fortress.

The fortress turret still had some fairly intact stairs to climb up on.

There were some great views from the fortress of the bay below.

Back in town, we met this retired English couple who were traveling all around the world. For the past 6 years or so had done numerous trips around the world, usually of a couple months at a time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; The couple was traveling by bus, so we drove them around to the various accommodations that were available in Portobelo.&nbsp; They weren't happy with them, though. They left Portobelo on the next bus, disappointed with what it had to offer.

Later on we got a boat to take us to a snorkeling/beach spot on a nearby island.&nbsp; There was a guy there already who was collecting fruits from abandoned farms on the island.&nbsp;This is his little dugout.

Eric and our things, hung up on a tree.

Eric found a drowned looking rat next to the water's edge.

This tree grew right into the water, and was really easy to climb up on.

Most of the rocks on the beach were coral rocks.

After snorkeling (some nice colorful fish, nothing spectacular), we rested and read on the beach.

Waiting for the boat to return for us.

The beach, from the water.

The boat came, a little delayed because of mechanical problems.&nbsp; We continued to have problems on the way back, as well.&nbsp; The boy was only able to run the engine at a little higher than idle for most of the trip, so it took quite a while.

This veranda out on the beach was a pleasant place to hang out in the evenings, free of irritating sand flies.

We went for a drive to the area around Nombre de Dios.&nbsp; It's mainly a farming area, and we encountered a lot of animals on and around the road.

Hey Dinarte!&nbsp; These people have the same last name as you do!

This bridge was the first of it's type that we'd seen.&nbsp; It looked scary, but later we saw more that were like this that were in much worse condition.

The president of Panama has these signs all over the country, describing various development projects that are underway.&nbsp; The top of the sign says, &quot;President of the republic Mireya Moscoso, combating poverty.&nbsp; It's just some road repairs, though.

This house was in Nombre de Dios.&nbsp; I think the assortment of junk on top of the roof doesn't necessarily mean that they're poor, just unskilled at building, because the coconut palm fronts that are often used for roofing can be made waterproof.

Horses on the road.&nbsp; Later on after dark we met a dog on the road--with unpleasant consequences for the dog.

Sunset from around Nombre de Dios.

Off this rickety old pier...

...we saw this amazingly colored jellyfish.&nbsp; At first I thought it was a child's inflatable toy, because of the brilliant colors.

Eric at dinner, with a whole fried fish.

And Sylvia with octopus stew and fried plantains.

The next day we drove down to Gamboa, hoping to see an old Nazi crane that's supposed to be in use there.&nbsp; We didn't see the crane because it had been moved, but we did see the old abandoned residences for the canal workers.

Some of them had been fixed up for a new ecotourist resort that looked very deserted.

At the Soberania National Park we did a little hike into the rainforest.&nbsp; Unfortunately it was too late for the birds, but we did hear some monkeys.&nbsp; This tree was amazing--it's buttressed roots went out about 25 feet.

I think this is a mimosa flower.

We also walked up to Canopy Tower, on top of a hill in the middle of the rainforest.&nbsp; It's an old military installation that's been converted into a bird-watching oriented hotel.&nbsp; We wanted to take a look inside, but they wouldn't allow us in.&nbsp; And after we hiked up the hill for 25 minutes, too!

This termites nest was typical of the many that we saw, all over Panama.

The Summit Botanical Gardens and Zoo has all kinds of local animals.&nbsp; We didn't see the Botanical Gardens part of it, though.&nbsp; Lots of monkeys, and all kinds of other local fauna

Toucans in touching distance

Not-so-wild boars

And as mentioned, tons of monkeys.&nbsp; Zoos here aren't like zoos in the US, where there's no way you'll be able to touch an animal.&nbsp; Here there's not multiple layers of fencing, and you can touch all you want.

We drove down west of Panama city, to a region of beaches.&nbsp; The town of Playa Coronado is a very wealthy little enclave, with some very comfortable looking houses.

We ended up staying at the XS Memories, in Santa Clara.&nbsp; We chatted a while with the American owners, Sheila and Dennis.&nbsp; They had many frustrations with bureaucrats, untrained personnel, and lax business practices.&nbsp; It's always interesting, talking to people who have moved overseas.&nbsp; This is the restaurant.

Our room

Finally, a shower with hot water!&nbsp; This little device would actually heat water as it came out!

The beach at Santa Clara.

Raw wood is so cheap here that lots of outdoor furniture is made out of it.

The next day we took a kayak trip down the Chame river with Sven, a German guy who's lived in Panama for 7 years.

The river was pretty low--lots of places, we had to drag the canoes.&nbsp; Dragging the gray kayak is Wild Bill, from the Yukon Territory.

Eric and I in kayaks.

A woman by the side of the river, washing clothes.

Some boys going for a swim.&nbsp; Horses are a popular way to get around in the backcountry.

Fishing in the river.&nbsp; When we asked what he was fishing for, he said, &quot;Anything!&quot;

A heron.

Back at the guesthouse where Wild Bill was staying with a Canadian couple.&nbsp; The wife lived there full time, the husband lived there half time, and the other half worked in Canada.&nbsp; Lots of expatriates are seem to be heavy smokers around here.

Dennis, Sheila, and Sven at the bar at XS Memories.

Penonome has Carnival floats that literally float, down the local river.&nbsp; We were told it was at 9, but found out that it was at 3 in the afternoon or perhaps later.&nbsp; Until then, there was the mojadero, or &quot;wettening&quot;.&nbsp; Basically, they load up a lot of tanks with water from the river, and spray people.&nbsp; Here's some tankers loading up

A guy spraying people from a truck on the right...

...and lots of wet drunks

This man was selling little fried chips of plantains for 25 cents.&nbsp; Tasty.

El Valle, More Carnival in Las Tables, Petroglyphs in Nancito, Boquete

After Penonome, we went to El Valle, a town in the cool mountain interior.&nbsp; We stayed at Los Capitanes, run by Manfried Koch, a retired civilian sea captain.&nbsp; He was a charming man who told us many stores about his life as a captain, how he came to be in Panama, and how he lived now.&nbsp; The mountain in the back is called &quot;La India Dormida&quot;, or the sleeping Indian.

The nearby petroglyphs--pretty crazy and garbled--are a local attraction.&nbsp; I wasn't that thrilled, though, because they've been painted over with latex paint, &quot;so that you can see them better&quot;, as the boy we hired to take us to them told us.&nbsp; It ruined the appeal for me, though.

The boy on the right showed us up to the petroglyphs...

...and a local waterfall.

Afterwards, we went on a walk in the area and found this beautiful wooded pasture area.

Leaf-cutter ants carrying leaves and blossoms home to their nest.

Boys playing soccer in the evening.

The front lawn of a nearby resort.&nbsp; This is a ritzy area, close enough for the wealthy from Panama City to come for the weekend.

Lots of luxurious houses...

The next morning, Manfried brought bread from the local market.

We visited the market as well.&nbsp; Good prices on citrus fruits and handicrafts.

We bought some molas, a colorful multi-layered appliqu� sewn by a Kuna Indians.&nbsp; Their women wear a distinctive dress, which includes beads wrapped around the forearm and calf, a mola sewn to their blouse, front and back, a longish skirt, and often a gold nose ring.

These look like miniature furniture, doesn't it?&nbsp; It's not miniature, it's just very roughly hewn wood.&nbsp; You could buy a set like this for about $150.&nbsp; Of course, shipping to the US would be another story.

Near Santa Clara we found the ruins of an old Panamanian army base, which was destroyed in the US invasion in 1989.

Later we went to the Carnival celebrations in the town of Las Tablas, supposedly the best in the country.&nbsp; We learned that unless you're going to be here the full 4 days of Carnival, you really need to plan your trip for when things are happening.&nbsp; We wanted to see the impressive floats we've heard about, but that was another day.&nbsp; We did see huge crowds of really drunk very young people.

We asked a soldier, who was patrolling the streets, where we could go to photograph some floats.&nbsp; He asked his commanding officer, who assigned 3 soldiers to accompany us to an area where some floats were.&nbsp;Having an army escort was cool!

Floats, and other Carnival scenes.

As we were walking with our army escort, a guy on the street dropped a dollar bill.&nbsp; The officer in charge picked it up and returned it to him, probably expecting a &quot;thank you&quot;.&nbsp; They got into a little discussion that I didn't understand too well, and&nbsp; apparently the guy made an insulting comment to the officer.&nbsp; This was the end of our army escort.&nbsp; They were fully occupied in dealing with this guy.

A shave ice vendor on the right, with the red cart.

Drunken guys carrying a cooler of beer around.

A bank building has its windows boarded up in anticipation of rowdy crowds.

Did I mention that there was lots of trash everywhere?

Last year Carnival was cancelled in Las Tablas and lots of other places because of risks from Hantavirus.&nbsp; This sign says, &quot;You can prevent Hantavirus.&nbsp; Keep your patio free of weeds&quot;.

On the way out of town we saw what looked like a cockfighting arena, and stopped.

This gentleman wanted to be photographed along with his fighting rooster.

We were invited to sit down and drink with a lot of very friendly (and also drunk) Panamanian guys.&nbsp; After a fair amount of prodding, they accepted that we couldn't drink any alcohol because we were driving.&nbsp; They tried to arrange a cockfight for us, but it would have taken a while to get started, so unfortunately we had to move on.

We spent the night in Santiago, and had dinner at the local McDonalds.&nbsp; This lady in the cute costume worked there. Service at this McDonalds was about the best we've had in Panama (in general, service is very haphazard).

A project with some funding from China.&nbsp; We heard talk that the Panamanians, now that the US is out, are trying to establish close ties to the Chinese.&nbsp; There's lots of Chinese here--they own almost all of the stores.

Between Santiago and David, the tiny village of Nancito lies 4 kilometers off the main highway.&nbsp; On a hilltop is a scattered set of boulders, many of them which have pre-Columbian abstract designs on them. If you click on this image to get the large version, you can see the carving on the boulder shown.

Here's some close-ups.

Some kids, visiting for Carnival, who were jumping around the boulders.

There was a great view on the way down, of the hillside and ocean.

Blown over billboards were everywhere in Panama.&nbsp; I wonder if they're considered disposable, or what?&nbsp; This is one of dozens that we saw.

We drove way past where we wanted to go (up to Boquete), but on the way, past this PriceSmart (part of Costco).&nbsp; We went in and checked it out.&nbsp; It was fun--an island of America in a sea of Panama.&nbsp; Selection is pretty similar to Costco in the US, except the produce selection is really poor.&nbsp;Prices seem identical.

This is the back terrace of the Pension Virginia, where we ended up staying in Boquete.

View from the back terrace

The town of Boquete, taken from an overlook next to the tourist office outside town.&nbsp; The tourist office, from looking at their visitors book, didn't get many visitors who weren't from Latin American countries.

We hiked up a concrete path into a neighborhood just to get a feel for the place.&nbsp; People were very friendly, and everyone greeted us.

Most houses on this hill looked like shacks, but this one was an exception.&nbsp; They had actually graded out a section of flat land, and built a substantial little house.

View down the path.

Eric resting his back

Genuine coffee beans!

Eric picked an orange for me, and I peeled it as I've seen them done in this area, cut it in half, and sucked on the juice.&nbsp; The oranges are fine, but they're not very sweet.

The Boquete bridge--kind of scary to walk across.

Eric suffered a lot from mosquito bites.&nbsp; Most of them were from Santa Clara, a couple days ago.

The next morning we went on a drive up to the Sendero Los Quetztales.&nbsp; Sendero means path, and Quetztales are a type of tropical bird.&nbsp; We didn't end up seeing any quetztales, unfortunately, but we saw some wonderful scenery.

Another interesting bridge.&nbsp; It's a suspension bridge, but the cables are just stretched over top of the tower, instead of being attached there.

The Palo Alto river, on the way up to the trail.

Scenery from around the trailhead.

The &quot;trailhead&quot;.&nbsp; It was actually extremely confusing.&nbsp; It was right in front of a dirt road that led to somebody's house.&nbsp; We thought that couldn't be it, and walked back to the road, where we found some people who told us that yes, it was it. They were wrong, but it was a fun hike.

Through the barbed wire, up the trail.

Cultivation happens on some very steep land here.&nbsp; If you click on the picture to get the more detailed image (it'll take a while to download) you can see the farmer working on the plot.

Eric and I in the pasture.&nbsp; It felt like a strange melding of tropical and alpine.

Crossing a footbridge.

Posing with a giant leaf whose name I don't know.

I touched this plant, curious, and found that it was worse than a stinging nettle.&nbsp; It irritated my fingers tremendously where I'd touched it.

This plant is from the Melastomatacae family, if I remember my botany correctly.&nbsp; You can easily tell from the 3 main veins going down the leaf.

Short sections of the path we walked consisted of coffee bean sacks, filled with dirt and rocks.

It turned out that the path we were on actually lead the water plant for Boquete.&nbsp; Nevertheless, it was still a great little hike.

An American couple we met from Trout River, Washington, who were also hiking the trail.

A tree with a heavy load of bromeliads on it.

We really enjoyed the landscape...

When we walked back, there were cattle in a field that had previously been empty.&nbsp; Eric thought that the black bull was looking at us threateningly.&nbsp; The farmer on the hill across the way saw us hesitating, and (I thought) motioned to us to not go forward.&nbsp; Confused, we tried to find a path along the stream, but failed.

Then we tried to find a path around on the hillside, but it was hard going.&nbsp; Finally the farmer came down right next to the bull, and motioned us to come straight towards him.&nbsp; I chatted with him. It turns out that the bull was completely harmless, and that when he saw us hesitate, he meant to motion us to walk straight through the field.&nbsp; I'm sure he'll share that story with his buddies!

Finally, we got to the REAL Sendero Los Quetztales.&nbsp; We drove as far as we could and then walked into the rainforest for a while.&nbsp; I enjoyed the previous hike more, there was more of a view.&nbsp; The real Sendero Los Quetztales was in dense rainforest without a view.

However, the road leading up to it was beautiful.

The large diagonals in this field are logs that haven't been cleared out.

A tree fern.

On the way back into town, we went to the oddest place.&nbsp; It's called &quot;Mi Jardin es Su Jardin&quot; (My Garden is Your Garden), and it's a large, elaborately landscaped and decorated park-like garden outside a luxurious private residence, that doesn't charge an entrance fee.&nbsp; There's all kinds of strange and wonderful and sometimes very corny things in it.

We spoke with a man who worked there.&nbsp; He said the owner lives in Miami, and owns lots of hotels and other businesses there, but has kept up this garden as a private hobby for the past 30 years.&nbsp; Apparently it costs $10,000 to $12,000 a month in upkeep.&nbsp; Notice the elevated watchtower in the back

Water slides

The bakery we patronized in town.&nbsp; They had one massively huge and very doughy pastry for only 25 cents that was pretty good, although it took some getting used to.

A cloudy view of Volcan Baru.

In the evening we took a drive up around Volcancito, a small community near Boquete.&nbsp; I really liked this house--simple, clean lines, and with a fantastic view.

Dinner was at El Sabroson (The Tasty Place) in town.&nbsp; This whole meal for both of us, including rice, beef stew, mashed potatoes, salad, and a soda for Eric, and rice and beans, chicken, plaintains, and salad for me, was only $3.55.

Sylvia with Laura and Mathew.

Back at Pension Virginia, we met up with Laura and Matthew, and ended up chatting with her for a long time.&nbsp;&nbsp;Laura is from Tennessee, and has traveled all over the world, especially in Latin America.&nbsp; She's here on her own, traveling by bus, with her 16 month old son.&nbsp; She said that although she'd have a hard time admitting it to people at home, who told her she was crazy to try it, she now thinks that it wasn't a good idea to travel overseas alone with her son.&nbsp; Laura was a really engaging and fun person, and we really enjoyed talking with her. Her boy doesn't allow himself to be held by other people now, because when she was in the San Blas islands, he was such a hit with the natives (being blond and blue-eyed) that they were constantly trying to grab him. Now he stays right next to his mother all the time.

This was our room at the Pension Virginia.&nbsp; Nothing special, except it was very bright and sunny.&nbsp;&nbsp; The first room they showed us was a dungeon--good thing we asked for another room.

The next morning we took a drive around another area close to Boquete, and invited Laura and Matthew along.&nbsp; Matthew liked the horses.

The bridge over the Rio Caldera, with a view of Volcan Baru in the background.

Rio Caldera, from the bridge.

Laura, Matthew, and Eric.

Later on we went to Cafe Ruiz for a tour of the coffee factory.&nbsp; The price paid for a container of picked red coffee beans was only $2.50.&nbsp; When the world price of coffee was higher, the price paid for the coffee beans has been as high as $10.

This is Eusebio, who gave us the tour of the facility.

The large roasting/cooling machine that's now used.

The very first roasting machine that they owned.

Another view of Boquete and the Rio Caldera.

Isla Boca Brave, Volcan, Las Bocas del Toro, back in Panama City

Our destination after visiting Boquete was Isla Boca Brava.&nbsp; There's a (very) rustic lodge there.&nbsp; It's way off the beaten track, and as we were slowly driving down the dirt road there, we found a cashew tree!&nbsp; I first noticed the red fruits hanging in the trees.

The red part is the called the cashew apple, and is edible.&nbsp; This was the first time I'd tried it.&nbsp; It's very juicy, but a little on the bland side, with a strange taste.&nbsp; The thing hanging down is, amazingly enough, the cashew nut!&nbsp; No wonder cashews are so expensive, if it takes a whole fruit to produce one.

We had to take a boat to the island.&nbsp; This is the boatman's nephew.

There were really rustic bamboo lodges to stay in (pretty dark inside)

...and cabins that were quite a bit more comfortable.&nbsp; There was a fantastic breeze blowing through the room during the day, but unfortunately it died down at night, so it was very warm.

You could also rent a hammock to sleep in, for $3 a night.

There was a pet parrot there, Keeri.&nbsp; He was really intrigued by Eric's cap.

We met Quincy and Patrick at the lodge, from Idaho.&nbsp; They drove down from Idaho in a pickup truck, sleeping in the covered back along the way. She's going to be guiding fly fishing trips this summer, and he's a carpenter.&nbsp; They live in a small yurt that he built (a hobby of his).&nbsp; No running water.&nbsp; You meet very interesting people while traveling!

A wasp nest on the beach.&nbsp; The beach wasn't spectacular, the water was very murky and warm.

Steps down to the pier that we landed at.&nbsp; We went down there at night to swish a stick around in the water, and see the bioluminescent plankton.

Eric relaxing before dinner.

When the lights were on, geckos congregated around them, gorging themselves on the moths that hovered around the lights.

The lodge on Isla Boca Brava was on the northeast edge this this marine park.

In the morning, we saw the monkeys that had woken us up.

I had fresh passion fruit juice for breakfast.&nbsp; It was amazingly good!

Lots of hammocks around were made very simply of a piece of strong cloth, folded together, and then tied at the ends.

The bar/restaurant.

We did a day long excursion with Patrick and Quincy, as well as Vince and Peter.&nbsp; The boatman was Elvis, along with his son Elvis.&nbsp; They&nbsp; brought us to 2 snorkeling spots, and 2 beautiful deserted beaches.&nbsp; The snorkeling was poor (cloudy and not much variety).&nbsp; The beaches were great, though.

This is Vince, climbing up a coconut tree.&nbsp; He had just spent a couple weeks in the jungle near Columbia, living with an Indian tribe.&nbsp; He's trying to make this type of travel into a business.&nbsp; Here's his <a href="http://www.travelswithvince.com">web site</a>.

Drinking the green coconut juice.&nbsp; Very tasty.&nbsp; I'm pretty covered up from the sun here, but I still got sunburned (upper thighs).

Eric chops up a brown coconut for meat.

It ended up being a little on the overripe side.&nbsp; Some of the other coconuts we got were great, though.

Hermit crabs were everywhere on the beaches.&nbsp; We held hermit crab races, making a circle in the sand, putting the hermit crabs in the middle, and seeing which one got outside the circle first.&nbsp; These are the tracks of hermit crabs.

Coconut palms sprout just like this.

Bromeliads in the trees on the beach.

Beach scene.

A close-up of the hermit crabs.

Quincy made a sand sculpture of a mermaid.

Riding back in the boat.

Form the left, Quincy, Vince, Elvis (you can barely see him), Patrick, and Peter.

The next day we got an early start out of Boca Brava.&nbsp; It was a long dirt road out...

And along the way, we were stopped by this cattle drive.

We drove up to the Volcan area, again in the cooler central mountain region.&nbsp; It's a beautiful area.

There was a Swiss settlement in this area some time ago, and you can still see there influence in the houses.

If you look closely here, you can see giant thistles.

Scenes from along the road.

I think this might be a cocoa tree, but I'm not sure.

We drove up to the Amistad park area.&nbsp; We drove over this bridge without realizing the huge hole it had!

On the way back, we were more careful.

Some areas here look very alpine.

We also visited a trout farm.

Dinner that evening, at Hotel Cerro Punta, was a solitary experience (we were the only ones in the large dining room) but the food was wonderful.&nbsp; I had fish &quot;a la criolla&quot;, with a sauce of tomatoes, peppers, onions, and capers.&nbsp; Eric had a tasty peppered beefsteak.&nbsp; Service was amazing, too--it seemed as though our waitress had been trained at a very fancy hotel.&nbsp; That's VERY unusual for Panama.

Leaving town the next morning, I just had to get another bridge picture.&nbsp; We didn't have to cross this one, thank goodness.

It was fixed up with barbed wire.&nbsp; Better watch where you put your hands!

Volcan Baru is in the background here.&nbsp; In the foreground is the local trash dump.

These are the, to my eyes, very unimpressive lakes of Volcan. They were listed in our guidebook as being very picturesque, but they definitely weren't worth the 20 minute drive on a very bad dirt road.

On the way out to David, we stopped at the workshop of Jose de la Cruz.&nbsp; Here he's writing my name into a piece of wood with a chisel.&nbsp; We ended up buying lots of scraps of interesting tropical woods for my dad.

Flying out to Bocas del Toro.&nbsp; We saw many shallow reef areas like this, just under the surface of the water.&nbsp; I wonder what the snorkeling would have been like there.

In Bocas del Toro, a quiet old banana town.

This is the plane we flew in on.

Bocas del Toro is undergoing a tourist boom now, with lots of talk about investors buying property here.

Bicycles in Panama need to have license plates.

There was an interesting contingent of Spanish speaking hippies here, from places like Argentina and Costa Rica.&nbsp; Most of them made and sell beadwork on the street.&nbsp; It seems like pretty hot work, being in the sun all day long.

Some typical houses here, on stilts.

We rented some bikes and took a tour along the coast.

I think these tires were dropped here to prevent erosion from eating away at the road.

This octagon is for sale.

Lots of beaches here are like this--lots of trash that the tide has deposited.

There's some okay surfing spots here, too.

This boy knocked a coconut of the palm tree for us.&nbsp; Apparently climbing is not the way to do it, you need to use a big stick and knock the coconuts down.

This is the only photo I got of a horse and rider, but it was very common here to see people using horses for transport.

Houses around town.

We took a boat to Isla Bastamiento to visit Russell, an American from Cincinnati that we'd met on the plane.&nbsp; Fare was $2 each for about a15 minute ride.

Isla Bastamiento is very quiet, with no roads (only a concrete walkway).

This is the one of the houses that Russel had built.

He has a system to catch rainwater, which fills up in about a 2 hour downpour.&nbsp; However, his previous renters had used up all the water, and so they were buying water in town.

Here's Russell.&nbsp; He was real character, full of off-color jokes and stories.

This is the boat he uses to get to the village.&nbsp; It's not very far on land, but it's hard to walk, being all swamp and mangrove.

His pier...

We kayaked around the bay in a sit-on-top double kayak that we rented for $7 a half day, getting some nice views from the water.

Russell's place from the water.

Outhouses here are built on top of the water.

One of our favorites--the ice cream man.&nbsp; All over Panama, you could buy a small cone of decent ice cream for 25 cents.&nbsp; There was only one flavor that I didn't like, called grape nut.&nbsp; It was vanilla, with little things that looked like grape nuts in it.

A pier back on Bocas del Toro.

Another pier, in not so good shape.

The view of town from the plane the next day.&nbsp; You can see the airstrip we took off from.&nbsp; This is one of the few places in the world where you can actually walk from the airport to the hotel.

On the way back, we got a good view of Isla Taboga.&nbsp; The small island in the middle is Isla El Morro.

Back in Panama City, school supply sales were in full swing when we walked around the main shopping street.&nbsp; Kids here have to wear uniforms to school.

Shoplifting must have been a serious problem.&nbsp; Most stores had security guards on ladders at all corners.

Shoes, only 10 cents!

We tried some sugar cane juice.&nbsp; It would have been pretty good, but I think the sugar cane that was used was a little dirty.

Kuna indians on the street.

This group of young people, doing a dance on the main street were traveling evangelical Christians from Taiwan.&nbsp; I asked some of them what church they belonged to, but they didn't understand English or Spanish.

We met Ron again, the guy we met first at Carnival in Las Tablas.&nbsp; Friendly guy, doing what he said he does here--hang out.

Selling beans on the street.

The fruit on the right is water apple.&nbsp; We tried some of these, and they were interesting.

The cat colony next to our hotel. They were pretty scrawny looking.

We're home! The sun is coming from the wrong angle here, but this is Lake Sammamish, and somewhere on the left are our houses.

A view of Seattle, including Mercer Island, Seattle, I-90, 520, Lake Union, Downtown.

Notre Dame, the Seine, Louvre, Right Bank

On the way out of SeaTac Airport, we flew right over our neighborhood, and had a great view.&nbsp; Unfortunately we weren't able to get the camera out until we were further east, above the Cascades.

Our first view of Paris!&nbsp; This is at the Boulevard Saint Michael Notre Dame RER station.

The view from the balcony of the Hotel California, where we stayed.

I think Hans and Holly stayed at this place, very close-by, when they were here 2 years ago.

Our first purchase in Paris was of a tandoori chicken panini sandwich, from this very friendly Vietnamese guy.&nbsp; He was playing Laotian music on the radio, which I recognized.

It was a shock the first time we saw one of these super small little cars, but they're fairly common in Paris.

Walking towards the Notre Dame cathedral, we saw a bookstore dedicated only to old Jules Verne books.

Notre Dame, and the Seine.

The Prefecture de Police (it faces Notre Dame)

The famous gothic cathedral of Notre Dame.&nbsp; Not many tourists around at all at this time of year.

This is Point Zero in France, right in front of Notre Dame.&nbsp; All road distances are measured from here.

All three entrance doors had some very elaborate iron work.

In the middle ages, these statues next to the entrance doors were brightly painted to help people understand bible stories.

Inside Notre Dame.

Inside, there were many spots where you could light a candle and pray to a particular saint.

Right next to the candles we found this handy blanket to throw over people who have been set ablaze by the candles. I imagine that it's happened before.

Lots of women were wearing fur coats!&nbsp; I assume it's not as politically incorrect as it is in the US.

A statue at the outside door--Adam and Eve eating of the Tree of Knowledge, tempted by a serpent (the top is a woman, the bottom a serpent).

Here you can see the flying buttresses, and some of the gargoyles (which were added in the 1800's).

We relied heavily on a couple guidebooks to tell us what to see.

A lovely park behind the cathedral gives a great view of Notre Dame as well.

These barges on the Seine are supposedly for rent to tourists as a substitute for hotel rooms.&nbsp; Sounds very romantic!

You can stroll along the Seine, taking in the sights.&nbsp; A lot more is happening in the summer months, but there's still some people out and about.

I really liked these little shops along the Seine, which sold mainly old book, manuscripts, prints, and postcards.&nbsp; At night they locked everything up, and you could see nothing but big green metal boxes along the walkway.

This little piggy is going to be a delectable morsel tonight.

The church of St. Julian le Pauvre, or St. Julian the Poor.&nbsp; It, as well as other buildings, was described in detail in part of a walking tour that we took of the area.&nbsp; It was a little rough, because every 10 steps we had to read a couple pages about the history of almost every single building that we passed.

Right next to St. Julian le Pauvre.

I was amazed at how popular roller-blading is in Paris.&nbsp; Seems like many people actually use it as a means of transportation.&nbsp; We had some coffee in a cafe (which are amazingly smoky, incidentally), and saw this couple taking a break from their outing.

In the evening we walked to the Louvre (a massivly huge museum in Paris).&nbsp; The glass pyramids in front were built in the mid 1980's.

Right next to the Louvre is the Arc du Triomphe du Carrousel.&nbsp; We decided that in comparison to the main Arc du Triomphe (much bigger), this should be called the Arc du Pretty Darn Good.

The metro is a pretty efficient way to get around, if there's no strike.

A lot of stores had stands outside where you could choose the baguette you wanted for lunch (like butter and ham, mozzarella and tomato, etc.).&nbsp; Very handy.

This is inside the glass pyramid in front of the Louvre.

And this is the inside of the Louvre.&nbsp; The place is incredibly huge, with tons of different collections.&nbsp; We both enjoyed it, although slow walking down hallways is always a little tiring.&nbsp; Also, Eric was disappointed that the information placards, which were supposed to be there in all languages, were rarely there in English.&nbsp; Our guidebook suggested that we choose a period or section of the museum, and just do that, pretending that the rest is across town.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace, a famous old Greek statue.

Some of the very ornate ceilings at the Louvre.

This is the main exhibition hallway, containing the the Renaissance paintings.&nbsp; It's kind of thrilling to walk through and recognize paintings that you've seen in books.

The Mona Lisa is always somewhat crowded.

Lots of art students were copying famous paintings.

This one was in the same room as the Mona Lisa.&nbsp; Huge!

Most of the paintings have a religious theme.&nbsp; Here are the soldiers gambling over Christ's clothing.

And the circumcision of Christ.

This was a fun one--the four seasons, represented in a portrait form.&nbsp; This is Summer...

Fall...

Winter

and Spring.

Painting of many paintings.

Eric and I in front of the Louvre.&nbsp; We asked a French schoolteacher to take the picture--she ended up taking 3, thinking she had only taken one.&nbsp; If you're not familiar with the camera, it's easy to not know when the picture has been taken.&nbsp; Almost everyone that takes a picture for us looks at the camera, confused, afterwards, saying, &quot;I think it took the picture...&quot;

We took a break from the Louvre and took a little walk around the area, the Louvre and Les Halles area.

This little magazine and newspaper stand is typical of the area.

Have I mentioned that there were tons of rollerbladers around?

At the southern end of the Jardin du Palais Royal is a strange sculpture.&nbsp; These multi-height columns were placed here in 1986

Another strange sculpture.&nbsp; I thought this one looked pretty cool.

This woman was feeding sparrows in the Jardin du Palais Royal.&nbsp; I asked her if she was feeding them bread.&nbsp; She said no, that they prefer madelines (a type of cookies) instead.&nbsp; They would come and feed from her hand.

A couple groups of young people were playing the guitar out at the gardens.

Street scene in the Louvre area.

This was somewhere around the Opera Garnier.

We wanted to check out the famous Ritz Hotel, but they didn't let us in.

This the Eglise de la Madeleine, a very strange Greek-looking church.

Later on we went walking on the Champs Elysees.&nbsp; A very happening place.

This is the real Arc du Triomphe, very nicely lit up in the evening.&nbsp; To get to it, you have to walk through a tunnel under about 6 lanes of traffic.

Looking down the Champs Elysees.&nbsp; At the very end you can see the carousel.

On our way back we got a picture of the carousel and the Egyptian monolith next to it.

Back at the Louvre (you can go in and out without buying new tickets), we concentrated on the Greek section.&nbsp; This is from a huge floor mosaic.

These decorations, which were formerly on top of columns, were interesting to us because they were taken from Milet (modern-day Turkey), which we visited last fall.

I couldn't figure this one out--it really looks like this guy is in a wheelchair, but of course they didn't have wheelchairs back then.

The famous Venus de Milo.

This egyptian tablet is apparently of a scribe/sculptor, writing of all the skills that he possesses.&nbsp; Maybe it was meant as a kind of resume?

An Egyptian table. It wouldn't look out of place today.

We saw this ad on the way home.&nbsp; This is one Mercedes that I'm pretty sure isn't sold in the US.

Fashion Show, Sorbonne Area, Pantheon, Mouffetard, Ile de la Cite, Pere Lachaine Cemetary

Breakfast of champions at the hotel.&nbsp; Breakfast was very continental.&nbsp; It consisted of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate, with a baguette and croissants, butter and jam.&nbsp; No honey, so I bought my own and used that.

On our way out for a day of touristing, we saw some people headed out to demonstrate and strike.&nbsp; This says something like, &quot;Understaffed, too much worked, miserable salary, uhh...a little more vaseline, please&quot;.&nbsp; We talked to this guy--they were workers at a hospital (this man was a nurses assistant), striking for higher pay.&nbsp; He's been to Seattle before, renting a car here and then driving up to British Columbia.

At the Galeries Lafayette department store, one of the oldest and largest around, we went to a fashion show that they hold every week.&nbsp; We had signed up for it previously over the internet.&nbsp; Very interesting--the first fashion show I've ever been to.

The dress on the left here was the only one that I liked. The rest were too far out for me.

This picture was taken by a couple from Virginia who had signed up for the fashion show as well, but got up too late.&nbsp; We told them to check out our web site and look at our pictures of it.&nbsp; We didn't get their names, but if you make it here, greetings!

This is the inside of the store, built around a huge atrium.&nbsp; I was surprised to see that the store itself seemed a little shabby and in need of renovation.

This coat was in the fashion show, one of the first things that they displayed.&nbsp; Right after Eric took this picture the lady came up and said no pictures.

We found the hospital strikers again, just in front of the opera.&nbsp; It seems like striking in France is a national obsession.&nbsp; They tied up the traffic tremendously--good thing we weren't driving.

Back at the hotel, we went for a walk in the neighborhood (the Left Bank).&nbsp; This is the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages.

Part of the University of Sorbonne, very close to where we stayed.

Lots of interesting stores in the area.&nbsp; We went into a store that caters to medical students, with all kinds of teaching supplies (models of the eye, etc.).

A store of sculpted busts.

A teapot store

Another Jules Verne store (our second)

A typical Parisian cafe, with chairs on the sidewalk.&nbsp; It's a little to cold to be drinking coffee outside, though.

We bought our first crepe from this guy, and almost got ripped off by him. It was 15 F, we gave him 50 F, and got back 25.20 F. He was hoping that we�d think the 20 centime coin was a 10 F coin (they both have a bronze color). After we�d walked away, Eric counted the change and realized we were short. We walked back and told him we didn�t get the right change. First he said he�d given us another 10 F coin, but then he he gave us the right change.

A bookbinder in his workshop.

The next day we walked by the Pantheon on our way to the Mouffetard (a big market street).&nbsp; The Pantheon was built as a church, but is now something like a secular mausoleum.

A pleasant little courtyard close to the Pantheon

Pantheon in the background, and the guy who took the picture for us called the green thing a fountain, but I didn't see a place for water to come out.

Yummy, delicious little tarts in a store window.&nbsp; We tried many pastries like these.&nbsp; I think my favorite was a coffee eclair.

Rue Mouffetard.

A cheese shop.&nbsp; Tons and tons of selection here, as expected.

A fruit stand on Mouffetard.

I bought some Lichee fruits from this vendor.&nbsp; I was really surprised by the fact that they're so popular here--you see the shells everywhere.&nbsp; Apparently they're imported from Madagascar.

Our arch nemesis in walking around Paris were the dog turds everywhere.&nbsp; We had to keep our eyes on the pavement all the time, and call out alerts.&nbsp; The quick little side step we took, when we almost stepped on one, we called the &quot;dog shit dance&quot;.

Lunch at this restaurant.&nbsp; Not too bad at all.

These boats can take hundreds of tourists along the Seine.&nbsp; During the off-season, though, there's just a few on board.

We saw this woman taking pictures both at Notre Dame Cathedral, and here, in front of this famous Metro stop.&nbsp; She propped up a little duck with a picture of a guy stuck inside it (her boyfriend?) and took pictures of it.&nbsp; Hmm...

La Concierge, a famous prison on Ile de la Cite (not far from Notre Dame) where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned.

A view of another huge department store, La Samaritaine.

The tip of the Ile de La Cite, the island that Notre Dame is on.

Scooters were very popular in Paris as a means of transport.

Inside a metro.

Lots of famous people are buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery.&nbsp; It's huge, and is supposed to be the most visited cemetery in the world.

Composer Fredric Chopin

Rock star Jim Morrison.&nbsp; A young woman, dressed hippie style, was sitting on the ground close by here, smoking pot, with a cat in her lap. Another guy, older was standing close by, just standing and looking around.&nbsp; I guess fans come here to experience the aura.

I was surprised to see that there were lots of communist graves here.&nbsp; No crosses, of course.

This is a memorial to the people who died in the concentration camp of Ravensbruck

To the heros of the resistance to the Nazis.

More memorials to concentration camp victims: Buchenwald..

and Sachsenhausen.

Writer Gertrude Stein

Writer Oscar Wilde

It seems like Oscar Wilde's grave has become something of a gay pilgrimage site (he was gay).&nbsp; Lots of lipstick marks on it.

Painter DeLaCroix

Writer Balzac

Playwright Moliere

Nobody famous, just thought the inscription was interesting.&nbsp; It reads in part, &quot;This tomb contains, alas, the three things that made the happiness of this father and husband&quot;.&nbsp; Then it lists the two daughters and the mother, both dying in the early part of the 1800s.

Me, in our hotel room, writing up notes.

Another crepe, this time a plain butter and sugar one.

In the evening we went out to a cafe right next to the Sorbonne, frequented by students.&nbsp; There was an extremely animated group of students there that we took a discrete picture of.

The Sorbonne.

The town of Chartres and it's remarkably well-preserved cathedral.

A visit to Chartres by train, a town about 100 kilometres from Paris.&nbsp; Getting a ticket was easy, and the train left only 10 minutes after we arrived.

This is the cathedral at Chartres, built in the 13th century.&nbsp; It got a little less foggy later in the day.

The entrance to the cathedral.&nbsp; It was very uncrowded, probably both because it's the low season and it was quite cold out.

These figures are typically Romanesque (which is a pre-Gothic style) in that they are very elongated.&nbsp; Contrast them to some of the Gothic figures you'll see in later pictures.&nbsp; This part of the building, along with one of the towers, is the only part left over from the Romanesque cathedral that burned on June 10, 1194 (Eric's birthday!).

Christ on his throne, surrounded by winged animals.&nbsp; Apparently there are more than 4000 sculptures on the outside of the building. Chartres is France's best preserved medieval cathedral--much of Notre Dame in Paris is renovated, but most of Chartres is original.

A beggar outside the main entrance.&nbsp; Her face looks like she's been through some hard times.

One of the features of the Chartres cathedral I was most eager to see was the maze on the floor.&nbsp; This is what it would look like.&nbsp; Pilgrims used to walk it on their knees as an act of penance.&nbsp; Unfortunately, the maze was covered with chairs.

Along with 4 other Americans, we took a guided tour from an English man who has written several books on Chartres.&nbsp; Eric thought it was fine, but I thought he was somewhat curt and not open to questions.

Behind the cathedral is another maze cut into the lawn.

Before walking around in the old medieval town of Chartres, we had lunch at a nice place very close to the cathedral.&nbsp; Eric had some kind of veal sausage, and I had lamb.

Some of the old buildings get wider at the base.

Eric found a cat!

This workbench is that of a bijoutier, or jewelry.&nbsp; If you click on it to see the full image, you can see all the details.

I loved walking around the old town.&nbsp; It was very romantic and picturesque, with all kinds of interesting architectural details everywhere.

This is from the courtyard of the museum

Eric and I behind the cathedral.&nbsp; Notice how bundled up we were--it was cold!&nbsp; Good thing we had lots of warm clothes with, including nylon windpants.&nbsp; Not very chic, though.

Me on the maze

Walking down from the cathedral to the old town.

You can see a close up of the half-timbered building below

Many of the walls were made of this very sharp type of stone.

The ornamentation on these windows is great--click on the lower picture to see all the details.

This is the Collegiale Saint Andre, right next to the Eure river.&nbsp; You can see the beginnings of an arch attached to the building.&nbsp; Previously, the building spanned the river.

The other side of the same bridge.

There were many walkways that went down to the river.&nbsp; Apparently it was because all the tanneries were there, and they had to wash out the hides in the river.

This building was a creperie (where they make the pancake-like crepes).&nbsp; Unfortuantely it wasn't open.&nbsp; Next to it was a bakery where be bought some wonderful eclairs, though.

From what we were able to tell, it seemed like the green crosses were always pharmacies, and that they were required to have a green cross like that.

More cool architectural detailing on the old houses.

We asked a boy that looked to be about 12 years old to take this picture.&nbsp; Unfortunately he didn't get the bridge behind us, which is what we really wanted to get.

A strange modern mural painted on the side of a building.&nbsp; If you click on it to get the full-size image, you can see what looks like bar codes at the bottom.

Some sundials at the cathedral

Back at the cathedral to take some pictures.&nbsp; This is the eastern entrance.

Notice these statues are significantly less elongated, compared to the Romanesque ones.&nbsp; These are all saints that were martyred (i.e.killed). Some of them are carrying the instruments of their execution (notice the stick, of a staint that was beaten to death, and the sword, of a saint that was beheaded.

The dammed, going to hell (an open mouth emitting flames)

The saved, going to heaven.

Inside the cathedral again.&nbsp; I thought it was a little strange to see this very modern looking wall carving.

This is what the maze looks like.

This stained glass window tells the story of the good Samaritan. The windows helped to instruct the illiterate (which was almost everybody) in religion back in the middle ages.&nbsp; The Chartres cathedral is very famous for its stained glass windows, almost all of which are from the 13th century.

The sanctuary area, around the altar, was surrounded by stone carvings.

The cathedral houses the Sainte Chemise, which is supposed to have been worn by Maria when she gave birth to Jesus.

Back at the old Romanesque front entrance to the cathedral.&nbsp; Notice the long braids on the women.

You can see the flying buttresses here, which were used to support the height of the cathedral.

Headed back to Paris.&nbsp; We didn't actually ride this super-speedy train--too bad!

A long automated walkway between the Montparnasse railway station and metro.

Yikes! A metro strike!&nbsp; We'd walked to the train station from the hotel in the morning, about a 35 minute walk, and were going to try to take the metro back, even though there was a strike on. Supposedly 20% of the trains were running, so we figured we would just have to wait a little.&nbsp; But after about 10 minutes of waiting, there was an announcement saying that our metro line wasn't going to get any trains.&nbsp; This is an anti-strike essay taped up on the wall, talking about how the strikers are paid for their strike hours, only work 32 hours a week anyway, etc, etc.

On the walk home we grabbed a cheese and tomato crepe...

...and also stopped at McDonalds.&nbsp; There were notices up about how many precautions they had taken against mad cow disease.

Next day, on our way to the Eiffel tower (gotta see it!) we saw this accordion player in the metro.&nbsp; He was one of many.&nbsp; We even saw one 4 piece band.

Eiffel Tower, Montmarte area, Pigalle, Cluny Museum, Flea Market, Walk around Marais, Fly Home

The Eiffel tower, from the Trocadero area.&nbsp; Lots of north african and black african vendors there, all selling the same things.

You can tell what the weather is like by the fact that most of the collection is hats and gloves, and only a small portion Eiffel tower related souveniers.

I think there was a little bit of a mafia going on there, because each one of them had the exact same items, and I assume the vendors were there illegally.

Walking towards the Eiffel Tower.

This woman was feeding wild cats.&nbsp; She wasn't happy about being photographed.

The base of the Eiffel Tower.

Vendors around the Eiffel tower.

You can really see the size of the tower with this picture.

These were counterweights for the elevator that brought tourists up the tower.&nbsp; There's 3 levels, but the highest was closed.

Pictures from the elevator up.

Paris was pretty gray that day. Central Paris has no tall buildings at all, most buildings are 5 or 6 stories in height.

Looking back at the Trocadero.

When the vendors saw that the elevator on the Eiffel tower was coming down, they rushed over to the exit, forming almost a human blockade, and tried to get people to buy souveniers.

The Eiffel tower from the Champ de Mars.&nbsp; It's supposed to be very nice in summer, but the weather this day was the coldest it ever was for us in Paris, so we didn't linger.

These poster-covered columns were typical in Paris.

Later that day we went to the Montmartre area, which is supposed to be very charming.&nbsp; I was a little disappointed, probably because it was so cold we couldn't really linger much.&nbsp; This interesting building has a sign saying Le Lapin Agile, or The Agile Rabbit cabaret.

A typical stairway street in this district.

The Basilique du Sacre Coeur in Montmartre.&nbsp; This church was started in 1873 but only completed in 1919.

The vendors of these paintings weren't getting very far on this rainy, cold day.

Not far away is the famous Pigalle red-light district

The famous cabaret, Moulin Rouge.

I thought this was a little funny--a McDonalds right next to an X rated movie place.

Sea urchins and scallops for sale.

Pigeons for sale!&nbsp; I wondered if they just trapped normal pigeons on the street, or if these are bred.&nbsp; I assume they were bred, since they looked pretty large.

Oddly enough, there were lots of guys in kilts around in Paris.&nbsp; I never asked one, but I assume that there was some Scottish group in town.

Eric and I eating dinner that night.&nbsp; We walked around Mouffetard street, which is full of restaurants, to find this place.&nbsp; Eric had capon (castrated rooster) and I had lamb.&nbsp; Not bad at all, although the smoke in the restaurant was terrible.

The next day we went to the National Museum of the Middle Ages, otherwise known as the Cluny museum.&nbsp; The part of liked most were the tapestries.

I thought this was interesting--this medieval tombstone of a cardinal had swastika on it.

This old machine looks like a primitive typewriter.&nbsp; The stand this was in had all kinds of interesting old electical and radio appliances.

Later that day we went to one of the flea markets in the north of Paris.&nbsp; It's said to be Europe's largest. It's in a very different part of Paris--mostly immigrants, north African and black African.&nbsp; We even saw one man, at the entrance to a metro station, begging in Arabic.

Scenes from the flea market.

This seems like a good chair to make in miniature, dad!

An old-fashioned scooter.

This guy was roasting sugared peanuts on the street.

A crepe maker.

All the tobacco stores/combination bars had these red signs above them.

This is the Marais area, close to the Place des Vosges.

This statue was in the middle of the Place des Vosgues, of Louis the 13, who died young.

The park benches were interesting looking.&nbsp; Two benches were back to back, and shared the same backrest.

The National Archive

Centre Pompidou.&nbsp; It was built between 1972 and 1977, and is mainly known as the &quot;inside out&quot; building, since all of the ductwork (plumbing, etc,) was put on the outside.

Surprise, surprise--another stike!&nbsp; This time the workers at a Pizza Hut were asking for the public's support while they intimidated customers who wanted to go in.&nbsp; What a joke.

Here's the sheet they were giving to passers-by.&nbsp; Basically they want more money and better working conditions.&nbsp; One quote, &quot;Because of the way Pizza Hut is exploiting us, they're making millions in profit, and keeping us in a state of poverty.&quot;&nbsp; My thoughts--get another job if you think you're being exploited!

This is the famous Metropolitain Metro station, built in Art Deco style.

On our way home, flying over northern Canada, a great view of the icefields.

The town of Helper, Dead Horse Point State Park

On the way over the pass, we encountered snow and sleet.

We stopped in the town of Helper, an old coal mining town that's dying off. There's an historical museum there with lots of artifacts from the era when mining actually required lots of miners (now it's mostly mechanized). A retired gentlemen who'd spent his life working at one of coal company stores volunteers there, and showed us around (we were the only visitors)

There was a very eclectic assortment of old stuff there. Here's an old dentist's chair

Electric permanent hair wave machine...looks scary.

The cup on the left has a support for large mustaches.

Don't play with blasting caps!

This is a rescue mask, used to retrieve miners (or their bodies) after cave-ins.

Coal!

Hard to imagine--something this large, and all it is, is a radio.

A self-rescue kit, in case the miner is trapped in a cave-in. It converts carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide into oxygen.

The "Last Squad Club" was formed by World War One vetrans. They had a reunion every year, until all but 8 had died. At that point, they opened up a time capsule that had been stored since 1941, in which they'd all put in mementos. The last one to die , in his late 90's, had also been governer of the state and mayor of Salt Lake City.

The town jail.

Helper itself is a sad little town. Lots of empty building on main street.

On our way towards the Canyonlands area of Utah, we encountered some cool clouds.

We met an unusual guy at a rest stop. He was a transient on a bicycle, biking around the country. He gave us what seemed like a rehearsed speech about how he was a poet and a philosopher, traveling around the country working with alcoholics; had had 6 dreams about butterflies, which mean transformation. He seemed coherent enough until he approached us again, after we'd eaten lunch, with the exact same speech.

Our first glimpse of the red rock canyons, along the Colorado River close to Moab.

According to the signs, these are supposed to be dinosoar tracks.

It was much more exciting to find some pictographs nearby on our own.

It was sleety and cold at Dead Horse Point State Park campground that evening, but at least the campsite had a covered picnic table.

Later we went for a walk around the canyon rim, and found these cozy little caves...

...and lots of mule deer.

Dead Horse Point State Park, along the Columbia River, Castle Valley, Corona Arch

Next morning was foggy and cold as well. Eric had slept poorly, and was grumpy. But the views were amazing.

Glad we brought binoculars.

The original plan was to go backpacking in the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands National Park, but since Eric had slept poorly and the weather wasn't supposed to be great, we spent the night in Moab instead. These are rock formations around the Moab area. The black streaks are called desert varnish.

Driving east along the Columbia River

We took a detour in the small town of Castleton. Interesting houses there.

If my brother Tom lived in Castleton, his place might look like this.

Driving on semi-deserted roads is one of my favorite parts of travel in the Southwest.

We drove around the Manti-La Sal National Forest, with some great views of Castle Valley.

It was snowing in the mountains.

Another view of Castle Valley.

Along the Columbia River west of 191 again, the late afternoon light was great on the rocks.

We stopped and looked at some more pictographs.

In the evening, we took a quick hike to Corona Arch, off highway 279. This little cave looks like it could be a hundred feet high, but it was actually about 8 feet high.

The view from the arch.

The base of the arch looks like a prehistoric dinosoar leg.

Corona arch itself.

Two eye sockets made of caves in the rock make this section look very much like a face.

A narrowleaf yucca plant, flowering.

On the way back to the car.

Canyonlands Syncline Loop trail

In the Island of the Sky district of Canyonlands.

Starting the Syncline Loop trail.

Exposed wood looks like this after some time in the sun.

Random pictures of the trail down to our campsite.

You can catch a glimpse of the Green River in the distance here.

Eric had some blister problems.

It seemed like it was a tradition to add a rock to this particular cairn, so we continued it.

In the riverbed were fresh green cottonwood trees.

Indian paintbrush.

Strange texture to these rocks.

Claret cup cactus.

These are the fossilized remains of the rippled bottom of an ocean.

The view from our campsite.

Eric examining an ant colony.

Larkspur

Neat rocks

Relaxing in camp.

Eric cooking dinner

After dinner we took a stroll. Eric found a heart-shaped rock.

We also found a survey post from 1954, when this area still belonged to the Bureau of Land Management.

This rock looked like a monkey head to me.

There was a bit of sun around sunset, just enough for some great photos of some of the rocks that had fallen from the cliffs.

It was almost a full moon...

Finishing Canyonlands Syncline Loop trail, Wilson Arch, Needles Overlook

The next morning, on the hike out. Yesterday, two guys from the east coast who had tried to hike out this way and turned back tried to convince us that it was too dangerous because of a rockslide. After watching with binoculars as other hikers passed this spot with no problems, we decided to go for it.

Primrose.

A pinyon pine tree, from which pine nuts come.

More blister problems.

After we got to the car, we stopped at the Buck Canyon Overlook, and the Grand ViewPoint Overlook for some great views.

It's too scary to be in any position but on your stomach so close to the edge of a 1000 foot drop.

Wilson Arch, south on highway 191

Eric is like a spec of dust in the eye of the arch...

We spent the night in Canyon Rims BLM recreation area. Great scenery, very deserted.

Maybe a bobcat track?

It's kind of hazy here, but you're looking at the Needles district of Canyonlands.

We were very glad to get this 4 wheel drive Suzuki Grand Vitara at the rental agency. All we'd paid for was a small compact, but I assume they didn't have any of those left.

This area is also used for grazing.

We picked up some firewood, and also some cow patties to try to burn (that didn't work too well).

The campground was gorgeous, with the evening sun hitting it just right.

Rockland Ranch, Salt Lake City

The next morning we climbed to the top of one of the rocks next to the campground. It looked steep, but the rock isn't very slippery.

Most of the rocks have sinkholes like this on top.

The view from the top.

Bob Foster and Eric

Last night the volunteer campground host had told us about a polygamist excommunicated Mormon family that had blasted out holes in nearby rocks, and built homes in them. Bob Foster was the patriarch, and was supposed to be very friendly. He also operated a bed and breakfast there--<a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.227916,-109.458150&spn=0.007288,0.009989&t=k&hl=en">Rockland Ranch</a>. Bob has had 4 wives, and 38 children. He has a 50 year lease on the land, which is a patch of state land in the middle of BLM lands. He didn't come right out and tell us that he was a polygamist, but did get around to telling us eventually. Interesting guy.

This is the bed and breakfast.

These huge holes are being blasted out for another excommunicated Mormon family. Two of their sons married two daughters of the Foster clan.

One of Bob's daughers invited us in their house. Cozy, but dark, especially in the inside rooms.

This is the bed and breakfast

Bob told us that this is the room he would have put us in, had we spent the night there.

They're pretty self-sufficient here, with a water pump, diesel powered generators, windmills, and a huge stash of food, mainly leftover from the Y2K scare.

This is a new house Bob is building for one of his wives. It goes all the way through the rock, so there's both morning and evening light. The temperature inside stays at 65 degrees all year round.

Here's another hole going through the arch. The wind through this tunnel was amazingly strong.

A storage hole blasted into the rock. The bumper sticker on the cabinet says "Don't steal--the government hates competition". Bob is not a big fan of the government.

Bob took us on a tour of the top of the rock. He's incredibly agile, for someone 74 years old. These ladders and ropes were quite rickety.

The view from the top.

This is an airstrip as well as the road out.

One of the many sinkholes on top of the rock. One of Bob's sons ran around the inside of this hole this 45 times, using centrifugal force to keep him from falling in.

The windmills on top of the rock produce enough energy to run some power tools.

Heading back down was scarier than going up. Bob was amazing. Apparently one of his daughters climbed up and around the whole rock in 30 minutes every day, as a workout.

On our way back to Salt Lake City, we stopped and took a look at Temple Square, which seems to be the hub of Mormonism. Young women, in pairs and dressed extremely conservatively were walking around, available to give tours of the grounds. These were our guides.

The main temple, which you can only enter as a card-carrying Mormon.

Victoria, Jean and Kelly host my wedding shower (thanks to Elizabeth for the pictures).

Victoria, Jean, and Kelly put on a tea party for me at Jean's house. What a festive table setting!

This was pretty much the most risque gift.

Later on we all went to dinner at Spazzos

Kelly drew a cartoon for me on the tablecloth

Surprise! They'd rented a limo for me, and we went for a drive around town.

I'd never seen the inside of a limo before...

A sunny day, so we explore Discovery Park

There's an old military base at Discovery Park, part of which is still being used. I believe these are officers houses.

The view from the top of the sand cliffs.

Out on the beach.

A mussle encrusted boulder on the beach.

Playing with the geoducks. If you press the little dimple in the sand that marks their location, they often squirt water at you.

The Discovery Park lighthouse.

The point right off the lighthouse had waves crashing onto it from 2 directions.

Sold my '93 Toyota Tercel

It was a great little car.

The green SUV behind it is car I'm currently driving, a Toyota Highlander.

We took a hike around Cougar Mountain park, and had a great Easter dinner with friends.

We saw this man getting ready to go Geocaching. We're interested in trying it as well.

In the woods at Cougar Mountain.

Nearby Coal Creek is so named (duh!) because there was lots of coal mining activity going on there about 100 years ago. This was a coal mine.

A waterfall on a bank of clay.

The same waterfall, when the sun was out!

Jean set a wonderful Easter dinner table.

Talking with Jean's father.

After buying a gps receiver, we started finding geocaches.

I'd read about <a href=http://www.geocaching.com>Geocaching</a> in the Seattle Times, and we decided to try it out. Bought a gps that fits on my palm pilot (works great!) and went to our first one in Marymoor park. The general location of the geocache

We found it!

Rummaging around for goodies.

The next cache - along a historical red brick road

Hidden in the fork of a tree...

Our last cache of the day, right next to a old Nike missle site.

At Juanita Bay Park (a new park for us, too), we did a multi-cache, solving multiple clues to get the coordinates of the final cache. Working out the clues.

Because of an error in our calculations, we originally thought the clue was out in the water here...

But eventually we found it.

Lots of good bird-watching at the park. This is a red-shouldered blackbird (actually a very common bird around here).

Turtles lined up on a log

Weekend trip along the Columbia River.

Lots of rain and not much sun here, based on all the moss

Vista House, built in the early part of this century, is a famous landmark on the Columbia. It looks pretty funny as it's being renovated with a geodesic dome around it.

The view from the Vista House.

Latourell Falls goes down straight over a cliff

The base of Latourell Falls. Fascinating how you can see the broken off bottoms of all the basalt volcanic columns.

Bonneville Dam

Lots of sturgeon fisherman were there when we visited.

This guy caught a 47 inch sturgeon.

Duck antics - must have been mating season, because the one on the left kept trying to get close to the female, and the one on the left kept chasing him away.

More sturgeon in a nearby viewing area.

Biking on the Columbia River Historic Trail. All bike trails should be like this - easy grade, sunny, and great views.

Unusual geological formation along the way.

We were thinking how cool it would be to have a house out here...sunny, isolated, scenic.

What a wide bike path!

I crawled to the edge of this cliff and looked down - straight down, to the railroad and the highway.

We stayed at the <a href="http://www.berylhouse.com/">Beryl House Bed and Breakfast</a>, Eric's first bed and breakfast. Friendly place.

The next morning we took what's called the "Fruit Loop" drive - more popular in fall harvest time. Great views of Mt. Hood.

Acres and acres of apple harvest boxes.

Another view of Mt. Hood from Panorama Point. We looked for a geocacache here, but didn't find it.

A view of rt. 30 from an overlook.

Pete, at the Dalles Dam visitor center, was very friendly and gave us a tour around. Very knowledgable about the operation of the dam.

Tours used to go there, but since Sept. 11th, it's been closed to visitors. The turbines only turn just over once per second.

Lunch in this diner in White Salmon. Not very memorable.

We were going to head back home via rt. 141. Unfortunately, we neglected to take a close look at the map. It degenerated into a forestry road, and then dead-ended where they'd stopped snowplowing.

A llama farm on the way home.

We finally finished the Mission Impossible geocache. Warning - spoilers ahead!

Starting out in Bridle Trails park

We've got into the hobby of <a href=http://www.geocaching.com>geocaching</a> recently. This was by far the most complex geocache that we've done so far. Very exciting! <br><br>

We were led to a pedestrian overpass on 405...

And thence to a mini-park in Kirkland

The Redmond library had a clue for us as well.

What an awesome clue! This book actually had a radio transmitter in it.

Enemy agents were everywhere as we attempted to find this clue. Super hard to find.

Finally found it! The radio transmitter caused the little led to blink...but only when you were very close to it.

This key...

...lead us to the communique from the Director.

And the end!

We searched for geocaches in John McDonald Memorial Park and St. Edwards State Park. Also canoeing around the Arboretum.

The first place we went to, trying to access the geocache, was a dead end - no trail led from there. There was an interesting cable car thing going over the river, but Eric wouldn't let me try it.

This bridge is the entrance to John McDonald Memorial Park

Found the cache!

Then finding a cache in St. Edwards State Park

Engagement party for Tom Fakes and Lisa Whitaker - playing croquet in the backyard.

They live in a huge log cabin.

Canoeing around the Arboretum

Right next to the highway...

The Canadian geese come really close if they think you have food for them.

I flew to Dover, New Hampshire to visit my friends Chris and Judy, who have a 4 month old baby daughter, Sally (the most adorable baby girl in the world).

Judy and Sally

The living room

They have a great backyard, with garden

I think Sally is going to be a nature lover like her mother.

Going for a walk with Sally.

Sally smiles!

Sally at the bookstore with Chris.

Sally getting a bath, one of her favorite times of the day.

Sally also gets regular oil massages.

Judy takes some time to make some of her handmade pressed-flower cards

Sally's toes are so cute...

Chris helps Sally turn onto her stomach.

I got plenty of Sally time as well.

Only Sally could provoke such a goofy look!

The guest bedroom was decorated with jungle murals.

Another bath!

...and post-bath massage

Sally holding up her head.

Walking back home from breakfast Sunday, we broke into a run because it was Sally's feeding time, and she wasn't going to let us forget it.

Judy reupholstered this chair herself.

Judy and I took a drive to a beachside nature sanctuary.

At a birthday party later in the day, Sally gets passed around.

The cake had a definate overabundance of frosting.

Candles get blown out.

The lighting was great on the drive home.

We stopped at Dover Delite, Chris and Judy's favorite ice cream stand.

Would you believe this is their kiddie size cone?

Some final pictures of the house before I leave. The breakfast nook...

View of the newly painted dining room.

The airport in Detroit was really cool - it had a fountain with synchronized jets of water.

We spent part of the Memorial Day weekend with the Lucases on Whidbey Island.

From the left, Angela, Rachael, and Sidney in front of the secret hideaway.

Rachael in her wetsuit - necessary for swimming in these temperatures.

Her first jump!

Sidney showed us a nest of killdeers, right in someone's front lawn.

Some huge barnacles.

Terry finds a sand dollar, a baby jellyfish (?), and a whelk.

I've seen pictures of these small Langley cottages (none larger than 975 sq ft) in home books. One of them was for sale. Unfortunately no open house, though.

We found a cache on Double Bluff Beach Park.

The bluffs in this pictures are actually a steep dirt mountain. We saw kids sliding down it, on things that looked like surfboards. It looked extremely dangerous, and we saw some falls.

Grace and Hannah and Gary, picking up Eric for a bike ride.

Gary and Eric go for a bike ride, and saw cats being carried in a kiddie carrier.

Saturday we took a hike up Tiger Mtn, to Poo-Poo point, where there was a Paragliding Fly-In. Basically, lots and lots of people were paragliding from there. Fun to watch. Sunday we drove up to Bellingham with Soe.

Waiting in line to launch.

This launch didn't go particularly well.

Going backwards on your butt--not a good thing!

The problem launches are always more fun to watch.

Tandem launches too. Usually something appeared to not go according to plan.

Up, up, and away!

At one point I counted 28 paragliders in the air.

At Soe's friends house near Bellingham. Eric is holding the cat, which has a very strange trait - it drools when you pet it. Note the paper towel held underneath.

Eric, Soe, and Jeannie.

They have a beautiful, lush, sunny yard.

Jeannie's husband Michael carved the tree stumps into mushrooms.

Soe and Eric in front of the railroad track, right behind the house.

A cafe in Fairhaven.

Soe told us he used to spend whole days hanging out at this cafe.

Friday evening we went for a kayak trip on Lake Union, and took lots of houseboat pictures.

We rented kayaks at Agua Verde. These folks went kayaking with their dog.

The Eastlake Ave. bridge with a tanker.

A seaplane taking off behind us.

An old ferry, Kalakala

The parade of houseboats begins!

Gasworks Park.

Houseboats with the Seattle skyline in the background.

A houseboat with multiple iron scuptures.

Most of the houseboats float on these huge timbers, some of which look kind of worm-eaten.

Houseboat alley

Wonderful deck.

Most of the houseboats have at least a canoe or a kayak.

This one is very sleek and modern looking, but not that appealing to me.

More houseboat alley.

This houseboat was for sale

I was thinking that this boat was the "bunk and breakfast" that I've heard Seattle has, but I couldn't find anything on it online.

Very boxy looking. I like the idea of a huge deck on top, though.

Another huge rooftop deck.

Eric did most of the paddling while I took pictures.

These houseboats weren't along the main waterfront, and so would have been a little quieter.

This was maybe an old floating fish processing plant?

This houseboat has a hallmark 70's look - funky, lots of tiles.

A very cool modernistic one.

Spare and simple - I like this one.

Another one for sale.

Saturday and Sunday we drove up to Salmon Le Sac to meet some friends for a camping trip. (warning! serious speed trap along the way)

Saturday, stopping on the road to the Salmon Le Sac campground. Right after here is where the cops got us in a speed trap (the posted 35 mph limit was 4 miles back, and it was a wide, new straight road).

Canoeing on Cooper lake with Kristen

Eric and I took a canoe trip as well. It was pretty windy, so we stopped in the middle of the lake at this tree trunk sticking out to relax without being blown down the lake.

We paddled up to the inlet of the river. Very clear water.

Back at the campground, some motorcyclists had these cute little mini pop-up campers.

Lots of teenagers were hanging out at this bridge, jumping from it into the pool below. It was very cold water, though!

From the left, Kristen, Pat, Mark, and Eric, cooking canned biscuits on the fire.

Kids Nicholas and Katherine.

Mark tried the experiment of hard boiling an egg by putting them in the coals. It exploded.

We did a geocache together - one of the clues was "Last Resort"

Katherine found the cache!

Kristen, Sylvia, and Eric

The Taylors.

Our last stop was at Snoqualmie Tunnel. We walked in for about 20 minutes, then decided we didn't want to do the whole thing.

Not using the flash. Spooky!

Juggling, contact juggling, staff spinning, club passing at the Seattle International Juggling Festival

I did a workshop in staff spinning

Quite a crowd gathered for the workshop.

My partner Latif and I passing a spinning staff.

Passing five clubs.

These guys were great - they passed the clubs to the person behind them.

Contact juggling with Greg. Contact juggling is basically moving a ball around your body, without having it loose contact with your body (i.e., no tossing)

Eric passing clubs.

Contact juggling.

Eric took a picture of me with my head in his lap.

Eric doing more club passing.

Travis walking with his son through the twirling clubs.

At the juggling show that night, one onlooker had the bad luck to be called on to participate in an act.

The Mud Bay Jugglers.

Another group...I believe they won the 2000 International Juggling Festival first prize.

Blueberry picking, BBQ with Chris and Judy, E. Colton Burd Baby Shower bbq, and more.

Leftover pictures from last weekend's Shakespeare in the Park at Luther Burbank Park on Mercer Island (the play was Two Gentelmen of Verona)

Rehearsing before the play

Saturday morning we visited the Parmaceks...

Max and Parker had fun riding around in a little car

Blueberry picking with Ilana and Steve. Note the handy homemade hanging berry buckets.

Bbq for Chris and Judy at Rob and Carol's place. What a well-fed baby!

Judy with Sally, Rob in the background.

Various people hanging out.

Phil with Sally

The Beaudettes - Chris, Judy, and Sally.

This is chef Walter.

A Welcome Home Colton bbq at Anne and Walter Braun's house. <br><br>

Gunnar and his son Julian.

Sylvia and Eric

Anne and Shannon

The Welcome Colton carrot cake

Scott Ludwig and his son Nick.

Ava and Hannah.

Grace, Julian, and Angelika

Walter and Jenee, Grace's sister.

Valerie and Angelina with various kids.

Scott, Val, and Angelina with various kids.

Finally some pictures of Colton!

Hannah lets loose with the pillows.

Anne, Colton, and Sylvia

Dominik

I played hooky from work and hung out with Judy on Monday too. Had fun taking pictures of little Sally, too!

It was Mad Hat day when I got there...all from Erin's dress-up box

Sally starting solids, too! I think Chris had fun feeding her.

Sally getting dressed.

Sally's playing with Dad's glasses.

On the streets with Sally. Chris and Rob entertained her with a dance.

At Lincoln Park

We saw some passion flowers on the way home.

It looks like part of this house has been chopped off.

Judy with Sally in the mirror.

Sally and Erin.

This house number is the same as my dad's in Charlotte.

The first time I've worn a Baby Bjorn baby carrier.

Mercer Slough, Sandstone Falls, and a Port Defiance (Tacoma) geocache

Eric playing around with the blueberry picking machine at the Mercer Slough blueberry farm.

This one was a great cache (except for the mosquitos). A view of downtown Bellevue over the slough.

Bridge over the slough.

Found the cache under the boardwalk.

With the Taylors - Katherine next to some old mining equipment.

Rummaging around the Sandstone Falls cache.

Nicholas with his geocaching loot.

Sunday we went to Tacoma for the first time, to the Port Defiance park to do a geocache there. It was a driving geocache, and we had to drive around the one-way loop about 4 times because we'd made some mistakes with the calculations. Not a fun cache.

Finally, grumpily, we found it.

We check out a vintage Airstream trailer rally in Bellingham, then walked to a religious rally in neighboring Marymoor park.

There were about 15 trailers at the rally. Last year apparently there were about 30. The participants were very friendly, and most invited us into their trailers.

There weren't just Airstream trailers at the rally. This "teardrop" trailer was the smallest one there.

A serviceable kitchen in the back.

The inside has enough room for one person to stretch out and sit up, but no more than that.

The other non-Airstream trailer was a Shasta, towed by a vintage car.

This shiny trailer was the showpiece of the rally. It took the owner months and months to strip off the clearcoat, and then polish it.

The interior was renovated as well. Cork plank flooring, matching towel sets, redone upholstery.

All the Airstreams had these very functional lamps.

One couple had set up appliances that matched the era of their trailer.

Eric has the fine points of Airstream internals explained to him.

These folks showed us some vintage Airstream calendars. They've spent a lot of time in the deserts of the southwest in their Airstream, photographing flowers.

The "Bambi". I thought this was the smallest airstream trailer, but it turns out there's one even smaller - the Bubble.

Back home - the streets in our neighborhood was were packed with cars from people visiting a religious rally in Marymoor.

They build a huge skateboard park to attract kids. This was the line to get in.

There were tons of kid-oriented play areas at the festival, most of them also with long lines.

The main stadium area was packed - I don't think I've seen that many people at Marymoor, even during Womad.

An impromptu prayer circle.

The food tents had incredible lines in front of them. You'd almost think the food would have to be free, that people were willing to wait in such long lines, but it wasn't.

And of course, there were some serious lines for the toilets.

On the way out, some skateboarders had set up some skateboards to jump over. If you missed the jump, you had to add your skateboard to the stack.

We took a long weekend to go to Whistler with some friends

The day before we left for Whistler, we saw three coyotes wandering around the neighborhood. They weren't frightened away when I stopped in my car, but when I tried to get closer to them, they ran off.

Stopped for a rest in Horseshoe Bay.

A mini-houseboat in the bay.

I surprised Bobby in the act of starting up the fountain

Sylvia and Jordan.

Omri and Heather. Heather had a boo-boo from diving out of her stroller.

Gary and Grace's 2 month old son Colton.

The view from our room

The inside - a very nice compact little suit, with kitchen.

Views of the pedestrian area in Whistler.

There was a Porche exhibition in town Saturday morning. Dozens and dozens of Porches, which I believe were being judged.

Putting on the finishing touches.

Saw lots of mountain bikers out in what seemed like football gear - very well protected. I'd want to be well protected as well, if I did what they did.

Took the gondola up in the afternoon.

Okay, it's a little inconvenient, but what a view...

Jordan, Heather, and Hanna playing on a chessboard.

At Blackcomb base, they had a trapeeze set up, open to everyone. I didn't know it was that easy!

Hannah on a trampoline-type springy device.

Some of the characters around Whistler. I'm pretty sure the town council hires them to walk around and be entertaining.

Gary just got a hug.

Going out to dinner together at Quattros

Gary just didn't know when to stop when it came to desert.

Eric figuring out how much everyone owed.

Shannon Falls, on the way back home.

We were thinking of going through the Museum of Mining, but contented ourselves with looking through the gift shop.

Kristen, Heather and I went to visit Lindsey's place, Skalitude - 160 beautiful, secluded acres in eastern Washington

The newly build sauna

A lot of the trees had a very bright fluorescent yellow/green moss on them.

The guest lodge

Lots of yellow jackets around - they seem to nest in the logs

Valley and sky views

Lindsey has solar power.

The solar cell moves with the sun.

Kristen with some farm machinery

The view back towards the lodge from the other side of the property.

Heather points towards a moth she demolished during the night, after it flew around her head too often.

Our book club spent the night at the cabin of one of our members, Waleen. Then a football game in Dinarte's box - deluxe!

A yummy spread for dinner - lasagna, and then for desert, tiramisu

Too many cooks didn't spoil the broth, in this case!

Jean getting ready to go to sleep in the coveted window seat.

Taking a walk on some of the nearby forestry roads.

The cabin in the morning sun.

The setting is superb.

John, Dinarte, and Gary

Sunday, Eric and I were invited to watch a football game from Dinarte and Tom's box. Very nice. <br> <br>

It seemed like Dinarte was EVERYWHERE!

The Seahawks lost - apparently it was no big surprise.

Gary and Grace.

Gary and Eric

Steve Blatt and Ilana Long join family and friends in welcoming their twins Benjamin and Marina with a Brit Milah and Simchat Bat celebration.

At least 30 or 40 of Steve and Ilana's family and friends gathered at their house for the celebration.

Steve and Ilana were running around, getting things ready.

The Mohel

Waiting for Benjamin to be carried down the stairs.

Evelyn Blatt holding her grandson

Steve isn't looking too happy at this stage.

It's all over but the bandaging!

The blessing

Steve and the Mohel. On the white jacket is stitched "Fastest Mohel in the West".

The Simchat Bat ceremony for Marina.

Marina and Bejamin with mom and dad.

Seattle Center, and checking out the Pacific Science Center.

The rides are still active. Very few people willing to be spun around in the cold air, though.

Some pictures of the exterior of the Experience Music Project. It's hard to believe that building doesn't leak!

Eric and the Experience Music Project, browsing their music files. Very strange UI.

Not many street performers around. This guy was doing a routine with hula hoops.

At the Pacific Science Center - Eric planing with a huge mirror.

The dinosaur exhibit

Red in tooth and claw...

Making a spirograph (?). Most of the Pacific Science Center is really targeted at young kids, which is why it didn't have that much to interest us.

The cockroach exhibit was pretty special, though!

At the planetarium - this is the device that projects stars onto the ceiling.

At Marymoor park, it was the busiest we've ever seen it (on a non-festival day)

More Great Danes than I've ever seen before!

Portrait shots

Thanksgiving dinner with the Lucases, a walk around Tiger Mountain, etc

Waiting for the ferry to Whidbey Island - the Mukilteo lighthouse

Sue stuffing the turkey.

Taking a walk around the neighborhood - the tree has swallowed the sign up.

Eric has to try every single pie available, with ice cream!

The fog hardly lifted the whole time we were there

Rachel carved a butterfly into the sand cliff

Eric carves our web site onto the cliff as well

Taking a walk with Steve and Ilana

We went by the "bus trail", named for the abandoned bus along the way.

Steve and Eric manhandling the stroller between trees and across massive roots. I don't think Steve and Ilana will be taking this trail again soon with their double stroller!

A firefighters monument in Pioneer Square. Many, many homeless people as well.

At the Bryan Ohno Gallery, the featured sculptor Brandon Zebold was very friendly, and talked to us about his works.

Nearby alley

I don't think these rooms are 75 cents anymore...

On the ferry to Clinton. There was almost nobody on board - they must have lost a lot of money on this trip.

Dungeness Spit. We picked the first overcast day in 2 weeks to visit this area for the first time.

Unusual root formation

We didn't appreciate all the unfriendly notices.

At Fort Flagler State Park. We thought this might be on the same scale as Fort Worden, but it's a lot smaller. Still interesting. Very quiet peaceful peninsula.

Feeding the goats. This goat managed to get stick his snout quite a ways outside the fence.

Christmas parties at Dinarte and John's place, and with the Chavez family

Caterers working in the kitchen

Gunnar, Nadia, and Christian

In the living room

Making pastries

Note that the pie to the right is smushed. Apparently one of the caterers put their hands down to lean on the countertop, right on top of the pie. Luckily there were spares.

Terry, Christian, Laurent, and Sylvia

John with the fancy new artificial Christmas tree with built in lighting

Dinarte cavorting amidst the food with friends

Ramin and Doris

Epinine stayed still while Eric positioned all her toys on her.

The mantel with the gifts. John had decided on a white and silver theme.

We fly to North Carolina, visiting family in Charlotte and Asheville

In Charlotte - some of the specialized small machines that my dad made himself, for creating his miniature furniture.

Alex, Juanita, Tom, Eric and I went out to a Vietnamese restaurant - I ordered a basil seed drink that I didn't like all that much. Very interesting texture, though. We were celebrating Juanita's birthday - she's just one day older than me.

Christmas Eve we spent with my mom, Les, and Tom.

Eric playing with Kormi

This stucco job in the South Park area was one of my father's biggest, back when he was doing stucco work.

December 25th we drove to Asheville to spend the rest of our time with Eric's family. We actually got some snow, which you can see on the ground outside!

Kevin with Jessie.

Jessie got some presents as well.

Eric's parents Ann and Ken behind a wall of presents.

For dinner that night - Beef Wellington. This picture was taken on our new tripod, a gift from Kevin.

Working on a train jigsaw puzzle - actually, Ken's gift.

Visiting the Grove Park Inn

Mr. Grove made his money selling patent medicine. There's a display of some of the old advertisements for the medicine.

There was also a gingerbread contest. Some truly amazing creations. It was fun to look at the individual elements, and figure out what food it was from (sticks of gum were used as shingles, etc.). A common element was lots and lots of frosting.

The grand prize winner

A view of the new spa area.

Huge covered patio

A nice view of the Blue Ridge mountains nearby

This must be about the biggest fireplace I've seen

At the Smith McDowell house museum. I believe this is the oldest brick home in Asheville.

They did a good job of disguising the light switch here.

Visiting Dillsboro

At a model train musuem in Bryson City

The founder of the musuem

Afterwards, Ken bought a set of railroad overalls.

Dinner - orange roughy

We also took an overnight trip to visit Chapel Hill, my alma mater. This is Ruffin, one of my dorms. I was on the top floor, in the corner.

Another view of Ruffin

Alexander, my first dorm, was undergoing a tremendous construction job.

Davis library - I spent many hours here.

Inside the library

I worked at this desk for one semester.

...and sorted these newspapers a lot!

The stacks

The student union, with a view to the pit.

Davis Library and the student union (which was closed).

Greenlaw. This is where I had some English classes.

Bingham, another of my classroms.

The undergraduate library is completely renovated, so I don't recognize anything.

My honors thesis is kept at Wilson Library. It's entitled "Reading the Word and the World - A Comparison of Literacy Programs". Rereading it, I'm amazed how left-leaning I was in those days.

An excerpt from my thesis

The campus is attractive, but run down.

The Old Well.

Franklin Street. There was a beggar about every 20 feet, it seemed like.

The laundry that I used when I was a freshman. We walked in it, and it was a mess - all kinds of trash and leaves on the floor. I said loudly, "What a pigsty!". Turned out there was some maintenance workers right in the next room, with the door open.

Gimghoul Castle

From the back

Very small windows. In the words of one visitor - "Light is not its forte".

Front door

Back porch

The neighborhood around Gimghoul Castle is now on the Historic Register, and has lots of interesting old homes.

Visiting Mike and Vicki Lake

They have some huge quartz boulders in their yard

Kevin with Jessie in front of his townhouse, which he'll soon be selling.

There was an amazing sunset on the way back to Ashville.

Walking around Kimberly Road, saw some interesting houses and lots of evidence of the ice storm

A hike with Brian to the Dupont state park. It's an interesting area with lots of exposed rock

I was surprised that a lot of the trail was sandy, and not muddy at all.

We met a guy with some ferrets at Hooker Falls.

Some nice views on the drive home.

I had to stop and get a picture of this nativity scene, using department store mannequins

My father passed away

I set up a <a href=http://www.ericandsylvia.com/pictures/alois>site</a> for him which which contain pictures, and pictures also of some of his miniature furniture and boxes.

A bike trip over I-90, Kelsey Creek Park with Steve and Ilana, and a pumpkin carving party with Angie and Eric.

In the Mercer Slough area, next to the highway

A strange park on Mercer Island. I think these are vents to I-90, in a tunnel underneath.

The I-90 floating bridge

Looking from Seattle to Mercer Island

End of the bike tunnel in Seattle

Steve, with a giant bumblebee in the background

Feeding the llamas

Ilana in the final weeks of pregnancy!

Sheep wearing coats...for warmth?

Angie and Eric Bultemeier had a fall pumpkin carving party at their place

Eric carving up the turkey

Jessica

Assorted party scenes

Sorting out the pumpkins seeds from the pulp. Later we roasted them.

His pumpkin looks a lot like him!

The carved up pumpkins, all lit up.

Great picture of Angie and Eric

The best of our New Zealand pictures

Just before we left, some wacko tried to set off a bomb carried in his shoe. So at the airport, they checked our shoes very carefully, because we fit their profile - one way ticket, bought the ticket within three days, and it was an international flight. The inspector was super friendly, though.

This is the Whakapapanui Stream, in Tongariro National Park. Very beautiful little stream, running through what looked like a volcanic basin.

We stopped for tea at this DC 3 airplane, turned into a cafe. It's advertising a cookie company.

Really neat clouds on the way south.

Wellington is a very scenic city, on the water and with lots of hills.

The famous tree ferns of New Zealand.

The view from our dinner table. We really loved having the back doors open.

We actually got to walk up the organists tower in the Nelson Cathedral and watch her play. Looked like a lot of fun - definately a whole body experience, with all the foot pedal usage.

These kids were playing for money on the street. They were pretty good at it, too, and had a few pieces well worked out.

We stopped and took a walk at the Kawatiri junction that has an old railway tunnel and bridge, no longer in service. One thing that's different here - many, many people (especially kids) walk around with bare feet!

We saw lots of converted Japanese buses used as campers. Also some homemade campers, very interesting looking.

This horse galloped up to us when we stopped, kicking dirt over our heads.

Even though we'd only been here a few days, this is probably the thousandth sheep we saw. They're quite timid, and run away when you stop to take a picture.

Headed over Lewis Pass - the St. James Track tarn area. It was incredibly beautiful, with delicate little trees festooned with moss. The pictures don't do it justice.

The landscape on the way to the east coast. Beautiful.

We took a long walk around the coastline.

On the rocks everywhere was this type of seaweed, like strings of tan pearls.

Fascinating how the rocks layers folded like this.

On the hilltop part of the walk. Lots of electric fencing in New Zealand.

Eric found a cat to pet at the top. I wonder if it sat there just to enjoy the view?

Some large boulders on the beach also had tons of embedded fossil shells

New Zealand has many huge and beautiful hedges to separate fields.

This is Castle Hill - an awesome set of limestone outcroppings on the way to Arthurs Pass.

I had to climb into this little hole.

We spent the night at a pull-off at Lake Pearson. Having the doors open makes me feel like I'm outdoors.

At the village of Arthurs Pass, we relaxed in the campervan a while before braving it out to the visitor center in the pouring rain.

At the old townsite of Goldsborough (old gold-mining town), we found this weka, or wood hen, at the parking lot. It's a common flightless bird.

Mmmmm, fish and chips for lunch. It actually wasn't too appealing. They give massive portions of greasy chips (thick cut frech fries) and very heavily breaded fish.

Further south, in Ross, we did some gold panning at the visitor center. It was a blast, and we actually found a good amount of gold!

The river leading from the glacier was wild and flooded. I don't think anyone could have survived a fall into it.

Lunch at a place called Bruce Bay.

There was a great beach on the bay. No sandflies (or maybe it was too windy for them), wild-looking. No swimming, though.

Lots of rocks that were great for skipping!

Going over Haast Pass - this shy bird is the New Zealand Pigeon

We stopped for the night at a little peninsula on Lake Wanaka.

We did the Diamond Lake Track, close to Wanaka. Very scenic, right on the lake, and great views.

He leans, but doesn't fall! This is a room that was built on a 15 degree angle. Walking through it, I stumbled all the time because my mind was telling me that the floors were level, when they actually weren't.

We finally got through the maze. After lots of walking around, I was getting tired and restarted, turning left only. That worked really well.

We started up the Roaring Meg track. It was a distinct second to yesterday's hikes, because it turns out the old gold-mining relics (old huts, equipment, etc) that we were supposed to see were many, many hours into the hike. This is the valley we walked up.

Tuohys saddle, at the top.

The road over the pass to Arrowtown (another old gold-mining town) was really beautiful.

On the way to Queenstown we stopped around this area to do some goldpanning on the Shotover River (where they do the jet boating).

Riding the gondola up the hill next to Queenstown - to go bungy jumping!

Eric's jumping!

Now it's my turn. Never again, though. It was pretty terrifying.

Driving south we picked up some German hitchhikers.

Grocery stores in New Zealand sell huge tubes of refrigerated dog and cat food!

We drove along the Catlin Scenic Route out of Invercargill. At Waipapa Point there was a shipwreck in the late 1800's that killed about 130 people. Getting friendly with some sea lions here.

The Curio Bay fossilized forest. It was preserved by volcanic activy and mudflows, and is now being exposed by the pounding of the ocean. The short lumps are what remains of tree stumps.

Some snorkelers had found some paua, like abalone. They're edible, plus the inside of the shells are beautifully iridescent.

Cathedral Caves. These were a set of about 6 or 7 awesome massive caves, carved out by the ocean. We weren't able to explore as long as we would have liked, because the tide was coming in. A few days after we were here, 4 people drowned in New Zealand because they stayed out on a reef, collecting seashells, while the tide came in.

There were yellow-eyed penguin nesting in the back of the cave! I guess that means that the tide doesn't come all he way in.

Nugget Point is an isolated spot off a bad road. It's a wild and windy peninsula, with a lighthouse and lots of resident wildlife. We spent some time here watching seabirds trying to take off. A lot of them were thrown back into the sea by the wind.

Eric got a childish kick out of Kaka Point.

The Moeraki Boulders, north of Dunedin, were well worth a detour. They're formed by calcite crystalizing around organic nuclei. It's amazing to see almost perfectly round boulders laying in the sand.

This one is still emerging from the mud cliff.

These poor cows are huddled in the far corner of the field, heads away from the wind.

The old gold mining town of Bendigo/Welshtown has very deep mining shafts. It's not an area that you'd want to let your kids wander around unsupervised - lots of them are uncovered, unlike this one.

Some of the former occupants must have enjoyed some really nice views.

The summit of Mt. Cook. At least we saw it from here, because once we got closer in, we never saw the mountain again.

Lots and lots of speargrass on our hike up the Hooker Valley. Unfortunately, not many views of the mountain.

Mountain Daisy

You'll have to use your imagination here - Mt. Cook would be looming over us in the background if it were clear.

An ostrich farm. They were very curious and trotted right up to us.

We had some bad timing with the weather in Christchurch!

In downtown Christchurch, a Japanese couple is getting married along the scenic Avon river.

At the Canterbury Museum, there's a great display on the Antarctic. These are some of the goggles that were used to prevent snow blindness. Notice the tiny slits to allow light in.

This is the "Wizard of Christchurch". He's an eccentric guy that gives very strange speeches in the square, weekdays regularly at 1 o'clock.

The wizard's car - looks like the front of 2 Volkswagen Bugs welded together.

New Brighton and Sumner from Godley Head, a windy, treeless peninsula with great views.

We took a walk in the suburbs around the motor camp. This little boy showed us his kitten.

Our last day in New Zealand, we took a drive to Akaroa, a town that was originally a French settlement. They had just had serious flooding in town, and were cleaning up.

Eric and a street sculpture.

Our last lunch in New Zealand!

Great views of braided riverbeds and hedges on our flight out of Christchurch.

Coming back, we had superb views of Mt. Rainier.

Map of the route we traveled.

We started in Auckland. Because we lost three days due to illness, we did not see much of the North Island.

The blue line traces our route. Each red dot indicates a location we camped overnight.

After taking a ferry ride, we arrive in Picton, finally ending up in Christchurch.

The North Island

We were supposed to start on the 23rd, and my birthday (the 24th) would have been in the air. Eric set up a little birthday cake, complete with glowstick "candles", because he figured he wouldn't be allowed to bring matches on board. How thoughtful! Since we had to delay the trip because I got sick, I had my birthday cake at home.

Just before we left, some wacko tried to set off a bomb carried in his shoe. So at the airport, they checked our shoes very carefully, because we fit their profile - one way ticket, bought the ticket within three days, and it was an international flight. The inspector was super friendly, though.

Poor guy--had to handle Eric's sneakers! Luckily he had gloves on!

In New Zealand! Holy cow - Eric's driving on the wrong side of the road! The first couple hours were stressful, but he got used to it soon and did a great job driving.

New Zealand is such an incredibly scenic country. This is from just south of Auckland. Apparently they filmed the Hobbit town part of the Lord of the Rings here.

Everyone speaks English, of course, and many things are the same as here. But shopping carts are "trundlers".

This visitor center was in the form of a sheep.

We camped for the night at a "motor camp" next to Lake Taupo. There was a huge volcanic explosion in the late 1800's, and from that lots of pumice laying around. This is a pumice rock floating in the lake - the only rock that floats!

A nice healthy breakfast of oatmeal, apricots and kiwis (cheap!), and yogurt.

We saw this plant everywhere along the side of the road - it's New Zealand Flax. To our eyes it was very beautiful and exotic looking, but it appears to grow everywhere there.

Pampas grass was the same - we saw it everywhere.

This is the Whakapapanui Stream, in Tongariro National Park. Very beautiful little stream, running through what looked like a volcanic basin.

Plants in Tongariro National Park - this is the native mistletoe, which is a favorite of the introduced possums. They put metal sleeves around the trees it grows on, so the possums can't climb up.

This is a fern - it starts out all curled up, then the leaves expand.

The landscape from a little hill at Tongariro. Unfortunately it was clouding up.

There's an area at Tongariro that has these weird mounds. Scientists didn't know what caused them, but now they think that they're part of a debris avalanche from a volcano. This is based on the fact that there are similar formations in Mt. St. Helens in Washington State.

We took the desert road south, on the east side of Tongariro National Park. The mountains never cleared up, unfortunately.

I drove too! Driving on the left sure is disconcerting.

We stopped for tea at this DC 3 airplane, turned into a cafe. It's advertising a cookie company.

Really neat clouds on the way south.

In the town of Paekakariki, just north of Wellington.

An interesting puffy grass along the beach.

In the evening, we got to Wellington.

Some sculptures close to the waterfront.

The Lord of the Rings was playing in all the theaters, of course, since it was filmed in New Zealand. This prop looked pretty authentic, even though it wasn't used in the movie.

In the campground close to Wellington, we needed to dump our graywater. We were told to dump in the stream right next to the campground!

This is also called the New Zealand Christmas Tree, or Pohutokawa, because it blooms bright red around Christmas.

A lot of olders cars are still being used in New Zealand.

In Wellington, one of the office buildings was the "Microsoft House"

We took this cable car up to the top of the hill.

Wellington is a very scenic city, on the water and with lots of hills.

Eric became part of a timepiece here - this is a sundial. It was accurate, too.

There's a botanical garden at the top of the hill. This tree is very common all around New Zealand. It's called the cabbage tree.

Can't remember what this one was called.

Moreton Bay Pine.

The famous tree ferns of New Zealand.

This is the New Zealand Christmas Tree again. It has a very beautiful form.

There's an old colonial cemetery right in the middle of town. As a matter of fact, an expressway goes through it.

This reminded us of Grace and Gary's daughter, Hannah! It's a shoe store, though.

Later on we went to Te Papa, the national museum. This is Eric in the museum cafe, where we had lunch.

Our main impression was that it was overwhelming "politically correct", to the point of not being very interesting. Captions are presented first in Maori, then in English.

Taking the ferry to the South Island. Looks like a cruise ship.

The coastline of the South Island is beautiful.

Arthurs Pass and Fox Glacier

I was interested in looking at some fossils here, so just south of Kaikoura we stopped at a spot where there's supposed to be many, along the beach.

Here's some of what we found.

The fossils were crumbling off this cliff.

Pretty coastline.

Some large boulders on the beach also had tons of embedded fossil shells

I was thinking this might be an old dinosaur bone, in cross section...

A stream going into the ocean ran above the surface for a few feet, then disappeared again.

New Zealand has many huge and beautiful hedges to separate fields.

Our first encounter with speargrass. Very sharp, stiff leaves!

This is Castle Hill - an awesome set of limestone outcroppings on the way to Arthurs Pass.

I had to climb into this little hole.

Eric managed to climb to the top.

This place was so amazing that I had a hard time deciding which pictures to exclude!

This little garden area was enclosed naturally by the rocks.

Steep drops here.

I could have spent days here! Unfortunately it started to rain.

We spent the night at a pull-off at Lake Pearson. Having the doors open makes me feel like I'm outdoors.

Since we weren't really able to see the scenery because of the rain, at least we got a rainbow!

At the village of Arthurs Pass, we relaxed in the campervan a while before braving it out to the visitor center in the pouring rain.

They built a sturdy overpass over an area just beyond the pass with very frequent flooding.

You can't see it very well because of the reflection of the map in the dashboard, but this is a rain spout that goes over the highway. Lots of water coming down it!

We had to stop and wait for road crews to clear away landslides caused by the rain. This happened about 3 times on our way to the west coast.

At the old townsite of Goldsborough (old gold-mining town), we found this weka, or wood hen, at the parking lot. It's a common flightless bird.

Lots of clay along the streambanks.

The Tunnel Terrace walk nearby was cool - lots of old tunnels, gold mining waterworks, and gold tailings.

In Hokitika, we stopped to watch glass figurines being made. Lots of souvenier stores selling glass and jade work.

Mmmmm, fish and chips for lunch. It actually wasn't too appealing. They give massive portions of greasy chips (thick cut frech fries) and very heavily breaded fish.

We took a rest at the library in Hokitika. Most of the little communities here have libraries.

Further south, in Ross, we did some gold panning at the visitor center. It was a blast, and we actually found a good amount of gold!

We also walked around the old waterworks walkway. The waterworks were systems of canals and pipes to bring water to the area where mining was taking place, so that the gold could be panned out of the rest of the dirt. The walkway goes through an old cemetery.

Some old canals.

A reconstructed miners cabin. Pretty lonely, dark place to live!

Old pipes and bridge for the water.

Dinner at the motorcamp at Fox Glacier.

The next morning dawned much clearer at the very wet motorcamp.

Lake Matheson. Apparently you get a really great view of the Fox Glacier from here when it's clear!

At the parking lot for a viewpoint to Fox Glacier, a caravan is having a really hard time getting out. The road actually had a sign saying no caravans, campervans or trucks. We ignored it with our campervan, but it's a lot easier to turn a campervan around.

The river leading from the glacier was wild and flooded. I don't think anyone could have survived a fall into it.

This is as close as we got to Fox glacier.

On the road out, there's a "warm springs"

Visit to Victoria, Saltspring Island, Pender and Gabriola Island. Lots of ferries!

On our first ferry, to Victoria, we saw a sailboat that had floundered on a reef, being salvaged by a crane.

This group from Houston was going to bike around Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. They all had amazing little packable bikes, both tandems and triples.

The Beacon Hill Bed and Breakfast is where we stayed in Victoria. Friendly owner, lots of antiques.

The Empress Hotel, a landmark in towntown Victoria.

The inner harbor, looking over to the parliment.

The breakfast room at the bed and breakfast. This is how I imagine people lived in Victorian times, in houses packed with delicate knick-knacks.

The bed and breakfast was full of antiques. This chair would be a good one to reproduce in miniature.

Leaves of the Garry Oak tree, native to the area. The leaves seemed less chewed up by insects on the Gulf Islands.

Jumping rope with a strand of bull kelp.

There was supposed to be a geocache here. We had no luck in finding it, though.

Seals at the Oak Harbor marina. They were very interested when I pretended to have some fish in my hand for them.

A cloud that looks like it has a rainbow painted across it.

A sidewalk artist drawing his subject. They seemed pretty reasonable - $20 CDN for a decent looking portrait.

This portrait reminded me of my friend Victoria

What a waste of time and energy. This woman had just finished sorting out a bag of garbage at a craft festival, fishing out the plastic bottles from the rest of the trash. I imagine the bottles were probably worth about a tenth of a penny.

We walked around the harbor looking at some of the very impressive boats docked there.

This one had it's own helicopter.

More street life

This guy did an act that combined skateboarding, and balancing with juggling torches. Unfortunately the torches had gone out before he got a chance to juggle them.

An art deco era house.

Eric was very interested in the royal geneology charts at the museum

Found this worm-eaten log on a beach on the way to Port Renfrew.

...also this stone mosaic must have been made that same morning.

and this cute little lady too!

Root of a fallen tree.

Along the beach.

Back at the bed and breakfast - the gardener Bob had planted some very unique ferns there.

On Saltspring Island, looking into an old farmhouse at Ruckle Provincial Park.

Sheep gave us a wide berth on the trail around Ruckle Park.

On our way back to the car, we had a cookie from an unattended farm booth.

The next morning dawned bright and beautiful at the Beddis House bed and breakfast. A very nice place, and very well run. Also, right on the sea.

The shore right in front of the house.

These starfish are very common on the coast here.

We went back to Ruckle park to do a geocache there - the only one on the Gulf islands. We were the first to find it, too.

A petroglyph at Drummond beach park.

There's a studio tour on the island, where you can stop in at various artists at work. We stopped in at one woodworking studio. The most interesting thing there was a little building made of old bottles stuck together with cement.

He also grew and sold trees.

The view from the top of Mt. Maxwell.

At one of the studios in the main town of Ganges, they had taken old childrens jeans, stiffened them somehow, and made them into planters.

Our room at the bed and breakfast.

Looking out to the ocean from the lawn. Great location!

In the afternoon, home baked treats were served.

Down the road was an well maintained estate owned by an eccentric woman who was the heiress to a pharmaceutical fortune. Apparently Saltspring island (which is fairly isolated) wasn't isolated enough for her, so her main residence is at a very isolated island off the west coast of Vancouver island. When she visits this place, she sleeps in a tent.

She owned an orchard and wellhouse across the street from the bed and breakfast, and let the public accss it. This is me in the wellhouse.

A sign posted in Ganges.

An arts and crafts store in Ganges. There were lots of studios in town.

The Salt Spring Island Dollar. They have their own currency there. Apparently accepted in some stores.

This card is similar to the cards my friend Judy makes, but doesn't have the squares cut out of it.

Biking the northen part of Saltspring island. Honestly, it's not a great cycling area. Very hilly, and very little view from the roads.

Vesuvious bay.

Hippies in the park at Ganges.

This fruit was in the supermarket at Ganges. It was labelled a Dragonfruit. I've only seen it once before, at a market in Laos.

The harbor in Ganges.

For dinner we ate at the treehouse cafe. They had open mike night.

The woman in green sang just before we left. She looked as though she's had a hard life.

Sitting out on the chairs in the backyard, watching the boat traffic, was very relaxing.

The bed and breakfast was done up country style, with some antiques, thus the clawfoot tub. I can see why that went out of style - getting in and out is kind of uncomfortable.

Kayaking with Lauren and Coleen, who were also staying at the b & b.

Our guide Matt with a starfish, missing one leg.

Matt also found a sea star (?)for us. Very slimey.

Lauren and Coleen. It was their first time in a kayak, and they did great.

The mud flats that we launched had the most sand dollars that I've ever seen in my life.

On Pender Island.

The view from Oak Bluff on Pender Island. This was the nicest place on the island that we saw. Otherwise there weren't many parks or public areas at all.

The canal between north and south Pender.

Chemianus, town of many murals.

On our way to Nanaimo, we stopped at a bungy jumping place. We spent about 45 minutes watching one woman trying to get up the nerve to jump. She never did.

On Gabriola Island, millstones for crushing wood for paper had been made out of the local stone. We stopped at one of the sites where this was done. It's a strange looking place. Wonder what we would have guessed it was for, if we didn't know about the millstones.

The Malaspina galleries on Gabriola are sandstone rock formations, that look somewhat like waves in the rock.

People had carved their names in the sandstone. After it eroded, it looked as though their names had been carved in relief. I assume that carving the names had compressed the stone right underneath it, and caused it to better withstand erosion.

It's almost scary to stand underneath it - that's a lot of fragile looking rock above you.

This cannonball shaped rock protruding from the sandstone reminded us of the Moeraki Boulders in New Zealand.

More millstones, close to our bed and breakfast. These were the discarded ones.

The view from the backyard of our bed and breakfast.

We had a nice view from our room as well.

The next day we went back to Malaspina Galleries to take pictures in a different light.

Beaches on the north end of Gabriola Island.

Barnacles formed just along the edges of where the stones lifted out from the sand.

Eric looking for crabs at Drumberg beach.

There's a petroglyph site at Gabriola Island. There's supposed to be dozens, and we explored a bit, but never saw anything except what was on the beaten track. Guess we didn't look hard enough.

Some parasitic plants in the woods.

A huge raft of logs being barged off to Nanaimo.

The roads on Gabriola were nice and level, mostly. Like little green tunnels.

Photos from the filming of the movie "Purple Hearts" in the Philippines when Eric was in high school.

Our film career began with being clothed in military garb. My brother Brian is pictured second from the left in the front row, shirtless. To his right is Kenneth Crowe, a good friend of mine at the time. The shirtless guy to Ken's left is Kurt Algayer who lived near my family in Magallanes Village, Makati.

I spent the last two years of high school (1981-1983) living in the Philippines (my father was in the Navy). We lived near Manila and I went to the International School in Manila. During my senior year, the filming of the movie "<a href=http://us.imdb.com/Title?0087956>Purple Hearts</a>" took place in the Philippines. The filming required numerous American military "grunts" (young soldiers) and students from my high school were perfect. <p> Two or three dozen students got crew cuts, makeup and M-16's and spent one to two weeks running around airfields and rice patties looking tough. <p>The movie is not what I would call a masterpiece :-) In fact, I'm not sure it ever really made it into theaters, but I have seen it on TV several times. You can rent it on VHS. Unfortunately, it does not rank enough to make it to DVD yet and because the VHS has an aspect ratio of 4x3, one of my best scenes was pan and scanned out! Bastards! Oh well, perhaps it will make it to letterboxed DVD and I'll get a chance to see my big scene! <p>It did make it to DVD, <a href="/pictures/2010/purpleheartsmovie">see my scenes here</a>. <p>I also got to spend some time talking to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000388">R. Lee Ermey</a> early in his career. Ermey has become one of the most recognized character actors of his time.<br><br> Thanks to Brian for supplying the pictures! <br><br>

Here is one with me. I'm standing right behind Ken.

I spent one week filming at about $25 a day. One day we filmed in a rice patty. We all got M-16's with a cartridge of blanks. This was used in the initial scenes of the movie where there is a fire fight and some of the characters are introduced. M-16's are fun to shoot!

The march to the rice patty.

I got to carry around an M-60 for a while too (not pictured here). Just call me Eric "Rambo" Vasilik. To simulate mortar explosions, the explosives people on the movie soaked chunks of cork in gasoline and ignited them next to us. The explosions were quite convincing!

The guy with red hair is Adam Rice who got a speaking part in the film. I believe that he actually went into the military after high school.

This is Jim Hegarty. We both went to Purdue University after High School.

Here is a shot of most of the extras. I'm standing on the left, Jim is next to me. Ken is at the bottom row on the right.

The big guy to the left is the prop manager. The guy in the middle was not from the high school, but worked as a professional basketball player in the Philippines.

On the first day of shooting, we went to a Philippino Air Force base where barracks were set up. I spent most of the days here in various scenes.

One of the first scenes involved an aircraft landing and wounded being taken off. In the movie, the first long shot of the plane when the doors are first opened, I'm the one sitting behind the doors. This is inside the plane.

I was the first extra to receive makeup on the Air Force set. In my case, evidently a bullet grazed my head!

Adam has wrist problems.

Brian's got it worse on his back!

Notice the tube hanging down which is used to pump blood into the wound.

The movie starred <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0906261/">Ken Wahl</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001440/">Cheryl Ladd</a>.

Brian spent more time on the set and went to another location which I did not.

This was taken at a base in Cavite where my youngest brother, Kevin, was born.

Yes, that is real beer.

Here is the director, Sidney J. Furie. Ask me to tell you the story about when I almost kicked his face in!

Here's one of the posters made for the movie. I bought one of these online and had it framed.

We spent a weekend driving around the Olympic Peninsula, staying overnight at a bed and breakfast in Forks

I just had to get a picture of the Lake Sylvia State Park sign...

I think this was in Aberdeen. It looks like an old high school for which they're going to a lot of trouble to save the fascade. Strange.

At Pacific Beach. This was the first time in a while that we've smelled the ocean - wonderful! You can drive up to this point in your car along the beach.

I climbed on top of a massively huge gnarled rootstock, root side up.

This particular spot is known for the huge burls that the spruce trees are burdened with.

Everywhere you look, the trees had massive tumors bulging out.

The coast

We brought some lunch, and ate at the top of the cliff.

The stones at this beach were ideal for skipping. Unfortunately there was a really steep bank, and heavy surf, so it wasn't easy to skip stones.

Squinting into the sun next to my cairn

At often-photographed Ruby Beach

Eric jumping streams and fording rivers

Eric writes in the sand

These sea caves reminded me of the ones we saw in New Zealand

Eric took a surreptitious picture of a lady at the beach doing headstands

At the Hoh Rain Forest. The air was very damp and cold there, even though it had been sunny everywhere else, and carpets of moss covered most visible objects.

This is called a nurse log - where many saplings grow in a line, having derived their nutrients from a large fallen tree that then disappears.

Sunset through the trees

We stayed at the Miller Tree Inn Bed and Breakfast, with very friendly hosts Bill & Susan Brager

At Lake Crescent. We stopped here to take this picture because I have a very <a href=http://www.ericandsylvia.com/pictures/2000/04-22-2000?medium=dsc00020.jpg>similar one</a> taken from the same spot, 3 years ago.

At Fort Worden, an old pre-World War I fort with many abandoned concrete bunkers. It stretches over many acres - you could spend days wandering around here. Unfortunately, we forgot our flashlight.

Here's a map of the fort. Most people only visit the area right next to the road, but there's much more there.

Eric sitting in his throne (actually some modern art, we found later).

We met a guy who was taking large format photos, using a camera that I've only ever seen in photos.

This is what he was photographing.

Climbing up the ladders that were everywhere.

There were funny round lumps of minerals all over the ground. They came from stalactites in the ceiling

The old military jail.

The inside of the mortar batteries. We were going to walk around the loop inside, even without a flashlight (it was pitch dark) but stopped after I stepped into one of the drain holes you see on the floor.

Fort Worden from the hill.

On our way home

A bike ride in Renton, then we go crazy taking pictures because we got a new camera (Canon Powershot S45)!

Biking under the I-405 underpass. We were on the Cedar River Trail, which is pleasant only if you don't go along the section that parallels the Maple Valley Highway.

We stopped by the Renton Historical Museum - used to be a fire station

Talked to the friendly ladies selling tickets. They have a really old cash register there.

Along the way to Lake Washington was an exercise. I found to my chagrin that I can't do the monkey bars anymore - and I used to be a champion on them when I was a kid! I guess I lost too much upper body strength.

And now - pictures taken with the new camera! Eating breakfast at the Maltby Cafe, where you don't get a plate, you get a trough.

Their cinammon roll was about the size of a dinner plate.

Went to a cat show in Monroe. There was judging going on all the time. It wasn't really a place where you could pet a lot of cats, though - lots of them had "please don't touch" on their cages.

We were able to pet this one. Now this was a funny looking cat.

The finalists

Saw this book laying around. Now that's something I've never seen before

After the cat show, we went to an RV show. Someday we'll own one of these suckers.

We headed straight for the Airstreams, my favorites. I'm not sure they're worth the extra money, though. Plus, they don't seem to be as efficient at using space.

This airstream was cool and retro.

Still, I think they emphasized style over funcionality. For instance, they wasted about 3 inches of potential storage space in the bottom of these cabinets in order to have built-in counter lighting.

Various interiors

The van conversions were pretty cool.

Some were just way too luxurious - with full refrigerators, fancy bathrooms, full size TVs, fake fireplaces, etc.

This "Cozy Cruiser" was interesting looking, but I can't say I think it's a whole lot better than a tent.

A mini-hike in Cougar Mt. State Park.

Lots of old shafts and coal-mining equipment left there.

Juggling pictures

Ilana and Steve came over for dinner.

Ilana started to learn how to juggle, too.

Deception Pass, Fort Casey, Langley

Good view of the mountains on the way north

At Deception Pass State Park

Looking over the cliff's edge

Bull kelp waving in the water

At Fort Ebey - our first time there. These fortifications were from 1942 according to the signs, unlike most of the forts in this area which were from before WWI.

There were inside rooms that were fairly well-preserved - still had linoleum on the floor!

Neat cliffside walk

I was pissed at having to pay a $5 parking fee at the state parks - state parks that we've already paid for with our taxes. If there were no state taxes, then fine, I'd be happy to pay for parking, but that's not the case.

At Fort Casey

A former bridge right outside of Fort Casey.

We went to Langley, hoping to participate in the Langley Mystery Weekend - a who-dunnit murder mystery, spread over a weekend. Unfortunately, we arrived pretty late - there's lots of clues to gather, and we only had an hour with which to do it, so we just walked around and saw the sights. This woman was a suspect in the murder, and was out and about, giving people hints.

The site of the "murder"

Another suspect.

Went to an exhibition put on by the Washington Prospectors Association in Monroe - very interesting.

A gold-panning demo

Some of the many tools you can buy to help you find gold

This device uses water to flush away non-gold particles.

A portable dredge and the inventor

Metal detectors were popular as well

We went to a talk given by a man who'd been on a gold-prospecting tour of Cambodia, back when the civil war was still raging. Some very interesting stories.

Some homemade prospecting devices

This device uses magnets to remove the black metalic sand from the gold

Panning for gold

Green Lake was very crowded - we took a walk there with Kristen.

This guy was unicycling with his daughter

We attend Brett and Victoria's 10th anniversary celebration in Las Vegas

Outside Treasure Island, where we stayed - after Eric confirmed that "Lost Wages" is indeed a good nickname from Las Vegas.

Inside the fake outside at the Venetian

And the fake gondolas...

And a fake Pavarotti!

Nothing is what it seems...a live "statue"

Brett and Victoria dressed to kill

In the limo on the way to the Elvis Chapel

A smooth stylin' Elvis!

After they renewed their vows

The whole crowd in front of the Elvis Chapel

And in the limo

At the Hotel Casino Orleans, where we went for a show afterwards.

The show, the Ba-Da Bing, was fun and very interactive - to the point of having us all come up and sing! These are some of the actors

This was my singing part

Brett and Victoria with some of the actors

Pam and David

The white tiger at one of the casinos, pacing back and forth

Playing video poker by the book. We actually did well at that, in contrast to the blackjack.

The water display at the Bellagio

The crowd gathered to see the pirate display at Treasure Island

A ship sinks...

Debbie after her big win at the airport

On the flight out (after a 3 hour delay). Lots of neon!

We watched robots designed by high school teams from all around the country compete with each other, at the FIRST Robotics competition.

The setup. It looked like the object was to knock the stacks of plastic bins over, and push them into your opponents territory.

In action

Prepping for another match

Referees conferring over a close call

An additional object of the competition was for the robots to end up in the white area in the middle, and not allow other robots to get there.

A close-up of some of the robots.

We did a geocache (first in about 4 months) at the University of Washington afterwards. It was a wetlands area we'd never been to before.

Contents of the geocache

Babysitting for Steve and Ilana on Sunday. Eric is holding Marina, and I'm holding Benjamin.

We went agate hunting with Brian Pendleton, at his friends Pat and Shirley's place

Digging up the stream searching for agates.

Eric in the middle of a shovel-full.

Brian and his sons Daniel and David had fun building dams in the stream.

An agate with the sun shining through it.

Dinner later on that night

Daniel juggling the clubs we brought.

Dinarte took some friends out to the Herbfarm restaurant for his birthday. We were camera-less, so these pictures are from Tom and Lisa.

The Herbfarm is one of the best restaurants in the Seattle area, specializing in Northwest cuisine.

These are probably the fanciest, most complex table settings that I've seen

The menu

Appetizer

The fish course (halibut) was one of my favorites

Duck breast

The salad course, with a very tasty goat cheese

Desert consisted of multiple mini servings - a funky jello dish, tasty huckleberry cobbler, and maple flan

A post-desert "little treats" dish.

Dinarte opening presents

Dinarte and John

Some brandy from 1889

We finally got our Canon Elph S400! So far it's been great. Took a walk in Kirkland, hung out with Steve and Ilana and the babies, brunch with Rich and Jane and Ana, then visited an AIA open home.

Waterfront in Kirkland.

Eric pretending to be a statue

Feeding Marina

And Benjamin

And once again...

Rich and Jane with Ana

At Marymoor park

The macro capability seems pretty good

The AIA (architect designed) open house in West Seattle.

The owners must collect old cameras

I'd love an office like this

There was also a spare room type building, separate from the main house.

A little cubby hole for the kids

Judy and Sally were in Seattle for a week, so I went to see them. Sally is so cute! Also went with Steve and Ilana to the semi-annual Mill Creek Garage Sale.

Some houses around the Lincoln Park area

Judy's niece Erin

Sally playing on the couch, after a 4 hour nap.

Judy and Sally

Sally just said a new word!

On the porch

With Steve and Ilana at the Mill Creek Garage Sale. It seems as though almost every third house is having a garage sale - it's a great time for it, since you don't need to advertise. Everyone knows that on the first Saturday in May, there's a huge garage sale here. Marina and Benjamin on a golf cart

Marina poses for a cheesecake shot

Out shopping

Eric's brother Kevin and his girlfriend Petra came for a visit on Memorial Day weekend

They went for a hike on their own on Friday, up Tiger Mountain. This a view of the Olympics from the top

Kevin

Petra

At the Pike Place Market

Taking the monorail (a first for them, and for me too!)

A street performer (in orange) at the Folklife Festival

Watching street performers

This was a little weird - some kind of sound therapy?

This little juggler was performing for money. Technically he was fine, but the showmanship wasn't there yet. I gave him some money anyway.

On the ferry

At Fort Casey

Deception Pass

All of us

Picnic at Newcastle Beach Park with Steve and Ilana. We couldn't find an open grill, and forgot the buns, but Ilana found space on someone else's grill, and I was given some bread after wandering around looking forlorn, so it turned out well.

Steve and Ilana taking off (they got to the park via kayak as well)

Assorted June pictures

Gary and Eric headed off on a bike ride on Tiger Mtn.

With Steve and Ilana and babies at Chism beach park

Hmmm...showing just a little.

Lotsa skin here!

Rented a double kayak around the Mercer Slough area. It was a little small for Eric.

Eric went to San Jose for a conference. His hotel room...

Eric's company did an overnight trip to Whidbey Island. Much fun was had by all.

A trip to Vashon Island

There was a serious catepillar infestation there. They were all over the place, even on the beach.

This dog kept on bringing us balls to throw.

Lots of cute, very distinct houses.

Some kind of shipping antenaes

Someone put a collection of exercise equipment on the side of the road here, as something like modern art...

The Fremont Fair - always a favorite! We went with Steve and Ilana and the babies. This booth was selling the coolest converted kitchen utensils/hats.

Marina likes to feel the beard!

This guy was eating mealworms for money - $1.

A plant shop on the way - very interesting carnivorous plants

A demonstration of fire making with a bow drill

A protest of some sort...couldn't quite figure it out.

A trip to Orcas Island - the ferry terminal area in Anacortes

In Eastsound, Orcas Island. These are typical of the types of shops there

Only in the San Juans!

Crossing over to Indian Island, right off Eastsound - it's only accessible at low tide, and even then you're likely to get your feet wet.

In the island history museum

Some new cottage style houses were being built close to Eastsound. Seemed pretty expensive for what you were getting - starting at 229K.

Stopped at a viewpoint on the way up to Mt. Constitution - there were more dragonflies than I've ever seen anywhere. Hard to get a picture of them.

Awesome views from the top of Mt. Constitution. This is Mt Baker.

To the left is Cypress Island.

On top of the lookout tower.

This full grown dog was being carried around. It weight only 2.5 lbs.

Around Eastsound.

The owner of the bed and breakfast we stayed at, the Double Mountain Bed and Breakfast...

...which had the most amazing views!

Right next door is a very interesting art gallery, that makes wind-driven art. Fascinating stuff.

This one was 24,5000 dollars.

Leaving Orcas. We checked just to see how long the wait was for the next ferry, thinking we wouldn't have a problem coming along in an hour or so, and ended up barely making it.

These pygmy goats were very interested in eating blackberry shoots

A weekend trip to Orcas Island - we stayed in a bed and breakfast with an awesome view!

Waiting for the ferry in Anacortes.

Eastsound, the big town on Orcas Island

Bet you don't see very often

Doesn't look like it's been used recently, though

Interesting houses in this area

The lady at the local historical museum was quite friendly

Beds were tiny back then!

Old camera equipment

We saw these houses being built which remind me of those small cottage houses in Langley. I don't think these were as well designed, though.

Pictures can't do justice to the views off Mt. Constitution. You can see Mt. Baker here.

Hanging out on Mt. Constitution

This is the smallest grown dog I think I've ever seen

The owner of the bed and breakfast

Right next door to the bed and breakfast was an artist studio with some very intersting pieces that moved in any kind of breeze.

While waiting for the ferry, we fed these pygmy goats some blackberry bushes, which the went wild for.

Picnics, parties, fireworks

Rod and Shannon had a July 4th party - what a great view of the fireworks! Assorted party photos.

Dinarte

Chuck

Gary and Colton

Rod, Shannon and Bobby

Ellen Schneider and her baby Lilly. Lilly should be in a diapers commercial somewhere!

And the grand finale...

Breakfast at Steve and Ilana's with Laura and Randy. Steve is "flipping out".

At the Milk Carton Derby. We were a little late for most of the races, but we still got to see many of the entries

Our first time at Derby Days, Max's Birthday party, the Street of Dreams, etc.

Record crawl for Benjamin!

For the first time ever for both of us, we went to the Redmond Derby days. Dave Bau came with as well. Lots of kids on bikes, and all kinds of floats as well.

Max with his cake

Off to the Street of Dreams with Rod and Shannon. We got there pretty early - later on it was packed.

The houses were nice, but also very similar to one another.

I thought this was kind of funny...they have a book entitled "The Not So Big House" in this huge mansion.

A hammered copper tub

Dinarte and John took Eric out for his birthday at the Barking Frog. David Bau came with us too.

Dinarte and John's cat was so matted that they had it trimmed off in a lion style. Very snazzy.

With Steve and Ilana and the babies at our new house

Eric encouraging Benjamin with a measuring tape.

We visited the Lucases on Whidbey Island

Lunch on the back porch

Rachael and her friend show us their sea treasures.

Taking a walk on the beach

Terry, going out to check on the crabpot. Eric took the picture through the binoculars.

It was a little more difficult than expected, but he did get some nice crabs.

Happenings in August

At a football game with Dinarte and John

Steve and Ilana with Benji and Marina, at Ilana's birthday BBQ

Marina laughing

Eric and Sylvia Juggling

Eric and I brought juggling clubs.

Marina clicking sounds

Deception Pass/Ebey State Park with Steve and Ilana.

BEA Company picnic, baby showers, trip to Oregon coast, football game, trip to Mt. Rainier

We met the Lucases at the BEA Company picnic

Not all that many people showed up, but we had fun anyway.

Terry and Sue Lucas

They had a pig show - an adaption of "The Three Little Pigs". The pigs were new, and weren't all that well trained yet.

Dave Remy and his daughter in the hayride.

There was a corn maze, in the shape of the state of Washington, with paths through it that followed the major highways of Washington. Interesting, but kind of tiring for me.

Eric found a loveable cat to play with.

Ilana threw me a wonderful baby shower!

We painted onesies with fabric paint.

In Seaside, Oregon

We stayed at this bed and breakfast, the <a href="http://www.guesthousebedandbreakfast.com">Guesthouse B&B</a> in Seaside. One of the friendliest bed and breakfasts we've been to.

Ecola State Park

The little islets are covered with bird guano. Eric took this through the binoculars.

The Tillamook cheese factory was a blast!

Cheese Factory

You get to see inside into the packaging plant. Very interesting.

The Octopus tree

The Rams vs. the Seahawks. These pictures are taken through a pair of binoculars

Spying on people on the other side of the field is half the fun.

It was a sold out game

Tom and Lisa

Dinarte and John

One of the cameramen

We took a day trip to Mt. Rainier. Superb weather - too bad I wasn't up for much in terms of hiking! Some cool volcanic rock formations

From this angle you can actually see the peak. We were able to spot people on the top, with our binoculars. It's pretty difficult to see in this photo

I had a hard time crouching down to look through the binoculars!

Lunch around Mirror Lake. A guy who came by said he'd seen a bear just up the trail. We tried looking for the bear, but then decided it probably wasn't a great idea and turned back.

Because it's been so dry, the mountain had less snow than I've ever seen.

Holly came for a visit with Daven; hanging out with Steve, Ilana, Marina and Benji at Remlinger Farm

Holly and 3 month old Daven

Holly and 3 month old Daven.

Eric tries on the Boppy that Holly gave us.

Daven is very cute!

Benji

Playing around with a big metal mixing bowl

Playing around with a big metal mixing bowl

At Remlinger Farms - plenty of photo ops!

Benji and Marina celebrated their first year of life with lots of cake, friends, and relatives!

Since they were born in the year of the horse, the theme was Chinese. Plus, they had such cute outfits from Chinatown in San Francisco.

Steve making a goofy face for the camera

Evie with the babies

There were a total of 7 (yes, that's right - seven) cakes!

The kids had lots of fun gettin messy with the cakes!

The kids had lots of fun gettin messy with the cakes!

After playing with the cakes

Marina festooned with ribbons from the presents.

Steve took a nice picture of me...

It's a boy! Our first child is born.

During labor, a machine monitors the baby's heart beat and mommy's contractions. His heart rate is 139 beats/min and the 69 indicates that Sylvia is in the middle of a contraction.

Here are the two plotted against each other. Notice that his heart rate goes down during a contraction, and recovers after it. (Heart rate on top, contraction pressure on the bottom).

Shortly after he is born (10:57 AM, Sunday October 26, 2003), he is weighed. 8 pounds, 6.6 ounces. 20 1/2 inches long.

Sylvia (Mommy!) is happy it's over!

Eric (Daddy!) is pretty happy himself.

Do you see a <a href=http://www.ericandsylvia.com/pictures/EricFamily?medium=img_031.jpg>resemblance</a>? I do!

"Breastfeeding is painless" -- NOT!

Lot's of friends came to visit. Terry and Sue Lucas. <a href=http://www.ericandsylvia.com/pictures/friends?medium=theburds.jpg>Grace Colton and Gary Burd</a> also visited (I didn't get a picture of them:-)

Ilana Long.

Shannon and ...

Rod Chavez.

Steve (the big one), Benjamin and Marina Blatt (Steve's married to Ilana)

Ready to go home!

The whole <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=family"><b>Family</b></a>!

How to swaddle!

We get a lesson in swaddling from one of the wonderful nurses at Overlake Hospital.

Our first few days at home with Kenneth

Trying to get Kenneth to burp after a feeding.

He'd rather go to sleep ...

... or, have more!

Kenneth will soon get used to the clicking and tapping of keyboards.

He has big hands for a newborn.

Playing with our new son at home

Things to do with a milk drunk child

Kenneth's first visit to a park!

Chillin' at home

Kenny's first bath! We used a special infant tub that Gary and Grace gave us.

Even more pictures of Kenny.

Kenny looking at his reflection

Kenny waking up from a nap.

Ilana holding Kenny

Gary and Kenny

At the Bellevue Downtown Park

Nursing in semi-pubic is awkward

At Zoopas with the Blatts

Next door neighbor Bonnie with her son Jacob

Trying out the baby carrier

Trying out the baby carrier

Ken and Ann Vasilik come for an extended Thanksgiving visit

Eric changing a diaper

Kenny on playpad

Ann and Kenny

Kenny waking up on bouncy chair

Eric burping Kenny

Ken and Ann holding Kenny

Sylvia is looking a little bleary from lack of sleep

Little Kenny seems pretty happy while taking his bath

Father and son

Ann, Ken and little Kenny

Burping Kenny

At the Ballard Locks - the first time in a long time that Ken has pushed a baby carriage.

One of the locks was emptied for a yearly inspection

Ann made some wonderful dinners

Ken worked on annotating some of the slides that Eric scanned.

Ann with the Thanksgiving turkey

Visiting the new house - now being renovated

At Kelsey Creek Park

Thanksgiving dinner

Eric and Kenny napping at Terry and Sue Lucas' house on Whidbey Island

Ilana and Steve visiting

Kenny in the magic swing - it always seems to calm him down

Eric and Ken at the Pacific Science Center - there was model train exposition

Left to right - Kenneth Eric Vasilik, Kenneth Alois Vasilik, Kenneth John Vasilik

Posing with Kenny, and an outing to Green Lake

Benji and Marina walking outside

Kenny playing on his playpad

Kenny smiles

Kenny wakes up

Eric teachs Kenny to suck his thumb

Kenny snoring

Dinarte with Kenny

Steve and Eric and the kids at Green Lake

Marina is wearing impromptu mittens made of socks

Feeding Benji and Marina

Benji and Marina walk outside with shoes for the first time

Kenny grins in his stroller

Rod's 40th birthday party - Rod and Shannon gettin' down

Kenny and Daddy sleeping

Trying to take a Christmas picture with Kenny in a Santa suit - he hated it

This is what we ended up with

Jean feeding Kenny

Eric comes back from a business trip

We did a photo session with Kenny. Such fun!

We take an outing with Kenny to Rattlesnake Lake - first time we've used the baby jogger

Indulging at Todai before starting a "lose the baby weight" diet starting the New Year. The deserts are great - even the green tea/bean cake

At Rattlesnake Lake

Kenny was well bundled up

Preparing to fiord a little stream

We visit North Carolina for Kenny's first Christmas

Ken showing Kenny his new Train (Ken's train)

Ann demonstrating her apple peeling device

Eric and Kenny at the SeaTac airport

Kenny fell asleep almost immediately, confounding sourpusses sitting behind us who expressed dismay at having a baby nearby.

A great view of Lake Washington and Mercer Island

Looks like an lake of clouds.

Eric the Sherpa

At Eric's parents house in Asheville

Kenny in his Christmas suit

Ann decorating the tree

Kevin and Petra doing a crossword puzzle

Ann making lasagna

Kevin, Petra, Brian, Sylvia and Kenny

Kenny's a long baby for being 2 months old!

Lots of presents!

Kenny and the Christmas tree

The best present this year wasn't wrapped

We also dressed Kenny up in a Santa suit

Dinner

And a surprise birthday cake and presents!

Christmas day brunch was eggs benedict

We found a good use for old bows

Did a geocache at the University of Asheville using Sylvia's new GPS. Kenny was very bundled up because it was freezing!

Found it!

Ken set up his new train set around the tree

Kenny is happy!

Kevin, Brian and Petra working on a jigsaw puzzle

Christmas dinner

Kevin holds Kenny

We went to the Gingerbread house display at the Grove Park Inn. Here's some of my favorites

Cheese-it rooftop - yummy!

A shredded wheat thatch roof

Asheville Monopoly

Brian drawing a caricature of Petra at the Grove Park Inn

We did another geocache the next day - one that takes you to all the landmarks of downtown Asheville

Taking inventory of Ann Vasilik prints

The Ann Vasilik booth at an art store

Ann donated a hand-painted apron as part of a fundraiser for many downtown businesses

The end of the geocache!

Making apple pie

Ken wants to introduce Kenny to trains early!

Visiting at my Mom's house.

Kenny's cousin Natasha, and Juanita holding cousin Conrad.

Natash demonstrates her new sweater.

Ann making some photos to paint from

A picnic spread

We stopped in Sylva just to get a picture of Sylvia in Sylva!

The Sylva courthouse

Ann drawing a portrait of Eric on my palm pilot

Visiting Tom

An interesting land formation on the flight home - don't know what it is

We spend 6 days driving around northern Arizona.

First day - first saguaro cactus sighting

Instead of the compact car we'd reserved, we ended up with this minivan at no extra charge. Pretty convenient.

Our first stop was the archeology experiment/commune of Arcosanti, started in the early 70's and still being worked on. We took a little tour with a woman who lived and worked there.

This is a model of the current and planned version of Arcosanti. What's currently built is outlined in black string.

They sell a lot of ceramic goods, as well as brass. These particular things are ceramic time capsules, which will be embedded into a wall - the white pipe thing is meant to be filled with artifacts.

An open air area. If I understood correctly, these were built by piling up huge mounds of dirt, and then pouring concrete over it.

The tour guide (on the right) explaining the history of the place.

One of the earliest structures built.

It was set in a beautiful area, with canyons behind it

Not many people lived there permanently, and even fewer children. Apparently there was a serious accident recently involving a very young girl falling off one of the concrete structures.

The theater area

Some of the apartments must have a great view.

The foundry where they make their most profitable souvenirs - brass hanging chimes. We were lucky enought to see them actually pouring hot brass into the molds.

It was fascinating to watch, but also seemed very labor intensive, and unsafe - like something you'd find in the third world. Here they're pouring molten brass into one of the molds.

Finishing off the brass. Already it's lost a lot of its heat - note the color is much darker.

Some of the chimes, for sale in the gift shop.

At the Montezuma's Castle National Monument, a set of ruins. Apparently most of it is still original.

We met a man there who dressed up like Lincoln. We saw him and his wife at a few other parks as well.

Lots of beautiful grasses in Arizona.

And cactuses, of course.

Cooling my feet in a reconstuctred old irrigation ditch, at Montezuma's Well.

In the old copper mining town of Jerome.

At the Flying Eagle Bed and Breakfast, in Clarkdale. Very nice place, peaceful and out of the way.

The innkeeper, Inger.

At a local chapel with a very good view. They had lots of exotic cactuses around.

Hiking around Sedona. We borrowed a book from Inger on hiking in this area that turned out very useful.

This area here was supposed to be a "vortex", which is some kind of energy field, new age thing. I don't understand it very well.

Prickly pear cactus fruits.

Beautiful yucca plants.

Living in Sedona would certainly make it very easy to get out and hike - this beautiful area was only about a 10 minute drive out of town.

Eating lunch at a local campground. We attempted another hike here, but it fizzled quickly.

These jeeps, and ones like them, were all over the area, doing tours.

We may not have seen the right area, but overall, downtown Sedona didn't impress me - just tons of tourist shops, along both sides of the road.

The Fay Canyon trail was beautiful - also we hiked it in the late afternoon/evening, when the light was very good

These funny looking plants were all over the place - I think it was a saprophyte.

Hiked up to an arch/ruin. Neither were very impressive, but the view was great from there.

At the end of the trail. Lots of these lizards around.

Taking a drive on a scenic loop, we came across some members of a camera club from New Jersey, who were taking a trip out here specifically oriented towards photography. It was fun watching them lug their equipment around.

They did pick a great spot, though.

Had some messy but tasty ribs at the Haunted Hamburger in Jerome.

Breakfast at the Flying Eagle

Later on we went to a national forest northweset of Flagstaff, where there was a lava cave.

We had a rude surprise when we turned on our (one) flashlight, and realized that it was very weak. We didn't go in very far, because we didn't want to get stuck in the dark. This ice was within about 10 feet of the entrance

Eating lunch at the Grand Canyon.

We went to park ranger lead talk on the geology of the area.

Mule deer were right outside the door of our motel

Lots of canyon pictures coming up!

A heavily traveled trail to the canyon bottom

At the famous El Tovar lodge

Feeding some of the pack mules that carry people down into the canyon.

This was as close as Eric wanted to get.

Driving east along the rim of the canyon.

Got a good view of the river.

After leaving the Grand Canyon, you're immediately in an indian reservation. There was a long row of stands, selling poor quality souvenirs, to walk past before they'd let you get to the view of the Little Colorado River...

...which actually was completely dry!

Saw one of the smallest camper trailers I've seen.

At the Wupatki National Monument. Lots and lots of ruins there - at certain locations, you can see 11 ruins on nearby hills.

Felt pretty herded at a lot of points on this trip - especially in the national parks and monuments, you're very limited in where you can go, what you can do. There's tons of signs similar to this. I don't believe this was even a revegetation area - they just wanted people to stay out of it.

Spotting ruins in the distance.

Volcanic rock at the Sunset Crater National Monument. Vey rough stuff.

Stayed the night at the La Posada hotel in Winslow, Arizona. It was right next to the railroad tracks, and was a very posh hotel back when rail travel was popular. A few years ago it underwent a major expensive renovation.

Winslow is famous for a mention in the Eagles song "Take it Easy". The town council put up this statue of the singer, plus a mural of the "girl in a flatbed Ford" mentioned in the song.

The only clouds we saw were condensation trails from jets.

At the Petrified Forest National Park. Interesting, but this is another one of those parks where you're hounded and herded, and told exactly where you can and can't go. The painted desert

Beautiful yucca plant

They let you view petroglyphs - from about 50 feet away.

You can see the bark/wood differentiation pretty well on this one.

At the visitors center were posted many letters from people who had picked up a piece of petrified wood, and sent it back later, conscience stricken, after attributing a string of horrible disasters to it. Here's one of the worst.

On our way to Globe, we passed this fire.

The drive down the highway towards Globe was stunning.

The next day we drove back to Phoenix along Highway 88 - another very beautiful drive, only partly paved. I'd like to grow this grass as an ornamental

Damn on the Salt River.

Blooming saguaro cactus

The pedestrian mall area in Scottsdale. I've never seen this many galleries.

Cute cactuses.

We drove around the Paradise Valley area, a very expensive neighborhood. Some of the more interesting houses

It gets hot in Phoenix!

After a long search, we find a house in Somerset.

Photo sessions with Kenny, snow day, a walk at Cougar Mountain State Park, and baby group pictures

Kenny talks

Kenny lifts his head

Kenny focuses on toys

Kenny is Happy

Kenny meets a friend

Kenny rolls over

Kenny rolls over on the other side

Kenny grabs things

Setting up to take some photos

Kenny is starting to lift his head up when he's on his tummy.

We got 3 or 4 inches of snow on the 6th, and took a walk around our neighborhood

Kids were using the hill to sled down

Out with Kenny in the jogger stroller at Cougar Mountain State Park - we did some steep trails

The Claytons came for a visit

Audrey and Kenny are only a month or so apart.

Anna climbing on top of Jane

Ilana took this picture of Kenny

Playing with photos made with candlelight

I had taking tons of photos of Kenny, using the principles in Nick Kelsh's book How to Photograph Your Baby. Basically, turn off your flash, get close up, and take lots of pictures. These are the best of almost 200 (thank goodness for digital cameras!)

Kenny participated in an infant hearing study at the University of Washington Infant Hearing Lab. He earned $30 for doing the study!

More photo shoot pictures...this time using a lamp

Fishing for babies with a pacifier

We had a window replaced that was leaking.

Kenny is grabbing things left and right now!

Eating out with Kenny

Kenny really enjoyed watching the Baby Einstein Galileo DVD...we set him up with his own entertainment center here.

For the first time, we dressed him up in real clothes instead of playsuits. He looks like such a big boy! What a hassle to dress him, though.

Batting away at toys in the bouncy seat

We had a baby play group here, and took pictures of the moms and babies.

We took a weekend trip to San Diego

Our hotel room in San Diego at Holiday Inn (it was part of a package deal)

The entrance at the San Diego Zoo

At the flamigo garden

Langurs

The orangutans were so entertaining to watch!

This bird was uncaged (in an aviary)

Kenny has on a cute sun hat!

Meerkat

These are the doors to the elephant cage - very sturdy!

This elephant was doing a little dance in front of the door, making the same movements over and over

Elephant toys

They fed the elephants while we were there. Seems like they really enjoy eating smaller tree branches.

For some reason the giraffes were licking this piece of metal

Feeding the water birds. The zookeeper had to constantly use a hose to keep the unwanted birds (mallards) away from the food.

They had some very handy inclined walkways to go up and down hills

Kenny amongst the gorillas

A little girl getting up close and personal with a gorilla

At Torrey Pines Gliderport

Driving to the Mexican border, we noticed the high fence along the highway

At Avenida de la Revolution, the main tourist strip in Tijuana.

They had these little booths set up on every street corner, where you could have your picture taken with painted mules

Also on every street corner - pharmacies, selling all kinds of drugs that you need a prescription for in the US. They were the one type of business that didn't try to solicit you as you walked by - I guess for a pharmacy to do that seems a little sleazy.

Taking a taxi in Tijuana

We had lunch at a very authentic looking restaurant called La Fonda de Roberto, no tourists, with the menu only in Spanish. The food was great and very different from the Mexican food you get here, the waiter was very friendly. That's why we were so disappointed when they tried to rip us off, by adding up 120 and 80 on the bill and coming up with 280. It's hard to believe that it was an honest mistake.

Eric had something I believe was called Dedos de Montezcuma. It was reminded me of a fried seed stalk, and was very unusual to eat. Definately something to try.

This is what it looks like before cooking

They shaped the rice into hearts, since it was so close to Valentines Day. At a local market

All kinds of orange colored pasta

Candy for the pinatas was a big seller

Mexican sweets - sugar saturated fruits and vegetables

In the US, grocery stores always used to have a section of cheap, bagged up old fruits and vegatables. They haven't had it for about 10 years or so - I guess we've become too prosperous and people don't want to buy them anymore. However, this Mexican grocery store still has them.

It's a good thing we walked back across the border - the wait to drive back was long

The border

In Ocean Beach

Hanging out in Coronado

This is the famous Hotel Del Coronado. Very nice grounds - great place to feed Kenny and change a diaper or two.

The Dragon Tree - used as a backdrop to the movie Some Like It Hot

A very friendly guy came up to us and offered to take a photo

They were about to have a wedding here at the hotel

These flowers (bird of paradise?) are quite common in San Diego.

The houses in Coronado, though they may look modest, cost in the millions

Driving up 101, we stopped in the little town of Del Mar. They had a public plaza with a great view, which had (get this!) a couch! We hung out there for quite a while, it was very comfortable. Kenny got to do some tummy time, too.

We had Kenny in the snuggli for a walk on the beach - he did okay.

This guy had a kite-powered little go-cart

The Self Realization Fellowship has a very nice garden that's open to the public

Anna's birthday party, a trip to Bainbridge Island. Okay, so there's a lot of Kenny pictures too - so sue me!

Kenny is ticklish

Kenny on his exersaucer

Kenny "stands"

Kenny plays with Daddy

Anna's birthday party at the Children's Musuem. There was lots of food!

Baby talk

This was Kenny's first party! It hasn't quite sunk in yet.

Kenny asleep on my chest - how sweet!

Bonnie and Jacob

Kenny's pulling my hair!

Out in the park with Anna and Zoe

Kenny likes to pretend he's an airplane (at least, Mommy does!)

Samuel

Valentines day

A sunny day in February - must get out! We took the ferry to Bainbridge Island.

Great view of the Olympics

Walking through a very nice neighborhood to get to Fort Ward park. I had to get a picture of the palms with the Olympics in the background.

The old gun battery

Kenny photo shoot

Good name for a road, Eric thinks...

At Fay Bainbridge State Park

Picnic in the park

All bundled up

With Marina at the water

Kenny's starting to sit up!

Marina feeding Benji

Mini sailboats being towed

Ilana and Marina

Next to us were some women doing a photo shoot revolving around skimpy clothing and barbies

Eric likes cats, so we checked out a cat show at the Seattle Center

Lots of unusual cats!

This cat needed a bib to drink, otherwise apparently she absorbs water like a sponge and then when she eats dry catfood it gets very messy.

Cat shows can be exhausting!

These cats have more grooming accessories than I do...

They actually have moistened wipes especially for cats!

The competition

At the Seattle Center

Walks and hikes in early March - also Kenny starts solids!

Kenny sits up

Kenny laughs

Kenny sits up some more

Kenny stands

Kenny eats his first solids

Kenny in his exersaucer

Kenny listens to music

Kenny and Jake

Kenny eats some more

Kenny likes his octupus toy

And his monkey!

Kenny with neighbor Jake, only 6 weeks older

At Purim

Kenny's first feeding!

The Bau's came for a visit