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Garden Glass
This large disk of colored glass fragments decorated the Painter’s garden, glowing in the smokey evening sun. Their garden kept us well fed during our evacuation time with them.
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Fire Retardant
Firefighting planes dropped pink retardant on a neighborhood along North Indian Trail Road, helping to save the homes as the Old Trails Fire swept by. The clean white garage door must have been up to avoid the all-covering pink goo.
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Smokey Warning
Smokey the Bear’s warning was a bit late to help the firefighters in early August battling the Spokane Complex Fires. By then there was smoke in every direction!
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Red Sun
We were guests of the Painters on the West Plains for a week after the fires of Aug. 1st. The amount of smoke in the air turned the evening sun the color of a stop light.
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Out of the Frying Pan
Evacuating our neighborhood on Aug. 1st meant driving straight toward a second major wildfire in Suncrest, then wandering on back roads and city streets for two-and-a-half hours before reaching friends in the West Plains.
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Blowing Smoke
When the Old Trails Fire blew up on August 1st, we watched the angry smoke clouds billow just a mile south of our house before we had to evacuate with over 60,0000 other residents.
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A Big Nest
A large white crane balances on her nest above the Ballard Locks in Seattle. The loud croaks and amazing amount of bird poop covering the trees nearby let you know that some big birds are up in those trees.
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Stadium Rockets
The Seattle Mariners’ stadium lights up with fireworks during a show after a game we attended in July. Unfortunately, the M’s couldn’t produce enough “fireworks” to earn a win that night, a problem they faced all season.
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4th of July Blast
Our favorite place to watch fireworks is over the waters of Diamond Lake about an hour drive northeast of Spokane. The families on each bay put on their own displays that turn the lake, and sky, into a shimmering palette of colors.
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Diamond Lake
A lovely summer day is a great time to share a boat on Diamond Lake with friends. Thank you, Brad, for showing us around the entire lake.
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Pointed
These spiky lavender flowers attracted multiple bees, who had no trouble avoiding their sharp “leaves” on a summer morning in my neighborhood.
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Vertical Interior Space
The pendant lights hanging on long chains accentuate the high arches, banners and rose window on the west end of Spokane’s Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. Elaine sang at a special concert featuring several different church choirs there this summer.
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Catch a Wave
The surf rolling in along the coast of Monterey Bay near Santa Cruz offered a continuous stream of surfers the ideal place to catch a wave and ride it in to shore.
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Covered Bridge
The intricate timbers supporting this covered bridge near Santa Cruz, CA framed a park-like setting.
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Looking Up
The trees keep going up and up in this view from a grove of redwoods just north of Santa Cruz, California. We took a steam train ride through the forest to reach the big trees.
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Jumping Off Cabo
Humpback whales were spouting and breaching all around our boat during a spring 2026 whale-watching cruise near Cabo San Lucas off the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.
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Church Screen
The entrance to a small Catholic Church in a town near Mazatlan, Mexico features an intricately carved wooden screen, which frames the colors of the town square outside.
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Mud Bricks
A brickyard near Mazatlan, Mexico let’s the muddy rectangles dry in the sun before making them available for local construction projects.
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Seaside Diver
A lone pelican circled over a small Mexican harbor full of fishing boats before diving head-first into the water to spear its own fish for dinner.
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Zip Lines
A series of zip lines, some over 1,000 feet long and 600 feet high above a tropical canyon near Puerto Vallarta, gave me a new perspective on what it means to be”fly” like a bird!
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Toucan
In the jungle just down the Mexican coast from Puerto Vallarta, a small zoo of native creatures included this colorful toucan, who enjoyed posing for photos and perching on my arm.
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Full Boat
This fishing boat was tied up along the Mexican coast near Puerto Vallarta. It looks like any fish were gobbled up by the local pelicans.
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Ocean Sunburst
A spring cruise along the Pacific Coast of Mexico featured this spectacle of sun and clouds hovering over the gray sea.
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Big Sky
One of the best images this spring was the sunset view from my front porch on a dramatic evening.
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Tunnel Beach
If you walk through a tunnel drilled into Maxwell Point in the Oregon Coast town of Oceanside, you will come to this view of the Three Arch Rocks surrounded by glowing sand, sea and clouds.
