Walk in the Woods

Today was one of those days that makes living here in the Pacific Northwest USA worthwhile. We get gray. We get rain. We get clouds and rain. Did I mention we get rain? And then, ah... a day like today. Blue sky. Clean fresh air. Cool but not cold. A just plain awesome beautiful day.

For us in the Northwest this brings up a huge dilema: what shall we do that assures we spend as much time outdoors as possible? Arvin and I debated. Should I go plein air paint at Big Rock Garden? Decided "no" because Arvin would be hanging loose and I felt like being active. Should we drive somewhere and take a walk? Nope. I've got it. Let's take our favorite circle walk in Whatcom Falls Park. So we did. And along the way we had happy adventures.

We stopped at Scudder Pond looking for birds to photograph. Not much luck there. There were red wing blackbirds who were staying out of reach. All the ducks were off somewhere else enjoying the beautiful weather. But we did start talking to other walkers as we always do and who should we discover we were talking with? Mary Jo! A fellow blipper from Bellingham, friend of Carol, another good friend who is also a blipper. How delightful. It was a mini blip meet and we really were delighted to meet. I took her picture but decided not to blip it. I will post it on our blog but haven't done that yet.

We walked on down to the falls and back again. We saw humming birds along the way and I did get a few decent pictures. Not quite what I wanted. As we walked I took quite a few photos of the scene around us. One of those, taken as we walked the Scudder Pond Loop trail is today's blip. I have been wanting to create a photo that looks like a drawing and this scene prooved up to the task. So here is the view of the wonderful curling over bushes that line this trail. It always feels like we are walking through a wooded tunnel. I love the feeling. Press "L" for a larger view.

Hope your day was as fresh and beautiful as ours was.