Sunday, August 30, 2015

America 2015 - part 11

Deception Falls has an intriguing name, and none of the signs explained it.






















The deep water had a green hue, it was so inviting.



Home again after the family road trip, I caught this new-to-me species in the yard. What a cute little guy, he was very shy and I couldn't get near him.



I LOVE air conditioning. Check out the difference between indoors and outdoors. If my mom sees this photo, she's gonna kill me for turning the AC down so low, but I was sick of being too hot.







I found an old photo album from the 90s and this picture was my birthday - my sister got me this cake as a joke - I had no dog. I remember trying to look sad for the photo.



Then I found these wonderful pictures of our Orienteering group's fun day at the beach. My parents surprised us by showing up and taking these photos. What a surprise it was to see them at Ocean Shores unexpectedly!

I love my mare, she hated the ocean but she's such a good girl she dealt with it. Baasha went right in his first time seeing the big waves, no problem. He seems to be squinting in the sun in these photos.







I guess I'd forgotten my sister did Klickitat Trek! That's not my sweatshirt she's wearing. (Oh, and back home, I found my one and only BC award from Klickitat, a gorgeous iron clock in the form of a mountain with an endurance horse scrambling up it. That clock is too precious to put on an airplane to Germany.)



Here we are at the start of some sort of competition - I remember we played capture the flag and one lady's horse got dizzy in the waves and fell down with her. You must look up when the waves retract, I felt Baasha get unsteady too.



Oh awesome, they got a photo of my first truck and my old trailer. I remember I got it stuck stuck in the sand cuz I stopped to talk to someone, and had to be towed out by a friend. That truck is huge to Germans, but in reality it wasn't quite suited to pulling a heavy trailer like my first one.







We did puzzles a lot at my parents' house (Amy F Fowler, "It's like having a thousand friends!").



It was difficult to do our traditional oyster grilling this year due to red tide and restrictions on local seafood, but my parents finally found some oysters for us. I know it sounds awful to most people, but fresh oysters from a local coast on the grill are awesome when dipped in the hot butter/garlic/lemon juice sauce I made alongside.



It's not Summer in Seattle for me without grilled oysters.



Little hummer.



Seattle could have used a little flooding.



This ingenious thing is actually a "Little Free Library" - what we kept discovering all over Washington. You borrow a book and leave a book if you like. Lots of them have geocaches in them. My husband is wearing shorts? It must have been very, very hot out.



I ate so many of these while geocaching, and picked enough with my mom for her to bake a blackberry cobbler.



Another Little Free Library, on someone's home.











I had to get a photo of this because it's such an American thing to hire someone to stand on a corner with a sign and flip it all around. Hm, gas was 3.13? So cheap compared to Germany!



I liked this sign - you can buy weed here, but please go home before you smoke it.




Finally we met up with my two horse friends that I used to do endurance with, but mostly Orienteering cuz we were a team. "Best of the Last" was our name. In this photo my friend Barb pokes her head from behind a log. She was the one who leased me the mare all those years. These two friends of mine actually came to Germany to visit me, and that doesn't happen often. They've become avid geocachers (Barb has over 10,000 caches, almost more than anyone on earth), so this day we spent geocaching and catching up on our horsey lives.

When I said how I don't really want to ride anymore, they both acted as if I had an illness that I must recover from - they were sort of devastated, like Lytha is not Lytha anymore. They both said I absolutely must sell the horse that made me not want to ride anymore. They have both done it, and told me it's no big deal, you just find the one you love and go have fun again.

It was an awesome day with my old buddies, we cracked each other up as we did so long ago. It made me tremendously homesick though, being with them. The one who took the photo, Brandi, she was kind enough to make an appointment for me because her husband (who crewed for us long ago) is an eye doctor and I really needed a good eye exam. Well, I got one, complete with photos of my retinas, which is new to me. I was so thankful to them, and so wistful that I'd be on a plane soon far away, I wish I could have had more time.




Since my parents live so close to Sea Tac, I couldn't help but get a photo of a plane landing. To my shame this is the first time I'd noticed that the planes change their landing/takeoff direction based on the wind direction. They must take off into the wind, so I kept track of south or nothbound landings the entire time we were there. How could I have never noticed that?

Next: Cle Elum, Roslyn's Northern Exposure sites, Leavenworth, and home?

7 comments:

Nicole A said...

I have been terrible at commenting lately, but not at reading and wanted to let you know that I have thoroughly been enjoying this series of posts about your visit home. The Washington State area is so gorgeous. Love your mountains! And I too love blackberries. Gas over here is even cheaper: $2.42 in our D.C. suburbs! But we don't have those wonderful little free libraries. What a fantastic idea!

I am so happy you got to hang out with your Orienteering/endurance friends and that they reassured you about the decision to sell Mara. I know it it's been a really tough decision for you and I know you have already advertised her, but it's always good to have people close to you confirm that it is the right decision. <3

Nuzzling Muzzles said...

I love hearing about your enthusiasm for things that become so mundane to those of us who live around them. It's nice to get a change of scenery. I was just flipping through old pictures of Nevada in my blog and wondering how I could have lived there all those years and not realized how incredibly beautiful it was. I say "was", because it changed for the worse once more people started moving into my town. I'm afraid to go back, because I read the newspaper from there online and see that they are constantly tearing down historic landmarks and building consumer stores in their place. Back when I lived in that town, no big name stores or restaurants would open branches there because we didn't have a large enough population. I guess the population has continued to grow since I've been gone.

The cake made me laugh. I send cards to family members with the wrong sentiments on them for a laugh, like sending a sympathy card for a birthday. The free lending library dispensers are brilliant. When I moved, I had to take hundreds of books to the dump because the library wouldn't take them and I couldn't give them away at a yard sale. I wanted to keep them, but they would have made us go over the moving van weight limit.

kbryan said...

Great photos and descriptions about your holiday at home. Those berries look so good!

You haven't mentioned Mara or Bellis to us since you got home. And inquiring minds want to know. . .

Hope you've adjusted to being back in Germany, and that all is going well with you all. Take care.
Kay

Kitty Bo said...

Yes, I'm glad your Orienteering friends encouraged you. Unfortunately,it would seem in Germany it is harder find a suitable horse. Hanging in there that you will! I love your posts. I feel like I've been somewhere.

lytha said...

Kay, Sorry I hadn't answered your questions - the animals are all fine. Bellis gave me a look when we got home like she was truly surprised to see us again. The cat punished us by not coming around for a couple weeks. The horse is the same as ever: ) Thanks for asking.

kbryan said...

Thanks, glad all the critters are doing OK. Sounds like you really had a wonderful trip home, and we've all enjoyed the photos and descriptions.

Hope you are getting some good nibbles on Mara. Have a great week!

Achieve1dream said...

Those free libraries are so cool!!

I had no idea planes changed landing direction for wind either!

I'm glad you got to hang out with your old endurance buddies. :-)