America 2015 - part 9

Steller's Jays, or "Torontos" as my mom calls them, come every afternoon when they see us get into the hot tub. My mom rations out peanuts and scolds them when they fight over them. Recently she's even got them to come to the edge of the hot tub and take a peanut, although they're very nervous about that.

These are the newest generation and are more cautious than their parents. They make such a distinctive screech, and also mimic the sounds of hawks. Although lots of species visit my parents' feeders, the Torontos are the only somewhat tame birds in the yard.

They will choose the bigger of two peanuts, or the heavier if they are the same size. After they've swallowed enough, they'll start to plant them around the yard.

If you want to hear their "Peanuts!" call, Wiki has a sound clip here.





There are 3 or 4 of them, but I cannot tell them apart. Sometimes a squirrel will get into the mix.





They cock their heads to peer closely with one eye at the hot tub - this time with his left eye...




This time his right eye.



20 peanuts are not enough, people.



In this photo of my parents' home, you can see how not-green the grass is, even on the wet side of the state. In fact, J pointed out that the east side of the state had more green on our visit, because they utilize the rivers for agriculture.




Waiting on another ferry, we got one geocache out of downtown. This black building is the Columbia tower, Seattle's tallest. The women's bathroom is award-winning because each toilet stall has a view from the 75th floor. Some really excited lady made a video. I remember thinking, "It's one way glass, right? So no helicopter sees me?"




Some buildings I missed being built.



Best Library Ever, and it's even better on the inside.




There was a geocache at the Seattle Library, but too many people around to get it. Actually, this lady was the typical friendly American and said, "Can I help you find something? Are you lost?" Uhmmm no, we're just looking around....



J walks under the Library.




Our ferry was late, in fact, a friend of ours accidentally boarded the wrong ferry and ended up way, way wrong, and couldn't make it to Bainbridge Island to see us: (






My two favorites, the one with the flag, and the pointy one. I'm not going to say their names cuz they might have changed since I lived there.



It really isn't so serendipitous to catch a seagull in front of the Space Needle, there are so many of them. But I was still pleased with the photo. I used to work on the 22nd floor of the brown building in the middle of the picture, and I enjoyed the view every day.



OK, the Bainbridge ferry is the strangest trip of them all. Because it's full of techies who commute every day, and they walk circles of the entire deck of the ferry the entire time. I call them the Walkers. The dude in the foreground slept the entire way.





You can barely make out the Cascade range behind the city, we needed rain so badly.



See the mountain?



I like how empty the ferry was on our way back.





Back from Seattle, our next adventure would be a trip to Aarene's, which I have no pictures of: ( It was so hot out I was melting.




We got to see this for the first time. The power of angry nature - do you know where this is?

Next: The North Cascade Highway and "America's Alps"