News from the Great Pacific Northwest

Thursday morning before we left for the Great Pacific Northwest, we nipped up to the U to check on the progress of the mandala. He has made great strides with it. Sunday was the day to dismantle it, and take the sand to the turtle pond. Here's his website.


He uses two levels of sand, there's fine and less fine. The level of detail is just phenomenal.


So that was Thursday morning. Friday was visits to the primary care providers and breast (mine) squashing at the house of mammograms. Friday afternoon Jim went over to see his Mom and spend the night.

Saturday we went to one of my favorite stores, Cash and Carry. It's a restaurant supply store, they sell paper products and food both to the trade and individuals. I just love looking at this stuff, it provides insight as to what restaurants are feeding us.


Beef flavored base. Chicken flavored base. Yuuuuuuum. What is this stuff, anyway?

Ever wonder how they make the gravy for biscuits and gravy? Another mystery solved.

I think the yellow label says it all.

Today, Sunday the weather was just snotty. Howling winds, off and on rain, just wretched. We decided to drive out towards Snoqualmie Pass to see how much snow there was. Chains were required at exit 47, we got off I90 at exit 42, and happy we were that we did.


For some reason it didn't occur to us that the exit would not be plowed. Exiting I90 to turn around and come back was unnerving in a rental mouse car with no chains. Jim did an excellent job of getting us west bound and going back down the hill.

This is Carnation Valley where we used to ride when we lived here. It's WET out there.


Now we are at the scenic overlook on Admiral in West Seattle. Note the empty asphalt in the bottom of the picture. Prior to the economic troubles, that area was covered in shipping containers, this speaks to the current crisis.


We lived here in West Seattle from 1996 to 2006. It was a good 10 years. The house was built in 1921, we did a lot of updating and remodeling during our time here. We could see Puget Sound, the Olympic Mountains, the ferries, and submarines & aircraft carriers going to the naval base in Bremerton. Sadly, the subsequent owners have not kept the house up as well as we did, she looks a bit forlorn now.



We drove down to the beach, those are white caps out in the distance. It was blowing so hard that it would push us around.


There has been a lot of development in West Seattle. There are many new condos and a couple of huge apartment complexes. It's been good for the Junction area, increased foot traffic is helping the merchants there. When an area can support a cupcake store, you know things aren't too bad.

Tomorrow we continue our medical tourism in the GPNW.