Olympic Peninsula and Seattle - July 2014

At Chihuly Garden and Glass, Seattle.

Moss-covered trees in Olympic National Park.

More photos here.

This was another Road Scholar trip: "Naturally Magnificent: Washington State's Olympic Peninsula". I flew in a day early to spend some time in Seattle.

In Seattle, I started with a quick visit to the EMP Museum. I'm only a little into pop music, so I went through all that quickly. The fantasy and science fiction exhibits were mainly film and TV props, and I'm more into SF&F books.

Chihuly Garden and Glass was lots of fun. I was tempted to stay into the night to see things lit up, but that would have been quite late.

The next morning I went to the Seattle Central Library, which wasn't as striking as I expected. I finished my extra Seattle time in bookstores in Pioneer Square. In one that was going out of business, I asked about the price of a large Chihuly book I had seen at his museum the day before. The proprietor named a low price and threw in a Chihuly DVD and a box of Chihuly notecards. I took the deal, adding extra weight to my suitcase.

The Olympic Music Festival program was very good. After that, it was all Port Angeles and the Olympic Peninsula. The weather was great - hot and dry. Most didn't like the heat and accused me of bringing the weather from Los Angeles. I loved the scenery. And once again, I didn't do enough walking.

Just before the trip began, the first legal recreational marijuana stores opened in Washington state. But that didn't work out for me. The two in Port Angeles hadn't yet received their licenses, and the one in Seattle sold out of everything in the first three days, and was closed for another ten days. Sigh.

Appalachian Trail - June 2014

More photos here. View them individually to see the captions.

 
After last year's Road Scholar trip to Oregon where I exercised too little, ate too much and put on a bit of unwanted weight, I spotted "Hike the Appalachian Trail in Four States" in which we would be hiking 6 to 10 miles every day. In addition, we would see Harpers Ferry, WV and Antietam National Battlefield.

I was worried about the weather, since I never hike when it rains. I chose the month of lowest average rainfall in the area. It did rain one evening, but it never rained while we were hiking. (On the hike in the afternoon before it rained, I heard distant thunder three separate times, and I sped up each time. That day, I was the first one to finish the hike!) I carried a raincoat in my backpack every day, but I never used it.

It was fun. As the photos show, my old hiking boots fell apart, forcing me to use my sneakers. And, also seen in the photos, I got scraped up when I fell once. And the trail was frequently very rocky. And there were quite a few hills to climb. And there were more flying insects than at home. But that was all minor; I enjoyed all the walking. I may look at more of these.