Charming Chinese custom for newly weds

Filial piety 101.

Wedding in Hong Kong

Not a bad location

Peninsula Hotel

Wedding at Marco Polo part 1, Friday

Likely most are flea pits

The Star Ferry in disguise

And free rides all day! November 29

View from the Peak

$HK 99 return on the Peak cable car

No time today for a one way up and the winding, narrow road back down.

$6.25 in the arrivals hall

The food on my 14 hour flight from SFO wasn't too great. Here, in the bubble of a major gateway airport it could be France except everyone's talking in Cantonese.

Transportation options

It might as well be San Francisco. So easy with the bilingual signs.

Doing what comes natcherly

Off to Hong Kong for a Thanksgiving wedding. This isn't something you get to do that often.

Sunday drive weekend before Thanksgiving

Tucked in the valley between the N and S bound lanes of I-90 at Snoqualmie Pass.

Home for early bird Sunday dinner at Floret in terminal A

USS Midway

A Sunday morning waterfront stroll in San Diego.

Great food in Little Italy

Excellent agnolotti in coconut sauce.

Perfect peppers to pick in San Diego

San Diego’s Saturday farmers market

JFK to SAN

Saturday morning at 10:30

Whitehorse Mountain from Darrington

Has an intriguing hanging valley but apparently not easy to access by developed trail.

What’s not to like?

2nd week November, dry, filtered sun and listening to Langdon Cook's Upstream, an audio book on salmon as I drive the muddy potholes and reacquaint myself with this part of the state.

Mountain Loop Highway on a cloudy Veteran’s Day

What an organic garden looks like in fall

Today was overcast but warm. A day to do long postponed fall yard work in my deliberately untidy garden. I've left the stalks and seed heads for the appreciative songbirds. Now it's time to prune down the top branches of the lilac that screens my back bedroom, dump out some big pots to find the last potatoes, rake sodden leaves and stuff them into both my compost bins, cut down the squidgy frost damaged rhubarb stalks from amongst the healthy sprouting artichokes, and chop out the last usable stalks for the year. Tonight baked rhubarb Is on the menu.

My favorite neighborhood tree

A rescue, according to the older couple who'd lived here several years ago. Never pruned, it's shapely and a keeper. I love it in fall.

Debriefing a Monroe 30 years on

Old Owens road is dangerous on a sunny Friday afternoon in November. Big powerful trucks and SUVs passing too fast. Everyone is "trying" but it's easy to tell who's a cyclist as well as a driver. The road is narrow with untrustworthy excuses for shoulders. The descent on Reinig Road into Sultan is sweet riding dessert. Crossing to the south of the Skykomish, after the pathetic excuse for a sidewalk on the bridge into Sultan, is a throwback to what rural riding in Snohomish County once was. Is it worth it? Yes. Even with the 4 bonus miles on dangerous, shoulderless woods creek road when I missed the shabby excuse for a "street" in Monroe. Thank goodness I'm an experienced roadie. Thank goodness I can tolerate the crazy trafficked to get the the sweet stuff. Timing is all. Maybe next summer, a Sunday and early. Then it's the rural ride in the Mountaineers book of 30 years ago.

Once a farmhouse, then a Christmas tree farm, and now derelict

Change rolls along in Snohomish County.

Pumpkin picking crows on Ben Howard

They're smart, selecting the nutritious seeds.

Crossing the Skykomish, ride midpoint

Across crazy trafficked Hwy 2 and back to Monroe on barely trafficked Ben Howard Road. This is what Snohomish County used to be like.

Splendid barn and a happy horse on Old Owen Road

After work ride to capture the sun

It's getting harder to keep focused, overcome inertia, get in the car, get kitted out, and ride through fatigue and a few aches. But with 18 miles done and dusted I definitely feel better.

High bush huckleberry

Now just sunlit stalks: beautiful!

A few chanterelles plus brilliant Oregon Grape for wreaths in December

Final mushroom hunt up Necklace valley

Foraging for a wreath making party in December

Speak, memory

A splendid ride on a splendid All Saints' Day.

Beautiful 90 year old sycamores in the ghost town of Snoqualmie Falls

I've always loved this part of the loop from North Bend to Salish Lodge (or a variant).

My oh my so many years since I’ve ridden here

Mt Si from Reinig Road.