Picture of the week ~ Octopus Eye

Octopus Eye

Tommy Thompson Walkabout

We (my husband and I) are currently looking for fairly flat and not long adventures for our Thursday outings for a bit because.....

We had been training for our many Spartan races that we do during the Spring and Summer, but like many others' around the country and the world our events were cancelled/postponed due to the Covid-19 virus. We also had been training for a couple of other events namely the Whidbey Island Half Marathon and the NODM or North Olympic Discovery trail Marathon. The Half Marathon was postponed to September and our Marathon was changed to a Virtual event. We decided to go ahead and do the Marathon (we are walk/runners: walking 5 minutes/running 10 minutes throughout the distance), so have kept up our training. We are in the tapering down mode now so trying to keep our "road weary" training legs as fresh as they can be for the 7th of June.

So a nice walk on the Tommy Thompson trail on this wonderfully warm and sunny day was the perfect plan.

We've been here many times and I've blogged about it many times, so I tried to find things to look at that were a bit different than my usual focus.
Mount Baker in the distance.

The trail is paved the all the way to the trestle that crosses the water.

A nice "little" waterfall along the trail.

Totem Pole near the RV park.

Daisies❤

When we got to the trestle we were excited to see many Seals pop up around us. I didn't get very many good photos of them, but they were fun to watch.

Have I mentioned before that I LOVE this trail!

This sign is a tribute to the community for working together for the completion of the trail.

Lots of Eel grass was in the water below the trestle.

The cell phone photo below isn't very good quality. I tried to zoom in on this Eagle, hard to see but it's there.

I never tire of this view.

Very low tide today.

As we made our way back on the trestle we saw several Seals again, I paused to see if I could get a little better photo of one closer to us. I managed to get a couple of decent photos of this one.

Off the trestle and back on the jetty trail.

These two Seagulls looked as if they needed a rest in the sun, if you look close it looks like one is yawning.

Pacific Flyway information.

We spotted these Geese near where fresh water runs into the bay. They seemed to enjoy drinking the water there and eating the green seaweed? off the beach. There are several babies with them, again not the best quality photo. The babies sure were cute and fluffy.

My usual attire today each time we passed any people on the trail.

Stats:
5.7 miles

Picture of the week ~ Fuchsia

Harbor "Water trail" hike

Today we wanted to hike: not a long distance and not a lot of uphill. We thought we'd go to the Centennial trail and walk along it from Bryant to Nakashima barn and back, but the closer we got to that area the darker the clouds got. Plan 2, head west in search of better weather. We settled on Maylor Point from Oak Harbor. We began at the newly renovated Windjammer park.

It rained a little and it was a bit breezy when we began our walk (ahem...) hike (we were wearing day packs). Me in my lovely rain parka. Thankfully the rain went away shortly after this photo was taken.

As we walked our way around the shore we came to Maylor park. It has a statue of a woman waiting (I assume) for her loved one out at sea. She stands with a lantern in her hand.

 The photo below is a close up of the plaque that is below her statue.

The trail to Maylor point is clearly marked on the parking lot past the park.

The trail goes through the Whidbey Air force base at this access point.

Boo, what a disappointment. The gate is shut and locked, nothing to do but turn around and re-focus to see what the rest of the day would bring us.

We decided to make the best of it and take in the sights around us, like these Blue Heron in the water.

Zoom in to see how many were there.

Someone put a lovely water feature in their yard.

I loved this tree art piece on a fence.

Then I really got interested in the art around me. We saw several pieces as we made our way through the town.

A mermaid

An Octopus

Isn't his eye fantastic!

I love Monkey trees, you just don't see them around very much anymore. This one was wonderful.

Ducklings waddling on the sidewalk, one is having trouble keeping up.

We found a bakery that was open and bought some coffee and treats to enjoy as we made our way back to the park.

Some of the sights along the water trail.

Early pioneer couple.

Fred Flintstone car at Flintstone park. 

Owl on a pole.

Nice water trail back to Windjammer park.

Art in the "kiddie" park.

Statues in Windjammer park.

I didn't realize today's walk er...hike would be so "art focused" but it was a very interesting and scenic way to spend our day.

Miles hiked:

5.5

Mon Oeuvre - Frolic Mystery Quilt progress 17

The last progress report I did for the "Frolic" Mystery Quilt was March 19th, seems like forever ago.

Since then, our local quilt stores were not available for "in store" shopping. This Covid-19 physical distancing has put the brakes on my quilt. I couldn't find anything on line that I liked. I prefer to touch and see the colors in person, but the time finally came that I was able to actually look at fabric and then I ordered some batting. 

Hurray!

I haven't purchased a one piece (wide) backing before, it's interesting to not sew the two pieces together for the back. It's a large piece of fabric to iron. Whew!

Anyway here's what I found for the back.

I think it will be a nice calm back for the "extra" busyness of the front.

Here it is next to the front for a peek of all of the colors together.

Finally a "quilt sandwich"