Cama Beach Getaway – Part 2
We awoke to be able to see the Olympic Mountains through our cabin window.
What a beautiful sight to enjoy while eating a little breakfast and waking up.
They were shining bright with their cloak of snow.
Daddy-O (my nick name for my dad) and I went for a 5 mile hike.
There was a lovely trail that connected Cama Beach State Park (where we were staying)
with Camano Island State Park which was very close.
We enjoyed walking along this beach, and I had the chance to play around with the camera’s timer.
These beaches must be packed in the summer,
They are simply so beautiful!
There are signs all around this park talking about claming season.
And there is also a boat launch that a couple people were taking advantage of as we walked through.
We were often watched closely from a safe distance,
Just in case we had a snack that we felt compelled to share!
After a lovely walk,
with our muscles feeling invigorated from moving in the fresh air,
We returned to the cabins.
This avenue that travels in front of the cabins will become a mini highway in the summer,
as everyone brings their families to enjoy this gem of a resort.
There is a certain energy to the islands.
This sunset conveys it wonderfully,
A gentle peace, with soft beauty.
Drawn To Nature
Nature draws us into its embrace,
helping us to remember how to live in the now,
loving,
nurturing,
and sharing the beauty of life.
A Journey to San Juan Island
On Tuesday Bernie and I took our guests, Lyndsay and Jordan out to San Juan Island. I had not been out there in years, and it was wonderful to re-visit and get to experience the beauty of this wonderful place. The day started with a Ferry ride from Anacortes to Friday Harbor (ferry photo courtesy of Bernie). A ferry ride is something that everyone should do at least once in their life, it is just so much fun. This one is an hour long, and gives you a wonderful tour through the San Juan Islands (now to clear up any confusion, all the islands in this area is grouped under the name ‘the san juan islands’, but one of them is named San Juan Island….) There is a magical feeling of peace and adventure riding the ferry. They float you along the water, transporting you along the highway of the islands. The deck of the boat rumbling and vibrating under your feet as the massive engine pushes the mass of the boat loaded down with the weight of cars and passengers through the softly rippling waters. The weather could not have been better, it was a calm warm day. The waters stood almost completely still for us.
When we arrived at our destination we spent a bit of time exploring the town of Friday Harbor. We found a quaint little used book store, with shelves pouring out onto the floors and counters surrounding them. Lyndsay bought a little french childrens novel to practice her french, and I bought yet another cookbook to add to my never ending collection. After a tasty lunch at a restaurant with the best view of the harbor we set out in my (wonderfully cute!) car. The first stop was Cattle Point, a beautiful windswept point on the south end of the island. We frolicked and strolled along the beach.
Is he sticking his tongue out at me?
The Island is filled with great history and beautiful places. This lighthouse is located at Lime Kiln Point state park. Its on the side of the island that looks toward Vancouver Island (yes you can see canada from right there). Its a really deep channel that runs between San Juan Island and Vancouver Island, this creates a rich feeding ground. Often Orcas are spoted along this shore, unfortunatly they did not make a showing while we were visiting. I was really hoping that they would so that Lyndsay and Jordan would get the chance to see them. The park also has an old restored Lime Kiln. There are many great places to visit, two of them are American Camp (close to cattle point) and English Camp. These were occupied at the time when the border between America and Canada were being determined. They are both amazingly beautiful spots, and so vastly different! They are on opposite ends of the island, and have such a different feel from each other.
Of course there was much picture taking the whole day.
The best part of all is that the ferry ride home was right at sunset, and although it had clouded up part way through the day, the clouds were well worth it at sunset. I have not altered this photo in any way, the sunset was so amazing. It really was a magical end to a great day. The next morning Lyndsay and Jordan boarded Amtrak for a train journey back to their home in Tennessee. I hope they enjoyed their visit to our little corner of the world. I had a wonderful time exploring places of old with a fresh perspective.
Natures Little Jewels
Yesterday Bernie and I made it outside for a nice hike. We did a large loop walking on both dirt roads, and trails. One of our first stops is a lovely little hillside meadow that we enjoy going to, because it is filled with wildflowers when it gets warm enough. We were hoping that perhaps there might be one or two little flowers out, but no such luck. Its just not warm enough yet. But we still enjoyed sitting there, looking out across the San Juan Islands.
I found some Rattlesnake Plantain. I am very partial to this little plant, it is the first plant that Bernie taught me when we first met. These little jems always bring a smile to my face. A fun fact about these guys is that you can pull a leaf off, rub it gently between your fingers, causing the two outer layers of the leaf to seperate from each other, and then blow it up like a little balloon from the stem. Native American children used to do this for fun.
This lichen looked so magical being lit from behind. It makes it look like lace or ruffles.
I love some of the vivid colors that nature produces. The reds and oranges of this fungus are so rich. There were a handfull of these all lined up on this dead tree trunk.
I love the delecate nature of these mosses. The leafs are so dainty and almost transparent. They almost have the quality of stained glass.
There are so many little jewels out in nature, if we just take the time to put our noses down close to the ground (or trees, or whatever). There are many magical qualities to the larger picture of nature, such as old wise trees, but I think the small jems often get missed along the way.
We had many beautiful moments along our walk, but one of the most special to me was the Owls. Owls have become my new power animal, and as we were on our way back toward the car two owls started talking to each other on each side of the trail that we were on. We stopped to listen to their conversation, and actually spotted one of them. We watched him, as he watched us. We shared an enjoyable moment together before we continued on with our walk.
Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life
Yesterday we went for a hike up to Pine and Cedar Lakes in the Chuckanut Mountains. I chose it for getting in shape on the hills. Its a pretty good climb up to the lakes, and it takes a bit of a direct route up the hillside. Not only am I working on getting my body in shape for hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, I am also working on my mind. I am changing beliefs that have not served me so well on the trail in the past.
I have always had a bit of a challenge with the hills, and have known for quite some time that this is mostly a mental problem. Instead of looking up a hill and dreading the climb, I am learning to embrace the hill, and enjoy the journey up it. Bernie and I were coming up with thought patterns and intentions for the climb yesterday, and over all I feel like I did quite well! I did not breath nearly as hard as I usually do when in this kind of shape. Its sometimes a bit disturbing to climb hills with me, because my face almost turns purple at times. This is one of the many symptoms I am working at getting rid of.
My body stayed pretty relaxed our entire hike up, simply by changing the way that I think. This is a very strong lesson to learn when doing any activity. The more we embrace it and enjoy it, the less of a burden and challenge it becomes to us. One example is if we are out for a walk with someone, and we come up to a long steep hill, at first we might think “oh god, I have to climb that”, so right away your body starts to feel like a lead weight, and you have to drag it up that hill. But if the person you are with gets you talking about something you are passionate about, your mind is suddenly no longer focusing on how hard that hill is. Before you know it you will be at the top of the hill, you wont be breathing hard, and you will feel great, because you were focused on something you really enjoy, not making the hill into an impossible task.
One book that I was raised with, and always go back to for perspective on the different ailments that we carry in our bodies is Louise L. Hay’s “You Can Heal Your Life”. If you have never seen this book, I highly recomend it. The funny thing is I have actually not read the book through, but there is a list in it, with all the main body parts, what they represent, and then diseases that we get. It tells you what the typical reason for these problems are, and a new thought pattern to help you overcome these problems. So I looked up shoulders, since that is one of the main problems I am solving before we leave on our hike. She said that shoulders “represent our ability to carry out experiences in life joyously. We make life a burden by our attitude”. This is very true for me, especially with hiking. I have turned it into a burden at times for myself in the past. I know that I no longer need to do this, I know I will enjoy each moment it has to share with me, even if some of them do happen to be challenging. So my new thought pattern is “I choose to allow all my experiences to be joyous and loving”.
Sometimes the hardest part of changing our thought patterns is deciding to do it. Once we make this choice, we start to flow into a healthier place, and more thought patterns will naturally change to serve us better. I still have a lot of work to do in many aspects of my life, but I feel good at this moment working through some of these thoughts and fears that have been serving me very poorly for many years now.
After our nice hike up through the woods we came out at Pine Lake. Both of the lakes are not all that large, but they are pretty little gems hidden in the trees. As you can see, its been pretty chilly around here lately, there is still quite a bit of ice covering the lake. The weather is warming quite quickly over the last couple of days, so I believe spring is finally on its way around here.
We spent our time exploring around both the lakes, enjoying the scenery. Bernie got to play around with is new camera, and figure out some of its settings, and how it works under different light conditions. When we were done at Cedar Lake we made our way up a side trail to a few overlooks. One of them looked down on Bellingham, and it was kind of interesting to see it from a different perspective. Its amazing how much it sprawls…… kinda sad too. And then the other viewpoint looked out across the San Juan Islands. It wasnt quite sunset, but the light was still very nice. It was a nice place to pause for a few minutes. I was not doing so well on changing my beliefs on cold, and was feeling quite chilly at this point. I was looking forward to moving again, and so we made our way down the trail.
It was a good outing over all. My body felt good, it was nice to end a 7 mile hike with many hills without feeling sore and tired. I actually felt like I do after a few weeks of being on the trail, strong and relaxed, which is exactly what I wanted to accomplish!
New Years Resolutions
As I see it New Years resolutions don’t work simply because people are living one way, and this one time each year they make all these promises that are so different than the way they live on a daily basis that it makes it next to impossible to stick to them. The real trick is to treat each and every day as a new year.
Start out with small simple resolutions, things that you can accomplish, then you will get used to the feeling of reaching a goal you set. Then you can start working into those big things. One example millions of people say each new year is “I’m going on a diet” they start this whole new way of eating, and fall off the bandwagon after a week. The real trick for that one is to start changing your diet slowly, you will find that you start eating healthier, and then slowly, and healthily the pounds will start to melt away……
So here is a suggestion I will put out there for the new year. For your first new years resolution this year, make it something small and simple, something that you can check off your list by the end of the week. You can take a pad of paper, and start writing down your ‘resolutions’. Start with the smallest things, try to get a good hand full of those (it can even be something as simple as folding the laundry, or clean the bathroom), then add in a few medium ones, and eventually one ‘big one’. Start working on your list, as you work through those small ones, you will be able to cross them off your list. Your mind/body/soul will get used to accomplishing these things. You will start to think ‘I can do this!’, and the more that you know you can do, the more you will. Those tasks will seem less and less ominous, and before you know it you will have tackled some of those ‘resolutions’ that you could never accomplish in years past. You can do anything you set your heart to, you just have to believe in yourself!
So happy new moment everyone! Here is to setting your goals, and accomplishing them!
San Juan Sunset
This is one of the many beautiful sunset shots that I was lucky enough to capture the other evening. The San Juan Islands are amazing. Its funny, even though I am living in this area I don’t think about the islands all that much, because they aren’t part of my every day routine. But then we make it up to a view point like this one, and I really appreciate how beautiful this area is.
I have to appologize for the quality of my photos on here, when I post them they get squished farther than I would like by wordpress, and end up much more blury than the actual photo.
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Sunset Adventure
Yesterday Bernie and I decided to go and try to get some pictures, since it has been a little while. So we went down to Larabee State Park. It’s a beautiful area, right on the water, and beautiful woods all around. We walked around for a little while in search of animal subjects for Bernie to capture in the digital world. Unfortunately there really wasn’t much going on in the animal kingdom. The water birds that were around were too far offshore to be able to get pictures of. We are really amazed at how little wildlife is around, it seems like the numbers decrease each year. Its disturbing sometimes.
After some time wandering around, not finding many opportunities for photography we decided to drive to another trailhead. This one is up a hill over looking the water and the San Juan Islands. We got up there well before sunset, and got some nice scenery shots of the view. Once the sun started its descent we started getting some beautiful shots. We had been frustrated at not getting many pictures for the day, and then all of the sudden we were handed the opportunity to take as many as we wanted. It was beautiful to experience this island sunset from our little hillside meadow.
I have been reading that book on the Law of attraction, and I think I have been getting a little bit better about following the mindset, because lately, every time I want some type of opportunity it has been presenting itself. The power of our thought is an amazing force, its something we don’t seem to realize. The more we believe in ourselves, and positive thought, the more we can achieve. How much fun!!
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