Day 2 Day radishes

June 14/

June 13

If you want to read a beautiful blog, read this . the woman is a very good friend of my daughters who has gone to China to adopt a girl. June 11th is especially  good.  It is very life affirming. 

june12,

I am in communications with my typepad support on a regular basis.  My blog is run by Typepad.  I have some problems with it, and I was getting scolded for not doing what "Carla" wanted me to do.  First, half the time I do not know what she is talking about and then although you make think otherwise, I do not spend all my time working on the computer.  And there is always the problem of knowing the correct term to view on "help" or "search".  You have to be computer literate in order to even begin "help". and as my daughter says, as the population ages, companies are going to have to find a way to help us. 

in any case, Carla  was condescending once too many times,  and I wrote back, and told her so.  I also said that I was trying the best I could.  Carla wrote back, not saying a thing about my letter, which was okay, as at least she came up with new information.  She recommended that I get PAINT.NET. You may have to go to get.paint.net. There you can download for free a photo enhancing program.  While it does not do all that Photoshop does, it does quite a lot, and for me one of the things, it does is resize pictures.  It is very easy to change the contrast and the saturation of the pictures.  It is a little simpler and straight forward than other programs, but will do more that what Picassa does. 

If you do not already have something of this nature, get it.  For me I think it will be good enough for me that I can uninstall Paintshop Pro for which I paid over $100.00.

Oops this photo did not work out when enlarged.  Darn it, now I have to throw myself down

June 11

As we know, I have been away from this desk for a while. My eyes have ached and I have tried not using them. I am nothing without my eyes and hands. I even tried laying on the couch. Should this continue, know that I will eventually return. I really need new glasses because in the right eye I am looking out the top of the trifocals, and in the left, I am looking out the middle. Our church had a tent revival on Thursday night. I must say that the thought of a tent revival rather disgusted me. But eventually I got into it, and found it to be a kick in the pants. There was a tent for 500 people. The priest was the Bishop from North Carolina. He is black, and his father was a priest. He comes in the tradition of southern black preachers. I must say I do not know why those white boys could never pick up this church talk. Later on Sunday our priest said, “I am embarrassed to preach after Bishop Curry.” Bishop Curry was funny. And a lot of following God is in fact humorous. The Jews do, funny and talk back to God, a lot better that the Christians. Our message was, be yourself, and follow God. Also at the event is the Olympic Diocese Bishop elect. His stated goal is to build the younger population in the diocese. To that end, he began by meeting at a Brewery in Seattle with young people. I have to say that is a good way to start. You can say a lot about God over a beer.

June 7

This is a no name town. Naturally it has a name, but it is many, many bergs. It is a town that was once perhaps relevant, but is no longer. Time and progress has passed it by. The building are mostly empty. The town has a Stienbeck feeling. It is a quarter mile off I-90. These towns have been around since I was a kid traveling across the country. I would wonder how any one could live there, and yet people do.

In other towns off I-90 there is every fast food franchise imaginable. Ever chain that exists: Rite AID, Staples, super 8, John Deere, Safeway, Starbucks, and it isn’t any fun at all.

June 6/ End of a good ride

Such a great time! But the week is over and we have run out of clothes.  Our car is such mess that we can find nothing.  The neat box of maps are scattered.  Bags of dirty clothes fill the trunk.  Water bottles are all over the back seat floor.  My eyes are still out of whack, and my eye glasses, I can not get straight. All the cords that come with cameras, computer, telephone are all in some bag except in the one that I am looking. 

last night at dinner, we talked about how long it had been since we have had a vacation like this.  Aside from driving back and forth to our old town, maybe eight years. Nine? We like traveling together and can find mutual enjoyment in many things.   The rule is, when traveling if one of us wants to  do something, the other has to do it.  For example, we went to a dam outside Wenatche, but then Michael was great when we stayed out of the heat at Spokane Nordies.  It is amazing how over the years, the partner that did not pick the place came to either learn a lot or out and out enjoy it.  Michael actually cheerfully bought some shirts in Nordstrom, and had a fine time talking to another old traveling geezer waiting for his wife. 

Back to reality. These photos are taken in Spokane.  This is the Spokane river. 

June 3/ Couer d'Alene

Yesterday we were awash in indecision.

We spent Friday night in Post Falls, Idaho, but our final destination was Couer d’Alene five miles away. With great expectation we arise and head out. We did not know what Couer d’Alene was like, but we knew what we hoped it would be like. We hoped that it would be like Tahoe in the sixties. We would sit in our chairs by the Lake in front of our rustic cabin. Then Michael would head out looking for the best places to fish, should we come again.

The town has been discovered. It is pressing forward to become Santa Fe, or Sun Valley. The lake is beautiful, but so is Puget Sound. It has forty little bays and the circumference around the lake is 250 miles, driving. One hotel dots the lake. I think you can stay for less, but the basic room comes at $500. The rooms were full. Most other hotels are located out on I-90 away from the lake and you might as well be in any Best Western. Shops and galleries fill the town and resort hotel. Million dollar homes are everywhere. One multi story condo complex is being built on the lake, and a condo costs, turn key, three to five million. This we find out from our friendly helper at the tourist information.

Looking like bums, we had lunch at the resort which was exquisite, all of it. I tried to take a picture of the bathrooms, but could not. I had crab cakes.

Sunday is supposed to be nearly 100 degrees. What to do? What to do? We are dissatisfied with Couer d’Alene. But where to go? Be ready for the next installment.

June 2/ fly over

The last laugh is on me. Yesterday I worked very hard with my camera learning how to work it in the manual mode. My daughter has said that I should use the viewer as it saves the batteries. So I squinted for nine hours through that little hole. Today I pick up my camera ready to continue my education. But I can’t see a thing. Everything is blurry. It is like having your eyes dilated and then being asked to read the bottom line. Today has been a day of travel from Lake Chelan to Coeur d’Aleane via highway 2. I would like every kid in America to take this trip. Without a game boy, a video, even a book. Only the socialization of the family. Perhaps a deck of cards and bubble gum. What is between these two places are hills and rocks, no hills, no rocks, but apple trees and wheat, and I am guessing hops, plus bare dirt that has been harvested waiting for replanting. For miles and miles there can be a straight road for as far as the eye can see. What you see is space. Open space. You see the wheat that makes your bagel. You see how much wheat our nation uses or sells to others. There are few houses. Some barns. But you realize how far one would have to drive, dine at your neighbors. And you look at the land the way some of us look at the ocean.

may 31/ Lake Chelan

We have stayed in Lake Chelan  for two nights, one night at Campbell’s, and one at the Best Western. One a place for families with kids, one for old farts such as us.  Yesterday we took a nine hour Lady of the Lake  boat trip from Chelan to Stehekin which is a settlement 55miles to the northern end of the lake. There are no roads to Stehekin and every thing is barged, or taken on Lady of the Lake.  Our boat made two stops to the end, and a one stop deposited twelve coolers of ice cream.  In the winter the boat goes only 4 times week.  There are 12 miles of road in Stehekin, so everyone has three cars:  one car for Chelan, one car for Stehekin, one car for the repair shop, and maybe either motor cycles, or a car to go to Seattle.  

Aside from the beauty of the trip, what was so fabulous is that I had nine hours to practice with my camera.  I am trying to work the Manual mode in the hopes that I can have better exposures.  See what you think.