Saturday, January 15, 2011

Time for an Update

It has been a long time since my last blog. I have been busy teaching, tutoring and Subing. We have not had a chance to do much traveling lately. Over the holidays my parents came to visit and experience a Washington winter. We saw the Skagit River Eagles one morning and went shopping at IKEA another.

After they left Sandy and I got busy selling of some of our extra furniture, since we bought a new LARGE couch while at IKEA. We also got a fanstaic new camera, so expect some new pictures to come as soon as the weather is good on a day off for both of us.

We have also been doing a lot of thinking and are taking the first steps to create a better future for both of us. and that will send me back to school for 5-6 more years to earn a Doctor of Pharmacy. I need to finish 6-8 prerequisite courses before applying to the program, so we may be remaining in WA for another year or so, or we may be moving to Wyoming this summer.

With our future a bit up in the air, we have had to put a hold on planning any expansion to our family, but we both feel this is what well make us happy and allow us to continue living the way we want to live.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Glaciers!

More pictures from Canada. This time it is shots of some of the glaciers.
























Crows foot glacier, but one toe is just about melted away













Can almost make out some of the blue color ice of the glacier.















Can see the ice bend over the rocks










Wonder how thick that snow cap on the ridge is?
















The entire valley is filled by the glacier











This is a "hanging" glacier, notice the snowball shape near the center of the picture.












Here is the close-up, the snow is being held in-place by suction. Can see how ice can act like a plastic when stretched.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Here is a small collection of pictures of peaks from our recent trip to Canada. It is really hard to describe just how rugged and rocky the Canadian Rockies are. I grew up in Colorado and those mountains seem, more eroded and softer. The pictures hardly do the peaks justice, but I like the way these shots came out.











Near the South entrance of Banff N.P.














Near Lake Maligne














On the Ice-fields highway













In Kootenay NP in British Columbia.













On Kananaskis Trail in Alberta

Friday, July 30, 2010

Oh Canada...



Well eariler this week we returned from a 6 day camping trip to Banff and Jasper National Parks. We left the fifth wheel in WA and just loaded everything in the Jeep and tent camped for the week. here are some of my favorite shots.















This first shot is the Columbia Icefield.
















The second shot is the Natural Bridge in Yoho NP.
















The third shot is a mountain range near Banff, Alberta















The fourth shot id the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes NP.










This last is a Pano from Spirt Island on Maligne Lake in Jasper NP.

Monday, July 19, 2010

A picture that is worth a thousand words.

I know I have been VERY lazy in making post for the last few months, but we have either been too busy with family in town, or done nothing worth posting. We finally took a picture that is just too good not to post. It is not the clearest picture, or totally in focus, but it is a great picture. I'll let you all read into it what you want.

Monday, January 25, 2010

It Has Been Awhile...

Well today is one month since the last post I made. 2010 has been good so far. We stayed home for News Years Eve and watched the fireworks display from the Space Needle on TV. It was a good show, but like being a few hundred feet away form the fireworks on top of Pikes Peak.

A few weeks ago we woke up very early and drove several hours to the North Cascades Highway to look for the Bald Eagles. We were able to see 22 different eagles on the drive, but a few weeks earlier there could have been as many as 300 eagles in the area. We took lots of pictures, but sadly none really come out in-focus and zoomed enough to be worth posting.

Last week we meet up with a friendly couple from Mt. Vernon that I meet online via the Heartland Owners Forum. We had a wonderful lunch and chatted for a couple hours about the adventures and tales form both of our full-time RV life styles.

I just started subbing again last week and today began the application to get my resident teacher certificate. This should be a much quicker process than the Sub certificate and I will be testing in April, but it might take several month to complete all the testing necessary to have my WA licence be equivalent to the license I held in CO.

The weather over the past month has been okay, but the ground stays wet most of the days, so taking the dogs to the park has become a very messy muddy affair. Most of the time we have to shower both dogs off as soon as we get home. The poor Jeep has a thick layer of sand and mud inside the cargo area that will require shampooing or a real good vacuum to get it clean again.

We are starting to make plans to the summer and hopping to have some more great adventures. We would like to make a weekend trip to the Oregon Coast and get back to Mt Rainier after the snow has began to melt. My parent are coming to visit for 10 days and that is sure to be a whirlwind tour of the area.

Sandy and I have basically decided that we will be spending at least another year here, so I can get back into teaching full-time and she could specialize in a different area of nursing. The plan on getting to Alaska for a summer is still in play, but we don't know when that summer will be.