Sometimes it is a Wet Road

Went down to the State Park and watched the ferry traffic. The weather was chilly but so beautiful.
This ferry, The Kittitas transports people from Mukilteo to Whidbey Island. Lots of people commute to work using the ferry system beautiful weather or not. This dock has been shut down and had to be rebuilt due to one of the ferries crashing into it.
The ferries are owned/operated by the state, and are considered part of the highway system. Twenty eight ferries make up the largest ferry fleet in the United States. There are eleven different "classes" of ferries, determined by their size and stowage capacity. The Kittitas is an Issaquah 130 class and is about medium sized. It can transport up to 124 vehicles/1200 passengers! The cost for car, driver and one passenger is about 17.50. They haul big semi trucks, motorhomes, everything.

Lucrative employment opportunities!!

The smaller island that is behind the ferry is Hat Island. It has its own private ferry system. Only about 150 homes there, and of course a golf course!

Yeah, Right!

This serene vision of Thanksgiving is certainly what I would like to remember. Ah, well. Being the baby of a family full of dysfunction my memories are mostly of tension..trying not to say or do the wrong thing and fling the Mum into a fit of anger or worrying about how I was going to dispense the huge portion of food that Mum piled upon my plate. It most likely was large, but being a very picky eater and Mum being a barely adequate cook I am sure my minds eye construed vast enlargements of the portions left for me on my plate.

If the lumpy gravy and the dry turkey did not dispense properly from said plate I was made to set at the table sometimes alone, sometimes with my sis for hours until I had swallowed the last bite and the plate was empty.

Father dear ate quickly as not to be drug into any family bonding or conversations and retreated to what sport favorite happened to be on the television at the time. A handy excuse for total withdrawal from family gatherings.

Certainly one of my joys was that for a few years we shared the dinner with the neighbors across the street, alternating homes (Lorraine was a better cook than Mum) and forcing my parents to at least pretend to like each other. It was an odd glimpse of how it was at one time or at the least...what could have been.

After I was married I was driven to try to make sure that Thanksgiving was perfect for my children...how odd that must have looked to the observer!

So here I am in 2007 accepting an invitation from a good friend to come for dinner, all my children everywhere but here.

Today I will give thanks for my sister, for my mother, for my children and my grandson and for my friends and for the luxury of living in a country where I have the freedom to say what I think, worship in the manner that my heart directs and feast at a table laden with the bounties of hard working hands. I will give thanks to those family and friends who have passed before me but embraced me for who I was and for what I learned from each one of them.

And I WILL give thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Treat Retreat, another Road to Travel

Skunk Bay Lighthouse




This looks like a lot of fun! six of my friends/coworkers and I are going on a retreat this weekend.


I am excited to visit with these people outside the office. A little food, dinner is going to be ready when we get there Friday night. A little wine, book discussions and hopefully we will not fall in the drink. Maybe clam digging at midnight?

I hope my camera comes today so I can get some pictures..I will be learning how to take photos (someday) that are as good as all of yours and Gardenia's!

Random Tagdom

Ok, I got tagged by Gardenia, my ever loving sister, in an effort I think to get me to bloggin'. I must apologize..I am so busy at work and have had trouble keeping up with my email.

I must be the most boring person in the world, as I can't think of much fascinating about me at all.





Rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.

3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.

4. Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog



1. My mother put me in the car 2 months after my 15th birthday

and I drove all the way from Wyoming to San Luis Obispo and back.

2. I slept with a skunk for a couple of years. It was the black and white

striped variety. She slept in my bed -not me in hers.

3. I have to have my feet outside the covers in bed. Can't stand to have

them or my arms pinned down.

4. I held a real estate license but never sold a house.

5. I cannot swim and am frightened of water but love the ocean and being

near it.

6. Absolutely loved being pregnant and would have seriously (under very

certain circumstances) considered being a surrogate mother.

7. And for those that read Dean Koontz "Life Expectancy", I have partial

simple syndactyly of the feet.

Gardenias for Gardenia

Thinking of you today.