WINTHROP TO WENATCHEE

Elsie, Murray, and Allan driving over Hwy 20 to Winthrop, WA.

Our first stop after leaving Vancouver was a small cowboy themed town on Hwy 20 East called Winthrop.  We had driven Hwy 20 on past trips, but only as far as Winthrop from the East and as far as the town of Concrete from the West.  We had never actually been over the entire highway.  

Cascades National Park, our American Alps

Well, surprise surprise.... the road took us through what was called the American Alps.  It was actually the Cascades National Park and although we have been staying all around this area for years, we were not aware that there was a national park hidden away on Hwy 20.  There were many trailheads off of the highway leading off into the wilderness but we never really saw a visitor center although there was a road leading south that might have been promising.

 However we had a long drive ahead of us and we continued on to Winthrop where we stayed in the Pine Near RV Park which turned out to be wonderful.  Huge grassy sites, full hookups, free wifi, and dark starry nights.  And it was a simple walk to town.  We were only there for a few days so that we could do the laundry, go to the grocery store and generally catch up before moving East.  The grocery store in Twisp was interesting with wild animals displayed everywhere; bears, African lions, mountain lions, wildebeests, etc.  It gives new meaning to knowing where your meat comes from.  

We also were going to try and do a plein air painting and went out one day to find a location and get some photos.  We found a beautiful field full of mustard plants and returned the next day all ready to paint only to find that the whole field had been tilled under.   They must have done it in the middle of the night?  

Oh well, on to Wenatchee where we had reservations at the Wenatchee River County Park.  Another beautiful location with sites arranged around a circle which gave everyone a lot of privacy.  Huge poplar trees and green grass all around and all of this adjacent to the Wenatchee River.   Since the weather is in the 90's here, we went out and got a couple of rafts to take down to the river.  Quite nice, just bobbing about in the water on a lazy afternoon.  The dogs enjoyed it too.  

We were here on a Saturday, so had to visit the Wenatchee Farmers Market.  We had been there before and knew that all the fresh produce, especially fruit from the area would be for sale.  And we were not disappointed.  Peaches, about 6 different varieties, apricots, cherries, blueberries and plums.  We were also able to buy fresh salmon and just picked corn on the cob.  And I was able to get cabbage salsa.  We hadn't had cabbage salsa since we left California.   

Of course we couldn't resist going over to Leavenworth at least once while we were here.  It is such a great success story for a town refashioned to look like a town in Bavaria. Even if it is a little hokey,  there are still some good brats with beer, so we went over for lunch and ended up finding a great consignment shop where Allan purchased two Tommy Hilfiger shirts.   Tomorrow we head to Coeur d'Alene, which will be our take off point for Radium Hot Springs.     

SEATTLE TO ANACORTES

We are currently at the Fidalgo Bay RV Resort in Anacortes, Washington and it seems as if the last couple of weeks have just flown by.  For all of you who know us, you will know that we have been just doing all of our usual excursions and I really have no excuse for not posting sooner, but I will try to recapture a few highlights of the last few weeks.
I did mention in the last post about visiting Kubota Gardens.  So the photo above is one of the many views of that garden and we were lucky that our friend Jann had a day to join us.  

While we were out hunting down used bookstores in the Fremont area of Seattle, we came across a bookstore that had a different take on the usual bookstore cat.  Ophelia's Books had a bookstore rabbit with a little swiss chalet rabbit hutch and a tiny fenced yard.  They also had a great selection of books.  While we were waiting for the store to open, we walked around the district, even having a late breakfast in a vegan, glutin free cafe.  

It was pretty good considering it didn't have any ingredients I was used to using when I cook.  On our walk we discovered a gigantic statue of Lenin.  Someone had painted his hands red with red paint and since our friends Jim and Nancy had just had their photo taken with President Carter, Allan decided he would have his photo taken with Lenin.  This 7 ton sculpture was toppled by the revolution in Slovakia in 1988 and has taken many side trips before arriving in Fremont where it stimulates local controversy.  Note that there is a for sale sign painted on the front of Lenin.  That is because it is privately owned and is for sale.  If you are interested, contact the City of Fremont.  

We also visited a used book store in Duvall, Washington.  This store is not on the internet and does not even have a phone.  We stumbled onto it by accident a few years ago and return when we are in the area.  This year while we were there, we walked to a restaurant nearby and noticed a group of people staring up into the sky.  

Sun Halo photo by Allan Frey

They were looking at a Sun Halo which is sometimes called a sundog.  It is formed by water vapor that freezes into ice crystals up in a layer of the atmosphere.  When the sun shines through the ice crystals, the light refracts and we see a halo that has the colors of the rainbow around the sun.  

Although we went to several farmers markets while in the Seattle area, one of the most interesting was the University Market in the University District of the city.  This market is ranked as one of the 10 best in the state and it was all food products or prepared foods, no arts or crafts.  However they did have one unique stall, which we have never seen in any other market (and we go to numerous markets on our travels).  A poetry booth where there were three young people prepared to write a poem on any topic for any price.  

Latin Music in the WA State Extension Discovery Garden

I think if there is one thing that I really miss while living in Arizona, it is the fresh fruits and vegetables that are available everywhere in the northwest.  We have been eating the ripest berries, peaches, and cherries, just picked and delicious.  We have had salads and grilled veggies at every meal.  Of course we offset all this goodness by eating all the fabulous scones, strudels, and breads that are also plentiful.

Boxwood Gardens

 The first excursion we had once we reached Anacortes was the annual Symphony Garden Tour.  Visiting gardens and listening to the symphony members play their instruments is always a pleasure and is well worth the donation ticket fee.  This year the gardens were not as spectacular, and the weather was drizzly and sprinkly all day, but it was still a

wonderful outing and we met many gardeners who were justifiably proud of their gardens.  One of the smaller gardens was owned by a potter and the garden was filled with art objects, not all of them hers.  Sculptures and paintings, birdhouse art, mosaics, and more.  It was a tiny space but filled with lovely art to catch your eye.   
Yesterday.... we went to Dakota Art and purchased many pastels.  I think the more pastels you have, the better you will be as an artist.  If that isn't a great rationale, I don't know what is.  

PIZZERIA PULCINELLA

When Allan and I are at home, we do a lot of cooking and eating at home.  But when we are on the road in our rv, then we start looking for interesting places to eat.  When we look for a restaurant, we want to find a place that has something to offer that we can't or probably won't prepare at home.   Because we were meeting our friend Jann at the Kubota Gardens this week, I went on line to find a restaurant nearby that would be a good place for lunch.   Pizzeria Pulcinella looked like it would be close to the gardens, but before making that final decision I took a glance at their menu on line to determine if they had anything we would particularly enjoy.  

They had a lunch menu that was priced reasonably and included several salads, many different kinds of pizza, polenta, and panini sandwiches and more.  But the big surprise was that they were a registered Neapolitan Pizzeria.  Coincidentally I had purchased a used book the week before called Best Food Writing of 2000 Edited by Alice Waters, and had just read one of the food essays the night before entitled Food Court by Nancy Harmon Jenkins of Food and Wine Magazine about how Neapolitan Pizza was going to obtain the coveted Protected Designation of Origin by the European Union which recognizes about 500 foods and beverages as having something inherently special and inimitable and deserves to be in a protected status.  This means that several requisites have to be met; where the product is made, the raw materials from which it is created, the knowledge of how to make the product and the sensibility built up over generations.  Most people are familiar with champagne wine, roquefort cheese, or Po Valley ham, but now Neapolitan Pizzas will have that designation as well.

So what a surprise to find that this restaurant has that designation and is number 304 on the register for protected status of neapolitan pizzas.  This means that they had to have a wood fired pizza oven made in Italy sent over to be used to make their pizzas (they had to remove the front wall of the restaurant to get it in the building).  They also have to import the flour and yeast.  And they have to have the training and knowledge to know what exactly makes  this pizza different than any other.  

Well of course we had to order a pizza and Allan chose the pepperoni and portabello mushroom pizza.  Jann and I decided to share a polenta with Italian sausage meat sauce.  We all had the rugala salad with Arugula, cherry tomatoes, and olive oil with Meyer lemon dressing.  We dug right in and then remembered that we should be taking photos, so my apologies for the photos of half eaten food.  Actually it was lucky I did remember or the photos might have been of scraped clean plates.  The pizza was thin crust, with a crispy edge and a soft elastic dough center.  Delicious.   

Then we could not resist the dessert menu.  We decided to share.  Allan had spumoni, Jann had profittaroli, and I had the crema al limone.  Well they were all good, but the crema al limone which had been flown over from Milan, was exceptional.  It tasted kind of like a cross between sorbet and ice cream and was a lemon cream swirled with a limoncello.  Since once again we started eating before we got photos, our waitress was kind enough to bring out another limoncello flute for the photo.  
If you don't have the time or the money to fly to Italy and you are in the Seattle/Tacoma area, then consider taking a drive to South Seattle. You can take a stroll around the Kubota Gardens and then drive a couple of blocks over to Pizzeria Pulcinella for lunch  www.pulcinellapizza.com.  It is something special.

GIG HARBOR IN THE SUN

Last week we stayed at the Gig Harbor RV Resort so that we would be close to several gardens we wanted to visit and also to be within driving distance of the American Art Gallery where the Northwest Pastel Society was having their National Show.  Since I had gotten my painting "Lembert Dome" juried into the show, we headed over to Tacoma on our first day in the area.  

The American Art Gallery was established in 1889 and is located in a charming historic business district of Tacoma.   Later in the week we met up with Jann Perez, a friend of ours from our Arizona Pastel group who lives in the area and she met us at the gallery where we walked around and critiqued all the paintings.  Later she gave us a guided tour of the historic buildings around the gallery before we had a great lunch together.   

There are a number of different gardens in the Tacoma area to choose from and we started off with a visit to the Seymour Botanical Conservatory in Wright Park.  It is not very big, but it has a large number of begonia specimens.  

All beautiful and none of which would survive in Phoenix.  This was a short stop on our way to Culpepper's Used Book Store where we both found a couple of books to add to our growing collection.  We also went to a new used book store called Kings.  They didn't have much to interest Allan, but they had lots of foreign mystery authors, some of my favorites.

On another day, we took a drive to Maple Valley to visit the Lake Wilderness Arboretum.  This is an interesting story of an old abandoned airport landing strip that was purchased by a group of Master Gardeners and turned into an arboretum by accepting donations of gardens that had lost their owners and were going to be destroyed.  Entire gardens were uprooted and transplanted in the new arboretum.  This garden now has the largest collection of deciduous azaleas in the world.  They also have a Japanese maple grove and have set aside 26 acres for a second growth forest with trails and pathways.  As we walked one of the pathways, we came upon a lending library of garden books built into a tree stump by one of the master gardeners. 
Two gardens that were a must see for us were the Lakewold Garden and the Bloedel Reserve.  

Lakewold Garden

Two wealthy sisters from Seattle, married socially prominent and wealthy men.   Eulalie and her husband purchased a property now known as Lakewold where Eulalie hired Thomas Church to design a garden for her and she herself became an ardent hands-on gardener.  

The home that was built is actually similar in design to her sister's home but the property is smaller and more residential which does not detract at all from the many intimate areas that were planted along the lakeside.   There is a swimming pool shaped like a four leaf clover, and sculptures throughout the garden pathways, a small pond with benches for contemplation, and a wonderful gazebo with fuschia baskets hanging inside and a dogwood tree on the outside.  

Bloedel Reserve meadow

But the best garden of all is the Bloedel Reserve.   Prentice Bloedel inherited his father's timber company and went on to be the first person to create sawdust logs for fireplace burning.  He was an environmentalist and ensured that all logged areas were replanted.  He married Virginia (Eulalie's sister) and they purchased property with a home on Bainbridge Island.  

Bloedel Reserve and Home

This property became his crowning achievement and he ultimately retired early from the timber business to devote all of his time to developing his garden.   This property is considerably larger than Lakewold and Bloedel had plenty of

room to set aside areas for a meadow, a forest walk with a very large natural pond, waterfalls, bogs, wooden bridges, manicured lawns, japanese garden and guesthouse, moss garden, fern garden, and so on.   As you near the completion of the circular trail that takes you around the property, you come upon the spring fed reflection pond surrounded by yew trees.  This is a quiet serene place and is definitely a scene such as Bloedel was hoping to capture.... "a place where people find refreshment and tranquility in the presence of natural beauty".   
If you have time for only one garden in the northwest, this is the one you will want to visit.

HEADING NORTH

Tehachapi Sunrise

This year we are heading North and this week is the final countdown before we leave on Sunday for Sedona, our first stop on a five month trip.
We will be in Sedona for 3 days to showsit at our annual Spring Show at the Sedona Art Center.  

This year Allan got 3 paintings in the show and I got all four with one of my paintings  (above) getting an honorable mention.  The painting is Tehachapi Sunrise and it is a place we stay frequently in the rv as we travel from Barstow over the Tehachapi Summit to Bakersfield.  From Sedona we will be in Las Vegas for a few days and then we are spending a week in Bishop where we intend to explore the southeastern side of the sierras.  Then on to Brookings, Oregon for two whole weeks at the beach.

 We will then go up to Portland for a week and then to Gig Harbor for a week while we check out the International Open Juried Show of the Northwest Pastel Society.  This year I have one painting juried into that show and we purchased an airfloat box to ship it up to Tecoma, Washington.  The show will run until June 23rd so we will be there to pick up my painting at the end of the show.  

We will be going back to the gardens at Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island.  Check out Allan's painting of a photo we took on a previous visit......     After that we will be staying in Anacortes for about 10 days before we travel up to Vancouver where we intend to visit some favorite places we have been in past visits and also to check out some new places.  We will come back to the US to head east to Coeur d'Alene and then North to Radium Hot Springs which is located on the western side of the Rockies about an hour from Banff.  This is the furthest north we will go and on our return we will travel down through Glacier NP, a place we have never been.... Yellowstone NP, a favorite place..... Grand Tetons... a new spot for us... and we will finish up at the Plein Air Festival in the Grand Canyon.

 So this week is packing and more packing.... and also finishing up a painting I have been working on for the last week or so.  It is pretty close to done.  The painting is from a photo of Convict Lake, which is extremely picturesque... I just hope I have done it justice.

Last Two Weeks in Washington

Dick and Barb McGuire with Allan
 in front of the Semiahmoo Resort

Whenever we stay in Washington, our time just seems to fly by.  A couple of days after the garden tour, we drove up to Birch Bay to see Barb McGuire and her husband Dick.  They have a cosy and delightful place within walking distance to the bay, just north of Bellingham and south of Blaine.  Dick has fixed up a space in the garden shed to be Barb's studio for the summer and she has all sorts of projects on the wall that she has been working on.  Dick drove us all to Peace Arch State Park to see the giant arch straddling the border between Canada and the U.S.  The gardens in the park were beautiful and we got lots of photos before heading over to the Semiahmoo Resort on the Semiahmoo Bay for lunch.  It was a great visit and we are looking forward to seeing Barb again this coming Fall at our pastel meetings. 

Sharon at Mama's Garden Farm Stand

Later that same week, we took off on a tour of Farm Stands located in the area east of Bellingham.  Because of all the rain this year, many of the stands were not open yet, but we did find several small stands with baby carrots, sweet shelling peas, strawberries, and lettuces.  There were miles after miles of farms in this area and many of them had views of Mt Shuksan to the east.  One of the reasons we enjoy this area so much is the availability of fresh produce and I wish I could say that this has led to slimmer figures, but unfortunately there is also an abundance of great bakeries where we never hesitate to stop and sample.

Mitch Albala at Penn Cove

Our last excursion before leaving Anacortes was an art workshop with Mitch Albala on Whidby Island.  We already owned Mitch's book on Landscape Composition and we were looking forward to meeting him and hearing him in person.  Allan was hoping to ask him some questions about thumbnail sketches and it turned out that the entire two hours was about exactly that issue and more.  Mitch really stressed the importance of composition and called it the "front end" of painting.  Although the weather was gray and drippy and cold, and we were standing for two hours on the deck of the Captain Whidby Inn on the edge of Penn Cove, his talk and demo were so interesting that I didn't even register how cold I was until we got in the truck to go home.  For anyone reading this that is in our pastel group, there will be a complete writeup in the August newsletter. 

Elsie and Murray with a large dog
at the Edmonds Off Leash Beach Park

The last five days have been spent in Seattle where we always seem to do exactly the same things that we did the previous visit, but never get tired of doing them.   We always stay in Bothell at the Lake Pleasant RV Park which is situated around a lake with ducks and weeping willows.  From here we head out each day to visit one of our favorite spots.  When we checked in, the manager noticed we had dogs and directed us to an off leash dog park which was on the beach in Edmonds.  So that evening we headed over with Elsie and Murray so that they could experience the beach.  It was not a long sandy beach unfortunately, more rocks and driftwood piled around, and the dogs were mostly large rambunctious breeds who swam out into the ocean to bring back logs (not sticks).  Our dogs were fairly intimidated by all this action and stayed pretty close to us and we did not stay long.

Allan's Japanese Beef Curry

The next day we drove down to the International District and wandered around taking photos of buildings before going into a huge asian market, bookstore, and food stall area.  We were able to find some imported Japanese Plum Wine, Macha Green Tea, and a book on Curries.  Since it was almost noon, we headed to the food counters where I got  a chinese combination plate and Allan got some of his favorite food, Japanese beef curry.  Then we went to the downtown area and scouted out all the used book stores finding a just a few books to take home.

Redmond Farmers Market

Saturday is the prime farmers market day, and one of the biggest in the area is in Redmond.  We headed over there early in the morning and purchased eggs, rainier cherries, beets with greens, scones, soaps, and tamales, just to name a few items.  It was a good mix of produce, crafts, and ready made food with music in the background provided by a local guy with his fiddle.  After that we went to the Trader Joes in Redmond to stock up on coffee and other essentials as there would be no TJ's on the Oregon coast.  Finally we crossed the floating bridge over to the University district where we found one more used book store.  Needless to say, we found more books to bring home.

On Sunday we drove to Ballard to see the Hiram Chittenden Locks, but first we wandered through the Ballard Farmers Market mostly to listen to all the music.  There were probably about 15-20 music groups or individuals playing jazz, classical, or country music.  We had to walk past beautiful veggies and fruits while we were listening, but we couldn't fit anymore produce into our pint sized rv fridge.  Most of the stores were open, there were jugglers, arts and crafts, and magicians.  It is quite a show.  Afterward we went on over to the locks and then across the water to the Fisherman's Marina for Allan to get photos of boats.

Our last day in Seattle was spent at Pike's Market, mostly to get photographs, but also just to sample the food and be out in the sunshine.  That's right.... I forgot to mention that we have been extremely lucky in the weather for the last few days.  Sun and more sun.  It has been wonderful after an extremely rainy month in Anacortes.  So spent a lot of time in the Italian Grocery, took many photos of fish, found a used book store on the lower level, and had lunch at Kell's Irish Pub where Allan had some kind of potato and sausage dish called Coddle, and I had my usual Shepherd's Pie. 

Tuesday morning we headed out for the coast, stopping at the Elma RV Park, in Elma, WA for the night.  After setting up, we took the dogs and drove over to Westport where Allan got even more photos of boats, we ate delicate and delicious halibut and chips, and stopped at a long deserted beach where Elsie and Murray could really run off leash without any intimidating large dogs around.  They were flying around the sand, running full tilt, with Elsie jumping over Murray and taking off like the wind.  Of course they ate some sea creatures before we could get to them, but we had such a good time watching them have a great time.  A good end for our Washington visit.

SKAGIT SYMPHONY GARDEN TOUR

Skagit Symphony String Quartet

We were so glad to wake up on Sunday and find that the rain had given up to sun and clouds in a blue sky because we had gotten tickets to the Skagit Symphony Garden Tour and we were not looking forward to taking the tour using our umbrellas.  But it turned out to be a perfect day and we headed to our first home in the Skagit Valley farmland just south of Mt. Vernon.  This was a new home built in 2009 with an adjacent restored milk barn, now used for family and farm functions.  All the plantings were new and surrounded the home with views across the farmlands in all directions.   As we walked around taking photos and chatting with other garden lovers, we were treated to music provided by members of the Skagit Symphony..... as we would be in all of the five locations on the tour.  

Terrabella

The next home that we visited was a 1901 parsonage on Fir Island and had been restored and transformed into a residence and also the gardens were used for weddings.  The garden setting was enhanced by numerous garden ornaments and dramatic plantings with stepping stones amid the moss. 


Further along the delta was a 112 year old home that was purchased back in 1972 and lovingly restored to include an art studio and library which were both in a separate building from the main residence.  The library looked out into the apple orchard and the wall of books included many shelves of art books, a person that we felt akin to.   The barn was turned into an art gallery and we were able to enjoy an exhibition of Pastel Paintings by Christine Troyer.  One of the paintings won 4th place at the pastel 100 competition. 

Restored 1800's Home with Stained Glass Windows

This garden included ponds, sculpture, vegetable garden, and a succulent garden on the roof of an outbuilding.  There was also a second floor deck where the view over the fields was inspiring. 




 We then took a road up into the mountains past McMurray Lake where we saw a more intimate setting surrounding a log cabin.  The cabin was set in the deep woods and the woods had been carved away from the cabin to make room for the small garden spaces.   A pathway had been cut through the woods down to the creek and if you wanted to brave the mosquitos which were as large as flies, you could walk down through the mosses and ferns to the creekside. 

Graham and Treena Kerr's "Boat" Home

We chose to drive on to the final home which was owned by Graham and Treena Kerr.  You might remember Graham as the Galloping Gourmet which was a TV show many years ago.  Graham has made his career on cooking and writing about cooking but admits that he had never grown a vegetable in his life until he retired to the Skagit Valley.  His home is on Cascade Ridge and has an awe inspiring vista of the entire Skagit Valley including the mountains and sound beyond.   All the homes up on the ridge are probably 5000 sq feet except for his home which is 1400 sq feet and is shaped like a boat that he and Treena used to own earlier in their lives.    

Graham Kerr's Vegetable Garden

Graham is now devoted to his organic garden and is attempting to grow enough vegetables for his immediate family and also enough to donate to the food bank.  Because he had never grown anything before, he admits that he sought help in establishing the soil, building the raised beds, installing the greenhouse, and choosing the correct varieties to plant.  He has had some success and also some failures, but keeps copious notes in order to try again with those vegetables that are not as easy to grow. 


He has to fence his garden from the rabbits, deer, and other wildlife that cross the road from the woods looking for something to eat.   Graham's new book on his vegetable gardening adventures with recipes was available for sale and so of course we had to have one, especially with some of the profits going to benefit the symphony. 

Graham autographing his book for Sharon

Graham was on hand to autograph all of his books while demonstrating his solar oven which he uses to bake bread in terra cotta flower pots.  He says that the sandwiches are a strange shape but the bread is delicious.



After checking out the garden and greenhouse, we were able to continue around the back of the home where Treena was reading selections from her poetry.  It was an amazing day of music, gardens, and sunshine.