Seattle in Neon: Seattle Glassblowing

Here is Seattle Glassblowing's neon sign. A unique neon sign located on 5th Avenue in what is considered the Bell Town area.

Seattle in Neon

The fifth best thing in Seattle, for me, is its neon signs. There are so many wonderful neon signs in Seattle, from the typical hum drum to the outrageous, from the small to the huge. They are located all over town. There is even a neon graveyard and the start of a museum.

One of my ongoing personal projects is to document them. I am photographing the signs in context and up close, sometimes this is the same photo, but other times this will be a couple of photographs. Throughout the rest of the year I will be posting these signs. I have actually posted one neon sign already, the Top Pot Doughnuts sign.
Here is a photo of Ralph's Grocery & Deli.

In a couple of weeks I will also be documenting my favorite thing about Seattle, but you will have to wait for that.

Some more Seattle

Here is a photo of Seattle's Elliot Bay taken from the Magnolia are. Though it looks like a sunrise or sunset, this was actually taken just after 11:00 am.

Seattle Sunset

Here are a couple Seattle sunset photos from last November. I just missed getting this sunset with a full moon by a day. Still, I think this is pretty good for a fall photo. Especially since there is actual sunlight involved.

Tesla cars in Seattle

A Tesla electric car dealership opened up in Seattle. Located in the South Lake Union area. At least they chose a really cool old brick building for their location. Probably not a cheap location either, but when a car goes for at least $100,000.00 it better be in a cool building.

Top Pot Doughnuts

The best doughnuts in Seattle, Top Pot Doughnuts. And also one of the best buildings near downtown, in my humble opinion. It is a great place to go have a doughnut with some tea while sitting in a great environment. One of my top 3 best things in Seattle, one of the others is KEXP.

Sheepherder's Carvings Part Five

Here are the two people giving the tour of the different carvings at the end of Eagle Creek Road approximately 6 miles north of Ketchum, ID. John Peavey and Ivan Swaner filled us in on the local history about the sheepherder carvings. The last photo shows both of them by one of the carvings.

Sheep Herder's Carvings Part Four

Here are a couple more of the carvings we toured. I guess a couple of the more graphic ones (even a carving of a nude lady) have been lost because of the trees dieing or falling down. Hopefully some photographer got a couple shots of those for posterity.

Sheep Herder's Carvings Part Three

All of these carvings are found on aspen trees. Aspens are easy to carve in and the carvings are prominent because of the way the bark grows on the tree. The only problems though is the short life span of the Aspen tree, diseases that are killing the aspens and that you can not preserve the bark in any way. This make photographic documentation the only way to keep the historic value of the carvings for later generations.
This would be a great photography assignment. It would be a long one, especially for me, because there are carvings in many different areas in the Sawtooth National Forest and surrounding areas. But I will be keeping my eye out for these and document the carvings as I come across them.

Sheep Herder's Carvings Part Two

Traditionally the main sheep herder's where Basque. There is still a very big Basque community in Boise, ID and the surrounding. Boise even has a Basque district downtown, which is very fun to visit. Currently most of the sheep herders (the actual people sleeping and herding the sheep around) are from Chile or Panama.

Sheep Herder's Carvings

Back in October when I was in Idaho, I took a little tour showing some of the tree carvings done by Sheep Herder's in the Sawtooth National Forest, just outside of Ketchum. It was great to here one of the old rancher's talk about the history and show us some of the more intricate carvings. Most of the sheep herder's doing these carvings actually come from South America, Chile or Panama.

In the next few posts I will have show photos of the various carvings.

KEXP bringing back memories with music

I was listening to KEXP this morning, when John in the Morning played some Johnny Cash. I don't know why but it brought up this memory of mine.

I was with my dad at the "Men's Fishing Trip", insert tool time man's laugh here, in the Fall of 2006 I believe. Both of us had just come out of the big wood river after fly fishing it pretty hard, drinking our soda and eating a bit of lunch. When a big SUV drove up filled with all guys that were in their late 70's early 80's. They all piled out and started gearing up to do some fly fishing. Getting their big waders out, lugging them on, putting on their socks and shoes. It was a big event. While all of this was happening the driver, also in his late 70's early 80's was blaring Johnny Cash. Completely and utterly rocking out to it. To the point of bragging about how he sold the most albums ever, etc etc. It was great to see.

I love how music can do this to people at any age.Here are a couple of pictures of KEXP when I got to do a little walk through back in October, 2009.

Orcas Island Weekend part 6

Our last morning on Orcas Island we went for a little canoe ride on the water just outside of the B&B. I tried to get some photos of the different birds on the water, but they were not feeling photogenic. Everywhere we rowed on the water they went the opposite way.

Luckily there were a couple of old wooden boats up on land. They weren't flying away from me so I decided to get few shots of them. It was quite fun doing this. I was even able to get a macro shot of some moss that was blooming on the boats.All in all we had a great time on Orcas Island.

Orcas Island Weekend part 5

While on Orcas Island we stayed at a B&B called The Inn on Orcas Island. Both my wife and I had a great time staying there. The breakfast's were phenomenal, the accommodation's comfortable, relaxing and warm, and the overall stay just perfect. We stayed in the carriage house, which had a kitchenette, where we were able to cook our dinners and enjoy the room that much more.
If you are going to be staying overnight on Orcas Island I would highly recommend The Inn at Orcas Island.

Orcas Island Weekend part 4

After taking photos in the fog, my wife and I, kept on driving around the Island. We were able to pretty much see everything there is to see, but we sure did not do everything that there is to do on the island.We were able to drive everywhere, even up to the observation tower, where you can view all of the islands around you, even Vancouver in British Columbia, pretty cool. The tower was built in the depression by the Conservation Corps in the 1930's. Here is a photo of it. If you get to Orcas Island I highly recommend going here.

After the tower we drove back down the hill to our B&B where I was able to capture a few more photos in one of the island's lakes.

Orcas Island weekend part 3

That same first morning after breakfast, the fog rolled in. Which created some great ambiance for photos. Luckily we were driving at this time and I was able to pull over and grab these photos. It happened quick, right after this last picture, the fog had disappeared.