That is a dog named Pal and a mountain named Rainier you're seeing in the picture. The picture was taken in April of 2006. I was in Tacoma taking care of Pal, a talking parrot Hurky, which was way too good at mimicking, and 2 cats, one of whom savagely attacked me, opening up a big gash on my face that left me scarred forever.That beach that Pal is on is part of Point Defiance Park. That's an enormous city park in Tacoma. I believe the only bigger city park in America is Central Park in New York City.
I first learned that it was fun to take Pal on walks when I stayed in his apartment building for a month in August of 2004. You could not accidentally say the word "walk" within Pal's hearing range, because as soon as he heard the magic word he'd get all excited and go stand by his leash, waiting for it to get attached to him. At that point I'd feel obligated to take Pal on a walk.
I last saw Pal last summer. He'd gotten old. I don't think he went on walks anymore. His humans abandoned Pal one weekend last summer, which made it my duty to lock him up overnight in the garage. This was not as easy as it sounds.
So, last night I learned that Pal has succumbed to the ailments of old age. I'm not a huge dog fan. But Pal was one fun dog. Cute too. My sister in Tacoma also has a pair of cute, fun dogs who like to go on walks, Blue and Max. They are little poodles. Blue and Max are a bit more high maintenance to take on walks than Pal was.
Below is a YouTube video from last summer, going on a walk with Blue and Max at the same Point Defiance beach with the same mountain in the background as the picture above of Pal.
That does look like a fun place to live. I bet that's some deep water. Is it salt water or fresh? Got big ocean going fish in it's depths? Are their swimming beaches at at Point Defiance? And what is the origin of the name, i wunder?
ReplyDeleteThat is aaltwater, part of Puget Sound. Puget Sound has 3 or 4 Orca pods. Orcas aren't fish, but they look like fish and they are huge. Other whales are also in the sound. I was at Rosario Beach at Deception Pass SP soon before I moved here. A huge whale was going along the edge of the beach looking for food. Some of the biggest octopus ever discovered were in Puget Sound. As for swimming at that beach at Point Defiance, it is deep, and it stays pretty cold. There are a lot of shallow bays on Puget Sound that expose a lot of sand during a low tide, which gets the sand hot and then heats up the water when the tide comes in. Best of those is this big resort type place called Birch Bay, up by the Canadian border. Spent a lotta time there when I was a kid. It's hugely popular. Point Defiance Park gets over 2 million visitors a year. And, unlike Fort Worth's big urban park, the FW Nature Preserve, Point Defiance is free to enter. And there is a lot to do there. I'm not sure where the name comes from. It may have been named that early on when boats sailed that channel with then turns into the Tacoma Narrows, where the tides move fast and some boats would have trouble navigating, so maybe if you went that way you were being defiant of Mother Nature. Fast moving tide changes are a wonder to behold. The best I've ever seen is when there is an extreme differential in tidal zones on either side of Deception Pass, which is a narrow waterway. The water turns into huge wave rapids that boats can not move it. Deception Pass is Washington's most popular park. It is huge. Real close to where I lived, so I went there a lot, it was my Tandy Hills when I lived in WA, hiking to the top of Goose Rock. Here they'd called Goose Rock a mountain. Anyway, thanks for making me homesick. If I still had my house up there, I'd move back. But, I sold it in 2002. Dumb move.
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