Was back in the Wichita Bluff zone today, parking at the east end parking lot access to the Wichita Bluff Nature Area. Heading west on the Circle Trail I did not make it as far as the arch which marks the east entry into the Nature Area.
Today is cold and cloudy, as you can see via the above photo documentation. Well, to be more accurate, you can see the clouds, but you have to take my word about it being cold.
Above, I thought that to be an interesting looking tree hovering over the Circle Trail. See those blotches amongst the barren branches of the tree? Years ago I was in Arlington's Veterans Park when I came upon people climbing up trees and removing these type blotches.
What are you doing that for, asked I?
It is mistletoe was the answer. They harvested it for sale.
I do not recollect knowing of mistletoe growing in the trees of the Pacific Northwest in my old home zone.
Changing the subject from mistletoe to something else.
A couple days ago Spencer Jack and his dad sent me three photos documenting what they'd been doing the day or two before Christmas. One of the photos showed a snow covered Front Street of Lynden. That is a Dutch town near the Canadian border, and is from whence all my relatives came. Well, originally from Holland, and then Lynden.
Spencer Jack also took his dad out to Whidbey Island, to Fort Casey and Deception Pass State Park. Deception Pass State Park is what you see Spencer Jack standing on below. With a setting sun looking like an exploding nuclear bomb.
I can tell Spencer is on the Rosario side of Deception Pass, which is the body of water behind Spencer. We can not see it in the photo, but to Spencer's right is a bridge across the pass, built in the early 1930s in less than a year.
An actual feat of actual difficult engineering, built, like I already said, in less than a year. Built over deep water which becomes extremely fast moving and violent when there are big tide differentials.
Imagine that, built in less than a year. An actual iconic signature bridge.
Meanwhile, I don't remember if I have mentioned it before, but the Texas town I previously lived in, Fort Worth, has been trying to build three simple little freeway overpass looking bridges, over dry land, ever since 2014, in the hope of one day connecting the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.
The con men and con women who foisted the imaginary island and its bridges upon the Fort Worth locals have tried to con those easily conned locals into thinking these simple little bridges are going to be iconic signature bridges.
Signature bridges due to the V shaped piers on which the bridge decks rest. Ordinary looking V shaped piers not even remotely unique, but which are one of the reasons the simple little bridges built over dry land have taken so long to build.
I almost forgot to mention. One day if those Fort Worth bridges ever finish being built a cement lined ditch may be dug under them, with water from the Trinity River diverted into that ditch, creating an imaginary island, which would not be even remotely like that island you see behind Spencer Jack.
I just realized Spencer Jack is on an island, Fidalgo Island, with Whidbey Island across Deception Pass behind him.
I started this blog post with hiking the Circle Trail near the Wichita Bluff Nature Area. Thinking about Deception Pass and the miles upon miles of trails, on both sides of the Pass, and thinking about how frequently I would drive the short distance from my home location to hike those trails, including hiking to the top of Goose Rock, a rock which would be considered a tall mountain if it were located any where near my current location...
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