In Paris With Ruby, Theo, David & Mona Lisa

Email this morning from France with multiple photos, with no text telling me what I am looking at, other than, with some of the photos, telling me this should be an easy one. Such as the above. Ruby, Theo and David with the Paris Disneyland castle behind them.

On a train ride in Paris Disneyland. Is this the Paris Disneyland version of Thunder Mountain? I have no clue.

I am thinking above Theo, Ruby and David are in the Palace of Versailles.

I am guessing the Tacoma Trio is still in the Palace of Versailles in the above photo documentation. Before heading underground.

And here we seem to have gone from the Palace of Versailles. to a tour of the Paris Sewers.

I think the next summer Olympics is taking place in Paris, which would make those the Olympic rings we are seeing above.

Finally a totally easy one. David, Ruby and Theo glowing bluish purple, with the Eiffel Tower behind them.

And now it looks like Theo, Ruby and David are under the glass pyramid in the Louvre Museum.

A close up of Theo, Ruby and David doing their best mysterious Mona Lisa smiles, in the Louvre Museum, with Mona on the wall behind them.

That concludes today's virtual visit to France..

First Sunday Of April Showers With Thunder Booms

 

The predicted thunderstorm arrived a couple hours late on this first Sunday of the 2023 version of April.

A long downpour has poured down a large enough volume of water that the view of the street from my kitchen window looks like the road is a river.

The lightning strikes, so far, have all been further than a mile distant, so the booms are not loud and concussive enough to scare the cat. If I had a cat.

Earlier today, before noon, I was able to have a mighty fine walk around Sikes Lake, with throngs of fellow walkers. Under a clear blue sky.

Currently the outer world looks to be brightening up a little. So, perhaps I will still be able to make my regularly scheduled Sunday visit to Walmart for anthropological observing humans purposes...

15 Best Airports In North America

I saw this a couple days ago on MSN, purporting to list The 15 Best Airports in North America.

I have experienced a few of these supposed best North American airports, as in Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Denver International Airport and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Of the three on the list which I have experienced, I would pick D/FW International as the best, with the Denver Airport, next best, with Sea-Tacoma International Airport not my pick to be best that I have been in.

D/FW has an easy to use SkyLink train that quickly gets you to any terminal in the HUGE airport. DFW has a mass transit train connection to the Dallas part of the DFW Metroplex, via a DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) line.

The Denver Airport also has a mass transit train connection to downtown Denver.

Same with Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The only other airports I have been in are McCarran International Airport, in Las Vegas, also known as Harry Reid International Airport. Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, and Juneau International Airport in Alaska.

I have found Sea-Tac to be a bit more confusing than other airports I have navigated around. And it always seems to have construction projects going on. Sea-Tac is aesthetically pleasing, there is that. You know you are in the Pacific Northwest when you are in Sea-Tac, but how Sea-Tac was determined to be the best airport in North America is a mystery to me.

Here is the entire list of 15....

1 Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

2 Vancouver International Airport

3 Houston Hobby Airport

4 Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport

5 Montréal-Trudeau International Airport

6 Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport

7 San Francisco International Airport

8 New York-LaGuardia Airport

9 Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

10 Los Angeles International Airport

11 Toronto Pearson International Airport

12 Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport

13 Denver International Airport

14 John F. Kennedy International Airport

15 Calgary International Airport

Burlington's Cascade Mall Being Repurposed As A Theme Park

I saw that which you here on Facebook, this morning of the first day of April.

I thought, wow, that is impressive, my little old hometown, with a population a little under 10,000, is repurposing the Cascade Mall as a theme park, with a hotel, a night club, a themed arcade, an I-Max movie theater, a waterpark, 380 condos, an In 'n Out Burger restaurant, along with the nearby Target being taken over by Trader Joe's.

Impressive.

And then I realized it is the first day of April, also known as April Fool's Day...

Windy Sikes Lake With Flock Of Goslings

It was to Sikes Lake I ventured this morning, on this final day of the 2023 version of March, to do some nature communing which required leaning into a strong wind.

The wind was blowing from the west. I would have thought, due to feeling how hard the wind was blowing, that the waves on the lake would have been bigger, with whitecaps.

You know for sure Spring has sprung when you see what I saw today at Sikes Lake.

A flock of newborn goslings. I saw no goose parental units by the flock. Usually, mom and dad goose are overly protective of their newborns and don't let visitors get too close.

And now a screen cap of part of today's forecast for my location.

I think I got hit with one of those 55 mph gusts. I had to lean into the gust to keep moving.

The high wind and dry conditions have caused the issuing of a Red Flag Warning. I do not know why it is called a Red Flag Warning, but what it means is conditions are such that the wildfire danger is extreme.

So far all I see is a smoke-free crystal clear bright blue sky...

In Washington Looking West Across Daffodil Fields At The Olympic Mountains

Many a time I have made mention of the fact that at my old home zone of the Skagit Valley, in Western Washington, no matter what direction one looks, east, west, north or south, one sees mountains.

At my current flat location no matter what direction I look there is nary a mountain to be seen.

I have frequently shared photos of my old home zone showing the mountains one sees from that location. 

Those photos I have previously shared have only shown the mountain view looking east from the Skagit Flats, usually with the Mount Baker volcano in the picture.

Yesterday, on Facebook, I saw the photo you see above. In that photo we are not looking east at the Cascade Mountain foothills, we are looking west, with that line of snow covered mountain peaks being the Olympic Mountains, located on the Olympic Peninsula.

Those land masses you see sticking out above the daffodil fields may be islands. I am not sure about the land masses on the left or right, but I am almost 100% certain the land mass in the middle is Fidalgo Island. That is where the town of Anacortes is located, and where you can find one of Washington's best hamburgers at the Fidalgo Drive-In.

In Anacortes you can hop aboard a Washington State Ferry and float to multiple islands.

For those reading this in Fort Worth, Texas, these are real islands, surrounded by real water. Not imaginary islands that might one day become an imaginary island if a cement lined ditch is ever actually dug, with river water diverted into the ditch.

I have not read anything about Fort Worth's imaginary island and that cement lined ditch in quite some time. The three little bridges, built over dry land, have been finished for quite some time, waiting for that water filled ditch to turn the bridges into the connection of the Fort Worth mainland to that imaginary island...

David, Theo, Ruby, Michele & Kristin Somewhere In Iceland

Email this morning with 8 photos from Iceland, with the only text in the email saying "You'll have to use your sleuthing skills to figure the locations."...

Well, the first photo made it fairly easy to deduce that Theo, Ruby and David are in Iceland, about to exit the airport in, I would hazard to guess, Reykjavik.

Which leads me to guess that the above photo is in Reykjavik.

A church, I think, in, I think, also Reykavik. If not Reykavik, then maybe the biggest town outside the capital region, Akureyri.

Iceland has multiple hot springs, including the most famous one, known as The Blue Lagoon. So, I guess that would be my guess as to this location.

No clue regarding the above, other than it appears that Theo, Ruby and David are walking on thick ice.

Iceland is known for its long haired horses. That may be what we are seeing above.

The oldest known geyser in the world is in Iceland's Haukadalur Valley. That may be what David, Theo and Ruby are looking at.

Are the Tacoma Trio preparing to eat an Icelandic hot dog? Or a flatkaka (dried fish and dark rye bread traditionally baked in the ground) or the Icelandic delicacy known as Puffin? I think I'll stick with it being Icelandic hot dogs.

Theo was gungho to go to Iceland after learning one can often see the Aurora Borealis from that location. The sun is being in solar flare mode at the moment. I hope that means that Theo got to see the Northern Lights. 

After Iceland it is on to France, to Paris and Disneyland. I hope the current unrest and protests in France do not create any problems for David, Theo, Ruby and their parental units...

Skagit Valley's Linda Lou Sees Mount Baker In Hiding

The above photo, from the Skagit Valley's, Linda Lou, arrived on my phone this morning, along with text saying, "Mount Baker trying to peek through the clouds."

It took me awhile to find where it was hiding on my computer, but eventually I located a photo of the same view, which I took way back in April of 2006 when I was heading to my Favorite Nephew Jason's first wedding.

In this version Mount Baker is not hiding.

Seems odd now, how totally normal it seemed to live so close to a semi-active volcano.

That dip at the top of the volcano is the crater.

When you hike up Mount Baker eventually you get close enough to the crater to smell the sulphur odor the crater emits.

At times Mount Baker spews out a lot of steam along with that sulphureous odor. At a volume of sufficient size that it can be seen from the location you see above, driving north on I-5, or any other location with a view of the mountain.

In my current frame of mind it is looking unlikely that I will be seeing the above scenery this coming summer...

Newspaper Daffodil Delivery To Skagit Valley Jones Family Compound

Email from FNJ (Favorite Nephew Jason) this morning, with the daffodil newspaper photo above, and the text below...

First arrival of the largest local newspaper at the Jones family compound. I set this up for my incoming father who is set to arrive just a few days into the next month.

He should receive the print version of the SVHerald, 5 days a week, along with the weekend version of the Seattle Times and the weekly LaConner Weekly News (which is the best weekly newspaper I have ever ran across. Seriously). ((If some blog writer wanted to give them a plug on a blog site, It would be well justified)).

I support local journalism, as might you, and hopefully your brother will enjoy his reading material.

________________________

I checked out the online version of the LaConner Weekly News, I can see why Jason is impressed. This online version of La Conner's newspaper is way better than the online newspaper version of the town I now live in, that being the Wichita Falls Times Record News, or the Texas town I lived in prior to Wichita Falls, that being Fort Worth and that town's pitiful excuse for a newspaper, the Star-Telegram.

La Conner is one of Washington's tourist attractions. This time of year, when the flowers are blooming all over the Skagit Valley flatlands, La Conner is a traffic jam of tourists. The town has multiple restaurants and art galleries and a famous bridge over a channel one can use to float your boat to one of the town's restaurants.

Linda Lou has told me that when next I visit the Skagit Valley she will take me to a restaurant in La Conner which Linda Lou says makes the best fish and chips and clam chowder in the Puget Sound zone.

Lucy Park Dry After Last Night's Thunderstorm Downpour

It was back to Lucy Park I ventured on the morning of the next to last Friday of the 2023 version of March.

In the photo documentation you are with me on the middle of the Lucy Park suspension bridge, looking north at the muddy Wichita River.

At one point in the middle of the night, last night, a blast of wind was followed by a loud downpour, followed by thunder booms. 

A lot of water fell in a short time frame, but in sufficient volume that by morning the moat around my abode, which happens after a lot of rain, was the biggest I have ever seen the moat be.

When the moat happens a temporary detour is in place making it possible to get to the carport.

After last night's deluge I thought the Wichita River might be in flood mode. When that happens Lucy Park goes under water. I've only seen that happen twice. But, today the river was nowhere near flood level.

And after a couple days of getting warmed into the 80s, we are back in being chilly mode, on the 50s...