I've been staying with my dad for a few days, and we went out fishing for salmon one of them. In the morning, I got a few nice shots of the sun rising and the farms and things around there. It is a beautiful area.
You can see the mountains from his house, though there are some trees now growing up in the way, and you have to look through them a little. This is Twin Sisters Mountain.
And this is Mt. Baker.
On my way down, I saw a Cedar Waxwing!
So the first thing that happened was that they had a soccer game the day before. I really like this idea, that just before any family gathering you have a game, and if there are people that don't know each other (like I didn't know many of the people there) they can get to know each other in a very informal way, and you don't have to worry about not having very nice clothes since you may have just gotten back from china and happen to not own any nice clothes.
This is Jenna (from Sehome high) and her boyfriend Jake (who I just met this weekend).
This is Karl and Rachel. I hadn't met Rachel before this, and I discovered that she is lovely and nice. I would like to see them again in a different place, where they don't have quite so much spinning around them, and get to know her even better. They are in Puerto Vallerta on honeymoon, which is where my boat is (or near enough) but I won't get down there until after they have left.
This is the aisle... And what an aisle! The music all came from the families, and I didn't know that the "here comes the bride" had words. In german, I think. Rachel is a singer and her family are all musical, and Karl plays Violin and Viola and his family is also very musical. I had music lessons from his aunt when I was a child. So the cousins played the music for everyone.
One of the neighbors of the farm flew over to check things out, and did a couple fly-bys in their biplane. It was cool to watch, and they could really go slow since they have so much wing area.
The glasses were nice, and the light coming through looked neat. 
Rainier. I couldn't stop taking pictures of it.
The Chuckanut sandstone is beautiful. They use it for a lot of the buildings in Bellingham.
trip, and I'm really glad that I went, though the beginning and the end both had some bad parts... Crossing the borders! On the way there, I had to get to Canada to get things done, and that was a mess, and coming back, I had a nice three hour wait in the airport trying to get out.
said tourism, I guess. So they scribbled something on my card in red ink.
searched my stuff, and that was that. Severely disgruntled, I got out and my dad was still there! Then a border wait and drive back. Ouch.
because the light was too white, and I like the red and yellow sunlight. But the last day I was there (tuesday) I went up with Marie on a trip around town, and it was beautiful! We went up this little hill in the middle of town and you could see all over. I think this is the best air quality (by far) that I had seen the whole trip. The hill is directly north of the Forbidden City, so it has a nice view over that area. And for some reason, there are these plants that grow all over the place that I don't know what they are, but I was wondering if they were hemp. They had 7 leaves, and spiky sort of thing, and they are all over the place. 
traditional "life on water."
and with the pollution, it creates an atmosphere that troubles me greatly. After I got back from Vietnam I had some sort of sickness that made me feel feverish and wobbly and weak, with a big headache. I was concerned about maybe Malaria, but apparently that is a recurring fever, not a one time deal. So I think it was, is, the pollution here. You walk around, or run around, and it hits you hard. And I played frisbee right after I got back, so it was a big hit on my weak lungs. I am amazed that the pollution would be enough to make me sick for more than a week, just from running around and breathing for 2 hours in it.
times I was near the ocean, so the temperature was a little less or something. It was more bearable. The last two weeks there were thunderstorms nearly every night, but I think that might be lessening now, at least its been "clear" for 4 days now.
have. The farmland up there had changed quite a bit since the last time we saw it, and giant corn plants were everywhere!
to be leaking now, and I can get to this blog. I hope it works and I can post this and maybe I will continue to post more here, but who knows. Internet here is such a mystery.
withdrawal symptoms. I also need to shoot some fish. I've been having dreams about spearfishing over the summer.
on my dodger some more.
the south, so I might stay in San Blas and hope that no storms hit there and go surfing a lot. I miss surfing too.
on to Beijing. And I will leave the realm of free internet as well, so I may not be able to post to this blog until August. But fear not! I will still try to post with my cdlloyd.wordpress.com one. Today it was raining all day long and pretty windy all day too. The waves were nice and high on the beach. 
to replicate that ever since. Maybe I will just have to go back. So This waterfall was pretty nice, and would have been great if we had it to ourselves, but we did not. It was a huge tourist trap and we were caught. But it was still nice. Not a lot of islands have rivers with waterfalls, so it was nice to have. After that we saw a big bird flying along and I managed to get a picture. Actually we saw two of them. It isn't the best identifying picture of a bird, but if you can tell me what it is, then you will get a prize!
about as big as my hand. I really like the shape of the web, and how the links connect. You can see how the spider went about making the web. I don't know what these ones eat, but I think that some of them around here eat small birds. I wish more of them ate the mosquitoes. 
town for the last town trip, and I got this shot of the boats in the harbor. They are going to build a new harbor I guess, and turn this place into a high speed ritzy spot, but I kind of like the sleepy town feel of the little old fishing boats sitting low in the water. The new marina plan includes room for one sailboat, but I haven't seen any sailboats in vietnam. Or in the world, for that matter, for a long time. We sat to watch the sunset for a bit and I saw a guy with a captian's hat on! I felt right at home. 
would happen if a Tsunami were to hit the area, or with global warming if the tides come up a bit higher. A lot of people would be pushed out. Even with the wind from yesterday and today the tides were about 6 inches higher than normal and I could really tell. The restaurants on the beach are all getting licked by the waves, and some of the footings for a roof support are exposed because the sand is washed away. Our bungalow is up on a slight hill, but a 10 ft tsunami would still get us. I don't know what the earthquake outlook here is though. I think small. It is the other side of Thailand that is trouble. 
Anyways, it was a beautiful sunset and a beautiful trip here on Phu Quoc. Not too expensive either. 10 bucks a night and 5 bucks a day for a scooter and meals are about 3-6 bucks a meal. 
masks or snorkels or fins with me to the island, so we had to take a boat trip package thing to get into the water with a mask. It was 15 bucks and I can't say I was totally happy about it. I guess it was worth the money, but after sailing around in my own boat, I sort of expect a lot from a boat trip.
time to be out on the water, but we were waiting for the people to decide we had seen enough pearls (and maybe some people bought them too) and to get on with the trip. Finally we got to the boat. We all got on quickly enough, and we had dreams of how we would go far away from the land... but we barely got out of the harbor, because boats don't go fast, and we didn't really have that much time before we had to come back, since it is a day trip. So we went out among the islands. The visibility wasn't very good, but still, it was nice to be in the water. I could see maybe 15 ft in places. There weren't a lot of fish, but there 
was lots of coral, and the coral was beautifully shaped. It was all dying, so it wasn't that great of a color. It was all covered in dirt. Maybe that means already dead. The Vietnamese don't really care for the water and things, so I can't see that tourism will be sustainable here. The coral reefs are all dead or going, and the ocean if full of plastic bags. It is sad.
of satisfied. I am not really that upset about spending the money, or about stopping in the beginning, but it did irritate me a lot at the time.
north of the island, and found some nice empty beaches. The water on the north is very clear, since there is no wind (and waves) from that direction. I saw a Tucan, but it wasn't close enough to get a good picture, and we drove the motorbike through some fun jungle terrain.
cold unless you were all the way under the ocean water. The rain isn't nearly as warm as the sea. Then later in the evening, after it had been windy all day long, with a strange, super steady wind of about 25 knots or so, there were nice big waves, so we went out just at dusk to play in them, and had a great time beating ourselves up with the waves when they came out of nowhere and hit us, since it was dark. There isn't much fetch for the waves to build on, maybe 100 miles or so from the coast of Thailand, but these were 3 ft or so, and they 
were fun to bodysurf.
air is hot and steamy, but with a beautiful sea breeze, and things are nice. Today we went all over the island with a scooter, which we rented for $5. There is a white sand beach on the east side. We haven't gone snorkeling yet, and I am eager to get in the water with some eyes, and maybe even try to get a spear, or make one if I can.
s. I tried to take some pictures of it, but the one that I got with a lightning bolt in it wasn't very good. But there is one shot looking down the beach and it is nicely lit up by the flash. But I need a super wide angle lens to get the bolts, and then I need to guess the time, so that the shutter isn't open too long. I have some white sky shots from too many bolts and the clouds are all lit up too.
