Mothers Day

I took mom for a bit of a Mothers Day outing.


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We went East on i-90 to High Point (a bit past Issaquah) where we diverted to side roads via Preston, Fall City, Snoqualmie Falls, Three Forks Park, to North Bend. She particularly enjoyed the tree lined roads, the views of rivers and hills, and Mount Si - she was very impressed that Eliza and another young woman had climbed Little Si a few days before without male assistance or escort.

At North Bend we went to the recently remodeled Taco Time (it was closed for remodeling at the time of our last outing). She had a Fish Taco and some Mexi-Fries, dipping the latter in ranch dressing & salsa. She thought it was all wonderful, including the view of Rattlesnake Ridge.

From there we drove to the Cedar River Watershed Education Center, where the level boardwalks and paved walkways were an easy walk with great views of Rattlesnake Lake and the Rattlesnake Ledges.


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Leaving the Watershed, we went down and drove around the Riverrbend neighborhood, got back on I-90 to Hwy 18 for some alternate woodland scenery, to the Hobart-Issaquah Road for some more rural scenery, back on I-90 to Seattle, past the Sound Transit Light Rail facility with its fleet of parked light rail vehicles (streetcars), wandered through some backstreets of old industrial seattle, and back to Merrill.

Long day for me, and I still had to drive home. Maybe in another day or two I will have recovered.

:)

Dryside

A daytrip to the dry side of the mountains is a good therapeutic activity, as much as I enjoy the wet side. [Image: Nunnally Lake]

It is especially nice this time of year when so many flowers are in bloom, and the temperatures are not yet outrageous. [Image: Woolypod Milk-Vetch?]

I took a lot of pictures yesterday, some of signs to keep , many of flowers to identify later, many of birds, since what makes a good photo is frequently hit or miss. [Image: Nunnally Lake, Schmmozer]

Stilts near the intersection of Dodson Road and Frenchman Hills Road below was a lucky catch - note how the bird on the left has his head upside down, presumably to help swallow.

I am learning: getting out a book and trying to puzzle something out can be too much mental transition during a trip. Autism Spectrum Disorders often make transitions difficult and tiring. Rather than making yesterday even more draining, I took pictures of things I wanted to identify. In the next few days, I will go through books to identify the flowers from my pictures, one or a few at a time, then maybe come back here with another post of flower pictures. [Image: Wild Blue Flax?]

I thought this was going to be easy to identify ...

Cherry Blossoms

In Sunday morning's early light, I caught the cherry tree in full bloom, the apple tree coming along nicely. I held off posting to see if the apple might not catch up a bit more.

Last night's storm spoiled that, and this morning our yard looked snowed upon with pinkish snow.

But this evening's light encouraged another picture (below).

Fun to compare these to March and December.

Bridge

Melvin helped me build a bridge for my Blockplay blog.

Usually he complains about not having a construction hat to wear but this time he was quite happy in his new flowered hat.