The scenic route

There’s a strange blob person in the seat next to me…
Hei Hei doesn’t know he’s flying. It’s for the best, people are trying to sleep.
Sunrise over the ocean.
Seattle version of outdoor airport is less fun, but still fun!
We took a slight detour to get a great view!
Don’t get a betterview unless you’re in a helicopter!
Where are we going guys?

One thing that’s striking about flying over St. Helens after Kilauea is how small St. Helens seems. An odd feeling!

I wonder if we’ll survive today without naps.

Leftovers falling from the sky

My camera roll from the past couple weeks seems to have a bunch of things which I intended to post but never actually did. Photo dump incoming!

First, a few pictures from while I was out on walks back in PDX and the ships were arriving for Fleet Week.

USCGC Terrapin (WPB 87366)
Coast Guard ship Terrapin arrived first, with their red white and blue escort!
USS Pinckney (DDG 91)
USS Pinckney (DDG 91) Arriving under the Steel bridge. Wanted to see it from up top, but they closed the bridge WAY back for security. They got a fireboat escort too, but the picture with the bridge is cooler.
USS Independence (LCS-2) Arriving
USS Independence (LCS-2) arriving with the fireboats spraying red white and blue.
The tugboat was blasting the song “Proud to be an American” over it’s PA as well.
HMCS Edmonton (MM703)
HMCS Edmonton (MM703) arriving under the Steel bridge. The Canadians are much more friendly and let us get up on the bridge to watch them. Also, they waved happily. What a nice bunch.
Fleet Week arrivals complete. Watching Independence (background) pull in was interesting, that sucker is amazingly maneuverable for something that size. The tugboats danced around it trying to look helpful, but it appeared that the ship did most of the work itself.
Beware the patrol boats during Fleet Week! I also saw them intercepting one of the “Brew Barge” foot-pedal powered drinking tour boats, and escorting them past the fleet. Slowly.

And here’s a picture of the last night I took my riverside walk in Portland. I’ll miss those walks. Well, for part of the year anyway.

Portland skyline at night

During all the various driving around we did in the last few weeks I couldn’t help but take some pictures of my favorite mountains.

The view from Tacoma after leaving McMenamins Elks Temple Hotel. This is when I realized I was gonna miss having these beacons on the horizon.
Driving the U-Haul back to Portland from North Bend, saw The Mountain from down Puyallup way.

Next up a series of pictures taken from airplane windows!

Taking off out of Portland, leaving for our new home! Was disappointed that the cloud deck was low and I wouldn’t get a nice view.
Made it through the clouds! Crouching Mountain, Hidden Hood! Mt. Hood with a nice hat on it. T
All three mountains. Hood with it’s cap in the foreground, along with St. Helens and Rainier.
Looking north across Vancouver at the mountains in the background. Taken when flying to Dallas for a week before we actually moved.

And finally, a few random leftovers:

Go to Papa Hayden. Get the Rhubarbella. You won’t regret anything.
Willamette Pacific #2314 (GP39-2) rumbling across the Steel bridge. I always liked seeing our little local railways and their custom liveries.
My wife is a terrible cheater. (She declared “I win!” after drawing her not quite straight line there..) Although, in retrospect, Laurie’s little girl did exactly the same thing to me when we were playing recently… Maybe I just don’t know how to play Tic Tac Toe properly.
Our house is in this picture somewhere… Can you find it?
That’s it, right at the tip of the arrow!

Hope you’ve enjoyed the photos! Bev’s at her first official day at her new job today, and I’m on a mission to get all our utilities hooked up at the house, re-wire some networking cables. I wish we had a chair at the house, it’s hard to sit on the stairs with a laptop comfortably. Stuff arrives…. soon? Who knows.