Washington: Icy Winter's Morn

Is it cold where you are or are you gliding into the dog days of summer? Here, now, it's pretty chilly, with winter's grasp holding firm over the Puget Sound and surrounding regions. Clouds in various shades of grey generally dominate the skyscape, though there are the occasional bursts of blue and hints of the sun's warmth breaking through to remind you it still dances out there, just beyond the blanket of moisture hovering above. While it's generally just shy of cold enough to snow, we still get ample rain that, in the coldest hours of the darkest portions of the evening, can freeze over to a delicate frost decorating the world when we wake. Depending on the morning after, the frost can last for a surprisingly variable window of time before dissolving into steam in the sun's rays. Like I said above, though- it's rarely cold enough to snow, with the chance of it snowing on Christmas day somewhere around 7% or lower. That's generally a good bit more likely than in Vegas, where they average only 2 inches of rain per year (whereas the Seattle area gets an average of about 37.5 inches of rain per year).  I'm no statistician, but even I can see the odds of a white Christmas in Vegas are exceedingly slim- though it has happened, once, in 2008, so it's not an utterly impossible thing, just exceptionally improbable. Not so improbable as to get your ship to the restaurant at the end of the universe, but certainly improbable enough to note. 

Antho and I, of course, have been luxuriating in the cold and ambient moisture in this variable and transforming an environment. Waking to a bright, cloudless morning with our world metamorphized by a glittering profusion of ice droplets is fascinating, and new.  While we slept, a giant came through and dropped fistfuls of glitter, or perhaps a fleet of faeries flew in with an army of bedazzlers and spackled everything they could in shimmer. But again, like most of the magical things in life, this beauty is fleeting and as the rays of sunlight dance across the droplets they begin to lose form and evaporate, disappearing into the ether.  All this hydration means that the plant life, at least that hardy enough to weather the declining temperatures, is still thriving. We were surprised to find these brilliant pink blossoms bursting into abundant bloom after the rains started sweeping the area with more vigorous regularity. We hope you enjoy this glimpse into the fleeting beauty of the beads of ice on this brisk winter's morning!

Washington: Sunset at Picnic Point park

Coming from the Mojave desert and its unfriendly clime full of rattlesnakes, scorpions, mountain lions, Gila monsters, and seemingly endless inhospitable expanses of desiccated, arid land, Washington state is something of a mind-blower to nestle into. Not only does life profusely pop up from any crevice it can take a root in, as exemplified by the colorful variety of mosses that pop up upon startlingly varied surfaces or the curious caps of any variety of mushroom that makes its way to the surface from the mysterious depths below, or the dense groves of forest crawling from any uninhabited corner, but it thrives! Never before in my life, or Antho's, have we witnessed such a profligate procession of fungus! Or moss! It's so wet here, things gladly grow and grow. It's strange to be so inundated with moisture that you have ample to spare, after our lives being so deeply marked by the severe absence of this necessary fluid. I spent years, literally years, suffering from dry, cracking lips that would sometimes be so severe that the simple act of smiling or trying to speak would lead to bleeding. It was the pits, and no amount of chapstick seemed to help- hell, if anything, it leads to more intense shedding of my epidermis. No fun, believe you me. Two months in Washington's moist climate (say it with me, MOIST), the ambient humidity of the environment has healed what years and profuse amounts of money couldn't.  Maybe I should have just bought a humidifier... 

So, naturally, when we had more time to spare prior to nailing down our current jobs, we'd spend much of our free-time exploring. There's no shortage of places to adventure off to, with Seattle itself having over 6,000 acres of parks incorporated into it, and the outlying areas riddled with hiking trails and forests. We're pretty close to the Puget Sound in our new home, and we couldn't take root without going to see what all the fuss is about! Amusingly, during our very first walk along Picnic Point park's beach, a group of young stoners was loudly going about their teenaged shenanigans, and one of the youth's approached us to compliment Antho on his sweater and muse on the wonders of Washington. "Where else can you watch the sun rise over the Cascades and set over the Olympics?!"

Nowhere, man. Thanks for reminding us, dude.

And it's beautiful here. Crowded, yes, with roughly 7 million people living in the Seattle metropolitan area, but I strove to minimize the intrusion of other humans into my shots, so you get a vision of the park that isn't exactly 100% on point with the reality of the situation, but lets us enjoy the beauty of the scenery. After all, bright, sunny days are often a rarefied commodity here in the Pacific Northwest, where winters can seem to stretch interminably in their grey days, so you can't really fault the locals for wanting to get out and enjoy it while the loveliness lasts!

Picnic Point Park is surrounded by residential areas, too, despite being so close to the water. I can't begin to imagine how expensive the homes with the views are, and there are private beaches not far from this public place, but the park remains open to the public to enjoy and take in the view, for which we're grateful. There's a whole world of wonders out there to explore, and it's pretty cool to have a glimpse of some the more natural offerings from our own backyard.

There's even all sorts of new and unusual lifeforms to discover, like this sad jellyfish!

Washington: Slime Mold and Mushroom friends

When it comes to the strange and varied things that flourish and thrive in the moist climate of the Pacific Northwest, slime molds and mushrooms reside in that weird peripheral zone bordering between plant and animal life, crawling and climbing out of the dark, dank corners and often seeming to pop up overnight. When shown in sped-up time-lapse videos, you can see slime molds pulsating and reaching out in their relentless quest to consume any tasty microorganisms crawling on the grasses, plants, and other surfaces populating the terrain. While it's easy to assume that slime molds might be fungi, they are in fact amoeba, so they are separate from those cap-sporting cohorts you might spot nearby while out in the garden. 

Antho is fascinated by slime molds, perhaps in large part due to their incredible rarity throughout the better portion of our lives. Deserts aren't exactly ideal places for such moist entities, after all, so your chances of encountering one in Vegas are exceedingly minute. Same goes for most forms of mushrooms, so we've been pretty astounded by the diversity of forms we've been spying. We've spent a lot of time outdoors simply looking at the ground since we got to the Pacific Northwest, as everything is so verdant and lush there's literally life everywhere we look. A few weeks back we accidentally stepped on a banana slug that was making its way across our step and we were heartbroken! Well, to be honest, I was devastated, since I was likely the culprit behind the slug's untimely demise. We'd noticed the leopard print adorned creature the night prior, and remarked on how stunning it was...then I had to run out to the van to grab something, having forgotten all about our discovery by that point, and when the light of morning revealed what had happened it was long too late... We gave him (or her) a little burial under a bush in the yard. Cheesy, right? I genuinely felt bad about it, and Antho was kind enough to help me dig a little hole to lay them to rest in, along with handling the slimy remains for me. It's the circle of life... Ashes to ashes, slime to slime.