Seattle: AJ's Day out in Green Lake

These days, my job has me scurrying all over the city of Seattle to attend gigs, so I've been getting a lot of time behind the wheel exploring quite a lot of the city's streets. One day I might be out in SoDo working at an LGBTQ+ automotive shop, the next I might be working in a small bungalow in the heart of the university district. I'm not complaining one bit, because what better way to get to know a new city than by traversing it on a day to day basis? Sometimes I even find myself way out in Kirkland or making a special trip into the heart of Occidental Square. Driving through the city has given me the opportunity to witness protests in action, sea-planes gliding into the city, countless squirrels scampering and given me a glimpse into the inner workings of businesses I might never have set foot in otherwise. It's absolutely fascinating, and while I can't divulge too much about any particular place I work in, the surrounding neighborhoods themselves have endless surprises to offer. Given the nature of my work, flexibility is a major plus, and thankfully I consider that to be one of my strengths. Antho, too, has needed to be quite flexible these past few months as we've been sharing the van due to my Volvo being in the shop. After the drive from Vegas, and years spent living in the dehydrated den of sin where temps above 110 degrees Fahrenheit are normal during the summers, and her only form of tending coming from drunk questionably qualified friends of the family, the old girl was in need of some serious TLC. In fact, after getting into her transmission my trusted mechanic informed me that my situation was primarily caused and then exacerbated by the misguided efforts of the drunken sailors who'd poked around the engine prior. The poor mechanic sprained his back and given that he's a one-man operation, that slowed his progress on repairing the old girl quite a bit... Thus, our shared vehicle situation has extended on and on, a fair bit longer than we'd initially intended or hoped, but being flexible is a strength in this life we live.  

When you're always on the go, days can rapidly bleed into each other, a procession of driving along seemingly countless winding little roads, navigating parking in new corners of the city, and cloudy sunrises and sunsets all melting together. Every so often, though, Antho's day off will align well with a gig of mine, allowing him to escort me to my work and then explore a new area. His work keeps him closer to home, after all, so I've seen much more of the city, and I like to try to re-balance the scales when the opportunity arises. I had to spend a few hours working in the Green Lake area, so he dropped me off and went exploring at the nearby parks. He found a Japanese confectionary, squirrels galore, fall foliage in fiery shades of red and orange, and so much more! We hope you enjoy this peek behind the scenes of our adventures. 

Vegas: Gila Monster at the Springs Preserve

In case you haven't noticed from the sheer voluminous backlog of posts I've written thus far involving the Springs Preserve, it really is one of my absolute favorite local spots here in the confines of our lovely little city of Las Vegas. Not only is it an expansive property with acreage upon acres of stunning natural views of untampered wild foliage coupled with immaculately tended gardens but all of these views change with the seasons and there are always some new and exciting events popping up all year long. There are stone-studded pathways leading you through tunnels of foliage and butterflies hiding in a particularly sunny and climate-controlled corner. There are even animals and a museum to get your learning on! It's such a nice escape and it's only a 10-15 minute journey from where we live currently, but even if you're not super-central like we are it's at such a convenient juncture of freeways that you'd be hard-pressed to find an inconvenient way of getting there. There's also lots of good food to be found nearby, as well as inside their very own on-premises restaurant, so you needn't fear hunger while hiking. This post is primarily going to cap-off our little visit to their zoo area, where the friendly tortoise gentleman popped up to say hello to us previously. I'll have more posts about the Preserve up soon, but I've been drowning a bit under a backlog of photos and inadequate memory to store them all... eesh... between the blogging, the tie-dye, and travel photos I accumulate I manage to burn through all available storage on my poor desktop! I have external drives and lots of Google storage, but it's a pain to shuffle things around. I guess it's a bit of digital spring cleaning, though, which was much needed. I literally couldn't import any more photos off of my camera, and I've got a lot of more stuff to show you from the past month! 

Like check out this handsome critter! I've always been fascinated by Gila monsters, the venomous lizard who has to gnaw their deadly poison into your system with their big, impressive jaws. They're definitely a remnant of an earlier, more creative time in nature's history, and they too fall into the flashy-colored stylish ways of their fellow venomous friends in the animal kingdom. Nature's way of saying to frigg right the hell off, mate, if you know what's good for you.

I'm not saying to frigg off, though, mate!

There's plenty more photos here to gander, so feast your eyes if you're not freaked out by the dinosaurs.