Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Whidbey Island Scenes

I spent four days on Whidbey Island, Washington, taking a bead class with Beverly Gilbert. For the past two years, Beverly has taught a week of bead classes at her home, and I was so thrilled that I could make it to part of the week. I showed photos of my necklace I created in her class in this post. But I wanted to show you just how beautiful the setting was. To give you a little background, I had never been up this way before. Whidbey Island is one of the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound, near Seattle. You need drive your car onto a ferry just to get there. I was a little nervous about that, I guess because I've seen too many movies where cars drive right off the end of the ferries into the water. I drove on without incident, and was treated to a breathtaking view of the mountains. I don't know if you realize this, but you could live in Portland, Oregon or Seattle for months and not realize you are surrounded by mountains because they have so many cloudy, rainy days. I was lucky enough to have some of the clearest, most beautiful days ever on my trip. Here's a view from the ferry.

Each morning I took a walk on the beach, which is right across a wetlands area from Beverly's home. I took way too many photos of rocks and driftwood, because we just don't have those things on our beaches in Florida. Apparently, the residents tend to claim the driftwood that comes up near their houses. I don't mean they take the driftwood. They leave it on their beach, and expect that anyone walking on the beach won't take it away. They might just leave it there, or they might stack it up into interesting sculptures. But it's theirs, and it needs to stay on the beach in the front of their house. I respected that. Although I will admit I took a few rocks home. Not too many, though. Here's a photo journey of my walks.










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2 comments:

Unknown said...

What an adventure! We took a trip to Whidbey a few years back. Also visited the town of "Langley", on the island. That was fun since that is our name, and not a super common one. Beauty begets beauty, so I'll bet your necklaces are beautiful!

Beverly Ash Gilbert said...

Suzanne,
What great photos - I'm glad you walked the beach each morning and took in as much of the sights as you could.

Next time, I will definitely take you up to Deception Pass - the other ladies were left spellbound by the views in all directions! I know you would love it.