November 11 – Washington!

Posted on November 11, 2016

I'm leaving for Washington tomorrow.”

That's a pretty confusing sentence – one that depends on context to be understandable. If you know that the person saying this is a lobbyist or Congressman, you'd be pretty sure that she or he is heading to Washington, D.C. If you know that the person lives in Seattle or has been planning to climb Mount Rainier, you'd be pretty sure that he or she is heading to Washington state.

Of course there's going to be both a (capital) city and a state named after George Washington! He was our first president and an important fellow in our nation's story!

Well, when I talk about Washington, today, I'm talking about Washington state, because today is the anniversary of it joining the nation in 1889.

When I think of Washington, I think of the Cascade Mountains and Olympic National Park...

Above, Olympic National Park
Below, Mount Rainier in the summer


Above, Northern Cascades National Park
Below, Mount Saint Helens exploding in 1980

...of orcas and islands (including Orca Island)...

Above, San Juan Islands
Below, orcas at Orcas Island


...of lumber and apples...




...of Dale Chihuly's glass art and of Seattle's Space Needle...




...of waterfalls and a little taste of Bavaria.





Of course, there is so much more to the Pacific Coast state. On the border with Canada, Washington has a lot-lot-lot of rain and fog, except where it doesn't! Check out the precipitation map, which shows that more than half of Washington is quite dry, but the rest is REALLY wet:



Parts of Washington are so very cloudy and rainy, Forks, Washington, is the setting for the popular Twilight series of vampire / werewolf books. What does the series have to do with clouds? Well, author Stephanie Meyer's vampires sparkle and shine in sunshine, so they live in an area that has very few sunny days.

Actually, Seattle is sunny or mostly sunny only about a fourth of the days of the year. Compared to my home, Southern California, that's a lot of clouds and “drear”!


Also on this date:














Veteran's Day – also known as


































Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

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