Some weekends are just made for doing nothing - being lazy for no particular reason. Plip Plop, plip pop - pure Putter!! These weekends involve a whole'lotta: little or no stirring or movement (as in - only occasionally moving from the TV to fridge), random or limited conversation (as in - 'hey, can you bring me a soda while you're up?'), and some good read (as in - 'Eclipse' and / or the Sunday Paper), and it would have to include some good solid napping (as in - one in the morning & another in the early pm).
Well, this weekend wasn't one of those! We had our house painted last week and had to move all the planters, furniture, wind chimes, ornaments etc away from the house. We ended up with the yard torn apart for a week and this weekend Mike & I swept up the paint scrapping and reassembled the yard. It took most of the day on Saturday to put everything back together.
All 167 units in our complex used to be painted the same color and I hated it! It felt like we were living amid an old ratty tatty army compound or HUD housing but now we have about 6 different color schemes mingled throughout the neighborhood. It looks soooo much better. You probably can't really tell from these pictures but our color is now 'Seafoam' green. It is very light, bright and cottage-y looking and I LOVE it. I wasn't sure at first but after they painted the trim it really popped!
Jessica didn't have any room for the black coat rack that Dad had made her and I was so excited to inherit it!! I have always coveted it and while I didn't have room for it inside either I felt that it would look so GREAT out on my back deck (which is covered so the coat rack will not be exposed to the elements). I think it looks amazing against the new paint! I use the storage seat to house some of my garden & patio supplies. Mike said he thinks the glass panels look out of place on the deck but I think they help bring some light into the covered area.
On Sunday Mike & I decided we wanted to enjoy to last of our sunny days and get out and so exploring. After living in Washington for more than 20 years we have come to realize that there are so many areas of this big beautiful state that we have never even seen and we have made it a goal to get out once a month and go exploring. - so with that in mind we decided to take the ferry over to Vashon Island as we'd never been there before.
You catch the ferry over to Vashon Island in West Seattle (which I've only been to twice before) at the Fauntleroy dock. The ride over is short - only about 15 ~ 20 minutes long. Vashon Island covers about 37.0 sq. miles (vs. Bainbridge Island which covers only 28.0 sq. miles) but is much smaller in population(Vashon Island pop. 10,100 vs. Bainbridge Island pop. 20,3000). The small downtown, however, does boast 3 bookstores and a movie theater. The island is still very rural and affords amazing views of Mount Rainer. There are also many small horse stables, farms and orchards scattered around the island but it is mostly still a pristine forested island (as you can see from the map below - there are not many very many paved roads on the island).
The lighthouse at Point Robinson was built in 1885 as a 'Fog Station' and later became a Fog station and Lighthouse and has an identical twin - Alki Point Lighthouse in West Seattle. Today, both the light & fog signal are fully automated and have been since the 1970's. Interestingly, the Point Robinson light signal has rotated but instead is a fixed light that has always flashed on and off.
While both the light beacon & the fog siren remain fully operational today they were fully automated in the 1970's. The beacon’s light flashes in a 12 second cycle - on for three seconds, off for one second, on for another three seconds and off for five seconds and the fog horn which is activated by photoelectric cells when visibility is reduced to three miles, sounds one three-second blast every 30 seconds. I would love to visit the island on a foggy day just to hear the horn blasting ...
The last Coast Guardsman to be stationed at the Robinson Point Light Station was in 1989 and today the Light Station buildings are maintained and run by a partnership between the "Keepers of Point Robinson" (a group of volunteers who restored the buildings, maintain them, run the museum and guest houses) and the Vashon-Maury Island Park and Recreation District. Today, the exterior of the Robinson Point Light Station remains essentially the same as when it was first built in 1915. The lighthouse is painted the traditional white with green trim and has a red roof.
The lighthouse keeper’s quarters have been refurbished by the “Keepers of Point Robinson.” The station's caretakers live in main keeper’s house, while the assistant keeper’s house is available for weekly rentals to the many people who would like to have a “lighthouse experience.” The proceeds from the rental go toward the restoration and maintenance of the buildings. It's not cheap though ... if you want to get that, Romantic Lighthouse feeling while shrouded in the fog by the side of the great Pacific, it will cost you about $1300.00 a week. Gorgeous though ... absolutely stunning!
Our walk along the beach was beautiful, very desolate, uncrowded and very unpopulated. It was nice to see miles of shoreline with very few houses (not none - but very few). The beaches all had nice white sand and very few rocks ...
But, very drift-woody. There was a tremendous amount of driftwood piled along the shore. We came across a very Polynesian looking driftwood structure that someone had built.
As we meandered along the shore Mike suddenly remembered that the dogs had been home all day (it was about 6:30pm at this point) and would be - well, lets just say, pissed! So we had to scramble off the beach, to the car, to the ferry, wait for the ferry, load the ferry etc ....
I hope everyone had a great weekend
- N -
