washington

Jiggity Jig

June 29, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

I’m just back from taking a quick holiday in RW’s arms,

up in the Methow!

For those of you who are new, RW is not in prison, he does this for a living, three states away from here. Actually, the highlight of this trip was when I told a barista in Spokane that I had been visiting my husband, she gave me a terribly strange look and I told her this very thing:

He’s not a felon.

He’s a smokejumper.

I don’t think she believed me.

Anyway, we did all sorts of lovely things:

lake swimming

hiking

eating

driving

live music-ing at the brewery

cooking with the boys

smoochin’

gardening

cabin shopping

coffee sipping

climbing

sleeping in

parachute packing…

…or at least RW did a bit of rigging…

…I was a mustard-wearing distraction.

I do my best, ladies, I do my best.

We shine so bright.

I feel the beautifullest when I’m with him.

All in all it was a truly beautiful and fairly restful trip.

I rolled into The Gables last night at midnight after a full, 15 hour solo drive (well yes, I am a trucker). I meant to stay over in Missoula for the night but I arrived there at 6PM and the daylight was eternal and I didn’t feel like hanging out alone for hours until the sun set. I wanted to sleep in my own bed so I pushed on in my swift, silver chariot. Thanks to the besterellas who connected with me by telly and helped keep me awake in the final hours of that drive — I know I didn’t make a lot of sense but it made me happy that you were laughing so hard.

This morning, Plum woke me up at 6AM, and we just spent a full 8 hours gardening, pulling weeds, planting extra beet rows, cutting fresh flowers for the house, harvesting the chamomile blossoms, irrigating the yard with the spring creek and guess what?!!! ~~I just heard from RW and he’s going to be~~ ~~here~~ ~~tonight! Apparently those smokejumpers get around and they’re running an errand down in New Mexico for the next few days. Life swirls in mysterious ways.~~
Scratch that. They’re headed direct to Provo via the Twin Falls cut-off.
Drat.
Sometimes it’s such a pain when the heart hopes…

I hope you are all well.

I missed your souls.

PS I have a confession to make: I really. REALLY. Really. Like the Methow Valley.

Filed Under: smokejumping, trip, washington

At the Shore: Part Two

August 28, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

A sea otter!!!

Farley saw this fellow, swam out to where the sea otter was swimming and then the two proceeded to play tag for nearly an hour while I watched from shore! It was the most magical thing I have seen in some time; so playful, so incredible. Most of us have seen sea otters playing in aquariums but I’ve never seen one play in the wild, let alone with a German Shorthair Pointer.

It about knocked my socks off.

What was really amazing is that the otter could have disappeared at any moment but it decided, instead, to dive in and out of the water, most teasingly, keeping just out of reach of Farley.

I laughed so hard while I watching otter and pooch antics.

Enjoy the following images of sea otter and dog interaction!

And then, quite suddenly, there were three:

Filed Under: ocean, washington

At the Shore: Part One

August 28, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

I spent hours on the shoreline on the West side of Bainbridge Island yesterday. Hours. Sifting through the sand. Weaving my way through sand dollar cemeteries. Farley retrieved a dead and rancid sea otter for me — that was traumatizing. Penelope played in the waves like a careful little lady.

I found myself pondering, in the middle of filling my pockets and pails with treasures, why on earth do I do this? Why on earth do I go to the sea and insist on spending hours and days hunting for treasure in the sand and waves? I’ve never lived by the ocean. I’m a girl who has always lived in the interior of the USA or Canada. I don’t know what it’s like to live by the sea, I only know what it’s like to visit. When I visit, I connect so firmly, so cosmically, with the tides and the life in the water that I need to take parts of it home with me.

So as not to forget.

Yesterday, I realized that at some point in my life, I would really like to live by the sea for a stint.

RW will pass out when he reads this.

We’ve both been such staunch interior people for so long I think we deny ourselves the sea out of habit. It’s for no good reason at all that we’ve never lived by the ocean.

I’m going to try to find a way to do it. Even if it’s only for a summer.

I’m going to find myself a piece of the sea

and I’m going to stay awhile.

Someday.

Filed Under: traveling, washington

Adrift in the Puget Sound

August 27, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

I drove onto the ferry and then commenced to drift about the Puget Sound, across the water to Bainbridge Island.

All the while, I kept an eye out for the world’s largest octopus;

I heard it likes to nibble on miniature dachshunds.

I don’t want to tempt fate, but I reckon Penelope would look dashing

as an octopus garden installation.

JUST KIDDING.

I’d like to keep her soft and furry and cuddly and darling.

So I locked her up in the truck for this ferry trip.

Bainbridge ahoy!!!

Filed Under: bainbridge island, traveling, washington

Crossing Over

August 26, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

I popped over to the West side of the Northern Cascades yesterday.

Blinded by the sun, nearly, as I squinted up at the toothy peaks of this range.

A sharp intake of breath now,

the residue of winter clinging

to a handful of valleys,

twisting white in the summer air.

I turned and floated my way down to Diablo Lake:

cool blue drink, pebbled soul, whisky warm wind.

I stood by the lake edge and pondered on why I love traveling so well. I do a lot of it! I hop in my truck and I go. I pack the dogs, a pair of jeans and my fly rod and I take myself places. But I also love my home. I miss it, the quiet space that lies inside my 102 year old farmhouse walls. My books. My herbal tea collection. The sound of the breeze in the grapevines…

I think I travel to free myself from the things that find their way inside me.

I travel to get back to the core of myself.

To rest. To recover. To pour myself out. To be filled up again.

To see friends and family; to be in their care.

To take moments at the edge of lakes, beneath the boughs of trees, under the wings of eagles; to rise up, to descend.

To wade through all of those emotions I’ve stored up, to cure those little heart bruises inflicted by the carelessness of others,

to understand the world around me and to be in it and part of it.

To feel space.

I’m just:

Another organism.

Another soul.

Another truck on the highway.

One more girl with her windows down and the breeze in her hair.

To collect a nest.

To inspect a fish.

To feel the sun.

To call the wind.

To trip and fall and get up again.

Do you travel for the same reasons?

Do you travel at all?

To test the water.

To be tested by the water.

Today, all is full.

Full of love.

Filed Under: north cascades, traveling, washington