30 September 2008

summer ends...

As evidenced by the fact that there are no more Mariners games--not that I was paying any attention at all for the past four months, that the Seahawks are now off and rolling to what looks like another disappointing season, the fall television lineup is here and not surprisingly the most talked about programs are the least worth talking about, and then of course there are the colors in change.

A couple weeks ago I went up to see Rachel and we went on a hike which was an excellent chance to enjoy the last remnants of summer o-eight. Given my present level of fitness there was really only time for one serious hike and we picked a pretty serious one at that, up to Copper Basin which is a short hike but with a pretty substantial elevation gain.

There was the possibility we would not make it all the way into the basin before we needed to start heading back, but we did make it there just in time to have lunch on the creek. The fall colors had only started to come in and most of my pictures looked a lot more monochromatic than I had hoped. Still, many of the pictures from the basin itself turned out quite well and you can catch them on my photoblog. They are larger files and take a bit longer to load for those of you on slower connections. Still, if you can tolerate the download times they might be worth peeking at.
This weekend I went up to see my dad. I realized while I was up there that I hadn't been up there in over a year. We played 9 holes of golf Saturday morning, which was nice. I believe it had been even longer since I'd played golf. Of course I didn't play very well, but I did surprisingly well from the tees and down the fairways. My score resembled my usual largely because I couldn't pitch worth beans and other than a couple good putts, my green-game was pretty lousy. I made it on or near the green a stroke under par at pretty much every hole, and then averaged 4-5 more strokes to actually get the dimpled sphere in the cup.

Sunday we went out on the sound hoping to find some fish. I bought a one-day license figuring I am not sure I'd go out five more times before next year's season starts. We had to improvise for seats in the boat because my brother is in the process of having them rebuilt and reupholstered. We circled Marrowstone and Indian Islands and with the fish finder not showing us anything interesting we finally decided to drop our lines in the water near a creek just north of Port Hadlock. About an hour later we had drifted past a kayak, a paddle boat, and a couple anchored sailboats and we decided to pull our lines in and head back to the boat launch to call it a day.

No fish and a mediocre round of golf, but it was still an enjoyable weekend. We had plenty of sunshine and possibly the last warm temperatures of the year. So I'm comfortable that I got out and enjoyed the summer just enough to be ready for autumn to come and give me some rainy days so I can have better sleep during my working weeks.

Peace, b

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