At 10 Am I went to Gas Works Park to meet some Seattle sketchers who were meeting for a sketch crawl. The rusty buildings in the park were used to manufacture gas from coal in the 1940s. I arrived a bit early since I gave myself extra time to get lost but I found the park with no problem. While sitting on a bench near the water, I noticed a woman on a distant hill who was holding a hula hoop. I looked out over the bay at the Seattle skyline but my attention was always drawn to the woman on the hill. I wondered if the hula hoop was being used in some sort of morning meditation or perhaps a new form of Yoga. I finally couldn’t take it anymore so I walked up the hill to ask her is she was a performance artist. She was just waiting for a friend and his son and the hula hoop was her way to attract their attention. She also had juggling balls and bowling pins. It turns out that the friend she was meeting is a rather renowned juggler who had been making a living as a juggler for the last 20 years. He has been on Johnnie Carson and all the late night talk shows.
When I noticed some other artists showing up in the designated meeting area, I walked back down the hill and said hello to the artists as they arrived. When it came time to draw, I knew I had to go to the hill top and sketch the woman and her friend.The woman had some really cool tattoos on her arms one was of an killer whale and another of a penguin. These tattoos were pitch black which meant that she had endured quite a few passes in order to get the ink solid black. She explained that she had been fine with the pain until the tattoo artist hit two very delicate spots on the undersides of her arms. She then had to call it quits and returned another day to finish the tattooing.
The couple juggled together for some time. First he would juggle the 3 balls and then she would take over. When he moved up to the bowling pins she just watched and like me enjoyed the spectacle. As I worked on the sketch more and more people hiked up to the top of the hill. Some tried to figure out the sundial and others used the spot to launch kites. At least 10 kites were in the air at one point. Gabi wandered up the hill and got a sketch of me at work. At the designated hour all the artists gathered and compared sketchbooks. I learned so much from flipping through so many amazing sketchbooks. On this day, I fell in love with Seattle. So many people were out enjoying the day. Young couples rested and snuggled on the grass as they overlooked the Bay and Seattle skyline. People were biking and jogging everywhere there was activity and excitement, it was any sketch artists dream.

Driving down highway 101 in Washington State, we decided to head inland to explore the Olympic rain-forest. A small road winds its way inland up a river valley while the forest canopy got denser and denser.
We hiked on a short trail for perhaps an hour that highlighted the various forms of moss that inhabit the region. This secluded spot had a different coloring that anywhere else. The trees were Maples and they had an orange cast absent from all the other pines in the forest. Everywhere you looked moss covered and muffled the woods. Terry sat across the trail from me and read a book while I sketched.
As I worked a small cloud of mosquitoes began to dive bomb my ears. I borrowed some bug spray from Terry but the onslaught continued. I put on my rain gear so I could protect my ears with the hood, but the mosquitoes were so loud that I could hear them through the protective vinyl.
I spent just as much time swatting the mosquitoes as I did putting lines and tones on the page.
If this sketch looks rushed, you now know why. For whatever reason the mosquitoes left Terry alone. Usually the roles are reversed.
A large group of Tourists wandered by and they were all shouting at each other and snapping pictures of everything. I am pretty sure I ended up in a couple of those shots. When this sketch was done Terry and I piled into the car and headed back to 101 to drive down to the coast beaches.
On route, I got a call from Orlando Home and Leisure telling me that they didn’t get the High resolution image I had e-mailed them before we left on this vacation. We were literally perhaps 50 miles from any Internet access so I drove and made time towards civilization. We stopped at several spots only to be told that they did not have access to the Internet. The tension in the car built.
When we got to the Lake Quinault hotel which had Internet access, I had to set up an impromptu Internet cafe in the local Mercantile. I sat on a freezer and got to work re-making a high resolution image to send the magazine. I had to move once to let a camper get 2 bags of ice from the freezer I was siting on. With the image finally sent, I checked my e-mails and let out a sigh of relief. The grey sky opened up and dropped a fine delicate mist for the rest of the afternoon.

On the second day in the Pacific Northwest Terry and I picked up a rental car and escaped the city of Seattle. We took a Ferry over to Bremerton Island and rode out to explore the Olympic Peninsula. Terry did all the driving. I got drowsy from watching the road rushing toward me. The big stop for the day was Hurricane Ridge. We got half way up the road leading to the ridge when all traffic stopped. We found out that the road had been blocked up ahead by a huge rock slide. I do not know how long the road had been blocked but we were told that it would be clear in a couple of minutes. An hour or so later we heard cheers from cars ahead of us. and traffic started to move. When we got to the top, we were treated to a huge panoramic vista of the Olympic mountains. I took the opportunity to sketch the tourists as they shot photos and took in the view.
In the parking lot a deer wandered around eating clumps of grass and groups of tourists including Terry followed it and shot photos. That might have made a great sketch, but the deer was in constant motion. I let the monument slide and relaxed in the car enjoying the air conditioning. I am not yet on west coast time and I am feeling the jet lag.