That mild fall weather changed lightening quick. Holy snow storm batman! This has been the longest stretch of cold and snow that I can recall in my life of Pacific Northwest winters. Having such extreme weather in our mild climate means we are mostly unprepared, and everything shuts down. Pipes freeze, school gets cancelled, and just getting to work is a sketchy prospect. As Gerrison Keillor said in a recent "News From Lake Wobegon", the thing about snow storms is that they're an excuse to not do anything. 'I was planning on going to the meeting, but I can't go out in this- it's just treacherous!' I finally had to park my bicycle and take to tromping around in the ever-present icy whiteness, in its strange mix of serenity and chaos.
It's been a dry, mild fall, so much that I've still been working on the farm into December! But the days are short and nights are chilly. I've been spending a lot of time with my roomates, making big house dinners and doing crafts by the fireplace. There's been some beautiful foggy days and gorgeous (early!) sunsets.
I'm a writer and editor in Seattle. I started this blog in 2008 to chronicle my travels in Latin America, and continued writing through jaunts in Europe and Asia.
Now I'm back where I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and can't stop hiking to fire lookouts in the Cascade Mountains. My guidebook, Hiking Washington's Fire Lookouts, will be published by Mountaineers Books in May 2018.