Mother's Day weekend...in Webber Canyon, Paris, and Whidbey Island

Living in the PNW can be awesome in ways that makes the gray days and drizzle all worth it.  These past few days have illustrated that.

On Friday our favorite bird finally arrived for the summer--the Western Tanager.  This beautiful bird is yellow like a Goldfinch, but is a bit larger.  The other feature that sets it apart is it's bright red head.  During mating season the red is really brilliant.

So, finally, all of our favorite birds are here.

Then, later on Friday, we drove to Eastern Washington with Jules.  We stayed at one of those AirBNB (sp) places that was really really nice.  It was one half of a duplex, with the owners living in the other half.  They went to extraordinary efforts to make it comfortable and fun.  They will get a terrific review from us.

UPDATE:  The owners provided a photo they took as we were heading out for our ride:

The reason we went there was to do an organized bike ride, the 4th time we have done this together with Jules.  The ride is called the Inland Empire Century.  In the past, Jules has done the entire century while we did somewhere between 50-75 miles.  There are some great features of this ride, the best being the 6 1/2 mile climb up Weber Canyon to the area above the Columbia River called Horse Heaven Hills.

This year Vicky and I did 54 miles and Jules did 65, not anywhere close to the number of miles any of us are capable of doing on organized rides.  And it was absolutely exhausting....and exhilarating.

The reason for the shorter miles for both of us is that there were 25 mph headwinds.  Headwinds really take it out of you because you don't get any break.  The first half of the ride, 27 miles, was straight into the teeth of the headwinds. 

But headwinds when one is climbing 6 1/2 miles up Weber Canyon is another level of taking it out of you.  It took us an hour and 15 minutes to do this 6 1/2 miles, pushing and pushing against the wind, with occasional gusts that were so strong that they actually stopped us, and we had to work to keep the bikes upright.  But we made it, all three of us (Jules was doing a different route so we weren't with him at the time), and none of us had to stop to rest along the way.  We felt great going up that canyon.  And whooped and hollered and high-fived each other when we made it. 

Then we had another 7 miles against the headwind to our lunch and turning around spot.  This beautiful area consists of flat fields in all directions, almost no vehicles.  We always enjoy it. 

Here am I eating our lunch after 27 miles, after the 25 mph headwinds, and after the climb up Weber Canyon.  At this point we knew we would have the winds at our back for the final 27 miles.  That was a relief:

And here we are after climbing Weber Canyon.  You can see how much wind there is by how much our jackets are billowing:

Here is a photo of Vicky heading down Weber Canyon.  Quite something, isn't it?

After returning we found a fun little pub to have a well-deserved dinner, and then crashed for the night.  We all slept like logs.  Imagine that.

The next day was mother's day.  We got up early, celebrating the mothers in our family, and Vicky being celebrated. 

We drove to Seattle, did a quick clothing change, had lunch with Jules, Jessica, and Adam, and headed to the Paramount Theater in Seattle to see a performance of An American in Paris with Jessica and Jules.

It was the best performance we have ever seen.  The dancing was truly awesome (it wasn't Gene Kelly, but if that is what a person is looking for you will never enjoy dancing).  It was the best dancing we have ever seen, and we have seen a lot of professional dancers.  The singing was great, the sets were stunning, the choreography was beautiful, and the story was happy.

After the performance, even with stopping at our family's home to retrieve our bikes and having a 20 minute wait for the ferry, we were home in two hours.  Two hours.

We live on this isolated five acres on an island, and can be home from a performance in Seattle in two hours.  That's one of the best parts of living on Whidbey Island.

After we got home Candice and the girls arrived and we had dinner with them.  I am writing this entry early the next morning, and they are all still asleep in the other room.

Vicky got mother's day greetings from Ian and Adam, and from Jules and Jessica.  Emily, Sean, Soren, and Sebastian called and sang to her (and have something arriving for her today which she is excited about), we got to see Candice, Stella, and Marina (who took us out for dinner), and Owen called so Vicky got to talk to him for a long time.   Oh yeah, almost forgot:  I got her something too!

And I thought a lot about my mother, who died three years ago while we were visiting her for Mother's Day.  I was at her side, Vicky and me sleeping in her hospital room.  She died with people who loved her holding her hand.

This morning the birds woke us up, as they do this time of year--they are so loud when the dawn breaks that we have to shut our windows.  It's an glorious sound, and we love it.

And, of course, it is raining once again, bringing us back to reality.  This spring has been unusually wet, even for PNW standards.  We may do the STP this year in an Ark instead of on our bikes.