A six-week cruise (on asphalt, not water this time) covering 6,999.0 miles port to port (too tired to go around the block for that final mile) and covering Yellowstone, Grand Tetons and Jackson, WY; Steamboat Springs, CO; Lincoln, NE; Nashville, TN; Santa Fe, NM; Sedona and Grand Canyon, AZ; and Bryce Canyon and the Great Salt Lake, UT.
An equal time catching up at home and decelerating, plus jumping in with patient new clients for CruiseMasters Boating instruction.
And the world goes on and happenings happen since my last posting on June 4th.
The disastrous Gulf Oil leak has been stopped, but the disaster, easily forgotten beyond the Gulf, lingering on for how many more lives and years . . . People for Puget Sound's wonderful and dynamic executive director Kathy Fletcher announcing her retirement next year as that influential public advocacy group celebrates it's 20th . . . that organization's efforts to have Smith and Minor Islands (off the west side of Whidbey Island) named as a state aquatic reserve made official this week with a signing ceremony in Coupeville, with Protection Island now in their sights as a next aquatic reserve designation . . . the boat brokerage business struggling upward but still very soft . . . the Salish Sea designation becoming more popular with boaters and cartographers . . . Loran-C officially dead, we were one of the last areas closed down . . .
A new Orca calf born in August to L pod, part of the southern resident population which makes the San Juan's their home . . . new federal regulations on the horizon to further protect the whales, with fines likely to be 30 to 40 times those of the state . . . for the 2011 boating season boats also may be banned from within 200 yards (currently 100 yards) of the whales . . . the entire west side of San Juan Island (where the 87 resident whales spend the majority of their time) possibly off-limits in the near future to all boaters . . .
Apple's iPad and iPhone4, bought in Nashville and Salt Lake City, respectively, now integral fixtures of this Mac-prone family . . . a second iPhone 4 making its appearance when the first went (groan!) overboard into Poulsbo's Liberty Bay . . .
Argosy Cruises' venerable MV Kirkland, a restored 1924 wooden-hulled car ferry with a fine history on the Columbia River and later on Puget Sound before being converted to a tour boat plying Lake Washington, caught fire last month and is now beyond restoration . . . the large chamber at the "Locks" opening and closing (on a very limited scale) by hand after being struck by lightning . . . US Navy's statement that "a confluence of factors" apparently came into play although "we cannot definitely say that the USS Port Royal caused the incident", explaining the ship's wake that destroyed thousands of oysters that were washed up high and dry on Hood Canal beaches two months ago . . .
And most recently, and personally very frustratingly: "blogger's block"; How do you restart a blog after almost a half year's silent absence from the pathways of cyberspace . . .
Yes, we're still here, enjoying this unusual warm weather while awaiting La Niña . . . Are you still out there?
Photo: At the Red Valley, on the way to Bryce Canyon UT
