The B&B Family Lavender Farm

 Three generations of McCloskey's make their home in Sequim, WA. Their adventure began in 2013 when they bought a dairy farm and entered the lavender growing business. The name come from the older McCloskey's first names, Bruce and Bonnie. There are 17 varieties of lavender grown here.

Lavender being dried

These are French Lavender buds. This variety has the most fragrant oils.

The purple buds are the English variety.

The English variety is edible.

The two stills used to distill the oil from the buds. Copper is used because it bonds with the sulfur that is produced. The sulfur will give the oils a nasty aroma. The oil is used in a variety of products you can by at the farm

Downtown we ran into a nice lady with this beautiful Cockatiel. 

He tells you when he has to poop. He did and the lady held him over a flower bed. 

No messy shirts.

Back at camp we played yard yahtzee with dice on steroids.

Maynard get an A+ for form.

Chihuly Bridge of Glass

 The Chihuly Bridge of Glass is a free public exhibit of Dale Chihuly's magnificent creations. It is located next to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma WA.  

Looking up in the covered portion of the Bridge

A wall of gorgeous creations

In the Glass Museum's gift shop they had some of Preston Singletary's beautiful work. He is a member of the Tlingit tribe of the Northwest Coast and creates traditional indigenous art in a non traditional medium, Glass

Raven's Hand

$18,000

Banff National Park

 We arrived on an overcast cloudy day obscuring the grandure of the mountains. The rest of the week they were visible through a thick smokey haze. We arrived mid week at Waterfowl Lakes Campground and had no problem finding five spaces. Waterfowl is the largest first come first serve campground in the park. 

Columbia Ice field

This is either Bert or Ernie, two elk that frequent this vista point

Maligne Canyon near Jasper

The beginning of Maligne Canyon

You can follow a trail for several miles as the rushing water carves into the rock

Deeper and deeper it goes

Athabasca Falls near Jasper

Bow Lake

Moraine Lake

We saw several bears

Smoke Jumpers

 Missoula MT is the training and deployment center for the brave men and women that stand between us and the ever increasing destruction of forest fires. They are first responders that jump not into forest fires, but short distance away. Their quick response allows them to put out a small fires that would have become  raging infernos hours or days later when ground crew could reach it.  More info

Our guide explains the smoke jumper's gear

All smokejumper candidates are required to pass the standard smokejumper physical training (PT) test on the first day of smokejumper training. Candidates must do 7 pull-ups, 45 sit-ups, 25 push-ups, and a 1.5 mile run in less than 11 minutes. The test is taken in one time frame with five-minute breaks between specific exercises. And that was the easy day.

All smoke jumpers are taught how to sew so they can repair their gear

Looking for damage to the parachute 

Packing his parachute

Talking with one of the jumpers

Each box contains 3 days of supplies for two jumpers. 

They are packed in cardboard to save weight. 

Additional boxes of tools will also be dropped

A team of smoke jumpers are packing up and heading for Santa Barbara, CA

Smoke jumpers are fighting fires across the U.S. and Canada

Geronimo