The One-Day Vacation

Well, actually, I am currently enjoying a two-week Staycation, but this past Wednesday I managed to get out of town for a day.  You see, in order to visit Seattle without having to drive on I-5 or in Seattle traffic, my mother drove to Ronald, WA to meet up with me so I could then drive her and my brother into the Big City for their 3-day stay.  Of course, then we had to reverse the process.

Ronald is a one-horse town a few miles up the road from Roslyn (which is a two-horse town), which is a few miles up the road from Cle Elum (a three-horse town).  The reason this was our meet-up spot was because Michelle and Steve have a lovely vacation home in Ronald where I could leave my car.  And on the return car-exchange Wednesday, I opted to stay there for just one night.  It was most relaxing.

After seeing my mother and brother off back home to Richland, Truman and I tootled on down to the Cle Elum Fish Hatchery road.

There we spied dozens of Bank Swallows flitting about, and occasionally taking a brief break from flitting about.

Back in Ronald, Tru and I explored the trails in the woods behind the house.
 

Birding in the woods is extremely frustrating.  I could hear birds all over the place, but could not see them due to the dense foliage.  I've had this trouble every time I've been birding in the woods, and have reached the conclusion that what I really like is birding by bodies of water, or in arid regions.  Forest birding is just too annoying to be truly enjoyable.  I heard Steller's Jays, and robins, and crows, and finches, and chickadees, and several calls I couldn't identify because my birding-by-ear skills are woefully inadequate.  After walking for some time, Truman was anxious to return to the house, but I informed him that we were not returning until I had actually seen a bird.  He looked displeased.

Luckily, within a minute or so this Western Wood-Pewee flew in to a branch and posed for us.

I was happy, Truman was ecstatic, and we hightailed it back to the vacation home.

After lunch Truman and I headed into Roslyn for a lovely stroll around the main streets which are full of historic buildings.  It was far too windy to sit and sketch, so I contented myself with taking photos from which to do drawings later.

We also wandered up into the residential area a bit, where I spotted these statues:

It was a most relaxing day (and night) away from home.  And now we are happy to be back at Dog End for another week or so of Staycation.