One of the pleasures of living in the Pacific North West are the beautiful sunrises and sunsets. This evening, while my service dog took me on out nightly walk we were blessed with a sunset setting over the Olympic Mountains. Granted, walking a few blocks does not sound exciting, although when you are blessed with the beauty of Mother Nature, such as a wonderful sunset. Sunsets are common here in the North West. Many times the sunsets are easily enjoyed while driving home from work, or on a walk such as my dog and I took tonight. Another location in Seattle to watch beautiful sunsets is at Golden Garden Park. Watching the sun set over Puget Sound with the Olympic Mountains in the background is always relaxing - even in the winter when it is cold out. Nature provides all sorts of wonderful, interesting things to see and learn about. All you have to do is look around you.

Kauai from new eyes...

Kauai is a beautiful island but not was never my favorite Hawaiian Island. Our trip this December held some surprises. We had to use our week at our timeshare or loose it, so we scheduled a week in early December. The weather forecast was for rain all but one day. Hawaiian rain is warmer than Seattle rain so that did not worry us much. Actually, we had good weather all but one day and on that one day it rained but didn't dampen our spirits at all. The day it rained, we went to one of the Botanical Gardens (up on the north shore) and it was interesting watching the rain squalls come through with the rain, actually a heavy mist, blow horizontally through the valley and mountain peaks. It turned out to be a very good day. We like to be in the water and the winter months are often stormy. At many of the beaches the lifeguards actually kept you out of the water. Wandering around, we stumbled onto Anini Beach on the north shore and was surprised to find it calm and protected by an outer reef that made it safe to snorkel. We found Anina Beech to be shallow quite a ways out, allowing for easy exploration of the coral canyons. We were surprised to find some reasonable coral formations the further out you went. Turtles were present as was a reasonable variety of reef fish. Looking closely, we were always able to find eels in the cavities of the coral formations. Having experienced a stroke a couple of years ago that left my left my left side weak and uncooperative, I was able to snorkel safely here. Snorkeling and being in the warm water of Hawaii makes my body feel better. It is almost magical how much better I feel there as compared to the wet, cold of Seattle's winter. My wife was able to be in the water every day but one while we were at Kauai. We saw a lot and there is still a lot more to see. Watch for future post for some of what we did and things we want to do in the future.