Washington Slept Here, Lavender Farms, Part II

When the State is named Washington, it might be a fair claim that old George Washington could have slept everywhere in that state.  Well, truth be told, I did meet George Washington in Sequim, in fact he is an actor, Vern Frykholm, that dresses up and portrays George Washington at different venues and often at the George Washington Inn during their annual Lavender Festival in July and the Northwest Colonial Festival in August.

The George Washington Inn is a Bed & Breakfast Lavender Farm that was one of the last farms we stopped at in Sequim.  From the roadside you can see the stately looking white mansion with a long entry road with fences and lavender and wildflowers landscaped on the property.  It also has a barn-like building which houses their gift shop but I didn’t have time to explore that building because I was conscripted drafted inducted asked to assist in photographing some publicity photos of George as I stepped on the property to do some landscape photos of the lavender and Inn.  This will be my Thursday Doors post for this week.

The owner, Dan Abbott, saw me with my camera and headed directly to me to ask a favor that I could not refuse.  He wanted someone to take photos of George, some bank representatives holding one of those huge cardboard checks and himself for some donation or charitable cause; I think that was the purpose but I was too busy trying to focus the cellphone camera to make sure everything was good in the photos.  They were satisfied when the job was done and discharged me from the Colonial Army so I could do my civilian photographs.

The George Washington Inn as it appeared when I volunteered to shoot some photos for Dan Abbott and George Washington.

George Washington mobilized Dan Abbott and their bank which has trained orcas on wheels to get ready for battle.

Lavender landscaping.

This is their replica bridge where they enact the Battle at Lexington at the annual Northwest Colonial Festival.

The entry to the B & B Inn with doors and rocking chairs.

Green side doors with floral ornaments.

Landscaping on the side of the farm.

The backyard and screened-in sunrooms with the back entry doors.

Thank you for visiting my post and thanks again to Norm 2.0 for his creation of the Thursday Doors website that gives us bloggers an outlet to let our thoughts be put on paper or in this case, web space.  For more posts and photos of doors by others please go to: Thursday Doors.

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Washington Lavender Farms

Our planned itinerary while exploring the State of Washington in July included visits to Sequim to see the lavender farms; how many would we visit, if someone asked me, I would have said one or two  with the thinking that you see one you’ve seen them all.  Well, good thing no one asked; we ended up visiting all eight of the lavender farms listed in the visitor’s brochure.

We set the GPS for one of the farms and by chance we passed the B&B Family Lavender Farm so we let fate take its course and stopped there.  Just in time as the owner, Bruce (the first B in the B&B) was just starting his tour.  Quite interesting facts about lavender farming from Bruce as he informed us that his family purchased the farm about 6 years ago.  Apparently, the climate and soil in Sequim appeals to the lavender plants; they don’t like water after the first year of being transplanted into the field and prefer arid conditions, according to Bruce.  Being an unsophisticated lavender novice, my only knowledge was what the plant looked like and its scent; we learned that there were 2 major types, the English and the French plants. The English plants were edible while the French plants were not so don’t plant the wrong one if you intend to use it in your food.  The plants are cultivated from small plants purchased from growers and can grow for approximately 23 years.  Bees do not pollinate these plants; Bruce said they welcome the bees to eat their plants and in return, they provide housing (aka hives) in exchange for their honey which they sell for other farm profit; those bees need to unionize for better perks!

The lavender tour brochures lists the B&B Family Lavender Farm as being home to 3 generations of Bruce & Bonnie (the other B) Family and Bruce proudly showed off the 100 year old barn where the lavender sales and processing operations take place.

The 100 year old barn and other old building on the property contain the doors for this Thursday Doors post; the other images are “eye-candy” information.

This is Bruce showing us how they hang their lavender cuttings upside down to dry in the barn.

Bruce is explaining the different types of lavender and proudly shows us his one-of-a-kind machine that separates the petals from the stem so they don’t have to do that by hand.

To make the lavender scented oils they have to distill the flowers in a special made copper still (we found out other farms purchase similar stills from Europe, too); apparently, the chemical reaction with the steam, oil and copper makes the process work better than using stainless steel stills.  They distill quite a lot of lavender stems with flowers just to produce several ounces of the oil which explains why they are so expensive.

Another look at the barn.

Products sold in their store, door knob clocks!

And some photos of the lavender plants and another “B”ee that doesn’t get credit in the B&B Family Lavender Farm name.

Thank you for visiting my post and thanks again to Norm 2.0 for his creation of the Thursday Doors website that gives us bloggers an outlet to let our thoughts be put on paper or in this case, web space.  For more posts and photos of doors by others please go to: Thursday Doors.

Whimsy Park

A quick post for Norm Frampton’s Thursday Doors where crazy people like to post photos of doors from all over the world.  Since I returned from another trip late last week I’m trying to catch up on things and this door is from a doorscursion I was able to do in Sequim, Washington in July, 2019.  I hope to post more doors from this city in the future but in the interest of time before Norm closes the door for this week’s posts, this is my door for the week.

I understand the door functional but enter at your own risk because a concrete wall is on the other side.

The Whimsy Park concept was a community effort to dress up an empty lot and the local newspaper wrote an article about the news here:  Whimsy News

Thank you for visiting my post and thanks again to Norm 2.0 for his creation of the Thursday Doors website that gives us bloggers an outlet to let our thoughts be put on paper or in this case, web space.  For more posts and photos of doors by others please go to: Thursday Doors.

Paradise Inn

I forgot to get this post up for the August 3, 2019 Thursday Doors posting and I tried to beat the clock but it was impossible to do it within a minute so I’m preparing this for the next opportunity as I will also be travelling next week and might not be able to post it then.

This was related to my last post when we were in the state of Washington, visiting Mt. Rainier.  After a day of exploring and trying to find “that” photo, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner in the National Park and what better place to have that but in Paradise.  The Paradise Inn just reopened after undergoing an extensive renovation; information about that renovation can be read at this link:  Paradise Inn Renovation

We didn’t stay at the Paradise Inn or get a chance to wander around the complex too much except for visiting the Paradise Inn’s Dining Room which reminded me of Yosemite National Park’s “Ahwahnee Hotel”; the Paradise Inn’s Dining Room building looks a bit smaller but still exhibits that experience that makes you comfortable and want to hang out in a historic mountain lodge.

This was the look of the Paradise Inn Dining’s building as we walked there.

As you enter the building, you’re greeted with the look of high open ceiling trusses with a lot of wooden beams and logs, cozy furnishings and chairs to lounge while taking a break or waiting for the restaurant to open, gift shops, a fireplace and someone playing music at the piano.

And then, you find that fantastic set of wooden glass doors that lead you into the dining room.

My photos of the dining room ended at this point because it was time to eat and put the photo gear away for now.

Thank you for visiting my post and thanks again to Norm 2.0 for his creation of the Thursday Doors website that gives us bloggers an outlet to let our thoughts be put on paper or in this case, web space.  For more posts and photos of doors by others please go to: Thursday Doors.

 

Trains, Historic Church and Mountains

Greetings to my fellow Thursday Door Bloggers.  I’ve missed more postings but I was able to do some doorscursions while traveling in Washington State the past week and a half ago.  The trip was for pleasure (since that’s what we retired folk do) to visit some nice areas to do some photography and it was fun while it lasted.

The second part of the trip had us traveling to the mountains to see Mt. Rainier and it was a beautiful National Park to visit but we did have clouds (no photographer complains about clouds) and a few drops of rain, but not much to complain about, and some cool weather.  Funny thing, I checked the weather before leaving but our initernary was spread out over the state and I didn’t pack for cold weather so my T-shirts and thin rain jacket was not insulating when the temperatures cooled in the evening but fortunately, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and this is my kind of weather.  But still, I had to purchase a souvenir long sleeve T-shirt to add to my light wardrobe for this part of the trip.

Our evening in Mt. Rainier ended with a nice dinner at their resort called Paradise, and then trying to photograph the sunset but the compositions in that location just wasn’t cutting it so we packed up and drove to our motel outside the park, about a 45 minute or more drive.  It was getting darker as the sun setted and we had not been to the motel yet so we followed the GPS to another exit from the park.  But fate was with us and we passed an overlook turnoff which I failed to stop at in my haste to get out of the park before it got too dark and I looked over the edge of the roadway and saw the peak of Mt. Rainier to my left standing clear with some clouds and the sunset light.  I found a turnoff within a minute on the opposite side of the road to make a U Turn to get back to that lookout and we had the best views of the peak with the sunset lighting up the clouds.  A few lucky people also stopped at the lookout to enjoy what we saw.

When the sunset show ended, it was back to the curvy mountain road in the dark to find our motel and a slow driver was not willing to pull over until we got down to lower elevations.  Anyway, I drove quickly in the dark because it was a long day and we were late to check into the motel so we had no idea what we passed on the dark road.

The next morning, we drove back up Mt. Rainier to visit other locations we could not get to on the first day and we passed through a small town of Elbe which we couldn’t see as we passed it in the dark the night before.  What a surprise!  It was a little railroad town with train rides and rail cars turned into small diners.  We stopped for a little break and I found the historic white church which is the feature of my Thursday Doors post this week.  According to Wikipedia, The town of Elbe is called, “a census-designated place (CDP) in Pierce County, Washington, Washington, United States. The population was 29 at the 2010 census.

The Elbe Evangelical Lutheran Church, a tiny white church built by the German immigrants who established the community, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 8, 1976. The Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad begins its excursion trains in Elbe, with seasonal tours to Mineral Lake, just 3 miles south.”  More about Elbe can be found on the Wikipedia link:  HERE

This is the church and it’s door.

These are a couple of bonus postings for resident TD Blogger, Dan Antion, since he always appreciates a good train photo.

And, you must have been thinking, why did I entice you with my story about Mt. Rainier’s sunset; well, here’s a panoramic sample that I shot.

Thank you for visiting my post and thanks again to Norm 2.0 for his creation of the Thursday Doors website that gives us bloggers an outlet to let our thoughts be put on paper or in this case, web space.  For more posts and photos of doors by others please go to: Thursday Doors.

Door of Light

My contribution to Norm Frampton’s Thursday Doors can be found on the coast of California.  I actually took these photos a few years ago when showing some out of town guests what fun sights and things we have to offer.

I have a ghost door and lighthouse door from the Point Reyes Lighthouse Station.  The lighthouse was actually completed and operational in 1870 after 15 years of delay in the U.S. government’s negotiations to purchase the land.  More information can be found from the Wikipedia posting: LIGHTHOUSE.

This structure has a ghost door or what looks like a narrow door:

The lighthouse door looks remarkably new, probably from the numerous coats of marine paint to protect the wood from the fog and moist sea air.

I understand they were doing some restoration work on the lighthouse station but I haven’t made the trip there recently to see what is happening.  But if you visit northern California try to make it a point to visit this lighthouse if it is open.  You will not regret doing so.

Thank you for visiting my post and thanks again to Norm 2.0 for his creation of the Thursday Doors website that gives us bloggers an outlet to let our thoughts be put on paper or in this case, web space.  For more posts and photos of doors by others please go to: Thursday Doors.

A Village in Northern California

Gone and hopefully, not forgotten; sorry for being absent in posting and reading the blogs of the dedicated door aficionados of Norm Frampton’s Thursday Doors.  I have no excuses but once you make an exception to miss a posting deadline it becomes easier to miss more deadlines; guilt does hang over your head and eventually you feel compelled to add a post so my guilt runneth over.

I haven’t been doing doorscursions recently so I haven’t found any new locations for doors but I still have some door photos in the archives somewhere.  The creative writing needs a kick start but a short post may get the brain moving again.  I was visiting Los Altos in April, a small city in Silicon Valley where my in-laws reside and I always enjoy their “village” feeling.  Their town is their village and I wish we had one where I live; all we have in my city are shopping centers!

On the return to my in-law’s house after lunch we passed the community center and the Los Altos Community House which is the location for the Los Altos Community Foundation.  Their mission statement on the website says, “Los Altos Community Foundation (LACF), its donors and volunteers, provide grants, operate leadership and community-building programs, incubate “startup” nonprofits, offer donor advised funds, and convene groups to address community issues.”  But it was the house and door that caught my eye and that’s my Thursday Doors post for this week.

This is a cellphone shot of the walkway and the front of the house.

And this is a cellphone shot of the door zoomed in.

Thank you for visiting my post and thanks again to Norm 2.0 for his creation of the Thursday Doors website that gives us bloggers an outlet to let our thoughts be put on paper or in this case, web space.  For more posts and photos of doors by others please go to: Thursday Doors.