Mike Munhall

Dorrie’s aunt and uncle own a home in British Columbia. They spend part of their year in B.C., and every year they have Dorrie’s dad, grandfather and usually a couple of other people up to the house for a few days of salmon fishing. I went last year, but missed this year’s trip for various reasons. Here’s a sampling of family-album photos and a few others that I’m considering working with to make enlargements and then frame.

A quick synopsis of the trip: Dorrie’s dad and I flew to Oregon to stay with his mom and dad for a couple of days. We attended the annual family reunion while we were there. Dad, grandad and I then drove up the Oregon and Washington coasts and boarded a ferry to Vancouver Island. The day after we got to B.C., we picked up my brother-in-law, Patrick, from the airport and then spent the next three days in the Strait of Juan de Fuca fishing for salmon and yucking it up. We spent some time with some friends of the family during the evenings. The return trip was the opposite of the trip out: We boarded the ferry back to Washington, drove down the coast to the grandparents house in Oregon, then flew out the next day back to Colorado.

The highlight of the trip for me was the last day of fishing. We had some heavy rain during the night and the next morning was socked in with thick fog. Photographically, the day was simply amazing. The mood was dark and gloomy and made photographing super fun. But, I was shooting from the back of a boat, and that’s not very easy. Nevertheless, there were a few shots that I’ll be printing this afternoon and, hopefully, adding to the galleries in Flickr soon.

When Dorrie and I decided to buy this house, we knew we had some landscaping that, um… needed some attention. We were very aware that our yard made us the scourge of the neighborhood.

What we didn’t know–because the previous owner failed to disclose it to us–was that the home owner’s association had already been on top of the owner to get the front yard “into compliance”. Well, a few days after we moved in we received a nasty letter from the HOA saying we had 30 days to get the landscaping in shape or we were going have to start paying $25 a day, lose our usage of the community recreation centers, give up our first born, etc., etc. A quick call to the HOA straightened everything out (they didn’t realize there were new owners) and they decided to withhold punishment and give us a chance to fix the problems on our own. (They also apologized for the unwelcoming welcome letter.)

We didn’t plan to have to do all the landscaping immediately upon moving in, but we didn’t have too much choice. We decided to use John Krupa, the preferred landscaper of some of our family that live up the street. John rocked, finishing everything in just two days. Simply amazing.

We’re no longer the scourge of the neighborhood. Now everybody loves us and wants to have a beautiful yard like ours.

Before

After

During

This is why Dorrie and I avoid book stores. On the way home from an afternoon with friends, we decided to make a quick trip to Tattered Cover for a crossword dictionary. As usual, Dorrie and I separated as we walked through the entrance, each of us immediately discovering something captivating. 15 minutes later we ran into each other, not more than 20 or 30 feet from the store entrance. Both of us had a half dozen books in our arms and we hadn’t even begun to look for the crossword dictionary.

We did, eventually, find the crossword dictionary. But not after adding two additional crossword references and a few gifts to the already large stack of books we were lugging around with us. Our final tab came out to $230.

Stop the madness.