Pacific Northwest Flowers

More pictures from Seattle's Eastlake P-Patch. Any plant names or corrections will be greatly appreciated!

Tickseed
(Coreopsis)

Calendula?

Dahlia?

Montebretia
(Crocosmia)

California Poppy
(Eschscholzia californica)

Shasta Daisy
(Chrysanthemum maximum)

Click photo to enlarge

A Month In Review - July

This almost isn't worth the time to compose! Suffice it to say, I didn't get much reading accomplished due to the wonderful 2-week vacation we recently took. Instead of curling up with a book, I took pictures. Lots of pictures! Pictures of eagles, seals, sunrises, log rafts, gorgeous boats, flowers, kelp, heron and gulls, ferries, clouds, food and beer, dogs and cats, flags and beacons, mansions and cottages, tugboats and lighthouses, bridges, float planes, hotels, ships and submarines, and nautical "stuff." If you haven't seen the pictures, scroll down. There's plenty to keep you entertained.

However, if you're here just for the book reviews, maybe August will be an improvement. Click on the titles to read the reviews (and view the ratings).

The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Favorite of the Month: A Walk in the Woods
Books Read 2
DNF 0
Male Authors 1
Female Authors 1
New-To-Me Authors 1
Across the Borders 0
Fiction 1
Nonfiction 1
Classic 0
Poetry 0
Young Adult 0
Sci-Fi 0
Fantasy 0
Humor 0
Travel 1
Mystery/Thriller 0
Series 0
Re-read 0
Challenge 2
Mine 2
Library 0
ARC 1
Gift 0
Keeper 0

Woman In Red

Woman in Red by Eileen Goudge
Contemporary Fiction
Quit on 8/5/07
Rating: DNF





Publisher's Blurb:

A powerful story of love and redemption, and what one woman will do to overcome the buried secrets of her past.

Alice Kessler spent nine years in prison for the attempted murder of the drunk driver who killed her son. Now she's returned home to Gray's Island to reconnect with the son she left behind. Her boy, Jeremy, now a sullen teenager, is wrongly accused of rape, and mother and son are thrown together in a desperate attempt to prove his innocence. She's aided by Colin McGinty, a recovering alcoholic and 9/11 widower, also recently returned to the island in the aftermath of his grandfather's death. Colin's grandfather, a famous artist, is best known for his haunting portrait, "Woman in Red," which happens to be of Alice's grandmother.

In a tale that weaves the past with the present, we come to know the story behind the portrait, of the forbidden wartime romance between William McGinty and Eleanor Styles, and the deadly secret that bound them more tightly than even their love for each other. A secret that, more than half a century later, is about to be unburied, as Alice and Colin are drawn into a fragile romance of their own and the ghost of an enemy from long ago surfaces in the form of his grandson, the very man responsible for sending Alice to prison.


Not really my cuppa, but a dear friend sent me her copy, knowing I was heading out to the Pacific Northwest for two weeks. The story's fictional island is based on one that I visited briefly years ago (Orcas Island), but not on my recent trip. Unfortunately, I couldn't get interested in the story and didn't care for any of the characters. I gave up after 140 pages.

Where In The World Is Was Lesley? (Day Thirteen)

Itinerary: Sidney to Victoria (British Columbia/Vancouver Island)
Cruising Time: No idea
Weather: Foggy and cool
Attitude: Sad to see the vacation coming to an end

Our final day before heading back to the Midwest. The seas were calmer than usual, which is apparently a good thing when heading down to Victoria (via Haro Strait, merging into Juan De Fuca Strait). The fog lifted, which was also a good thing since we needed to watch out for deadwood (logs) and rocks. We only had a couple of hours in Victoria before catching the Victoria Clipper back to Seattle (our hosts had two more weeks of cruising after our departure!). Maybe we'll get back to Victoria in another year or two with more time to play tourists.

Charts (not maps!)

Almost to Victoria!

That looks big enough! Where do we sign?

The ubiquitous float plane!

Didn't even faze those geese!

Canadian Coast Guard Cutter

Parliament

Lucky us!
We got a slip right on the causeway in front of the Empress!

More of the gorgeous hanging baskets like those we saw in Sidney.

Caught reading!

The Empress Hotel

Our ride back to Seattle.

That's not a whale!

Click on pictures for full-size view.

The Rest of Her Life

The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty
Contemporary Fiction
Finished on 7/30/07
Rating: 2/5 (Below Average)



From the Publisher

In The Rest of Her Life, Laura Moriarty delivers a luminous, compassionate, and provocative look at how mothers and daughters with the best intentions can be blind to the harm they do to one another.

Leigh is the mother of high-achieving, popular high school senior Kara. Their relationship is already strained for reasons Leigh does not fully understand when, in a moment of carelessness, Kara makes a mistake that ends in tragedy -- the effects of which not only divide Leigh's family, but polarize the entire community. We see the story from Leigh's perspective, as she grapples with the hard reality of what her daughter has done and the devastating consequences her actions have on the family of another teenage girl in town, all while struggling to protect Kara in the face of rising public outcry.

Like the best works of Jane Hamilton, Jodi Picoult, and Alice Sebold, Laura Moriarty's The Rest of Her Life is a novel of complex moral dilemma, filled with nuanced characters and a page-turning plot that makes readers ask themselves, "What would I do?"


I'm not sure I would've picked up this ARC at work, had I not enjoyed Moriarty's debut novel, The Center of Everything, so well. The subject matter isn't exactly light and breezy summer fare, and Leigh (with whom I found little sympathy) is annoyingly self-absorbed and insecure. Moriarty holds the reader at a distance as none of her characters are fully fleshed out. I stopped and started this book several times, hoping it would improve, and while I managed to finish, it's not one I'd recommend.

Where In The World Is Lesley? (Day Twelve)

Itinerary: Brentwood Bay to Cowichan Bay to Sidney-by-the-Sea
Cruising Time: 1 1/2 hours for each leg of the trip
Weather: Partly cloudy in a.m. (65 degrees) with rain all afternoon in Sidney
Delicious seafood chowder and halibut sandwich at Bay Pub in Cowichan

Brentwood Bay-Mill Bay Ferry

Ferryman

Heading toward Cowichan

Calm Seas

Boat Fenders

Cool Planter!

Outside The Mud Room Clayworks

My Souvenir

Outside the Bakery

A Walk in the Woods

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Nonfiction - Travel Essay
Finished on 7/29/07
Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)
Joy's Nonfiction Challenge #3
Armchair Traveler Reading Challenge #1



It is such a strange contrast. When you're on the AT, the forest is your universe, infinite and entire. It is all you experience day after day. Eventually it is about all you can imagine. You are aware, of course, that somewhere over the horizon there are mighty cities, busy factories, crowded freeways, but here in this part of the country, where woods drape the landscape for as far as the eye can see, the forest rules. Even the little towns like Franklin and Hiawassee and even Gatlinburg are just way stations scattered helpfully through the great cosmos of the woods.

In many ways, living aboard a boat for 13 days was not all that different than Bryson's description of the AT. Cruising the San Juan and Canadian Gulf Islands, I easily lost all track of time and place. Sure, we visited small communities for fuel, provisions, and sightseeing, but each and every town had a laidback feel that makes one imagine that even the locals are on a perpetual holiday. Returning to the land of "gas stations, Wal-Marts, Kmarts, Dunkin Donuts, Blockbuster Videos, a ceaseless unfolding pageant of commercial hideousness" is quite a shock to the relaxed state of mind.

Bill Bryson has written close to a dozen books, ranging from travel essays to linguistics/etymology to science/history and most recently, his memoir of growing up in Iowa during the fifties. Several years ago, I listened to I'm A Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away and thought it was quite funny. We've had A Walk in the Woods in our collection for many years and thanks to Joy's Nonfiction Challenge and Lesley's Armchair Traveler Challenge, I finally had the motivation I needed to read it.

I have fond childhood memories of camping with my family. Dad and my brothers (I assume this, as I never really paid attention!) would pitch the tent and Mom would get the "kitchen" organized. Meals were magically prepared and clean dishes appeared whenever needed. The four of us kids roamed around the camp grounds making new friends, playing in the dirt or down by the lake. Camping was fun. It was carefree. Just the way it should be for kids.

Of course as an adult, my husband and I wanted to share the experience of the great outdoors with our girls. Rod had been a Boy Scout and knew all about building fires, pitching tents, following the North star and looking for moss on the side of a tree trunk -- wait a minute! This is the guy who gets lost in his own neighborhood!

Anyhow, we decided to take the girls camping in the Sequoia National Park. We camped near Hume Lake with our two tents, fishing gear, Coleman stove, flashlights, cooler, beach chairs (we had to sit on something!), baseball & mitts, and fannypacks. Yep, we were ready. However, Dad and Mom made it all look so easy back in the 60s. What I failed to learn was that camping is A LOT OF WORK! Bring out the ice chest, fix a meal, clean the dishes in a little tub of soapy water, put the food away so the bears don't smell it, and repeat two more times every day! And then there's the lack of an automatic coffee maker. Oh, and that minor detail about just how uncomfortable it is to sleep in a sleeping bag directly on the COLD, HARD, ROCKY ground.

Let's just say that I have a deep appreciation for Bill Bryson's attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. Who can possibly blame him for taking an extended break from his endeavor? He managed to walk hundreds of miles through terrible weather conditions, poor trail markings, poorly detailed maps, with minimal provisions (thanks to his travel companion who felt compelled to toss away the unnecessary items that were deemed too heavy to carry).

While I did not find this to be "choke-on-your-coffee funny" as described by the Washington Post Book World, I did find a sprinkling of humorous passages. I also enjoyed the tidbits of historical information that Bryson incorporates so well in his narrative.

My favorite one-liner:

I was perched on the edge of the sleeping platform lost in a little reverie...absorbed with trying to get a small volume of water to boil--quite happy really--when one of the middle-aged guys drifted over and introduced himself as Bob. I knew with a sinking heart that we were going to talk equipment. I could just see it coming. I hate talking equipment.

"So what made you buy a Gregory pack?" he said.

"Well, I thought it would be easier than carrying everything in my arms."

Overall, not a bad read. I'm not sure it was necessarily a good thing to read about bears while hiking through the woods on a nearly deserted island in the Pacific Northwest, but at least I was prepared if I ran into one. Thank goodness I didn't see any. I can never remember if you're supposed to play dead if you encounter a brown bear and try to run and climb the nearest tree if it's a black bear or the other way around! And even if I did, I couldn't remember which bears are native to which part of the country. It's no wonder I only lasted one year in Bluebirds!