T.L. Mair Fine Art Photography

Safe Harbor After returning to our little home from San Juan Island , and a well deserved nights rest we booked a place on the ferry from Whidbey island to Port Townsend on the Olympic peninsula. From Port Townsend we traveled inland to Port Angeles , when we got there it was raining off and on, and the sky was heavily overcast. After spending some time at the coast there whishing the skies would clear just a little to add some color to the dark gray clouds. After watching the antics of a little raccoon that was begging food from the others parked there, then looking at a couple of little shops we left Port Angeles, and headed into the Olympic national park, the route we took went up the hill to Hurricane ridge, but that is a story for another day. After our trip up the mountain it was time to head back to Port Townsend and the ferry back to Whidbey island . As we pulled into Port Townsend we took a wrong turn which took us down the main road into the city, happily we

The Pillars of the Earth In our smallish town of Midway Utah we have a "not so" local celebration over the labor day weekend called Midway Swiss Days. During Swiss Days we get over one hundred thousand visitors. You can buy just about anything at Swiss days, they have food booths, fine art painting booths, craft booths, Photography booths, one person even sells appointments for his portrait studio, it is amazing what can be bought at Swiss days. I have a boot at Swiss Days where I sell my fine art photography, one of the images I had in the booth this year to act as a "draw" to get people to come to my boot was "The Pillars of the Earth" shown here. I answered literally thousands of questions about this image, I know I answered that many because I gave away that many business cards, and everyone who came into the booth asked the same question: "Where is that?"! I thought since it had been asked so many times it might make a great

Evening at Friday Harbor One of the things we did during our stay on Whidbey island is take a ferry from Anacortes to San Juan Island . We booked reservations on the ferry, we had been told if we wanted to actually make it to San Juan we should get reservations because it is a very popular destination, they were correct, glad we made the reservations, which was quite easy, you just go to their web site, and it guides you through the process. We had made our reservations for late morning, and the return trip for the last run of the day, 10:00 PM. We were still on Utah time, so that made getting there easy, the ride from Anacortes to Friday Harbor takes about one hour, but the ride home, come to find out, takes over two because the last run hits all of the San Juan islands, letting people off for the night, and picking people up for the return to Anacortes. So we never made it back to Anacortes until midnight Washington time, then the hour drive back to Coupeville, we got

Sunset at Fort Casey During our stay on Whidbey Island we had the opportunity to visit many beautiful places, one of them was Fort Casey . Once on the Island we drove to our little home we had rented for the week, then we started to explore, as we were driving we came upon a row of houses that all looked alike, I told my wife I thought they looked just like the houses in Fort Yellowstone, at Mammoth Hot Springs, turns out they are the officers houses at Fort Casey, we had no idea there was, or had been a fort in that area, I guess we should have done a little homework, but then again we love the excitement of finding these places on our own. We drove into the Washington State Park at Fort Casey and had a look around, what a cool place, there is the Admiralty head lighthouse built on a little mound so it's light could be seen by  sailors to safely guide them around the rocky cost line. There are also two "Batteries" the Moore , and the Kingsbury, these

Sunset at Penn Cove   As we took the ferry from Mukilteo on Washington 's mainland to Whidbey Island it was kind of exciting, I had never ridden on a ferry. If you have never ridden on a ferry it is a different experience, they are big...BIG...floating parking lots, You pay the toll, they tell you where to park in the staging area, then when they are ready for you to board you drive your car onto the ferry, and they tell you where to park. Once on the ferry you can, if you want, get out of the car and move about the different decks. On the main passenger deck on the larger ferries they have a galley, and serve sandwiches, and drinks, they have booths just like in your favorite fast food place, and auditorium type seating if you don't want to sit at a booth. You can even go out on the deck to watch the waves go by, pretty cool!! Once at Whidbey Island we drove off of the ferry and began to explore what would be our home for the next week, it is a beautiful place

Mukilteo Lighthouse #2 Recently on our first trip to northern Washington state my wife and I had decided to stay on Whidbey island .  to get to Whidbey island you have two choices, you take the ferry from Mukilteo, or you drive an extra 30 miles by going up the Burlington, then crossing the bridge, we were staying in Coupeville, and taking the ferry seemed to be the shortest distance, and my wife was looking forward to taking a ferry, neither of us had ever had that experience. The first night we stayed in Seattle , then drove up to Mukilteo to check out how to get on the ferry, and everything involved with that. While we were at Mukilteo Kena, my wife, had heard about a place called Ivar's, she had been told to not eat inside but rather to eat out under the awning so we could watch the ferries come and go, turns out there are more than one Ivar's and this one was not the one with the outside seating. After checking out the ferry, and eating dinner we deci

The Amazing World We Live In Recently my wife and I decided to take a short trip to  Utah 's  Bryce   Canyon . We wanted to go when there was snow on the red rocks, so we kept checking the weather, waiting to hear of snow storms, wile snow is not real common in southern Utah, it does snow at Bryce Canyon, which is really not a canyon, but rather a series of "Amphitheatres"  made up of columns called Hoodoos, that make a kind of arch around the cliff face. The fact that Bryce canyon sits at just over 8000 feet means it does get snow, but this year was a different year for snow in all of Utah, we never did hear of snow storms, but time was running out for us to make a winter trip, so we booked our stay at Ruby's Inn, in Bryce Canyon City, and took our chances, as luck would have it the day we arrived it had been snowing all that day, and through the night, visibility was about 15 feet, and foggy, since we only had two full days, and a morning on the thi