This is Spring?

Who said that Spring has arrived?  It certainly wasn't our little friend the groundhog.....if so, he must have lied!

 

Ron and I have a goal of photographing as many lighthouses as we can get to. We didn't have anything pressing on our calendar so we decided to take the ferry from Whidbey Island (near Coupeville) and go to the Olympic Pennisula to try to photograph the Point Wilson Lighthouse, which is located at Fort Worden, near Port Townsend. We knew that it was going to be a sunny, but chilly day, so we dressed in layers, packed a lunch and loaded up the truck. What we didn't expect to find, was almost 6 inches of snow at the ferry landing just outside of Coupeville! It was the second day of spring, and all of a sudden it felt like mid winter. The day before, we had heavy hail, thunder and lightning, strong winds, heavy rain and even sunshine. Go figure! I think that Mother Nature is having a hard time trying to figurte out what season it is.

But we were going to go to the pennisula anyway.....even with some snow!

We walked all around the lighthouse, and looked at it from every possible angle, to try to get a good photograph.  Nothing seemed to work.  Unfortunately the lighthouse has not been maintained, and it is really starting to show some deteriation.  So sad.  There are several out buildings other than the lighthouse itself, and the Light Keepers house.....like a garage, a couple of sheds and another more modern house that looks completely out of place.  It's impossible to get a creative "fine art" type of photo.  (so we tried to take photos that didn't include all the extra out buildings.)

The surprise of the day however, was the snow on the beach.  It's not that often that we will get snow at sea level, but the storm that passed through yesterday really dumped  a lot in several concentrated areas.  On Camano Island, at least at the north end, we didn't have any snow, yet on Whidbey Island straight across the water at the same latitude as us, there was 6 inches.  Go figure....  There had been snow at Fort Warden, but it was melting.

Fort Warden is located right at the entrance to Puget Sound, so there is a lot of marine traffic that passes through there....huge shipping freighters, fishing boats, private boats, and Navy vessels.  As we were photographing the lighthouse, there was a large Navy support vessel which was headed out to sea......in the photo below, Ron was waiting for the Navy ship to come closer so he could photograph it.

The most spectacular thing about the day, were the clouds.  They were absolutely gorgeous!  The day started out with quite a few clouds but over time they burned off......but while they were around, they were huge, puffy and fantastic!  In the photo below, you can see how the lighthouse is deteriorating.  It really could use some tender loving care.  It looks like the lens is still intact, but the light was not working. 

We hiked all around the penninsula that the lighthouse is on.  It was pretty chilly, but we kept warm with all the walking we did.  I only had tennis shoes on.....I wasn't planning on having to wade through the snow.

You can still see the lens that is there.......I don't know why it wasn't functioning.  It is an extremely busy section of sea.

Ron and I kept trading cameras, and then we traded lenses, so it got to be hard to keep track of who took what picture.

There were quite a few people camped at Fort Warden, but not as busy as it is during the warm summer weather.  There were people taking pictures, riding bikes, beach combing, even an artist painting the area.  You couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day.....well, maybe just a little warmer would have been nice.  It felt like January temperatures, not the end of March!

I had to tease Ron.....he was wearing a BLUE shirt.  Most of the time when I take his picture, he is wearing black. 

We drove around Port Townsend for a while.....it is the cutest town......full of Victorian Houses.  We wanted to wait until sunset to see if we could get a sunset picture, so we found a lookout vantage point in the meantime.  Fort Warden used to house a lot of Military officers, so the Fort has lots and lots of beautiful old homes used for that purpose. 

The clouds were the most interesting thing of the day......perfect spring clouds.

 

The Parks Department, (who runs the Lighthouse and Camp Ground) had erected a huge sea wall of boulders to help protect the shore from erroding. 

After having spent the entire afternoon trying to get the right angle for a photo, we finally decided that we just weren't going to get the type of photo that we wanted.  We also decided that the lighthouse looked better from a distance, because of it's run down nature.

Ron wanted to try one more time to get a good shot, as the sun was starting to sink over the horizon.  By this time, Mt. Baker had finally come out from behind the clouds.  I never get tired of photographing Mt. Baker.....it is a pretty imposing sight from anywhere in the area.

Ron found this old abandoned dinghy that had been washed ashore by a storm, and no one had bothered to move it.  Makes for an interesting juxtaposition.

Ron took this photo just before the sun started to disappear. 

 

We got in line for the 8:30 ferry back to Whidbey Island.  By the time we got home, it was almost 10:30pm, and we were both very tired.  But we felt it was worth the effort we made to go to the pennisula.  Just a note on the funny side:  when we got up to the toll booth to pay for our ticket on the ferry, the man asked if there were any senior citizens....(gee, do we look that old?)  Ron said, "I'm 62." and the ticket agent, said "That's close enough!"  So we got a senior citizen discount.....our first one!  I guess we've entered a new phase in our life!