After all our travels in 2024 (to Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Andorra, France, Belgium, Netherlands, and the other side of the US & Canada), we returned to familiar territory in the Pacific Northwest. 

We spent the majority of October-April near Seattle, Washington, my hometown and the city where we spent more than a decade after college. Even with trips to California and Utah and to see Nathan's family in Oregon for the holidays, it was a big adjustment to settle back into a single locale for so long. 

Still, the northwest corner of the US is a beautiful place, and shouldn't be left out of an account of our year. We still got to do some fun things and sometimes had some decent weather to explore a new spots.

The familiar city got a little update since our last visit with the newly-opened Waterfront Park Overlook, replacing an old raised freeway that used to cut off the city and Pike Place market from the waterfront. We visited that on our way to an exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum.

Later in October, we took part in fall festivities for my birthday and Halloween, including a massive corn maze and haunted forrest in Buckley, Washington. Traditions like dressing up with friends and going to tea with my mom are those few times when I appreciate having a home base.

We got to take a couple of autumn hikes around Tacoma and Bothell for some of that peerless PNW nature.

The most spectacular is one we have done before, with a lot more sun and an energetic dog to pull us up the hill. We reminisced about her while revisiting Lake Serene.

Other hikes of interest were to seek out a few of the Danish artist Thomas Danbo's giant troll installations. On this trip, I visited Jacob Two Trees in Issaquah, Bruun Idun in West Seattle, and Oscar the Bird King on Vashon Island. Later in the spring, I took another ferry trip to Bainbridge for Pia the Peacekeeper, and the last one was just in the city, Frankie Feetsplinter in our old neighborhood of Ballard.


Our family day trip to Vashon also included a beautiful ferry ride, incredible Mount Rainier views, and a peek at the famous Vashon oddity: Bike-Stuck-In-A-Tree.

Finally, we finished off our year celebrating Christmas with family in Seattle and Eugene, plus with friends in San Francisco. Again, the holiday was a wonderful time to be at 'home' before getting started on our 2025 plans. That started with a trip to our other 'home' in Kanab, Utah before finally getting the medical procedure that brought us to Seattle.

During his recovery, we still got out and about for a beach hike in Tacoma, a lookout in the Cascades, and, just to prove it is spring, trips to see the cherry blossoms at Seward Park and the University District.

New blooms, new beginnings, new adventures for the year!