Tag: Puget Sound

Cascade Loop Day 1-mostly on Whidbey Island

Gallery Pacific Northwest 3 Comments
View from the bridge at Deception Pass toward the east. A must see stop on the Cascade Loop Scenic Byway.

The Cascade Loop National Scenic Byway is in my state. The loop covers a pretty decent range of the scenery typical of Washington state. We did it clockwise, starting by taking the ferry to Whidbey Island.

Most years we go to Paradise at Mount Rainier for a few days to hike and just enjoy the mountain air. But this year we decided to see some of the state that we haven’t been to before. It seemed like a good idea to spend our vacation dollars locally. We bought a pass for state parks when we renewed our car tabs this year so we tended to focus on visiting state parks during this outing.

Whidbey Island

It started with a ferry ride…naturally.

Mulkilteo ferry to Whidbey Island.

I’m jaded about islands, my home town is Vashon, my dad still lives there and we go over pretty often. Whidbey is “just” a Puget Sound island. Pretty enough, but it doesn’t seem special. None-the-less walking on the beach and in the woods is always a peace point for my soul.

Some photos from Whidbey Island.

Cute sign at a beach on Whidbey Island.
Strong currents at a point on Whidbey Island.
Old pier at a beach on Whidbey Island.
Peek-a-boo view from a trail at South Whidbey State Park.
Little brown sparrow.
Path through the horse tails at South Whidbey State Park.
Big leaf maple.
View from trail at North Beach in Deception Pass State Park.
Trail at Deception Pass State Park.
Thimble berries
Tiny Nootka rose.
Trail to the bridge at Deception Pass State Park.
View from the bridge at Deception Pass toward the east.
Deception Pass from the bridge, facing west.

We didn’t really explore the towns, which many people enjoy. The one stop we made for food in Coupeville wasn’t to our taste. We stopped at a pub that only served sausages (which don’t agree with our older tummies) and beer, which I don’t like and the MOTH doesn’t drink when he drives (after lunch was his turn). It looked cute, I’m sure for the right folks it would have been great.

Fidalgo Bay

When we had got to Anacortes any thought of the cute town exploration I had had was out the window. Instead we stopped at an out of the way state park called “Bayview”.

View of Fidalgo Bay at low tide and some of the San Juan Islands from Bayview State Park

After that we headed to Sedro-Woolley for the night. Our total mileage was 131 and we left home at 9am and got to our hotel in Sedro-Woolley around 5pm. (The shortest route from our house would take less than two hours, we definitely took the slow road, plus a couple of trails).

Continue the Journey: Cascade Loop Scenic Byway series

Other posts about our trip:

Cascade Loop Day 2-North Cascades
Cascade Loop Day 3-Winthrop
Cascade Loop Day 4-Okanagan & Eastern Cascades
Cascade Loop Day 5-through the Cascades to home

I use Raw Therapee and the GIMP, both open source, to process photos. This post describes the process I use.

Whatsoever is Lovely 2022-week 3

Pacific Northwest Photo Challenges No Comments
Header for the Whatsoever is Lovely blog challenge

We had a break in the gray weather and a couple of lovely sunsets this week.

Lovely winter sunset over Puget Sound.
Winter sunset

For the Whatsoever is Lovely blog challenge.

I used Raw Therapee for basic edits and raw conversion, Topaz Studio 2 to apply a painterly effect, and the GIMP to resize and add the watermark. I used the worflow described in: Photo processing workflow: preparing photos to use on the web using open-source software.

Affiliate link for Topaz Labs software.

Not a sky in the clouds…

Pacific Northwest 1 Comment
Black and white of clouds on Puget Sound.

It may have been the first day of spring, but “The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play…”

Even so, the dogs and I took a walk on that “cold, cold, wet day”.

Black and white photo of the creek winding across the tide flats and clouds on a chilly first day of spring.
More beach, for Jez.
Similar to the photo above, but with the emphasis on the sky instead of the creek.
More sky, for Hammad.

For Water, Water Everywhere (Photos by Jez) and Weekend Sky (Blog of Hammad Rais).

Yesterday did not feel at all like spring. A chilly, gray day, so dark that photos came out almost black and white. Sometimes converting to black and white can be more appealing than a photo where the colors are muddy gray from a lack of light. Also, it is easier to bring out the details in black and white clouds. So I gave it a try.

Technique for black and white clouds

To coax out the cloud details in the above photos I blended together two layers in the GIMP*. The first used desaturation (colors>desaturate>desaturate). The second layer used the color-to-gray algorithm (colors>desaturate>color-to-gray). Then I used the multiply blend mode on the top layer (the color-to-gray one) and applied a layer mask to limit the effect to the sky.

If you’d like to try this, check out this post: Black-and-white digital photo processing part 3: Using the GIMP. It describes the different tools for black and white available in the GIMP.

*GIMP stands for Gnu Image Manipulation Program; it is open source (free) software. I’ve never used Photo Shop, but many compare the GIMP to it. The GIMP resides on your computer and does not require internet (“cloud”) access.

Quick Note:

In case you are unfamiliar, the quotes at the top are from The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss:

The sun did not shine.

It was too wet to play.

So we sat in the house

All that cold, cold wet day.

Dr. Seuss

© 2024 K.S. McCormick

MENU

Navigation