No snowshoes

Bill took me back to Gold Creek near Snocomish Pass where we had gone to snowshoe. We brought jackets with us, and it was late in the day, so we would need them going home. We brought our dinner with us, and this picture of being in Washington State stays with me: sitting at a picnic table in the afternoon quiet, beautiful skies above and around us, looking peacefully at Bill, and over his shoulder, a lovely arching pair of wings soaring in from far mountainsides, turning to his left as he swings around to look at it, and his voice delighted, "It's a heron!".

Herons' habit of staying once put gave me lots of opportunity to fiddle around and get my binoculars adjusted and readjusted.

The first peregrine I've ever seen simply roared straight over the path we were following, over our heads to land on a single denuded branch of an otherwise spiny pine. Bill says it might have chosen that particular little perch from miles away.

Fish in Gold Creek Pond make quiet circles in the evening. Beavers, on the other hand, motor across it making a remarkably straight wake. And can travel really fast.