Weekend Highlights

Well, I might be limited in what I can do currently, but interesting stuff abounds around me.

Friday, the annual migration of natives from Vancouver Island in Canada, came down in their dugout canoes.  This area was/is home to several indian tribes.  The Haida and Tlingit are the major ones from the north of us, here the Salish was broken up into numerous smaller tribes based on where they were when the Americans arrived.  Always humorous to read about how the Europeans discovered this area when over one million indians already had been living here for about 10,000 years!

Anyway, Friday afternoon, a group of canoes paddled past the house  on their way down to Steilcoom, home of another indian tribe.  Do some dancing, eat some clams, remember the good old days when they used to roast their slaves and eat them ... oh darn!  There I went and said something so horribly politically incorrect!  Yeah, those fun loving, in tune with nature types were a little harder on slaves.  When in doubt, go capture a Wenatchee or Umatilla indian and fatten them up.  One of the reasons that Potlatch was outlawed over one hundred years ago by those mean white-eyes ... and as a Umatilla, well, I am not going to complain.  At least my tribe is not known for eating anyone!

So, a few of the some 130 canoes which paddled by:

But, the Canadian visitors are not the only ones to have some fun over the weekend!  We had a huge emergency vehicle response Friday night!  A local business was called in as being on fire.  Of course, it would be a Chinese place and only one of two left in the entire area!  Once plentiful, but now taco houses have replaced them!

Yeah, you are looking at every piece of equipment in the area!  And, you will note that their does not seem to be any evidence of fire ... Hmmmm ...  Yeah, the Chinese place is painted purple ...

All of the smoke it turns out came from a group of motorcycle riders whom were doing "burnouts" behind the restaurant!  Well, they all got arrested - so now on top of fines, they get to buy new tires too!  Yeah, I am not going to say anything smug, uhm ... I smoked off quite a few tires in my day ...

LOL!

And I began work on my latest painting.  I have been working on the layout for about three week now and think I have a good feel for the painting - so now to transfer my design to real paper and breakout the paints!