There’s this road that takes you from Carnation to Monroe that winds you around a very rural area of farms and big fields.  The road actually follows the Snoqualmie river and at some point the Snoqualmie river goes off and is replaced by the Skykomish river (don’t just love the names or our rivers?).  Anyway the Skykomish then takes you all the way to Monroe.

When you approach Monroe you have to go over this large bridge (and across the Skykomish river).  The bridge in itself isn’t that impressive I guess but once you cross it you can turn off the road and go down to the river under the bridge.  This affords you a great picture of the river and bridge above you.

I actually got another image from this location at the beginning of the year.  If you look back to my first week you can see a fisherman in a small boat, that was taken here looking up river, so I guess it’s only fair that I should another shot in my last week from the same location.

I realized today just how many HoHo ornaments we have around the house!  Carter and Master Chief found another one to pose next to for today’s picture.

I spent the day out shopping today and have finally got all my prezzies ready for the big day – now I just need to wrap them, but that can wait a day or two.  When I got home I had a terrible headache and didn’t feel like heading out for a picture.  So tonight’s posting is from my backlog.

A month ago I visited the Japanese Gardens in Seattle, I actually went there the last day it was open in the season so it was pretty deserted.  Anyway I took quite a few pictures, most of which I have already posted, but here’s a new one.

I found these stone steps at the end of the path and loved the red maples and fall colors in the trees around the path.  Using a wide angle lens I shot the steps with the surrounding gardens and got a nice image.  I have no idea where these steps go but I think they make a nice image.  Tomorrow I’m off out again, this time with the camera.

Master Chief got hold of some Sleigh Bells tonight and was walking around ringing them – very annoying.  So Carter confiscated them.

Here we are with 5 days to go to Christmas and tonight I decided to do a nutty thing, I drove to Bellevue after work to do a little Christmas shopping.  I needed to pop into Bell Square Mall to get something for Lisa (can’t say what, as she reads this) and it was totally manic.  The traffic was really bad and parking (as you would imagine) was also terrible, but I got in pretty quickly by taking some back streets.  It was totally chaos in the Mall – far too many people.  I managed to get one thing I wanted but the other was sold out so I’m going out again tomorrow (very sad about that).

It was actually a nice evening tonight, a little cold but we had a clear sky and it was dry, so I thought I should grab a picture for the day.  In Bellevue at 7pm every night they do this sort of street show called “Snow Flake Lane” where all these actors come out in costume – loads of them are dressed as toy drummer soliders – and they dance around and play instruments entertaining the shoppers.  I totally hate this, it’s a complete nightmare and not entertaining at all!  So I needed to grab a picture quickly and get out of Dodge.

There are loads of really pretty street lights around the city center, Bellevue do a good job of adding loads of Holiday lights, but at street level it’s pretty hard to compose an image that really shows the lights at their best.  So I decided to get some height and shoot down.  Tonight’s image captures the traffic and lights in the city.  I love the blue lights all over the buildings and the holiday lights on the street lamps look cool too.  But my favorite part is the blurred motion of the vehicles as they enter the city.

Tonight the guys played hide and seek.  Excellent hiding I thought.

While in Seattle Center I ran into Center House to take cover from the rain.  Add to that I wanted to grab a coffee and I knew that apart from a large food hall the house also had a Starbucks.  There was nobody around outside so I figured I could grab a coffee, but once inside I found the rest of Seattle!  They were in a line waiting to get Starbucks.  The place was packed with people.  There are loads of fast food places in Center House with tables everywhere so you can eat, but there were no free seats available.  So no coffee and food for me.

So feeling all depressed I left Center House by the back door and walked onto the patio.  The rain was still coming down hard and the patio was understandably empty.  The rain was bouncing off the tables and there was a nice light canopy above and I thought it might make a nice picture.

So there I am with my trusty tripod (tripod number 2) setting up the camera just outside, pointing the lens at the scene below.  Now you would think (if you were walking past) that there’s a dude taking a picture.  But apparently I was clearly camouflaged as people chose this moment to walk in front of me, stand directly in line with the shot and stop and talk.  Then they went and sat down on the wet benches!  What’s that about?  Bloody rude I call it.  Anyway I gave the people my best “real nasty” stare (works great in fast food restaurants when you want someone to vacate their seat), and they eventually left.

Then I took this picture, and I quite like it.

The guys found some chocolates this evening and raided the boxes.  Pretty naughty really!

You can’t really go to the Seattle Center with a camera and not take a picture of the Space Needle, that would be just silly! – there’s probably a law somewhere that prohibits that!  So I figured I should take a picture while there on Saturday.  The rain was coming down pretty hard and I was soaked.  But being the “professional” I am, I still got out the tripod and set it up in front of the needle.

At this time of year it’s all lit up and they even have a Christmas Tree in the fountain at the front.  Being Seattle it’s not a traditional tree obviously, it’s made up of a collection of balls that are covered in lights.  But it still looks pretty cool.

When I took this picture it was pretty dark.  But as I put the camera on a tripod and took the picture with a long exposure, the sky looked quite light and you can easily see the blue color.  Having said that of course the needle is nicely lit and the water on the road gives some really nice light reflections.  I used a really wide lens on this picture, it was the only way I could get the needle in the picture.  But lenses this wide introduce some distortion.  You can remove this but you lose some of the picture.  In this image the tree in the fountain appears to be leaning over to the left, but really it was standing straight up but as I wanted to keep all the details in the image I decided not to correct it.

Today Master Chief showed Carter his new Santa Hat – really nice!