Scott William Carter's Blog, page 4

News & Muse (April 2022): To Eat or Not To Eat the Cake

Heidi and I took a quick jaunt to the coast last weekend, partly to celebrate my 49th birthday, staying in a fun little Airbnb right next to Yaquina Bay State Park. Amazing weather in Newport, which of course can happen anytime of the year on the Oregon coast. A little below is a shot of Rosie on the sandbar that separates Yaquina Bay from the beach. My intrepid Irish Setter and I had a great time on those dunes.

A spectacular sunset dinner at Georgie’s, a visit to Cobblestone Beach at the Yaquina Head Lighthouse at extremely low tide, and a pleasant Sunday afternoon stop at Airlie Winery, a favorite of ours, capped off a great weekend.

Hard to believe I’m approaching half a century. Looking back, I think a lot of us have an age where we feel we’ve become the person we are mentally. I think for me it was around age 27. I feel pretty much the same inside as I did twenty-two years (!!) ago. I don’t think that was even the most significant year in my life (that would probably be 1994, the year I graduated from college, started working full-time, and met the love of my life), or the year that changed me the most as a person (that would probably be 2003, when I looked down into my newborn daughter’s eyes for the first time and was never the same person again), or even a year when I knew I was getting someplace as a writer (probably 2008, when I sold my first novel to Simon and Schuster). But it’s the year when, looking back, at least, I feel most like the person I am today.

That’s also when I started having to worry a little more about whether or not to eat the cake. Before that, I could eat as much cake as I wanted and never be concerned about my weight. Now I can’t so much as post a picture of cake on my website without gaining a few pounds. I wish I was joking.

On the writing front, the short book I was working on turned into a long book which is turning back into a short book. Alas, that’s sometimes how it goes. As I mentioned last month, these days I don’t have a lot of great advice for other writers, except to put in the time and enjoy the process, whatever your process is. You’ve got to find your own way. It might be a cliche to say the work should be its own reward, but it is true. You can’t control how the world responds to your work. You can only do your best, keep challenging yourself, and trust that with time, and a little luck, the results will come.

And if the results aren’t as great as you’d hoped, whether that’s the results of a particular piece of work, or how the world responds to it, well, you’ve still got the work. The process. The art itself. The thrilling, challenging, frustrating, teasing, agonizing, amazing art itself.

Most of us don’t like to talk about luck in the arts, but if you find yourself saying nonsense like “I don’t believe in luck,” then please tell that to the eight-year-old who just lost both her parents in Ukraine because a madman in Saint Petersburg sees threats where more sane and compassionate people see opportunities. Chance is part of life. Some people get lucky, some people don’t. Without chance, life couldn’t even be; randomness, chaos, call it what you will, is also what makes life so interesting. That doesn’t mean you can’t influence how your life goes. Of course you can! Get good at what you do and give yourself as many chances as you can to get lucky. You just don’t get to predetermine the outcome. Thank God, though! Because to paraphrase Alan Watts, if you were both omnipotent and all-knowing, eventually you’d get bored and want to be surprised . . .  which is life! And you can’t have meaningful surprise without real risk. To say otherwise is to engage in wishful thinking, and to talk only of the success stories is to engage in survivorship bias.

So for me these days, I just try to do my best, enjoying the process of creating — even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.  It’s hard because as much as I’d like to predetermine the outcome of my creative work, I can’t. Not if I want to be surprised, and sometimes through surprise great things happen. In all creative fields, I think it’s best to embrace that feeling of risk and just live in that present moment with the process as much as you can. Enjoy the fruits of your labor when they come, of course, but don’t blame yourself and beat yourself up all the time when material success proves elusive. That’s why accepting that luck does play a part can actually be very freeing. It doesn’t give license for laziness, however; you still have to do the work. But you can just do the work and surrender yourself to the outcome, knowing that you did your best in that moment in time.

Since I mentioned Alan Watts, one of the twentieth century’s great philosophers (or as he liked to think of himself, as a philosopher-entertainer), I’ll finish off this post with a quote from The Wisdom of Insecurity that encapsulates what I’m getting at. I think it’s one of the most profound things he’s written, and it’s probably no surprise that this book is still selling well (Amazon lists it as a bestseller in its category) some seventy years after it’s original publication.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if I can go find some cake . . .

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o’-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death.

The art of living … is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.

We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.

Tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live. 

— Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

News & Muse (March 2022): Getting Off the Boat Even When There’s No Water

The photo above was from a quick two-day trip that Heidi and I took to Cottage Grove, Oregon, which was ostensibly for my wife’s job, but Rosie and I tagged along. (Being a full-time writer who can work from anywhere, even a Best Western, does have its advantages). I’d never been to Cottage Grove, but it’s not typically a destination in its own right. This is no slight to Cottage Grove, a town of about ten thousand people twenty miles south of Eugene on I-5, and it also doesn’t mean there’s no reason to go there. I’ve been a lot of places in Oregon — I love this state and all its variety — but I’d just never had a reason to stop in Cottage Grove. So when a free trip offered itself to me, I decided to get off the boat and at least experience what the town had to offer.

What do I mean by “getting off the boat?” This has been one of our go-to catchphrases over the years, and for us it means that when a new experience presents itself, especially when it’s convenient and doesn’t require that big of a sacrifice in time or money, you should usually do it. The origin comes from some friends years ago who took a cruise. When we asked them what they did in their various ports-of-call — you know, where the ship stops overnight, giving people the day to explore the various cities–they confessed that they didn’t get off the boat all that much.

Now, they might have had their reasons, and to each their own, but Heidi and I started to use the phrase each time an experience offered itself and we were debating whether to do it. “Well,” one of us would say, “you gotta get off the boat.”

It doesn’t mean you have to climb Mt. Everest or sail solo around Cape Horn, though you certainly can, if that’s your bent. It just means being open to new experiences. It can be something as little as trying a new restaurant. The above picture was from the Row River Trail, a former railroad track turned into a pleasant walk through forest and farmland near Dorena Lake. One of its claims to fame is that the beginning of of the trail, which crosses over the one-time railroad bridge, was a filming location from the movie Stand By Me (here’s the iconic shot I’m talking about).

And here’s Rosie and I:

We had a nice dinner at Jack Sprats, located in the quaint historic downtown area. The water level of Dorena Lake was pretty low, but it was still a pleasant drive, and we made a point to see many of the covered bridges in the area. Heidi took a particularly nice one of the Chambers Covered Railroad Bridge at sunset, which has now been incorporated into a park.

There’s plenty to see in Cottage Grove if you’re willing to look for it.

Other than that, not much to report except lots of writing and reading. Doing my best to stay off the Internet as much as I can, which is sometimes difficult, but my productivity and peace of mind often seem to increase in inverse proportion to how much time I spend online. It was nice to have our daughter home for spring break, though she’s now back at Oregon State University.

Here’s one last shot of Rosie in honor of Saint Patrick’s day, because, well, one can never have too many pictures of Rosie.

News & Muse (February 2022): How the Search for A Coastal Path Is Like the Creative Process

I wish I had something profound to say about Vladimir Putin’s Russian invasion of Ukraine, but it’s more just a feeling of sadness. So much needless suffering because of a despot’s fragile ego.

Nearly six thousand miles away here at Casa Carter, life goes on. In the span of a few days, we’ve gone from gray, drizzly, and mildly warm, to clear, sunny and bitingly cold, which is something of the norm this time of year in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. We never quite know what we’re going to get in February. (Last year at this time, for example, we were still digging out from a freakish ice storm.) 

Just got back from a quick three-day getaway to Newport, staying in a rented house just north of Yaquina Head Lighthouse (pictured from the beach above on the sunniest day), partly to celebrate my son’s 16th birthday. My daughter joined us from OSU for two days, so it was nice to have the whole family together. Other than the occasional walk on the beach, and lots of staring at the ocean, I spent most of the time reading Stephen King’s Billy Summers . . . which meant it was pretty much a perfect retreat as far as I’m concerned. A great tale about a hit man’s last job. King, who plays with point of view in some interesting ways in this book, also has some interesting things to say about the act of writing itself. I never would have thought a book about a hit man would end up being partly about writing, but then, King does frequently manage to surprise me.

On one of my walks with Rosie, I went exploring to see if there was a path that connected with what’s called Communications Hill Trail, on the Yaquina Head Lighthouse side. Using Google Earth, I could see that the water tower was pretty close, but there was no way to know if a connecting trail was there without walking up to the tower. So that was what we did, first on a steep, narrow road past the houses and into the trees, where cracked pavement eventually turned to gravel, ending at a locked chain link fence that surrounded the tower. Nothing there to greet us but some graffiti on the side of that giant green metal tank.

It would have been easy to turn around and head back, but there was a narrow path along the fence, so we decided to see where it went. It led to a view of the neighborhood below, and the beach beyond, so that alone made it worth the trek.

And yet once we reached the viewpoint, it became clear that the path continued up the hill and through the trees. We took it, eventually connecting with the Communications Hill Trail, which I’d been on a few times before. It’s actually a service road to the cell tower at the top. We were rewarded with a view of the southern side of the hill, with Agate Beach and the greater part of Newport in the distance.

Why do I write about this today?  It was no big deal, just a minor adventure with my dog, but I’ve been thinking about that walk the past few days. It was nothing much, really. A bit of exploring. Some pressing on with no map to guide me. But I’ve been thinking about how that little walk is a lot like the creative process. You have some sort of destination in mind, even a vague one, and you think there’s a way to get there, but you’re not really sure. You press on anyway. Beforehand, it might seem like it takes more courage than it really does, but after you’ve made the journey, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. You just put one foot in front of the other, and what did you risk, really? A little bit of time? The possibility of a dead end? Fine, you hit a dead end. You got some exercise and saw some scenery, which what artists of all stripes call practice. So many creative people work themselves into a tizzy making their work important, and the pitfalls in the way to success are certainly many, but as long as you just focus on putting one foot in front of the other and doing your best, a path often often opens up, both to completing a project and maybe even to a career. 

And if nothing else, make sure you stop to enjoy the view once in a while.

News & Muse (January 2022): A Brief Winter Update

Just getting this posted under the wire, since it’s barely still January, but I’ve been busy writing and publishing.  I just released the eighth book in my Garrison Gage series, A Cold and Shallow Shore. I’ve got a big chunk of a fun shorter book written that I hope to finish in the next month or so before I turn my attention to the third Karen Pantelli book. Already got some notes sketched out on that one. My muse sometimes has other ideas, but I’m trying to adhere a bit more to a publishing schedule this year, as well as be a bit more disciplined in my project selection. See how that goes. 

That picture of Rosie on our side patio above is from a few weeks ago, when there was quite a bit of snow on the ground, but it’s actually so bright and sunny outside my office window today that it looks like summer out there. It’s cold, though, dipping down into the 20s at night. It was nice to have our daughter home for a few weeks over the winter break, though she’s back at OSU now and already dealing with midterms. My son just finished the first semester of his sophomore year of high school, as the school, waylaid by the Omicron variant like so many other places, struggled to keep both teachers and students in the classroom and limped over the finish line. While the numbers look dire right now, I’m hoping the experts are right and we see a massive drop off over the next month to six weeks . . . which will hopefully then start to transition the country (and the world) to a new endemic normal in which Covid-19 is just part of our lives, much like the flu is. You get your annual vaccine and call it good. While I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who willfully choose to put themselves and others at risk when the science is clear (and I’ll put my faith in the scientific consensus, thank you very much, not whatever comes out of the mouths of actors, athletes, or assorted other celebrity flat-Earthers who can’t even spell confirmation bias, let alone know what it means), I do understand the mental exhaustion. We’re all tired of this thing.

Since I don’t have much else to report, here are three recent reads I recommend:

War and Peace and War by Peter Turchin . One of the main thrusts of Turchin’s excellent book is how the rise and fall of asabiyah, an Arabic term invented by the historian Ibn Kahldun referring to social capital or social solidarity, can lead to the rise and fall of empires. The parallels he draws to the United States, particularly to the “surplus of elites,” are striking,Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger. The first in the long-running Cork O’Connor series set in northern Minnesota. Fantastic.Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter-Godfrey-Smith. A fantastic examination of how studying the octopus (and other cephalopods), who broke off from us in the evolutionary tree over three hundred million years ago, can give us a deeper understanding of what consciousness is.

New Garrison Gage Book: A COLD AND SHALLOW SHORE

Gage is back … and I’ve got a new book out! A COLD AND SHALLOW SHORE is available in paperback and ebook at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, and all the other assorted places that books are sold. It’s hard to believe I’ve written eight books in this series, but I’m still having a blast with Garrison Gage and his assorted friends in the Oregon coastal town of Barnacle Bluffs, so hopefully many more to come. I’m also eternally grateful to my Gage fans, because they are ultimately what allowed me to make the leap to full time writer.

Oh, and if you want try out the series (or know someone who might like it), the first book THE GRAY AND GUILTY SEA, is currently available for FREE as an ebook on Amazon (as well as elsewhere) and has nearly 6000 reviews…

More information about the book (and links to retailers) is below.

A Cold and Shallow Shore A Garrison Gage Mystery

Gage hates birthdays. So when his daughter throws him a surprise party on the coldest night the Oregon coastal town of Barnacle Bluffs has seen in years, Gage finds himself in an equally frosty mood. And when a police cruiser stops him as he trudges along Highway 101, minding his own business, he can’t imagine the night could get any worse.

Oh, but it does. For the cranky private investigator with the bum knee, it can always get worse.

When the cops collar one of the people closest to Gage for murder, the desperate hours ahead become a frantic push to right a presumed injustice. Add in a daughter’s secret life, a bad boy Hollywood star, and a troubled new police chief with something to prove, and the night doesn’t just get worse.  It forces a quickly unraveling Gage to choose between cold, uncomfortable truths—about himself, about someone he loves—and shallow but comforting deceptions.

Ebook: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iBooks | Google Play 

Paperback: Amazon | Indiebound

Audio: Audible (Coming Soon)

News & Muse (December 2021): A New Gage Book Coming Soon, Two Years Full Time, and Some Advice to Aspiring Writers

I’m writing this from our hotel room in Newport, Oregon on a little weekend getaway with Heidi and Rosie.  Although it was fairly calm, if a bit drizzly, when we arrived (as the shot above from our balcony attests), it’s a particularly rainy, blustery morning today. With gale force winds and near constant rain in the forecast, it’s not a good day if you want to get down to the beach, but it’s a great day for storm watching. We love it either way. We’ve stayed all up and down the Oregon coast, of course, but we find ourselves returning to Newport the most. Every coastal city has its own charms, but Newport is big enough to offer all the amenities you would want, plus it has areas (Nye Beach, Bayfront, South Beach, etc.) that are all quite distinct. Although we’re undecided if we’d ever live here full time once the kids are both out of the house  (the central Oregon coast gets twice the annual rainfall as the valley, for one thing, and the valley is plenty rainy as it is), it’s hard for me to imagine living somewhere more than a couple hours away from the ocean. I have a big city, the ocean, and the mountains all within an hour drive. What more could I want? 

I’m a little late posting this, but I have good reason. I decided to see if I could really bear down on the next Garrison Gage book and get it done by the end of the year. I’m nearly there. While I don’t think it will be published before January, mostly because it needs to go to my editor, I do think I’ll have the manuscript finished except for copy editing. So for my Garrison Gage fans, it won’t be too much longer. 

I just recently passed two years as a full time writer and my productivity is up quite a bit from last year, especially the second half of the year when I got away from the daily word count quotas that served me so well as a part-time writer, or at least a fixed daily word counts. The daily quota was critical when I had to fit the writing in with the day job, but now there are times when the writing is going well, and I just keep going, and other days where it comes slower, but it’s more about just putting in the time. I still write pretty much every day, but now I’m varying the word count goal depending on where I am in the project. It’s been working well. I’ve added a few other tweaks to my methods, mostly pertaining to project selection and a publishing schedule, which also seem to be helping. We’ll see. Staying off the Internet until 5 p.m. (which includes social media and email) also really helps, not just for my productivity but for my sanity.

None of this is writing advice, mind you. Just a glimpse into my own processes, for whatever it’s worth.

When I do give advice these days, which is rarely, it’s pretty straightforward and echoes the same principles I’m trying to adhere to pretty closely myself: 1) Be prolific. 2) Read voraciously. 3) Have fun. Whether you get an MFA, attend writing conferences or workshops, read how-to write books, go the traditional “seek an agent, then a big New York publisher” or the “indie” route, is really immaterial, I think. I have my own opinions on all of those things, of course, but that’s all they are, opinions, and my opinions are only as relevant as your goals are similar to my own. There is no one right way to become a writer any more than there is one right way to be a writer. Anyone who tells you differently is, to paraphrase The Princess Bride, probably selling something. My own multi-pass method is usually (but not always) somewhere between Nora Roberts’ method and Stephen King’s, at least the way they’ve described them, but that’s not really relevant either.

What is relevant is this: Every writer has to find his or her own path, and the only way I know to find that path is through lots writing and lots of reading. I’d actually say most writers would probably be better off skipping all the classes, how-to-write books, and workshops, or at least after a year or two of that sort of thing, and just focus on lots of writing and lots of reading. Again, this is just my opinion, and I’m a lot less assured in my advice to others and dogmatic in my delivery of that advice than I was in my thirties. Even less so than in my twenties. People who are dogmatic about their advice are usually also pretty rigid in their thinking, I think, and rigid people are people who do not adapt or even learn easily. I can only say that after 30 years of trying to write professionally, twenty of it pretty seriously with at least some success, and two years full time, this is the advice I’m currently trying to follow myself. Take it for what it’s worth . . . which is probably not much. Because, again, every writer has to find his or her own path.

It’s the path I’m doubling down on in 2022, anyway, which is the other reason I mention it. Lots writing and lots reading going forward. Back before too long, but if it’s not until January . . . Happy Holidays!

News & Muse (November 2021) : A Story in Ellery Queen, Twisted Robots, and Lots of Writing on Rainy Days

That’s a shot of Rosie on the beach a couple weeks ago, when we spent four fun days on a family retreat just south of Waldport on the Oregon coast. After her first couple forays to the beach, where our intrepid Irish Setter seemed reluctant to even get her paws wet, she was much more ambitious this time, splashing about with abandon. It was also a quiet enough beach that we were able to let her off to run free, and boy, does she run. It’s such a joy to watch her. 

My Garrison Gage fans will be happy to know I’m making good progress on Gage’s latest adventure. There has been a lot of rainy days here in the Willamette Valley lately, which makes it easier to rack up some big word counts. Hopefully won’t be too long before the book is out in the world.

I’ve got a story in the latest issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, “Ask Hagan,” a real twisted suspense tale that packs a punch. What if a writer similar to Hunter S. Thompson, the author of books like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, wrote a very popular online Dear Abby-type column, full of cranky, irreverent advice and even insults? What if this writer hid behind an anonymous facade, pretending to be this larger than life persona when he was actually someone much more ordinary? And what if someone started impersonating this author and managed to fool the world? Read the story to find out what happens. You can subscribe to Ellery Queen, of course, or buy this single issue electronically on Amazon right now.

Also, WMG Publishing has reprinted my story, “Exchange Policy,” which recently appeared in Pulphouse Magazine, in the anthology Twisted Robots. My story is about a man who wants to return his android wife, modeled on his real wife who recently passed away, for a very unusual reason. What’s the reason? Read the story to find out. Lots of great tales in this volume, so be sure to check it out. It’s available in both ebook and print. Yes, I will be putting out another collection of my stories, but probably not until next year.

One last thing: My latest book, The Dragon Lottery, is now also available in hardcover (in addition to ebook and print), a handsome case laminate edition . . . which is just a fancy way of saying it’s a glossy hardcover without a dust jacket. This one is available exclusively from Amazon.

New Book Published: The Dragon Lottery

I’ve got a new book out! While it’s aimed primarily at middle grade readers, The Dragon Lottery is one of those stories that I hope appeals to adults too. If you enjoyed Wooden Bones, The Castle on the Hill at the Edge of the World, or some of my other books for younger readers (and the young at heart!), I think you might enjoy this one as well. Starting with one of my most provocative story ideas, I certainly had a great time writing it from start to finish. Suspense, secrets, twists, bravery in the face of great danger, and a lot about the power of knowledge against evil, it’s packed with everything I hope will make it an entertaining read . . . More info below!

The Dragon LotteryWin the lottery? Congrats! You get to fight the dragon—to the death!

Each summer, the kingdom of Dunbury holds a lottery. The prize? The right to face the Black Dragon in a fight to the death.

Nobody ever returns.

Widespread hunger. Banned Books. Harsh royal decrees to keep the citizens in line. After nearly fifty years, the poor, downtrodden people in the isolated country between the mountains and the sea have lost all hope. Somehow, mysteriously, the cruel King Goodheart controls the dragon. And with the dragon, no one dares defy him.

Until thirteen-year-old Lucky Grayblock, the clumsy, gangly, decidedly unlucky assistant in the dusty old library, finally becomes eligible for the dragon lottery … and discovers one last chance to turn everyone’s luck around.

Ebook:
Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iBooks | Google Play

Paperback:
Amazon 

News & Muse (October 2021): Throwaway Jane in Audio, A House That’s a Bit Emptier

Paisley, trying to soak up a few rays between showers.

As I write this, it’s cold and drizzly and gray outside my office window. After a months-long record dry spell in the Willamette Valley (everything climate-related seems to set a record these days, doesn’t it?), it’s nice to see the rain again. Some fall color on the trees is nice too. We got our daughter off to college a couple weeks ago (a trying all-day ordeal because of some poor planning on OSU’s part), so the house does seem quieter. Since we live just a few blocks from a 2000-student high school, however, our street is definitely bustling more than usual, and I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, it’s nice to see the vast majority of kids in face-to-face school again. On the other hand … well, it was nice not to have all that traffic on our street a couple times a day during the school year.

But hey, it’s a minor inconvenience, and the way the world’s been going lately, I’ll happily endure a whole bunch of minor inconveniences if we can get some semblance of normality back again.

For those of you who love audio books (and I count myself among you!), Throwaway Jane, the first Karen Pantelli book, is now available in audio. You can find it at both Audible and iTunes. Thanks to the excellent Jennifer Pickens, a top notch narrator, for bringing the story to life.

As far as other news, I’ve got a middle grade fantasy that should be heading off to the copy editor in the next few weeks, a little change of pace, and I’ll be talking about that soon enough. I took down the Run of the House comic website for now. The website was hacked and it was just easier to take it down. Unfortunately, this sort of hacking seems to be pretty common these days, even for small fry websites like mine, and I’ve had to add a couple more security tools to my main website to project it.

I was never really happy with having the comic strip be so separate from everything else I do, anyway.

Working on the next Gage book now, which I know a lot of you will be happy to hear. As I joked to a friend of mine, it would probably be a lot better for my bank account if I just wrote Garrison Gage books, but then, I wouldn’t be me. C’est la vie.

Nothing else to report as of now. Back before too long.

News & Muse (September 2021): Orcas Island, 25 Years of Marriage

Writing goes well, productivity is up quite a bit, and fall is in the air. Even when it gets warm, it’s a very different kind of heat when the mornings are crisp and the days are shorter. September is one of my favorite times of year in the Willamette Valley.

That’s a picture above of Buck Bay, or at least the part of it we could see from our cozy cabin in Olga on Orcas Island, where Heidi and I spent a wonderful week. We drove up from Oregon and took our little Nissan Juke on the ferry from Anacortes, bringing Rosie along for the ride. It was her first experience on any kind on a boat, but the ferry is so large I’m sure she thought she was just on some kind of island. Here I am trying to explain what an archipelago is to her. Or maybe I’m just pointing at a seagull, it’s hard to remember the exact details of our conversation:

The occasion was to celebrate 25 years of marriage, and we couldn’t have asked for a better place to spend a few lovely days. While we drove up Mount Constitution (picture below, the highest point in the San Juans, see if you can pick out Heidi and Rosie for bonus points), hiked Turtleback Mountain, walked around Eastsound, took Rosie out on a rowboat on Cascade Lake in Moran State Park (also pictured below), and had a wonderful anniversary dinner at the Rosario Resort, among other things, the best time for me was just spending many quiet hours looking at the bay with Heidi. What a special place.

Of course, the best part was getting to do it all with my best friend and the love of my life. It makes it a lot easier to leave home when you bring the best part of home with you.