Avatar leaves Seattle. Busby doesn’t care.
Items from the movie Avatar were recently at the EMP/SFM museum in Seattle, but now the exhibit goes on tour with its first stop in Ontario, Canada. While walking Busby today, we saw them packing up the items for the walker/robot thing from the movie.
| What we saw packaged up | What it looks like put together |
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The warehouse and offices for EMP/SFM are a block from our loft, so we always see something interesting in the windows, but this was the first time we saw museum pieces being loaded onto a truck.
Surf Kayaking (or Kayak Surfing), September 2012
Once again this year, my friend Paul and I went out to the area in Washington called Neah Bay, but specifically to the beach called Makah Bay.
The great thing about this beach is that it is mostly a surfer community that comes together on the weekends. Everyone’s friendly to talk when you approach them and they’re more than willing to walk over and introduce themselves, including the whales.
Yes, even the MASSIVE whales want to say hi.
We were taking a break from riding the surf in our kayaks and were out near the entrance of the bay watching some whale spouts off in the distance. We even saw the back of one come out of the water as it swam by parallel to us, but about 200 yards away. Then very quickly, it came out of the water again, but was about 150 yards away and heading straight towards us. It was wider than a bus and looked longer than one too – and that’s just the small part that was out of the water. I immediately put the camera down and headed towards the beach while Paul paddled backwards towards the beach, since he didn’t want to take the time to turn his kayak around.
Thankfully the whale didn’t come up again since it certainly traveled faster than us and would have had to only bump us to send us flying. From what I can find, it was either a humpback whale or a fin whale. Whichever it was, it was huge. I have a short video of my thoughts after having “escaped” the whale. 
The kayak surfing was a blast, the short hike up to Cape Flattery was nice, and we had sunshine all weekend long except a bit of fog in the morning. I tried to get a video of me crashing through some waves as I paddle out to sea, but it’s tough to do when both hands need to be on the paddle.
The last night, we pooled our resources of firewood and dessert with our neighboring campers who spend every weekend of the year at the beach. They are avid surfers, got married at the beach last month, drive from Seattle every weekend and sleep in their new Ford cargo van. They are surfers to the core, and made great company for an evening around the campfire.
Busby Loves the Couch
The photos are a little dark, but I think you can see how much Busby loves bouncing to and from the couch. Yes, we allow it. Actually, we enjoy it and have fun with it.
Selling our orange adventure vehicle (Honda Element)
Our trusty orange Honda Element (the EX model, which is 4WD) is for sale and ready to help lead some new owner to new adventures. If you are interested, or know someone who is, just check out:
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cto/3248473142.html
We have a new adventure vehicle which will appear in this blog once it earns its turns. 
Road trip to Berkeley
We enjoyed staying at McMenamins hotels in Portland and Bend. Busby enjoyed playing with Tabby on the way out of town and with Posie in Berkeley and Daisy in Redwood City.
Lake Pickerel, August 2012
This year at the lake, I never got around to sailing, but we all had fun at the folks’ 50th wedding anniversary party, plus the usual kayaking, wake boarding (behind the new jet ski), marshmallow roasting and even added some rather embarrassing Wii dancing to the entertainment. It was the first time in many years that I got to see some good lightning and even saw the sky get bright again about an hour after sunset. It was as if we had two sunsets, which was very weird, but apparently storm-related.
Officer Busby
When walking through Denny Park, Busby and I sometimes see Officer Tracy taking her lunch or dinner break. She really likes Busby, so I figured it was time for some photos. I tried to have him sit next to the car, but she said it would be great to get a picture of him in the car.
I assumed this meant the back seat, but no; she got out of the car and had him sit in the driver’s seat! As you can tell, he didn’t really want to be there, so he quickly jumped through the window to escape the police car.
As Busby was considering his career options, Officer Tracy and I chatted about the safety improvements in the park over the last few years. I assumes that means she was doing her job by chatting to me about the neighborhood as we entertained Busby.
The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth 