Sailing under the Golden Gate

At the front of the ferry

Island bug

Bury me on a ferry

I've been captivated by ferries ever since setting foot on one here, where I am this morning, on vacation in the Puget Sound.  It was the mid-eighties, and I was a teenager and traveling then, too--living in a school bus with a bunch of other people for a year.  I was away from everything I'd known in my small corner of the world back east.

Something about them still gets me.  It's the size of them, the big industrialness of them moving through the water.  They're the biggest people-movers I've still set foot on and usually no matter how full they are, there's plenty of space left over.  You can drive trucks onto them.  Airstreams.

For very little money you can be front and center on your own cruise through fantastic islands, through fog and rain, with a lot of other strangers on the journey with you.  They're doing puzzles that are left on the table for someone else to complete.  They're reading, playing guitar, talking to their dogs.  They're sprawled on padded benches, sleeping, or getting coffee out of a machine.

It's both nostalgia and falling in love all over again when I'm on one now, whether it's back here in the Puget Sound or back east, or somewhere in Asia.  (There's a great ferry that runs from Singapore to Indonesia, a quick hour's trip.  There are phenomenal green-and-white ships in Hong Kong that run from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon and back.)  I'm in transit, that happy state of quasi-limbo where you're heading somewhere, but not quite there yet.  I'm on the water, where I always like to be.

I always thought I'd live on an island someday and I won't rule that out yet, even though the mountains I call home right now are very much like islands in their own way.  If I do, I'll take a ferry to connect to the rest of the world, and take it to escape from it, too.

Lights come on at the Olga Store

Warning, cat attack imminent

Me? I chew. How about you?

Pottery Barn

Rod, flying the Travel Air over Orcas Island

San Juan Islands from the Travel Air's cockpit

Repost: Del Law Interview on worldbuilding in Beasts of the Walking City

I ran a big free giveaway for Beasts a week back, and this week the book is up in the top paid downloads for Steampunk and Timetravel Scifi. (Which is cool, btw!)

Since there might be a few new people to the blog, I thought I'd repost a link to this interview I did with writer Luc Reid awhile back about the book.

Interview with Del Law: World Building and Character Building in Beasts of the Walking City

If you're reading the book, or have finished it recently, consider leaving a review on the Amazon.com page?  Every review helps!

Super 76

Phillip at Bucks Bay Oyster Farm teaches me to shuck

On the way to Doe Bay

Looking for crabs

Werewolf, resplendent

If I hadn't found a caterpillar swimming in my half-cup of tea, it would have been a perfect morning

Approaching Orcas at night

On the way to the islands

I always wanted to live in a water tower with a view. This one would be perfect.