Welcome to Chapter 7 of our On the Road with Beatrix and Marion series. This leg of the journey took us from beautiful Laguna Niguel, with a comfortable stay at the apartment of our son Raymond, his partner Gino, and our grand doggy Rogelio, to Malibu Creek State Park. It is nearby our former home at Seminole Springs Mobile Home Park, where we loved and lived for 19 years before moving to Whidbey Island. It is bittersweet, revisiting the people and places we love. This visit rekindled deep memory senses of sight, smell, taste, sound and feel of a home…
Author: Kate Poss | With Photos by David Welton
Kate Poss | With Photos by David Welton
Kate Poss This Is Whidbey was founded by Kate Poss for readers who are interested in cultivating our island’s quality of life, including its land, sea, and air; its people, plants, and animals; and the bodies, minds, and spirits of its inhabitants. You may know Kate from her work in island libraries through May of 2016. Her background includes a career in newspaper reporting in Los Angeles for various weeklies and dailies, including The Los Angeles Times. She was a frequent contributor to the online Whidbey Life Magazine and still writes for the biannual print magazine. David Welton Stories are highlighted by David Welton’s excellent photography. David is a retired physician who was a staff photographer for Whidbey Life Magazine since its early days. His work has also appeared in museums, art galleries, newspapers, regional and national magazines, books, nonprofit publicity, and on the back of the Whidbey Sea-Tac Shuttle!
Welcome to the sixth chapter of our on the road series. This leg of the journey takes us from Anza Borrego State Park to the beach canyons of Southern Orange County. For four of the nights the past week we left our Marion at the O’Neil Regional Park and stayed with our son Raymo, his partner Gino, and our grand doggy Rogelio in their Laguna Niguel apartment. Luxurious! We drove from the saguaro forest and mountains of Usery Regional Park in Mesa AZ, stopping for breakfast at the Mountain Quail Cafe in the snowbird trailer park city of Quartzite, and…
Katie Leone, Sno-Isle Libraries marketing and communications manager, asked that I post this update regarding the revitalization of our Langley Library. Here is what she sent me. –Kate Poss “We are currently moving through the City’s Historic Preservation Commission, the City’s Design Review Board, and the City Council to finalize the project scope and move forward with the work before the WA Dept of Commerce grant deadline of June 30, 2023.” …and the press release: Sno-Isle Libraries shared an update on the Langley Library project with the City of Langley’s Design Review Board on Nov. 15, 2022. Based on input from the…
My library compadre Kathryn O’Brien, a Library Associate II at the Clinton Library, emailed the past week with the following news. David Welton, whose photographs add panache to most of This is Whidbey’s stories, can be met and seen and celebrated for his work Thursday, Dec. 1, 5:30-7 PM at the Clinton Community Hall, 6411 S. Central Ave., Clinton WA. This is a Clinton Library-sponsored event. I am thrilled to post this story and say, “Bravo!” and thanks, David. Love working with you. –Kate Poss *** Join us in-person, to celebrate the storied works of David Welton, Whidbey Island Community…
Ah, we have left our much-loved saguaro country in Tucson and Mesa AZ, and are now sitting in Marion at Anza Borrego State Park. Recent rains yield blooms such as purple verbena, gold daisies, and walking tonight we even saw a sacred datura plant. This is our fifth week on the road with Beatrix the Toyota Highlander, and her faithful sidekick Marion the Trillium Trailer. We are Cactus Kate and Bajada Bill. The past week we have enjoyed visiting with family and friends, all in a landscape of cacti and mountains. Visiting Saguaro National Park East, with its views of…
Welcome to week 4 of our autumn 2022 On the Road series. We camped for six nights at Patagonia State Park amid the mesquite trees and mountain ranges. This was our first visit to southern Arizona and we will certainly return. We are Bajada Bill and Cactus Kate, travelers who enjoy nature, good food, good people and folk art. Back on Whidbey and the greater Seattle area, a severe wind storm knocked power out at our Morning Glory Lane home Nov. 4. The power stayed off for 5 nights. Our houseguests learned how to operate a generator and prime the…
Welcome to our autumn On the Road series, as you share in the tales of Cactus Kate and Bajada Bill. So far we’ve traveled through Oregon, visited friends in Nevada, and camped in our beloved Eastern Sierra. Join us for this leg of the journey, which takes us from the Palm Springs area to Arizona. I am at the Patagonia Library typing this story. The wifi connection is fickle. Leaving our Keough’s Hot Springs campground south of Bishop Oct. 27, we arrived at Whitewater Canyon Preserve near Palm Springs after 4 PM. We walked at sunset and noticed a rocket…
We are Bajada Bill and Cactus Kate on the road with our trusty Beatrix the blue Toyota Highlander and Marion the vintage Trillium trailer. This leg of the journey takes us into California from the feet of Mt. Shasta to the range of light near Bishop. The landscape is severely thirsty as we arrive from Ashland Oregon to the California border, driving south on I5. Yet as we arrive in the city of Mt. Shasta, the lady mountain and her healing waters green the land all around her. Here lies the headwaters of the Sacramento River. We parked in front…
Note: Text for this story was submitted by Celia Schorr, executive director of Civility First.–Kate Poss The Civility First annual Art Contest brought a surprise this year. Many of the submissions – – and winners – – came from the Island County Jail. Thanks to a partnership between Civility First and the jail, led by Chief Jose Briones, several people entered who would not typically have known about the contest. Civility First volunteers worked with the jail’s Residential Substance Abuse Program, managed by Chelcee Lindell, jail transition coordinator, with the goal of entering the 2022 Art Contest. “We were truly…
It’s already the fifth night of our road trip, and at the moment, we’re camped at the Ashland Creekside Campground & RV Park in space 24. Except the creek is dry. The wifi is super here, compared to its nonexistence at the KOA-Albany campground where we spent the last three nights. Anyway, welcome to our autumn road trip with Marion the 1979 Trillium Trailer, and Beatrix the 2022 Toyota Highlander Hybrid. We are Bajada Bill and Cactus Kate, out for an adventure until Dec. 16. The gods provided us in a timely way with a lovely couple who are staying…