Tonight while waiting for the ferry, the sunset over the sound was amazing.

I was trying to capture the sun illuminating the mist floating over the sound.

Just a couple minutes later, the brilliant path the sun made across the water was striking.

I had never been up to the relatively close greenway trails and they were a wonderful surprise — 6-8 miles of various loops and point-to-point destinations, all shady and not too extremely hilly, with so many birds and so much wildlife it felt like I was taping a nature sounds CD. Here are some photos from the expedition:

The trails take off from Buck Lake, a picturesque, peaceful small lake surrounded by iris and cat tails.

The trail meanders off through a meadow of tall grass and blackberry brambles.

It quickly winds into deep rainforest – this mossy bench was inviting.

The circle of life — baby trees growing out of big ones.

The wild raspberries glowed incandescently, in spite of the overcast day.

I’m not quite sure what this wildflower is – wild honeysuckle? – but it’s striking.

One of the many viewpoint benches on the trail, the “Quiet Place” is actually a memorial.

The road goes ever on.

There is a fabulous birdwatching platform at Lower Hawk Pond, where I snapped this blurry shot of myself.

I wasn’t actually hiking alone today; these friends accompanied me the last half mile of my journey, keeping about 30-50 feet ahead the entire time.

Zach took this Friday morning from the Bainbridge ferry as it exited Eagle Harbor – all photos and panorama stitching work are his. As always, click for larger versions.

The news has been so grim lately, I think it’s time for an amusing diversion. What could be more entertaining than embarrassing teen & childhood pictures? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

My 4th birthday with a new cowgirl outfit. Many cowgirls wear red keds.

Camping over spring break, ca 1975. We grew up in the desert, this is where we camped – at least the fishing was excellent. Loved the socks.

I spent the better part of a decade in the pool, although I was not particularly good at it. This was about 1979, Pasco pool.

1980 homecoming; my date was a close friend. Youth is wasted on the young.

Your mission is to unearth two or three pictures of yourself from your child or teen years, scan or digitally image them and post them. Extra points are awarded for humorous or embarrassing images!

I dare you!

One of my projects this holiday has been going through family photo archives with my mom and sister. My son Zach and I are digitizing them for distribution and archiving purposes.

One of the most intriguing sets of photos was a slide carousel taken by my dad, Gerald Sisco, when he was stationed in Vietnam in 1969 as an army signal corps officer. I know he was stationed at Cam Ranh Bay; I also know he spent time at one or more forward locations. Beyond that, I don’t know much about these images that are a part of my family (and military) history.

Click on the image below to go to the complete Flickr photoset – the image quality is a little uneven as some of the slides were faded, color-distorted and scratched.

I find it intriguing that these aerial images could potentially be the type of materials that the military would not want made available to opposing forces. In 1969, there was no Internet and with reasonable precautions these photos would not fall into the wrong hands. Today, such amateur photography is the type of data that triggered the 2005 DOD crackdown on military blogging & online social networking.