Today is Summer Solstice. Sunrise this morning was at 0521, where it has been for the last 10 days. Sunset will be at 2103, the latest of the year. That makes the day 15 hours and 42 minutes from sunrise to sunset here in Portland, Oregon. Soon the days will begin to shorten by a…
TheTravelsketcher’s Tuesday Tip – June 17, 2025
“Try not! Do!” Yoda Yesterday, I thought oil painting would be a good idea, but setting up and cleaning seemed like a lot of work. Thankfully Tricia gave me a bit of encouragement and I got my stuff out and started. Once into the motions I enjoyed doing a small painting from our trip to…
This week in The Pearl – June 13, 2025
Last Sunday we got back to our longstanding practice of Le déjeuner dominical (it has been jokingly called le messe du ventre – the mass of the stomach). Tricia and I both cook, I resist using the phrase “cooking duties” as that implies a burdensome task; for us it is a pleasure. The Brits use…
TheTravelsketcher’s Tuesday Tip – June 10, 2025
Food and art, an oasis in times of trial. As I write this there are 4000 National Guard troops, and 400 Marines in Los Angeles; the authoritarian response for a mostly peaceful protest that the LAPD and the Governor were quite capable of handling on their own. Hope, being the attitude that things could get…
This week in The Pearl – June 6, 2025
After a busy month of traveling in May we are planning to stay pretty close to home for the next month or so. The more we get out and about in The Pearl the more we like it. We discovered that we have easy access to the north end of the Willamette River Greenway Trail…