Category | Monday Morning

Yesterday morning I picked up an order at the Wagner’s Bakery & Cafe drive-up window in Olympia. Nothing big...a loaf of their “to die for” cinnamon bread and a bear claw. The bread to take home and the bear claw to get me through the rest of the morning! As the young lady from Wagner’s was handing me my change she smiled and boldly said, “Merry Christmas”. I loved it. The staff at Wagner’s does a great job and are always very friendly. Here at Web-Sites-For Less.com we are putting the finishing touches on their brand new website — www.wagnersbakerycafe.com. Todd and Heidi...

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Two weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks I was in England on a trip that had been planned for over a year — five days in Great Britain and a little over two weeks in western Europe. It was an amazing trip, partly because so many travelers had canceled their plans and those of us who did choose to go pretty much had Europe to ourselves. While in England I made no small effort to connect with some breeders of English Springer Spaniels as I was very interested in importing one back to the states. Through the Internet I finally met up with Ian Christie from Fife, Scotland. Ian, wife Ann and daughter...

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My daughter, Dawn, is a French chef among many other things. She also teaches French (the language), teaches yoga, is a former kick-boxer and is currently taking Kung Fu. Though petite, she is incredibly strong and I like to have her along with me if we need to travel down any dark alleys at night! When we are together, Dawn and I love go downtown, any downtown, and check out the neat little places to eat that only the locals know. No tourist places and definitely no chain restaurants. Little cafes, bistros and bakeries are our favorites. When she visits me in Olympia we enjoy stopping in at Wagner's. Unless...

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First, let me apologize for not doing a blog last Monday. I made a trip back to Montana to visit family in Butte and my four very best friends in Kalispell. It was an amazing trip but left no time for blogging...sorry! Then, since I now live in beautiful western Washington, but most of my stock photos used in these weekly blogs are from the Rocky Mountain states, the title “Monday Morning Greeting from God's Country” has left some folks scratching their heads. I get it. Notice today's blog is called "Cowgirls and Rodeo Clowns". When I lived in the Gallatin Valley near Bozeman, Montana...

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National Parks are fascinating places. I have been fortunate to live for extended periods of time in close proximity to four of them — Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier and now Olympic. I’ve also visited and photographed Great Smoky Mountain, Capital Reef, Bryce Canyon, Zion and Yosemite. For several years I was had the privilege of guiding clients on photography workshops in both Yellowstone and Grand Teton Parks. Typically we would photograph wildlife and thermal features in Yellowstone and scenics in Grand Teton. After being asked by several clients who went with me every year on my tours...

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I love designing websites! Here at Web-Sites-For-Less.com we just completed a new site for Chris Matyas of Olympia Thai Massage. It was a fun and different kind of project and Chris is a great guy to work with. We both like the way the website turned out and hope you do as well. As much as I love building and search engine optimizing new websites, my real passion involves my English Springer Spaniel dogs. I am primarily a breeder and can’t wait for the next litter of puppies to arrive each year. Here at Ponderosa Springers I currently have two Springers. Ria is a liver and white female...

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If a snapshot is worth a thousand words then a photograph must be worth ten thousand words. This is what I always told my students when I taught photography workshops in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks nearly twenty years ago. I tried to make a living at photography back then but soon realized that if you didn’t do weddings and portraits it was extremely difficult. There are just a handful of very successful outdoor nature photographers that I am aware of. The names Tom Mangelson, Art Wolfe, Dewitt Jones, and the late Galen Rowell come to mind. Over the years I’ve had my arm twisted...

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So, is it “creek” or “crick”…that is the question. I was raised in a part of the country where small streams of moving water were often referred to as creeks, pronounced like it is spelled with two long “ee’s”. When I moved to southwest Montana in 1985 I discovered that the locals referred to these same small streams as “cricks”, something I thought you only got in your neck. They still spelled the word correctly, they just didn’t how to pronounce it the right way, at least as far as I was concerned. As the chief medical officer and search and rescue coordinator for the greater...

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One gray and gloomy summer afternoon in 1992 I decided to take a hike in the Spanish Peaks just south of Big Sky, Montana. At the time I was living in Big Sky, teaching photography and guiding clients from Lone Mountain Ranch, a guest ranch located near the Meadow Village. As I hiked alone into Beehive Basin I decided to try a new route — one I had never taken before. I bushwhacked my way up and across the ridge between Beehive and Bear Basin ending up on the top of the ridge near the northern end of the two basins. This area of southwest Montana is home to a variety of wildlife including...

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In the early 1990’s I moved from the small Montana town of Gallatin Gateway to the winter and summer resort town of Big Sky, about 30 miles to the south. Located between Bozeman in the beautiful Gallatin Valley and West Yellowstone and Yellowstone National Park, Big Sky was founded by the legendary NBC news anchor, Chet Huntley of the Huntley Brinkley Report. After a winter of working the ski lifts on Lone Mountain and living in a little cabin next to the Gallatin River, I took a job at Lone Mountain Guest Ranch in the Big Sky Meadow. At The Ranch I did various jobs while building a guiding...

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