A few years ago the National Museum of the American Indian in DC had an exhibit on the Incas. It described their economy, political organization, and transport network as well as their culture. It had a full size model of a section of rope bridge. Pretty cool stuff.

Definitely an advanced society.

Lovely. Great depth of color. Is that all gouache or is there some watercolor in there?

TIL that not only is there a town named Ridgefield in Washington, but I have driven through it a number of times. Must be a suburb of La Center.

Lovely shot. We also had a nice sunset on the Olympic Peninsula last night but it was a lot less spectacular.

The old cabins are great, but not the old saggy mattresses. At least the ones in the Colonel Bob cabin when we stayed there some time ago.

But you can't beat the location. It is magical.

Have you checked the tide tables to see if the smell correlates to low tide? In some places exposed tidelands have a definite bouquet at low tide.

Helpful hint: lose the "the" before road numbers. It sounds Californian. Say "101" or "U.S. 101."

Where are you looking on Whidbey? It's a big island (as I'm sure you know) with a lot of local variation.

I saw the links to Blender tutorials on your post of this map in r/MapPorn. What dataset(s) did you use, if you don't mind saying?

Raven Maps is my standard for where cartography intersects aesthetics. You're definitely getting there.

Check the OP's profile, there's a link to a shop.

The top quarter of the map shows Canada.

Newfoundland?

Wait...this is OC? This is fantastic!

Don't they turn the falls off sometimes? By which I mean send (nearly) all the water through the power plant.

We stayed at the lodge 15-20 years ago and I remember either hearing or observing that at night there wasn't much water going over the falls.

There isn't much about Sinema that makes sense to me. I kind of respect her for marching to the beat of her own drummer, at least when I'm not frustrated with her for it.

Lovely shot. It would be great to pair it with a clear landscape view from the same spot.

Nice painting, as always. What's not to love about Kalaloch?

I don't know why you describe your paintings as "plein". And why doesn't autocorrect fix that? (sorry, I'm sure this is the first time you've heard this joke...today).

I think much the same thing about people who get outraged about Manchin. I get it, but if he gets primaried then WVa elects a Republican replacement. And then Mitch McConnell would be Majority Leader. That would be much, much worse than having Manchin stymie certain policy goals.

Some great answers here, especially from u/insom187:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Washington/comments/yfzdna/comment/iu6z7ac/

The rainy season has finally returned to the Pacific Northwest so be sure to bring rain gear. Remember to dress in layers so you can adjust as you warm up.

To the list in the answer above, I would add that all of this stuff is great in the cold, damp, and gray season.

• The Hoh Rain Forest is meant to be seen in the gloom. It looks...not right...in the sun.
• The lodge at Lake Crescent has benches and chairs you can use to admire the view. If the restaurant is open, it's quite good (though pricey). Definitely do the short hikes.
• You should also stop by Hurricane Ridge, uphill from Port Angeles. It's a beautiful alpine meadow and there are some nice hikes there too. Even if it's wet.
• Rialto Beach is across the river mouth from La Push. I've been there during a storm. It was impressive seeing the tree trunks on the beach tossed around like matchsticks.
• In Forks, Sully's Drive-In is great. Takes you back 50 years except for the prices. Pacific Pizza is surprisingly good too.
• The Quileute Oceanside Resort & RV Park at La Push (https://quileuteoceanside.com/) is great. Like everything in the Forks area there isn't much there, just the ocean and the surf. But that's why you go there. Some rooms have covered balconies so you can watch the ocean and surf during wet weather without getting wet yourself.
• The beach scenes in the first Twilight movie were filmed at Cannon Beach, OR, and Indian Beach, which is a little bit north. You won't recognize anything except in a generic PNW way.
• The Italian restaurant from the book (Bella Italia, in Port Angeles) is worth a visit, but again you won't recognize it. The scene was filmed in St Helens OR IIRC. They have a dish modeled after whatever the mopey girl had on her first date with the sparkly guy. I haven't been there since the pandemic started but have heard that it's still good.

Also, if you walk on the beaches, CHECK THE TIDE TABLES. Other people have said this but it bears repeating.

Really nice drone shot, as is the one facing towards Point Hudson.

It looks a lot more level in the image than it feels when you're bicycling or walking!

Do you take requests?

Yeah, that was a pretty slick move to keep the Rights-of-Way active so that developers can't get them vacated.

Yeah, Port Townsend and Port Angeles were duking it out to be the major city. Then Teddy Roosevelt created Olympic National Park and Port Townsend entered a state of arrested decay for decades.

We're sure not in that state now though.

The platting is one of many similarities between Port Townsend and Seattle. There are sections platted at different orientations and where they meet, roads change directions and confusion ensues.

PT also has its own Pike/Pine: Taylor and Tyler are right next to each other.

I didn't realize how completely the town had been platted out until I went to the JeffCo History Museum research center and looked at old road atlases that were based on plats rather than reality. Huge numbers of roads that don't exist. City of Dreams is right.

Agree about the road maintenance. I've bicycled on all the decent roads here, most of the indecent roads, and a number of the downright obscene roads.

I've had the same feeling many times.

One day I was driving over the Tacoma Narrows bridge. It was approaching golden hour and there was a bit of wind. Where the water was smooth it was gold but where it was choppy it was blue. There was large area of both colors but also some interpenetration. It was really lovely and it struck me that I'm seeing this wonderful sight just going about my business.

Or the time we were walking around Green Lake in Seattle. Everyone was watching some event except us. A bald eagle swooped down and grabbed a fish. It felt like our own private show.

I've seen some of your other work (I belong to about 30 cat subs so your username stuck in my head). I like your style. I don't get the feeling of painstaking attention to detail, yet there is enough detail to easily recognize places. Your landscapes feel free. Thanks for sharing!

IIRC, if the camera turned to the left from that point you'd see a lot of changes.

Great shot which captures the character of a special place.

Nice painting. It captures what it felt like to be there as well as the scene itself.

After having been to the Hoh a dozen times in the damp gloom, I finally went there on a clear and sunny summer day. It looked strange and wrong at first.

It's a very very special place. My first visit was almost 30 years ago and it still blows me away. It's beautiful any time of year.

I remember being there during the Gray and Wet season once. The other side of the lake was barely visible through the drizzle and there was a cloud hanging over the middle of the lake. Very iconic PNW scene.

I haven't been to the restaurant since the Before Times but it always lived up to the view.