Book Club & Sunset

My book club met last night
at Monica's house on Raft Island.

As usual, there was great discussion about
the current selection (Russo's Empire Falls)

and we made our choice of new selections
for August and September




and we had just the teensiest bit of conversation about
marriages falling apart after years and years
and how disorienting it is
and how the wives keep hoping against hope
it's just a phase he'll grow out of,
that he'll see the error of his ways.

But the most spectacular part of the evening
(besides touring Monica's garden and viewing
Miriam's husband's pottery yard art via the web)

was the view from Monica's deck
toward the west
as the sun was setting
a few minutes after nine.

I just had to capture the color
to share with you.

The back of Monica and Pete's house
faces west toward the Olympic Mountains.

The body of water, for those of you not from around here,
is Puget Sound.

It's salt water and if you follow the Sound
north via boat and then jog west
through the Straits of Juan de Fuca,
you'll find the Pacific.

Of course most of the pleasure craft around here
find Puget Sound a perfect place to play --
no ocean going needed.

And with sunsets like this
and placid waters, it's easy to see why
(although there wasn't much wind
to fill the sails of wind-powered vessels)

All in all,
it was quite an evening.

p.s. The photos are shown in the order
that they were taken. I didn't increase the saturation --
but I did have my Canon Powershot SX200
on the sunset setting which keeps the colors intense.
The fourth one (with the sailboat) was shot looking off
to the east, so its colors are largely
in the amethyst and inky colors of dusk.