By Scott Shephard

My wife, Deb, my mother-in-law, Glenyce, and I are on a 10-day trip to Washington State. Our main enterprise will be a week on son captain Jon's Un-Cruise Adventures boat Wilderness Adventurer. We will be exploring the waters, bays and islands north of Seattle.

But, having a couple days before this started, the three of us explored Bainbridge Island and points north. This photo was taken outside the post office in Port Gamble. And as I was taking it, I said to Deb, "Whenever I travel to "exotic" places and come back with flower photos, I say, 'Really???!!!'"

I then went on and took 60 flower photos, including 25 of this pink beauty. Why? Well, I couldn't resist and I'm hoping you can see why. The light was just right and the color was electric.

So enjoy a macro view of Washington State. Tomorrow, maybe I'll have a photo that is more suggestive of where I am. Like the Space Needle? But I just did a Google search for "Space Needle" photos and got 3.6 million hits. Are there flowers growing near this thing? . . . .

Canon 5DIII 1/125s f/6.7 ISO250 100mm

*The gardener told us that this dahlia and the hundreds of others in this garden would be cut down and the tubers mulched to help them make it through the winter.