Friday, April 15, 2005

Oil-Spill response

Last weekend I traveled to San Juan Island with Amy and Liam so Amy could attend an oil-spill response training. The free weekend session was organized and sponsored by Islands Oil Spill Association, a community response group that organizes volunteers for responding to any and all oil spills in and around the San Juan Islands. Amy has always wanted to get certified to assist with cleaning oiled wildlife, and she finally got that certification over the weekend.

Liam and I had a good time hanging out on the island while Mom was attending class. For Liam, it was a bit of a grand-slam: the training took place at the fire station so he saw lots of big fire engines and real-live firemen, we saw a medi-vac helicopter take off from the airport (we got within about 50 feet!), there was a back hoe in the lot in front of our hotel, and we hung out at a skate park near the play ground we visited. What more could a 20 month old boy want? And I managed to get some hiking in with the wee lad at Lime Kiln State Park and the American Camp National Historic Site. All in all, a pretty nice weekend.