**Celebrating Creativity and Nature at the Olympia Procession of the Species**  

Each spring, Olympia, Washington, comes alive with a celebration of art, nature, and community: the **Procession of the Species**. This vibrant parade invites participants to express their creativity through costumes, floats, and performances that honor the beauty of the natural world.  

One of the most striking displays this year was a radiant **papier-mâché sun figure**, its expressive green eyes and vivid red lips capturing the joyful energy of the event. Wrapped in flowing pink and yellow ribbons, this dazzling creation floated through the streets, illuminating the parade route with warmth and color. Against the backdrop of towering trees and city streets, the sun figure was a reminder of the festival’s deep connection to the environment.  

The **Procession of the Species** was founded on the principles of community collaboration and ecological awareness. Participants craft their costumes and floats with sustainability in mind, using repurposed materials to bring imaginative creatures, flora, and celestial bodies to life. The parade adheres to three simple but meaningful rules:  

1. **No written words or signs** – letting the visual artistry speak for itself.  

2. **No live animals** – ensuring the focus remains on symbolic representations of nature.  

3. **No motorized vehicles** – keeping the event eco-friendly and in harmony with the spirit of the procession.  

From the regal strut of a hand-painted heron costume to the shimmering scales of a dragonfish float, the procession is a canvas for limitless artistic expression. Every year, families, artists, and volunteers work together to bring their visions to life, contributing to an event that feels as much like a moving art gallery as a parade.  

As the **sun figure** drifted past cheering crowds, it embodied what the Procession of the Species is all about—celebration, connection, and the enduring harmony between humanity and the natural world. If you missed it this year, be sure to mark your calendar for next spring. Whether you choose to march, craft, or simply marvel at the creativity on display, the procession is an experience that leaves everyone a little more inspired.  

In last few years people who enjoy craft beer, whether it’s customers or producers, talk about it being a beer community.  You see this a in a lot of different places but one place where it really jumps out to me is in Astoria Oregon.

One of my favorite breweries and one of my favorite taprooms are quite literally across the intersection from each other.  I am of course talking about Fort George Brewing and Bridge and Tunnel Battleship.  How cool is it that Fort George makes a beer every year to celebrate Bridge and Tunnel.  

Happy Monday after Super Bowl Sunday and Go Eagles!

No, I am not the worlds biggest Eagles fan, but I do like them more than I like the Chiefs and was glad to see that someone was able to end the run and prevent the 3-peat. 

I thought it would be a good idea to share an image I made of the Philadelphia skyline from back in 2011 when I was in there for a little over a week for work.  It’s not always that I find a reason to share an image of Philadelphia.

I wanted to take a moment, or two, to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

You might be wondering why I am sharing this image, that I captured all the way back in 2015, but there is a simple reason for it.  This was captured in Seaside Oregon, a place that I spent a lot of time as a kid, and this carousel is something that I have a lot of fond memories of.  As I mentioned, this image was captured back in 2015, but it was easily the early 1980’s when I rode on these horses the first time as a kid, and I have very fond memories of those days.  I truly love the motion and the bright colors of a memory of my childhood, I hope you enjoy it also.

It’s the childhood memories, especially of places like this, that still exist now that I am well into my 5th decade on this planet, that I truly appreciate. 

I really had wanted to keep up with it a mot more after the host change about a year ago, but for any number of excuses it sort of fell by the wayside, yet again.

I recently had to upgrade from a much older iMac to a slightly less old MacBookPro which lead to me having to migrate my entire Lightroom photography life to the new computer.  While doing that I needed to setup the plugins that allow me to publish images directly to my two blogs, this one and my photoblog at http://www.scottwoodphotography.com

That move has motivated me to do some more under the hood work on both sites and to start posting more to both.  Stay tuned, and there will me new stuff coming very soon.

As you have most likely noticed, progress here hasn’t been going a fast as I would have liked, but progress is being made.  I am in the process of editing and uploading images as well as making tweaks to this site.

Part of the slow down is that I am also working on my photography site, more on that later, but thank you for your patience.  In the meantime, here’s a beer picture I took last year.

This site will reflect on things that I enjoy and one of those things is beer, especially really great beer.  I also want to put some attention on my beer photography.  Before the reboot of my blogs, this and my photography site, my beer pics were over there, but I have decided to move them here.  Going to start with this picture some some yummy barleywines from Fremont Brewing.  I will be posting about this picture again, and specifically about the bottle that is missing from this lineup, but you will just have to wait a bit for that.

The main reason for that was that I recently changed hosting companies, the company that I had been with for well over a decade went out of business and I needed to find a new home for my sites.  I made a backup of everything on the old host and started looking for a new one.  After I found the new host, I got to doing a little research and found that a lot of the WordPress themes and galleries have really gone though some significant upgrades and I realized that this was as good of a time as any to embrace that change.

I could have restored everything from my backup, but to be honest, I really didn’t want to go through the time and trouble to do so when so many of the posts on the old My Blue Heaven were very dated.  I also work a day job that averages about 50 hour weeks, and I don’t always have the energy to do stuff like that.  I am going though the same thing with my photography site, and I will post here when it is ready for visitors.

This site is still in the development state, but I will be adding new content, if you look to your left you will see a menu item that has some beer pictures I have done recently.  Stay tuned for more to come.