It's Cold and We're Out Of Here!!!!

4 December 2016

We ended up hanging out in Bellingham way longer than we had hoped.  And it has gotten WAY too cold!  There's snow in the forecast tonight and early tomorrow morning - AGH!

But we stayed in Bellingham for medical stuff.  Richard had a second round of meds for his hitchhikers, who seem to have permanently left the building and are no longer trespassing in his stomach.  At least we're hopeful.

Plus I had that scare that perhaps things were wonky with my heart.  According to the cardiologist, they found the beginnings of some things that could be problematic in ten or twenty years, so I'm on a few new medications.  It also seems that, with exertion, I don't breathe out all the carbon dioxide or something - so I have a new and slightly weird way of breathing to experiment with, and thus far it actually seems to be helping.  (I have to breathe out as if I'm whistling when I walk.  Yeah, you can imagine how odd it looks.)  Anyway, it appears that there isn't any damage to my heart, which is the good news.  I'll take extra meds and breathing in a funny way over having any kind of permanent damage.

So we're heading out tomorrow morning.  For Lima, Peru.  Because we liked it, our favorite hostal in near the Brazilian consulate, and Richard needs to visit his dentist again.  I know, who has a dentist in Peru?  But, well, why not?  Besides, I can visit the cat park!

This trip, we noticed that a number of businesses in Bellingham had a flag, green and blue with some white symbols.  I finally asked about it, and it turns out that the Downtown Bellingham Partnership wanted a flag that would be symbolic of the city and locale.  

The winning design was created by Brad Lockhart of Lariat Creative.  And it's really a very interesting design that incorporates the history of the town as well as the environment and geography of this area.

The blue field represents Bellingham Bay.  The two white stars symbolize the two Coastal Salish tribes of the region, the Lummi and the Nooksack nations.  The three wavy lines represent the translation of Whatcom, for Chief Whatcom of the Lummi people - "Whatcom" means "noisy waters" but is also the name of the country, a creek, and the waterfall in town.  And finally, the four green stripes are for the four original towns that merged - Whatcom, Fairhaven, Sehome, and Bellingham.

Plus if the flag is hung vertically, the three wavy white lines really look like the waterfall!

The flag hasn't quite been officially adopted by the city or council or whatever agency would do that.  But numerous businesses have adopted this design and integrated it into their brand, proudly flying the flag or adding it to stickers, badges, mugs, whatever.

I like the fact that the downtown community has embraced this emblem of the town, however unofficial it might be.  There's a certain vaguely renegade feel to it, adopting an unofficial flag and flying it proudly.  Sort of the Cascadia mindset that pervades this part of the country.

Anyway, that's the unofficially official flag of Bellingham.

I should add that the photos are from online, not my photos.

We're both ready for some warmer weather, and will be back here in about seven or eight months.