30 August 2010 by ben.

At the Big Band Jazz and Auction in May of this year, Kim and I saw a very appealing auction item:  a boating adventure with Kim and Scott Yale complete with a delicious picnic lunch and beverages.  We’ve known Scott and Kim for several years through the high school jazz program, and so we knew we’d love to spend the day with them, and getting a grand tour on their new boat would make the day a highlight of the summer for us.

Kim, Bonnie, Sandy and I met the Yale’s at their dock on the north end of Lake Union in Seattle, stepped aboard shortly before noon, and headed out.  First, Scott took us around Lake Union, which boasts the largest houseboat population of any lake in America.  Most houseboats have a considerable amount of character, including one packed with metal sculptures, another with dozens of plants and trees growing from planters, and another which was Tom Hanks’ home for the filming of Sleepless in Seattle (shown below).

Next up:   Lake Washington.  We slowly motored through the Montlake Cut and under the drawbridge, turned right and passed I-520 freeway high rise, and then  Scott then hit the gas and we jetted down to Seward Park at 45+ miles per hour.  Whee!!  After testing the breeze around Seward Park, Scott brought us to the southern, leeward side of the park (almost an island) where we anchored and devoured the delicious picnic packed by Kim — chips, nuts,melon wedges, gourmet sandwiches, drinks, and cookies.

By this time, the cloud cover finally vanished for good, so Scott and Kim Yale and then Bonnie all jumped in to cool off — Bonnie in her shorts and T-shirt!  We watched the paddleboard class paddle to the right and then paddle back, observed a juvenile bald eagle take off and head south, and generally just lazed around for a while.

Finally, the afternoon drew to a close.  Scott pulled up the anchor and treated us to a rapid circumnavigation of Mercer Island, pointing out a few landmarks along the way such as the Gates’ mansion.  A great day was had by all!

Click the photo below to access the archive:

Sleepless in Seattle houseboat

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25 August 2010 by ben.

On 18 August, Kim, Bonnie and I drove over Washington Pass to Klipchuck Campground, a few miles from Mazama and a few more from Winthrop, for a short camping trip.  Our plan was to hike every day, dine at least once on burgers and fries at the Old Schoolhouse Brewery in Winthrop, and treat ourselves to ice cream and lattes at Sherry’s in Winthrop.

Thankfully, the heat wave in eastern Washington waned the day we arrived, and we enjoyed our first hike in near perfect conditions — sunny and about 65 degrees (at 6800′ elevation).  We drove to Harts Pass, a rather tense drive through the woods often with a large sloping dropoff on one side and just a single lane of road width.  During one stretch of about 1/2 mile, the slope on the left side was steep and dropped off 800′.  But we made it to Harts Pass and then the two mile jaunt to Meadows Campground.  Our round trip to Grasshopper Pass (about 11 miles) took most of the day and afforded incredible views every step of the way.

Day 2, we drove to Winthrop and then up a road to Sun Mountain Lodge for an easier day of hiking on the hills above Winthrop with great views of the Methow River Valley in many places.  When we stopped for a light lunch, I sat on a stump and then got up with sticky sap on my shorts.

Day 3, we drove west to the Cutthroad Lake and Cutthroat Pass trail head.  Before the day was done, we’d hiked 12 miles and climbed 2400′ to the pass, which intersects with the Pacific Crest Trail.  Enroute, we stopped for a snack and happened across two white-tailed ptarmigans (approachable if you are slow and patient), lots of squirrels, mountain bikers, hikers with dogs (one named “Nathan” who posed with Bonnie), and a kajillion wild huckleberries.  On our return from the pass, we picked enough wild huckleberries for our pancakes the next morning.

To view the photo archive, click the photo below:

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13 August 2010 by ben.

In early August, 2010, Phil, Max, Bonnie and I drove to eastern Washington to a trail head about twenty miles past Cle Elum and hiked up to Esmeralda Basin.  This was Max’s longest hike ever, 7 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 1750′.  He did great, soaking his baseball cap at each opportunity to keep cool.

We packed a lunch and enjoyed the brisk cool breeze at the crest of the basin and relaxed for another half hour, posing for shots and looking for wildlife, before heading back down.  On the return to Seattle, we detoured slightly to visit Roslyn, where Northern Exposure (TV series) was filmed, and ate at Village Pizza.  Bonnie was thrilled to see a few of the Northern Exposure sets — the external of The Brick, the KHBR studio (Chris in the Morning), the general store, and Dr. JoEL Fleishmann’s (Rob Morrow) office, which is now a Northern Exposure gift shop.  Bonnie picked up a light green Northern Exposure T-shirt and wears it as often as possible.

Max, Phil, Bonnie, and Ben at Esmeralda Basin.  Click for more photos.

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4 March 2007 by ben.

On Sunday, 4 February 07, Phil stayed in Tucson for his final performance of Madame Butterfly, and Kim, Marion and I hiked most of the way up the Pontatoc Canyon Trail just north of Tucson, rising about 1900′ above the trail head and about 2500′ above Tucson for this beautiful panorama.
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4 March 2007 by ben.

After visiting the De Grazia’s Gallery in the Sun, my parents followed us to our motel where we checked in and relaxed for a few hours before going to dinner and then attending Phil’s performance of Madame Butterfly.

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24 February 2007 by ben.

Saturday, February 3rd, began with a rendezvous at DeGrazia’s Gallery in the Sun in NE Tucson with Mom and Dad and also Phil and Marion. DeGrazia lived on a working artist “ranch” with other artists frequently in residence usually in outbuildings that DeGrazia built himself. His artistic pursuits varied widely over the course of his career, from painting, sculpture and metal working to stained glass, and a variety of other ideas.

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21 February 2007 by ben.

Kim and I had our longest getaway ever this year (nearly six days!), reliving the honeymoon we never had, by flying to Tucson, Arizona at 6 am on February 1st. Yes, that’s early — we were up at 4 am — but we were psyched. Time to ourselves, away from jobs, routines, the usual worries and chores; and hopefully we’d get a huge dose of sunshine to blow away the winter blues. We were going to meet Marion, meet up with my parents a couple times, see Phil’s opera, and, weather permitting, hike in the mountains north of Tucson. And that happened, and more!

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25 September 2006 by ben.

The day after returning from Manzanita, Sunday August 27th, Kim, Bonnie and I climbed Bare Mountain in the heart of Washington’s Cascades. After driving about 45 minutes west from Seattle to North Bend, we continued north on a county road for 4 miles and then bounced onto a winding, washboarded, and fir tree-enclosed gravel road for another 18 miles to Bare Mountain Trail No. 1037.

We’d read that there were 50-plus switchbacks on this hike, so we knew it was going to be a long day. But the guidebooks promised amazing views, so we figured it would be worth it. Kim and I previously came up here in 1992, but we only made it 2/3rds the way up the slope, leaving all the best views for some later hike (14 years later, as it turned out). The lower section of the route traverses an immense, steepening field of gigantic ferns dotted with cedars and elderberry bushes. Higher up, the ferns give way to a sparse forest of alpine firs scattered among thousands of red huckleberry and wild blueberry bushes.
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30 August 2006 by ben.

For the fourth time in the past six years, we rented a house in Manzanita, Oregon, for the week starting 19 August. Manzanita is a small coastal town, population about 600, nestled between Neahkahnie Mountain to the north and Nehalem Bay to the south. It’s main street has a quirky collection of shops and restaurants, a pizza place that used to be great but greatly disappointing this year, and two miles of soft sandy beach. A chain of modestly sized sand dunes separates most of the surf from the homes, except near downtown where the sea can nearly splash main street in a good storm.

We enjoy lazing around the quiet community, our dogs are welcome, and the beach is just a block away. Since the kids are older now, we organized a couple family hikes during the week, both on the Oregon Coastal Trail as it passes through Oswald State Park a few minutes north of Manzanita. The first hike was mostly flat over three miles to Cape Falcon where we picnicked high above a primitive Falcon Cove while perched on a blackberry vine-infested trail clinging to the bluff. Views into the small cove reminded me of something I might see a million years ago — the rocky and narrow cove opening could wreck even the most daring of boaters; and no trail could safely drop the 250′ to the beach. There’s a memorial on the far side of the cove (along the cape) further up the trail than we ventured this time, and I suspect it is from a shipwreck. On our return, we detoured onto Falcon Point where we could look south past Smuggler’s Cove and Neahkahnie Mountain to Manzanita and beyond.

And just as we began our three-mile return trek, a flock of pelicans flew around the cape to fish in Smuggler’s Cove:

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15 August 2006 by ben.

On 12 August, Bonnie and I headed to North Bend for a hike up Bare Mountain, but thanks to signs that said the back country was closed (only private land, as it turned out later), we skirted around the Mount Si Days Festival headed up to Snoqualmie Pass, got up-to-date information at the forest ranger outpost, and descended a couple miles back towards Seattle to the Annette Lake / Denny Creek trailhead. Kind of a late start, but we were glad just to get there after all that traffic in North Bend.

The early part of the trail passed through a very mature forest, so there was little undergrowth and few birds. The freeway was quite audible for a while, except near the beginning when the trail crossed the smallish but vigorous Denny Creek. The going was easy for a while as the trail gradually ascended up and over the Iron Horse Trail, a smooth gravel rails-to-trail conversion of the old Snoqualmie Pass line. We paused there for a couple photos before continuing and saw a few mountain bikes coasting around the curve through the thick evergreen forest.

The next couple of miles saw us climbing quite a bit, and at times there were some great views across the valley. Ultimately, we climbed from about 1900′ at the trailhead to a peak of 3600′, dropping just slightly in the last 1/2 mile to the the lake.

Bonnie cooled herself off at the lake, and as we settled in to our picnic, we were surrounded by dozens of small black flies. We retreated a bit into the forest where the flies were fewer in an area where people evidently camped quite often, still with a nice view of the lake over the underbrush and under the high branches of the cedars and Douglass firs.

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