Friday, July 26, 2019

The Week in Review

This week we've ridden to Marymoor a couple of times.  We're going out on the road instead of riding the gravel stretch.  The road is extremely noisy with fast traffic, but the shoulders are pretty good.  It gives us a hill in both directions, hills are good for us.

This is the radio controlled airplane club at Marymoor.  We were talking to one of the guys, he said most people are converting to electric motors.  They're easier to deal with and they make virtually no noise.  They're powered by lithium-ion polymer batteries.  I had never heard of such a thing.  Apparently they were pioneered by Tesla.  They're very dense.


This guy is old school.  Look at the size of that plane.  He's still using a gas power plant.



This is one of the fences that I think will be coming down with the paving of the 3.6 mile stretch.  As they pave sections of the trail, they take the corresponding bike lane signs down on the road.  This is not so good for the fast riders, it's not safe for them to be on the trail with the pink tires.  We're seeing people park cars in what are now considered to be shoulders instead of bike lane.


There was also walking in Bellevue.  A lap around the lake is a half mile.  It's very scenic there.  Many people sit on the benches with their lunch.



Today we went to West Seattle to stroll.  It was a gorgeous day.


This is Obsession.  She takes people out on tours.  Even though she's really good in light air, they were running the motor.  It was really calm.


This weekend is the Alki Arts fair.  This is the wine truck.  Those are wine spigots.  Haven't seen that before.


That water is fairly cold.  The kids are in it hanging on to floating logs, sailors call them dead heads.  They're a major hazard for sailboats.  You can't see them at night, hanging just below the surface of the water.


The beach.


The yellow building is under construction.  More old beach houses have been torn down for this.  The guy on the right of the new building has an enormous house.  It's three stories and the view will never be blocked.  To the right of the giant house is a beach house.  Alki used to be a summer place only.  It was "too far" from the city, so people would put up uninsulated houses and spend summers out there.  Now it's prime real estate.


We had lunch at El Chupacabra.  It was ok.  The Vietnamese restaurant we used to go to is now a day care.


This is sad.  This truck was delivering stuff for the Art Fair.  See the black box the white arrow is pointing at?  That's a DEF tank, and it is high centered on that drive way. 


The mountain was very out today.  I took this from a moving vehicle heading east on the I90 floating bridge.  Better shots are taken if you're going south bound, because there's less movement.  It's still pretty impressive, kinda looks like a movie backdrop.



Who watched the Tour de France today?  They had to stop the stage early due to hail and mudslides.  It was quite the stage.

6 comments:

  1. I'm almost up to being able to walk a half mile now but if there's any hill at all involved I'm a panting when I get done. Didn't watch the Tour today - but they are having horrible weather over in Europe. I have never seen anything like that wine truck before. Still hot down here but one day next week is going to only be 102. I can hardly wait.

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  2. We're a couple stages behind on the Tour. It's been an interesting one so far. Have you watched or listened to The Move podcast? Fun to hear Lance and George Hincapie's thoughts and stories.

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  3. How perfect to be in an area where you can hike and bike. I watched a bit of the Tour, but the Pan Am games won out for a few minutes longer. Don't you wish you had one of those tiny beach houses??

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  4. A varied and eventful week. I love how you are OUT THERE engaging with the world.

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  5. That tour stage was just crazy. I couldn't believe it could be 100 degrees one day and snow/hail/mudslides two days later. So frustrating that they had to cut that and the next stage short. May not have changed anything, but I would have loved to have seen it all played out as it should have been. Crazy weather everywhere!

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