Walking in Magnolia

Today was another perfect day in the neighborhood.  I decided not to push my luck with the bike two days in a row, we decided strolling would be in order.  Where best to stroll?  How about Discovery Park?  Never mind the fact that it's geographically undesirable, or that the 520 bridge is closed - we'll go to Magnolia.  Yay.  Traffic westbound on I90 was predictably terrible, we were able to use the HOV lanes so it wasn't too bad.
We went north on 99, past the construction for the new tunnel.  Have I mentioned the tunnel?  Currently highway 99 is an elevated freeway, with 3 lanes in either direction, carrying 100,000 people a day.  The plan is to replace the elevated freeway with the tunnel, which will be 2 lanes in each direction.  Unfortunately, things are not going well with the tunnel boring machine.  Here is the latest update.  Short story, the machine moved 1,000 feet, threw up in its socks and died.  They're having to dig a giant pit to get to it, hoist it up and fix it. 

This view will be lost to Seattle drivers once the Viaduct (highway 99) is gone.  I personally am not a fan of the tunnel.

We made it to Discovery Park.  Couldn't find a place to park.  We drove down to West Point and took a picture of the lighthouse and the water.  Then we left.  It's an old army base, it seems like there could be more parking than there is.

You can sort of see Mt. Rainier behind the point.  The uber wealthy live there at the water's edge.

After giving up on Discovery park, we went into Magnolia Village where they were having a car show and farmer's market.  Here we see Jim reliving his early days.  This is a 1969 Corvette Roadster like the one he used to have.

Dogs.

This is a Auburn Boattail Speedster.  It was designed by Gordon Buehrig in the 1930s, who also designed the Cord.  Unfortunately they left before we could go look at it closely. Jim thinks it might be a replica.

This is a 1938 Ford Business Coupe.

Check out the interior.  The steering wheel is out of a 1959 Impala SuperSport.  This was a really good restoration.

1957 Ford Country Squire.  The back window is so cool.  Do you not think it is amazing that Jim can remember all of these names and dates?  I default to "it's an old car."

We had lunch at the Crepe Caravan.  Good, really good.

This is why people want to live on Magnolia.  They want this view of the water.

Isn't this a cute house?  He has a great view of the water.

Coming back, we went by Pier 91.  These are cruise ships.  This is why Pike Place Market is so crowded - all those people from the boats head for the market.

The Frank Gehry designed Seattle public library.

This was taken from the I90 floating bridge.  The mountain was sort of out.

We got exercise today - Magnolia is really hilly. Up, down.

A Beautiful Day in the Western Cascade Foothills

Today was a halcyon day in the GPNW.  We took the bikes out to Fall City to do the first part of the ride we always do because it is flat.  It takes us through many corn fields and really big country yards.  You know, the kind of yard that people mow with tractors.  Anyway, this is new.  Someone built a very nice pad for the travel trailer, put up steps and two out buildings. Notice that the travel trailer and the big outbuilding are raised up above the level of the field.  That's for when the flooding starts.  It would be kind of cool to own a chunk of land with a place to park the RV.

After the first flat segment of the ride, my back sent me a message that I should stop riding immediately.  So we went back to the truck and Jim loaded my bike for me.  Then he set off to do another lap so he could ride hard and break a sweat.  I took pictures of the stunning scenery while waiting for him.  I don't know what these are, they're sort of bristly.

One of my favorite barns.

The blackberries are getting ripe.  There are many people out picking them, some bushes have nothing left on them.  They're not very good; they're sour and are mostly seeds.  We always wonder what people do with them.

After Jim got back, we went for a drive.  This is an old grove of Sycamore trees.  People used to live in houses along this road.  I think it was a company town which ceased to be.  The people left, but the trees remain.

The always lovely Mt. Si.  There is a four mile trail (with 3,500 feet of elevation) up the side of it.  I've never done it. 

This is a former mill pond.  Logs were floated in here, and then sent to the saw mill.  It is not lovely?

We pressed on with the driving.  These are all roads that we used to bicycle, back when we were doing more mileage.  We went over a bridge to see where it would go, and ended up in the outskirts of North Bend.  These are elk.  Elk!  Who would have expected elk so close to town?  It was really cool, we didn't see this big of a herd in Yellowstone.

Eventually we ended up on the other side of the mill pond.  The road down to the old sawmill was open, this has never happened before.  So we went down the hill.  Here is the old power plant.   It would have burned sawdust, wood chips and debris to run the mill.

Dirtfish has bought the old facility and turned it into rally driving school and a competition track.  Redbull is affiliated with it.  It's pretty cool. They have dirt and mud and stuff to drive through.
This quote is from the three day course description.  "With new found skills in hand, drivers negotiate a course through trees and solid objects which simulate an actual rally stage."  I want to learn how to drive through sold objects!  Check out the website, it's interesting.

These are cars waiting to go out on the track again.

They get to drive through the old mill.  This would be fun.

It was a good day.  I got to ride a little, Jim got to ride more, and we saw elk. 

The Attack of Back Pain

Greetings Earthlings.  How is your summer progressing?  We have hit somewhat of a rough patch, or at least I have.  About two weeks ago my lower back started hurting.  Then it hurt more, and then it got worse.  It reached the point of hurting enough that I'm yelping, and scaring the crap out of Jim.  Apparently I have strained the right side paraspinal muscles.  It hurts like holy hell.  So, there is physical therapy twice a week while we are still here.  It's really aggravating, there will be no hiking or strenuous biking until this resolves.  Of course this has coincided with perfect summer weather.

This morning we got new neighbors.  They have a highly decorated RV.  He is the Wandering Author.

Their first task was to unload the motorcycle.  The back of the pick up truck was uphill, making it difficult.  We were very happy that they didn't drop it.

I looked up his book on Amazon - his name is Roan Poulter.    I don't understand the economics of  selling e-books for $3.  How much money do people make on these books? 

They have been many places.

This is the creek that runs behind the building that houses my dentist and the physical therapist.  It used to flood regularly until it was dredged and the banks were armored.

Nothing much is happening other than this. 

I do have a question for the audience.  Where is a good place to go in mid-September?  We had been thinking Utah, until it was pointed out to me that it's pretty dang hot then.  Who has good destination tips for September?  We were thinking Breckenridge, CO until we noticed that it's at 9,600 feet.  Our last attempt to mountain bike at 9,000 was not all that much fun due to lack of oxygen, so maybe not.

World War One

It's the 100th anniversary of WWI.  I must confess I never knew all that much about it, other than mustard gas and trench warfare.  The American Heroes Channel (formerly The Military Channel), which is 195 on the Dish network is running a series called Apocalypse: WWI.  It's really good.  I think we're on the second episode, and they repeat the previous ones.  If you have DVR, this is really worth gathering up and watching.  One of the many things I did not know was how inter-related the rulers of Europe were.
Look at the first two pictures.  Do they not look like brothers?  The first is Czar Nicholas II of Russia.

This is King George V of England.

This is Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

Nicholas, his wife, Alexandra, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany were all first cousins of King George V of the United Kingdom.  Despite their familial connections, Germany decided to take on Russia and eventually Britain.

The war really did touch most of the world.  Japan, as Russia's ally, invaded China to get at a pocket of German soldiers.  Britain invaded Turkey to keep the Suez canal open.  Turkey invaded Russia, hoping to receive help from other Muslims in the Caucasus.  Everybody invaded Africa in an attempt to take colonies and raw materials from one another. 

This is a good website which details how interlocking treaties made the whole thing somewhat inevitable.

Another good site can be found here, which sort of live blogs how diplomatic efforts failed to stop the war after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.  Site navigation is atrocious, so patience will be required to work your way through it.  To sum it up, it seems to have been a giant game of diplomatic posturing, the playing of chicken and hubris on the part of the people who were in charge of the various governments.

After listening to the numbers of people who died, it's surprising that there were enough people left to fight WWII.

Seafair Weekend and The Blue Angels

Today we drove over to South Bellevue, parked, and then rode the bikes out on to the I90 bridge.  It's Seafair weekend.  Every year the bridge closes for several hours Thursday through Sunday for airshow practice and then the show on Sunday.  Today and tomorrow is the full airshow, although it's practice.  There were a lot of people there.  We arrived just as the police started allowing people on to the bridge, it felt sort of like the running of the bulls to get down there.

The bridge, she is closed.  There's a dog in the back seat, the air conditioning was running for him for the entire event.  I think it's pretty amazing that they close the bridge and have an air show over the lake in a densely populated area.

This was the opening act.  They are the Patriots Jet Team.  They are flying the Czech built Aero L-39 Albatros.  The Albatros was a trainer for the Warsaw Pact.  We found their show to be sort of uninteresting.  The planes don't make enough noise, and their routines weren't very fast. 

This year there were more rotor aircraft.  This is a Bell Twin Huey.  He's hovering over a barge, and people are fast roping down from the helicopter.

Later in the show, another Huey came in and took them away.

The plane is a C130 tanker.  It's towing two fueling drogues.  You can see the probes on the helicopters where they would take on fuel.  The helicopters are Super Stallions.

These are Ospreys.  Note their engine nacelles are in the position for forward movement.

Here is the Osprey in a hover over the water. Note the disturbance on the surface of the lake and the nacelles in the vertical.

The Harrier is a Marine plane.  It's a jump jet, able to do vertical and short take offs.  It's in a hover here, you'll have to take my word for it.  We were hoping they'd fly it backwards, but they didn't.  This plane was featured in "True Lies", when Ahnold flew it to save his daughter from terrorists.

Not everyone loves an air show.

The Blue Angels close out the show.  They are so good.  It's difficult to get a good picture with a point and shoot.  A man next to us had a Canon camera with an EF 70-200 mm lens on it - his pictures were much better.  It would be difficult to ride with that, however.

It was somewhat overcast today, for which we were grateful.  We were out there for about 2.5 hours.  Bright sun would have been bad.