South Park

It seemed somehow ironic that D had an Ultimate game on Saturday in South Park, given how much time he spends watching the show! But that's a very different South Park.

Seattle's South Park neighborhood is a wonderful industrial neighborhood across the Duwamish from Boeing. The river is still a bit hard to get to, but I discovered a couple nice little parks and made a note to come back with a kayak someday. The big red gears at the site of the old 8th Avenue South Bridge are actually from the Fremont Bridge.

Lacey

This was a really busy week and unlike some other busy weeks, there was no time in the field. But you take what you can get and even the worst weeks always contain cool stuff - you've just got to make the effort to notice it. Like bald eagles flying over I-5 during the commute. Or a brief glimpse of the Sound while driving across the Nisqually. Or Wednesday's early morning mist over the lake behind the Community Center.

Puget Sound

I hope I never have to ride the ferries so often that I stop wanting to come upstairs during the crossing. Before sunrise or middle of the day, sunny or stormy, it still beats sitting in the car on a lower deck. These all are from two Wednesdays ago -- three are from the Edmonds-Kingston ferry run (two sunrise, one late afternoon) and the other is from Salsbury Point, looking at the Olympics across the Hood Canal Bridge.

Mount Vernon

Our team was disappointed that they didn't clean up like they did last year, but Interlake and Lakeside have accumulated a deep stack of very good players and are awfully hard to beat. These two teams put on a great show - tied going into the last round, played each other in the last round and drew, and then went into a blitz playoff. Five rounds of three-hour games and it all comes down to the best of five simultaneous 3-minute games. Interlake won.

D managed to win all his games but the one against Michael in round four. He was down all through his fifth round game against Lynden, only to pull off an amazing end game victory at the very end.

We converged on Red Robin in Marysville at 10 and got back to Seattle after midnight.

Chuckanut Drive

M decided to hang out at the tournament during Round 4 (Saturday afternoon), so I headed off for Fairhaven on my own. It stayed dry, although the gray skies sure limited the photography. I checked out several spots along Chuckanut Drive. I swung by Taylor Shellfish, but decided NOT to buy a couple bags of oysters to take back to the team (I did pick them up cookies at Safeway on the way back)!

Then I checked out Clayton Beach, one of those great spots where geology and beaches and railroad history all converge. I was leaving Village Books in Fairhaven and heading over to Tony's Coffee, when M called to tell me D was done and wanted the football that was in the back of my car.

Little Mountain

Round Three began at 9AM (Garfield was playing Lakeside). I grabbed coffee and headed off to explore the outskirts of Mount Vernon. I circled Big Lake and then looped back by way of Little Mountain (creative geography, huh?). The road to the top was closed - too icy - but I parked at the gate and scrambled up the steep half-mile trail. Great view points - both north toward Mount Vernon and Chuckanut Mountain and south across the Skagit Flats toward Camano and Whidbey and the Olympics.

Samish Overlook

I wanted to wait until the tournament got underway before heading out but was concerned that by the time I found the viewpoint, the sun would have already set (assuming I could find the viewpoint at all). But it all worked out. The last mile was in several inches of two-day old snow and ice, but I still arrived 15 minutes before a great sunset over the San Juans. The panorama extended from the Cascades in the southeast to Lummi Island in the northwest.

I made it back to Mount Vernon High for the end of the first round. We stuffed the team with pizza and then, once the second round started, Michele and Kathy and I headed back up this direction (not quite so far or as high) to Bow for a great dinner at the Rhododendron Cafe.

San Juan Ferry

Today was a long day in Friday Harbor - Anacortes at dawn and again at dusk. Our remarkable streak of beautiful winter weather began to deteriorate last night, which made for a nice mix of light and bleak. And the rain didn't start until I was on the boat back.

Fremont

More Fremont pictures from last Sunday. I managed to get up and around Queen Ann Hill, but the pictures from the classic view points were too hazy to want to do anything with.

Aurora Bridge

These weekend bike rides have become a good way to reacquaint myself with some of Seattle's neighborhoods. You do see things differently, or simply notice more, when you're moving slower.

Kelso Dunes

I get to lots of neat places on my own and am always wishing I could share them with the family (and blogging about them is a poor substitute). I came down here during this same tournament two years ago (Kelso Dunes) and this year I got to come back with both M & D. It was a perfect high desert day. We all made it to the top and hung out for a while before deciding we needed to head back to the airport and to the drizzly northwest.

Kelso

D was playing Blitz until after 2am (M and I had gone to bed hours before), but was still willing to be woken early. And M was willing to head off on a 200 mile road trip into the desert even though we had be back to the airport by 5. Of course, I'm always willing to get up early and risk missing planes for the chance to visit new places or old haunts.

There's not much left to Kelso - there was never very much - but the Mojave Preserve folks have done a nice job with the train station.

Valley of Fire

Sunday morning we made sure D got breakfast and off to his morning round and then we drove out of town to explore the desert.

I had a bit of a goal in mind - I wanted to find some beaches, even if that required some imagination. So we swung by Lake Las Vegas, and Boulder Beach and Overton Beach on Lake Mead, where M patiently waited while I took pictures (Gravel Beach).

We drove back through the Valley of Fire, us and hundreds of afternoon visitors from the city. From the number of stretch limos we figured the trip up here must be part of the standard Vegas wedding package.

Las Vegas Boulevard

I'm sure that even Vegas's biggest promoters in it's early days would have had trouble foreseeing the intersection of Tropicana and Las Vegas Boulevard in 2008.

Stratosphere

Once D's round got underway M and I headed off on the monorail for the Stratosphere. It's not as tall as the CN Tower, but this one has rides on top. M probably would have been willing to try them, but I pleaded old age, poor back, vertigo, and bad hair. I told her she could go on her own, but in the end we settled for the elevator and the observation deck.

What a spectacular day! Big, dry desert valley spreading 20 miles between snow covered mountains - filled with a million and a half people. Still doesn't make any sense. You can't see all the For Sale signs from up here.