The Washington Ferry

A summer ferry ride across Puget Sound seems like a romantic travel plan. Before boarding, you conjure up the sound of fog horns tooting, the feel of fresh air and the smell of saltwater. But first, you have to get to the terminal to board the ferry, and this is seldom a romantic experience. The waiting times can be extensive, especially during peak travel times, so you arrive roughly an hour early to queue up in the designated line. And then you wait. Ten minutes sitting and strumming the steering wheel, dreaming up ways to better spend your time – like building your own bridge across the Sound – is enough to send you flying out of the car on a restroom break and to skim over the wall of free vacation guides. You’ll only keep the ones with decent coupons or a map that you can use. But you end up getting so absorbed by the itinerary in a free brochure and looking over the printed ferry schedule – the timetable for returns conflict with the return times you memorized – that the ferry boarding announcement catches you off guard.

 

As the commuter boat leaves the dock and slowly reaches cruising speed, things start looking up again. You get out of your car and climb to the upper cabin, which is like a clearing in the forest, after the enclosed steel car deck. There’s so much scenery to soak in: the skyline recedes behind you as the tufts of water in the distance move closer. And for a while, you even manage to let yourself go, until you remember the timetable difference and start obsessing about your return to the mainland.

Office Space

D received a "Butt Kicker" Award this week, recognizing his attitude and desire to get stuff done. This is quite a distinction, coming from peers who really know their craft.

A tip of my…hat to D.

Sammamish River Construction

The City of Redmond is undertaking projects to reshape the channel of the Sammamish River and to improve the river flow. The river snakes a lot more now.

The projects are expected to offer improvements to trail users, fish and wildlife. I’m already enjoying the improvements. The portion of the bike trail near NE 85^th Street has been completely repaved, so the last part of my commute home is even more pleasant.

Bellevue Botanical Gardens

Creme Renversee

 

Broye du Poitou

Ingredients:

·         Flour: 500 grams

·         Butter: 250 grams, softened

·         Sugar: 250 grams

·         Salt: a pinch

·         Eggs: 2, one for the pastry, the other one for coloring (you only need about a 1/3 of an egg to brown the top of the pastry, so you can always add a half of the second egg to the pastry mix. A lot of Broye du Poitou recipes call for two eggs anyway, so don’t worry about over-egging).

  

Preparation:

 

Combine butter, sugar and salt. Add one egg and flour. Knead well.

Beat the second egg and set aside in small bowl. You can add a half of the beaten egg to the pastry mix, since you only need about a half to brown the top. Add a drop of coffee (if you happen to have leftover coffee in the coffee pot) to the beaten egg to obtain a richer, darker golden-brown pastry color.

 

Spread out pastry mix into buttered/lined, shallow baking dish. Use beaten egg to glaze top then use a fork to decorate. Bake in pre-heated oven for 40 minutes at 430 degrees.   

Issaquah Salmon Hathcery

At the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery, workers harvest the eggs of chinook and coho salmon and rainbow trout. The hatchery fish are raised in ponds and released into state waterways.  

High-altitude Driving

Five summers ago, we toured the French Alps in our 17-year-old Renault 21. There we were – me and D, Tatou and Jean-C – chugging up a long, steep grade at Val d’Isere, admiring in the stunning views on our slow climb to the top. The experience turned from near-sublime to sour when the car started to cough and sputter and the engine started to lose power. We made it to the top, and then back down the mountain, but had to leave the car at a service station because of carburetor problems.  

Since then, we have learned a great deal about the challenges of driving at high elevations, including the pitfalls to avoid and precautions to take. Vehicles, for instance, are said to perform better at high altitudes when the tank is full. And of course, you have to respect the rules of gravity. When going downhill, for instance, it’s important to downshift to a lower gear and to let the engine brake slow the car to a safe speed. Unfortunately, when you switch from driving a manual to an automatic vehicle, it’s easy to lose the reflex of shifting gears when climbing and descending steep grades, and end up using the brakes to control downhill speed. We were recently reminded that prolonged braking while going downhill can temporarily disable brakes.

  

How to Tell a Douglas-fir from a Hemlock

Three years ago, I couldn’t distinguish a fir from a hemlock, or a spruce from a cedar. The little knowledge I had of conifers pertained to cones and Christmas. Since moving to the Pacific Northwest, however, I have been taking more interest in towering evergreens, and I’m even learning how to recognize different trees. In two years, I have garnered a forest of facts from guidebooks, and from listening in on tour groups. It’s taking time, but I am learning how to identify some signature evergreens of the Northwest:

Western Redcedar trees have flat, scale-like foliage (as opposed to needles) that sprys out on the twig like a fan (Cedar needles form thick little clusters that look like green Sea-urchin colonies. White cedars are tall (40M), skinny (1M) trees with spiraling, four-sided needles).

Douglas-fir needles are flat, with pointy tips. The needles jut out from the twig and are attached to little bases that look like suction cups. They spiral around the twig like the bristles on a cylinder hairbrush, or toilet brush if you may. The cones are ovular and creepy-looking, often with little frayed strings jutting out, like a snake’s forked tongue.

Western Hemlocks have skinny, droopy tops and branches that tend to sweep downwards. The needles are soft, glossy and flat, and smell like grapefruit when crushed. They form little two flanks, one on each side of the twig, like an open open book. 

Spruce needles grow singly and form a spiral.  

 

 

Great day for a hike