Outdoor Art?

 

Les Gouts des Autres: mur décoré avec des chewing gums, derrière le Pike Place Market à Seattle.

Seattle Aquarium

Skagit County Tulip Festival

 

Comic bus ride in Seattle

Nothing compares to the bad entertainment available on public transportation. Last Thursday, I was sitting on the #3 bus to Madrona watching a mom embarrass her teenage daughter. I try to read but am distracted by a woman seated across from me – with a boyfriend I presume – repeating offensive jokes from some comedian’s monologue.

The jokes are horrible but she keeps snorting and cackling at her renditions like someone with a bad cold being mercilessly tickled. “Why did the white man get kicked off the moon? No, no, why did he try to buy up the moon? Because he thought he’d get a better mortgage from the Indians! Hahahah cackle, cackle.” Her laughter grates on my nerves. The boyfriend nods and stretches his lips from side to side to form a pity smile that is as pathetic as the corny joke. A teenage girl seated next to me chimes in to add her two cents so I presume she’s the cackling comedian’s daughter.

It’s hard to ignore the trio. The mom slaps the boyfriend’s thigh to make sure he is getting the jokes, and not drifting off, and the impact jerks me out of my own private space on the bus. “And I love it when he [the television comedian who’s jokes she’s repeating] says…” and goes on to repeat a “joke” that was inappropriate for the setting. After an earful of bad jokes and one slap on the knee too many, the boyfriend grabs the woman’s invading arm and commands her to shut up because he has had “enough of her shit that aint funny.”

“That woman isn’t my mom!” the blonde teenager screams out for the edification of everyone within earshot. And to the mom, she says: “You’re not embarrassing me, you’re embarrassing yourself. Shut up. That’s enough!” Despite the angry protest from her family members that she shut up, the mom continues to grunt and cackle and tries to squeeze out one more bad joke, but another bus rider interrupts her with a plea to stop because her jokes are inappropriate, not funny, and likely to offend. The daughter in the skull hoodie looks up again and verbally assaults the passenger for disrespecting her mom and starts lecturing the woman about manners and the need to respect one’s elders. How ironic.

Rainy Afternoon in Seattle

 

 

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.

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.  

 

 

Orcas Island

Orcas Island is one of the largest of the San Juan Islands of the Pacific Northwest. Although the four main islands – San Juan, Shaw, Lopez and Orcas – attract most of the visitors to the San Juans, I have read that there are more than 170 islands in the archipelago. Of course, I don’t know big a body of land has to be to be considered an island.

It’s amazing how rugged and inaccessible the west part of Orcas Island is. We climbed some 2,000 feet to the top of Mount Constitution to take in the views from Orcas’ highest point, and saw pine forests that looked impenetrable. The climb to the top is steep – our old Renault 21 would not have been able to make it – and the road is narrow, with lots of sharp turns. The higher we limbed, the more ethereal the distance below seemed to us. And at the top, the vies of the Sound and the different mountain ranges was breathtaking. The experience was sublime.

The ferry to Orcas Island leaves Anacotes, Washington.  The timetable for departures may be just guidelines, though.  We arrived at the terminal expecting to depart in 15 minutes – based on the schedule we printed – only to learn that the next ferry was in an hour and a half.   

Weekend Excursion: Mount Baker, Washington

We chose a great time of year to return to the mountain: Labor Day weekend. The mountain was at its best, teeming with vibrant visitors from just about everywhere; snow on the peaks; and good weather. Around us, people were pointing out different bodies of water and mountain ranges. Everyone was excited to be there. This suited me just fine; who wants to be alone at the top? I looked around to make sure there was no concession stand or organ grinder to ruin the mood, but restrooms  and a beverage dispenser were the only amenities. That and an orientation map. We could have spent hours soaking in the unobstructed view at the top. But mountains must be respected, which means not overstaying your welcome, and before it claims you.

The trip to the top of Mount Baker is a leisurely, two-hour eastbound drive from Bellingham on well-paved roads. But time flies by as the flat and vast bucolic towns that flank the road give way to the mountain, with its forest of fuzzy evergreens. We had plenty to keep us entertained along the way, including  waterfalls, lookout points and glacier-fed lakes.