November 17, 2016 - It's Never Just Another Ferry Ride

A commute across Puget Sound may be pretty routine, but there always seems to be something worth seeing.

November 10, 2016 - Georgetown Trailer Park Mall

Behind Georgetown's Star Brass Works Lounge is the Georgetown Trailer Park Mall, "a membership-based sustainable retail model focused on the promotion and advancement of sustainable, locally sourced, up-cycled, reused and handmade products."  The mall, founded in 2010, is open every weekend year round.  In addition to the 8 vintage trailers, vendors utilize pop up tents and tables to sell their wares.

Georgetown, Seattle's oldest neighborhood is located south of downtown Seattle.  It is a hipster-industrial-warehouse-arts district with small enclaves of homes dotted among freeways and byways and warehouses and small office buildings and hotels that at one time or another had rooms available by the hour.  While the Denny party is more famous of the families that began the settlement that would grow to become Seattle, the Collins Party actually filed their claims in for land in 1851 a week before the Denny party landed at Alki Point.  Consequently, Georgetown lays claim to being Seattle's first neighborhood.

A staple of Georgetown has always been booze, beer and brothels.  In 1883, the brewery that evolved into the Seattle Brewing and Malting Company, the sixth largest brewery in the world, was located in Georgetown.  Georgetown incorporated in 1904 as a response to a growing Seattle and a law that prohibited the sale and manufacture of intoxicating liquors within one mile.  Georgetown's saloons boomed with as many as 24 operating 24 hours a day.  

While there may no longer be brothels, the neighborhood has seen a rebirth of bars, breweries, distilleries and restaurants located in century-old buildings.

September 11, 2016 - In Other Words

A DeHavilland Otter of Kenmore Air's fleet appears to make an approach to the moon  as it descends for a landing on Lake Union.

The jazz standard "Fly Me to the Moon" was written by Bart Howard in 1954 and originally titled "In Other Words" and first released as the flipside of an album.  In 1963 Howard changed the name to what we now know it.  By the time Frank Sinatra's version, produced by Quincy Jones, was released in 1954 a hundred other versions had been released.  The song became closely associated with the Apollo missions and was the first music heard by an astronaut on the moon when Buzz Aldrin listened to it on Apollo 11 on a portable tape player.

September 11, 2016 - Wake

"Wake" by Richard Serra consists of five 60 ton steel forms standing over 14 feet high and nearly 50 feet long of 'gently curving serpentines of convex and concave'.  "Wake" is part of the Seattle Art Museum's collection housed at the Olympic Sculpture Park on the north end of Seattle's waterfront.

September 6, 2016 - Another Ferry Photo

The ferries Kaleetan and Wenatchee leaves Seattle's Elliott Bay headed for Bremerton and Bainbridge Island respectively.  Beyond Alki Point point the ferry Tillikum sits at the ferry terminal on Vashon Island.

A few minutes earlier, they had passed by the cranes and dry docks of Harbor Island.

August 11, 2016 - Staircase Embrace

From the grand staircase of the San Diego Convention Center one has an incredible view of the San Diego Bay.  On a landing part of the way up the stairs is a 21 foot high sculpture by Leonardo Nierman, "Flama De La Amistad" or "Flame of Friendship".  The sculpture was a gift to San Diego from the government of Mexico in 2000.  The sculpture's polished stainless steel creates a unique dynamic based on the light of the day, or night.

This is a flame, but it also an embrace.  It is my hope for mankind that one day we will feel like brothers, act like brothers and love like brothers, instead of like adversaries. - Leonardo Nierman

August 6, 2016 - Summer Soiree Lights

Dusk. Lights. Reflections. Friends. Laughter.

August 5, 2016 - Blue Angels, Blue Flag, Blue Sky, Blue Water

The roar of six pairs of General Electric F414 engines that can each, individually, generate 22,000 pounds of thrust can mean only one thing: The Blue Angels are in town!

The US Navy's flight demonstration squadron performs above Lake Washington during breaks in the Seafair Cup hydroplane races.  Practice for the weekend occurs during the week leading up to Seafair.  On this day, a good crowd gathered at Kerry Park at lunchtime to see the six blue F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets pass by the Space Needle in formation under a clear blue sky.

The blue 24 flag on the Space Needle was raised earlier today by former Mariner outfield Ken Griffey, Jr.  who just this summer was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  His number will be the first to be retired by the Mariners organization in a ceremony this weekend.

August 3, 2016 - Seattle Waterfront

A visit to the Seattle Aquarium turns into more than viewing fish, octopi and seals when it happens during Seafair Fleet Week.

On this day, at a pier near the aquarium, a US Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin from Port Angeles put on a demonstration with their rescue swimmer deploying from the aircraft as it hovers next to the USS Gridley, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer stationed in Everett.  A restored 1937 Douglas DC3A flies across Elliott Bay towards Boeing Field.

The Seattle waterfront is a busy place during the summer.  Tourists, both the home town and out of town variety, jam the sidewalks to take in the views, or visit the Seattle Aquarium or the Great Wheel.  These days navigating the waterfont is a little challenging as the 80 year old seawall is being replaced.  The seawall is part of the project that will replace the the Alaskan Way Viaduct with an underground tunnel and completely redevelop the city's waterfront.   

July 27, 2016 - Prominent Prominence

For many living in the Puget Sound region, Mount Rainier is a commanding presence, weather permitting.  "The Mountain" can be seen on clear days from as far south as Corvallis, Oregon and as far north as Victoria, British Columbia.  It is a stoic white monument of rock and ice and snow that manages to trick the eye into thinking that it is larger on some days than others.  It has a topographical prominence - the vertical distance between the lowest contour line surround it and the top - larger than the world's second largest peak, K2.

On this day, from Doge Peak, elevation of 7006 feet and just 8 miles from Rainier's peak, it commands for other reasons.  Even at the top of Doge Peak the sheer magnitude of one of the world's most dangerous volcanoes becomes apparent.  The mountain is nearly three miles high!  

Mount Rainier is the most heavily glaciated mountain in the US outside of Alaska with 26 major glaciers and 36 square miles of glaciers and permanent snow pack.  From this view the Emmons Glacier is one of the more evident from this point northwest of the mountain.  The White River flows from this glacier.

Doge Peak is a "moderate hike" just 4.2 miles round trip from the Sunrise Visitor Center and lodge located at 6400 feet.  As you walk along the ridge line headed east away from Mount Rainier and Sunrise you are treated to views of sub alpine meadows, wildflowers, Mountain Goats and even the 12,281 foot Mount Adams located 50 miles south.

The road to the Sunrise Visitors Center often doesn't open until early July. It makes accessibility to this Puget Sound landmark incredibly easy.