cascadian telegrams

mount rainier day hike

The term ‘awesome’ is ridiculously overused, especially by the young and residents of the left coast, but I can’t think of a better adjective for Mount Rainier National Park and the Nisqually Glacier.  After a late start (we had dinner and socialized with John and Jacki last night, drank too much, and woke up commensurately late) we got to the aptly-named Paradise trail head before it got  crowded.  Malcolm crabbed and whined on the walk up to the trail head, but got into the spirit of things after a short while.  Mt. Rainier is just ‘the mountain’ to Seattleites (you can’t help but see it has you drive around the metro area each day, even though it is > 60 miles away) but I’m embarrassed to say we hadn’t been down there until now.

It’s hard not to be taken by the place.  Alta Vista is a steep trail (5420 to 6800 feet at Panorama Point, plus a climb to the trail head) but man, is it worth it: each hill you crest or turn your take, there is something to take your breath away… either the clouds colliding into Rainier (which has its own weather ‘cause it is so big), the glacier, the Tatoosh Range across the valley or the abundance of wildflowers.

The only downside is that there are a lot of people on the trail on a beautiful weekend day such as today, but as an intro to the park, I can’t think of a more scenic trail to begin with.  Hat tip to John for the suggestion.

Snaps are here.  I’ve never used panorama stitching of photos as much as I have today.

model citizens

Malcolm and I did this glue-up, cut-away model of the USS Enterprise in August. I loved building models as a kid and wanted to get him started on hit… even though I did most of the fine detail work, he did some of every stage of the model.

It was also an opportunity for the both of us to discover American Eagle Hobby Shop in Lake City, which is a Seattle institution.  My friend John has been buying models and supplies there for over 35 years!  They have a huge selection of models and supplies including model trains in the basement. 

Sadly, John says that when he used to go in there on a Saturday as a kid, the placed was packed with kids.  When I went in there, it was mostly older and middle-aged guys (like me) and mostly empty.  I guess kids don’t build models so much any more.  They seem thrilled to see Malcolm in there though, and he was hugely excited by the Star Trek and Star Wars models.  We’ll be back, for sure.

nova scotia

Just back from an awesome nine-day trip to Nova Scotia to visit the ‘rents, auld friends and flames and enjoy the salt air, the scenery, the quiet and the company. It’s a long trip – we’re travelling from nearly the westernmost point of North America to the easternmost, and it is a full day of travel – but it was great fun.

 

 

  As you can see from the above picture, Malcolm caught his first fish (a mackerel, actually he caught five), went clam digging and mussel picking, got to build a wooden go-kart with his granddad and generally run amok.  We played in the waves at Roseway Beach, hiked out to deserted beaches and beautiful lonely places along the water and partied with some of my childhood friends accompanied by cider and guitars – fun!

Here’s a couple of snaps:  Hiking out at Fox Bar near my parents’ place in Roseway

This tiny out-building on my parents’ property was a general store during the war (tobacco add inside still on the wall says “Loose Lips Sink Ships!  Do your part quietly for the war effort.”)

The ostensible purpose of the trip was for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary which was August 8, 2009 – I’ll post separately on that.

One thing I love about Nova Scotia are the seemingly-endless (and usually-deserted) white sand beaches.  On a foggy day you feel like you’re walking through a dream.  Appropriately-ephemeral music (I preferred Sigur Ros’ Tak) helps to set the mood.  Most days, I’d run the 3km or so from my parents’ house down to Roseway Beach, walk on the beach and listen to the waves and some music, and then run back.  Susan did the same. Lovely.

Here’s the rest of the snaps.  Of course, I posted too many to Flickr.  Sorry about that, I need to be more selective.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcm/collections/72157622056627530/

individual sets:

Roseway

50th Anniversary Party

Fishing and Hiking

very short history of planet earth

Kevin Kelly’s always-interesting current trends blog points to a very short history of planet earth… worth a read:

"The Earth has survived some remarkable disasters. To keep our tale brief, let us focus on four: the Big Splat about 4.55 billion years ago, the Late Heavy Bombardment about 4 billion years ago, the Oxygen Catastrophe roughly 2.5 billion years ago, and the Snowball Earth events about 850 million years ago. The details of these events --- and indeed, whether they even happened at all --- remain controversial. We shall present some widely accepted theories without dwelling on caveats or alternative scenarios. In every case, there is interesting physics involved in testing these theories."