A Day in Seattle

We drove south from Port Townsend about 50 miles to Bainbridge Island and walked onto the ferry to Seattle. From Seattle, Mount Rainier is very ghostly and prominent and only about 60 miles away.

The first hotel in Seattle was opened in 1856 by Madame Damnable. She ran a high-class hotel of ill repute but earned her nickname, not from that, but from her ability to swear proficiently in Chinese, English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. Her name was Mary Ann Conklin. Prior to moving to Seattle, she was abandoned in Port Townsend by her hubby, "Bull" Conklin, who was a whaling ship Captain.

The last time we saw Seattle was 1968. We had a favorite Italian restaurant called Ferlinghetti's. It always took about two hours to get though the many dinner courses. Sometimes we even missed our theater ticket showtimes. We discussed the restaurant on the bus yesterday with some long time Seattle residents. They told us Ferlinghetti's. had gone out of business decades back.

The Space Needle and monorail were built for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. Both of these and the old Food Court were still there, but several other attractions have been built since we were last here to supplement an area now called the "Seattle Center". There is a Science Fiction Museum and a Music Appreciation center currently featuring "Nirvana" to name two new enhancements to the sleazy old World's Fair location. At a top speed of 45 MPH the Seattle monorail is thought to be the  fastest monorail in the world. Each of the trains has logged over a million miles on the one mile track. Back in the 60s we all thought monorails were the tits.

We went to a really run down area of the city in 1967 to see three short plays by Leroy Jones. All of the actors and the audience were black except for me and Mrs. Phred. One scene required anger and frustration from a black man wearing a hard hat. He took it off and threw it really hard and hit me in the chest with it. I was really impressed with his aim and it left me with a cool indelible memory. Did I tell you Mrs. Phred was thrown in jail in 1964 for protesting the Florida pavilion at the New York World's Fair and Florida's racial policies?

Sometimes the things you see in city store windows are as interesting as what you can see in a big city art museum.

We had lunch at a micro brewery on the waterfront and then spent a couple of hours in SAM (Seattle Art Museum).

I took a few pictures. Works in glass are always appealing.

It's interesting to go around to art museums in different big cities and see how much the directors are willing to put on the line in the way of unconventional modern art vs. the tried and true. Seattle's SAM  was packed with stolid stuff.

Desolation Angels

 North Cascades National Park, Washington

Not that many people still remember Jack Kerouac, the "Beat Generation" or Beatniks (How many even remember Sputnik?).

 
Jack spent a winter here up at Desolation Point in a fire tower writing "Desolation Angels". We could only handle two nights with no internet, telephone, television, FM radio, satellite radio, GPS, electricity, running water or sewer connection. The trees pressed in so closely overhead that even our satellite technologies failed to work (GPS, TV, Sirius Radio). It was kind of like the 1980s when all the National Parks had pay phones from which you could call your stockbroker...if you had a pocketful of quarters...

"No maps, packs, firefinders, batteries, airplanes, warnings on radios, just mosquitoes humming in harmony, and the trickle of the streamlet – But no, Lord has made this movie in his mind and I’m a part of it (the part of it known as me) and it’s for me to understand this world and so go among it preaching the Diamond Steadfastness that says: “You’re here and you’re not here, both, for the same reason,” – “it’s Eternal Power munging along” – So I up I get and lunge along with pack, thumbed, and wince on ankled pains and turn and turn the trail faster and faster under my growing trot and pretty soon I’m running, bent, like a Chinese woman with a pack of faggots on her neck, jingle jingle drumming and pumping stiff knees thru rock underbrush and around corners, sometimes I crash off the trail and bellow back on’t, somehow, never lose, the way was made to be followed – Down the hill I’ll meet thin young boy starting out on his climb, I’m fat with butchers, and it’s Springtime in the Void – Sometimes I fall, on haunches, slipt, the pack is my back bumper, I burnst right along bumbling for fair, what words to describe hoopely tootely pumling down a parpity trail, prapooty ........."...Desolation Angels"

Jack ended up living with his mom in Indian Rocks near Tampa. At the end he was best known for projectile vomiting cheap red wine.



The North Cascades National Park is a huge place that is a strange combination of dams to generate power for Seattle and hundreds of miles of lovely hiking trails.



There are three big lakes up in the Cascades. They are named Gorge, Diablo and Ross. Each lake terminates in an electrical generating dam that feeds into the next lake.


We did find two tennis courts. I played well against Mrs. Phred, but I prefer not to disclose the scores. It was sort of a sports movie and I was part of it (the part known as me).

“Pretty soon...do you realize there'll be so many additional childhoods and pasts with everybody writing about them everybody'll give up reading in despair-There'll be an Explosion of childhoods and pasts, they'll have to have a giant Brain print them out microscopically on film to be stored in a warehouse on Mars to give Heaven Seventy Kotis to catch up on all that reading- Seventy Million Million Kotis! - Whoopee! - Everything is free!” -Desolation Angels

Excuse Me While I Kiss the Sky

Mount Baker, Washington

Mount Baker is another Washington State more or less active volcano. It sits at an elevation of about 10,770 feet and is one of the snowiest places in the world. As much as 95 feet of snowfall a year has been recorded at the ski area on the western slope at about 5,000 feet.

We've never seen Mount Baker so we decided to make sandwiches and devote the day to exploring the mountain.

Like most state entities, Washington State is having budget problems. I don't think they've decided whether to spend the money to clear the road to Artist's Point at about 5,300 feet.

The machine above is a really serious piece of snow clearing equipment. The blades on the front show evidence of wear and serial welding repair.

This is a D8 Caterpillar, modified to serve as a ridiculously overpowered diesel snowplow . Personally, I really like JB Weld epoxy. One JB Weld user claims to have repaired a cracked block on a D8 with JB Weld and subsequently saved his company $40,000. Another used it to repair broken dentures. I use it for anything that needs to be glued together like molten iron. One of my favorite SF stories is about a demented D8 on a Pacific Island that becomes sentient and attempts to murder it's human operators.

Funny...It's 50 degrees up here but it feels warm in a t-shirt.

We take a little hike along a river with class five rapids. It would be fun to schedule a float here.

The walk along the river is a rain forest environment. The moist air blows in from the Pacific and is uplifted 10,000 feet. The result is a lot of rain at the lower levels and snow up high.

Biomass is everywhere here. Moss, ferns and green stuff covers everything.

Rialto Beach

Olympic Peninsula, Washington

We packed some books and headed for the beach this morning. I'm reading "Little Big Man". Mrs. Phred has "Rainbow Six" by Tom Clancy.

It's a beautiful day...sunny blue skies...about 65 degrees...we walk about two miles down the beach studying the lovely polished rocks and gigantic bleached driftwood trees...

After a few hours we have lunch in "La Push", the Indian reservation featured in the Twilight saga.

I have an Alfredo pasta with shrimp , scallops and steel head trout. Mrs Phred has fried clams, steel head trout and scallops...It's  all surprisingly good with a great view of the harbor and breakwater...

We'll be heading for Port Townsend on July 4th...Fort Worden has been turned into a State park...The old army base still has tennis courts where the officers used to play...

We would like to spend some days exploring Seattle before we head north to Alaska or east toward the Great Lakes....

The Hoh Rain Forest

Olympic National Park

We started the morning on Ruby Beach in the Olympic National Park. We were too late for the best tide pools. I could pull some photos from my archives, but that would be wrong...

The first time we camped out overnight together was here on the Hoh River. It was June 6, 1968.  I stayed up all night with a stick of wood waiting for the bears while Mrs. Phred slept in a bedroll on a poncho. When we returned to Mccord Air Force Base, my honorable discharge was waiting...We drove to Miami in a fast 72 hours in our 66 Chevy convertible...We arrived just in time to see Bobby Kennedy get assassinated on TV...

Today the Spruce trail is closed because of an aggressive mama elk.

The Cascade Mountains are to our East and the Pacific Ocean is West. The Hoh River valley runs about 40 miles from the Pacific up into the mountains. The adiabatic  process creates an annual average of 144 inches of rainfall in the Hoh valley.

The moist air from the Pacific is forced up as it meets the Cascade mountains. As the air cools it can't hold as much moisture and precipitation results.

This may be the only coniferous rain forest in the world. It has been declared a world heritage site.

At the end of the valley you can see hundreds of unnamed snow-capped mountains.

Definitely one of my favorite places...sweet memories...

Mrs. Phred relaxes after lunch...we walked in about three miles today. The trail was nasty with lots of muddy places...It's rained here even more than usual...

We were here in May of 2006. I jumped into the swift and cold  Hoh river and was immediately swept away with great velocity in the glacier melt water...the clock started ticking...exhaustion  or hypothermia?? Fortunately, as a registered Dive master, I am able to overcome nearly any water adversity...Johnny Weissmuller, eat your heart out...

Twilight Mania

Olympic Peninsula, Washington State

We're at a place called "Forks" which  is 12 miles from the Indian reservation  on the Pacific Ocean coast. The reservation is at a small fishing town called "La Push", home to the Quileute Indians. These Indians are important in the "Twilight Saga". This popular story is about a group of sort of vegan vampires who are ethically opposed to drinking human blood and like to chase deer in the Washington woods..

The dark, damp, dreary and dank coniferous rain forest of the Olympic Peninsula is a perfect place for these vampires to call home. Sometimes I think I might be part vampire because every time I go out in the sunshine I get another cancer.... Bella is a human girl who moves to the Forks to stay with her divorced father. Edward is in inhumanly attractive vampire who attempts to avoid her and seems to Bella to find her repulsive.

Edward and Bella's ultimately establish a relationship grows over time, and they fall passionately in love. Their foremost problem is that to Edward, Bella's scent is a hundred times more potent than any other  human, making Edward struggle to resist his desire to kill her. However, despite this they manage to stay together safely for a time.

Anyway, the small town of Forks has five or six businesses and tours that focus on tourists and the Twilight Saga.

Forks is very well located for exploring the beaches and coniferous rain forests of the Olympic peninsula.

We'll be here until the 4th of July . Our next stop will be Port Townsend. Maybe we can find a way to explore Seattle and/or the San Juan islands.

We went to a place called Rialto Beach on the Pacific Ocean in the Olympic National Park today. A characteristic of Washington beaches is the huge bleached driftwood trees.

Mount Rainier National Park

Back in early 1966 we drove our green Triumph TR4-A and all our possessions up here to Tacoma, Washington. I was navigating C-124s over the Pacific to Southeast Asia to support the war effort..

Our first ever camping trip was here in the Mount Rainier National Park. I was in great shape back then. We had two bedrolls and a kerosene lantern that we checked out from the base recreation officer.

We walked the hills for miles. As darkness arrived we found a place on the mountainside to spread our sleeping bags.

It was our first time camping out. I worried about bears and about rolling over and down the mountain.

We lit the kerosene lantern about 1 AM and walked for about two hours back to where we had parked the 61 Cadillac convertible.  I was afraid. Mrs Phred had no fear.

The Mountain goes up to 14,400 feet. It's an active volcano that might be big trouble anytime now.

Mount Rainer was the 5th National Park established by Congress in 1898.