The Great California Adventure - journeys and arrivals in the City of Angels

On the pier at Vincent Beach

First a quick introduction to the cast. First and most important, obviously is me. Two things you need to know 1) I love Birthdays and turned 30 during the trip. 2) I love Giant Pandas. Second, my ‘Californian’ friends; Diana and Yongbom. They lived in Bristol for a few years whilst Yongbom completed his theology PhD and attended my church which is how I know them. Diana is a California native and that is where they are currently living in the vicinity of LA. The UK contingent is Jenny, Colin, and Lucy. Jenny and Colin still attend my church in Bristol and Lucy used to be Bristol based but is now in the vicinity of London.

Wondering if my luggage is sitting in the cart outside the plane

Mount Rainier from the air

Monday was a day of travel. I left Seattle at about 10:30am and flew via Sacramento to LA.I arrived at about 2pm and there waiting for me were Diana and Yongbom with a welcome sign. We went off for lunch (a grilled cheese sandwich at Panera Bread) then went to fetch the mini-van. An eight seater with plenty of room, until we added all out luggage and the massive amounts of food we bought. 

Malibu from the air

LA from the air

Dipping our toes in the Pacific

We collected the British contingent (Jenny, Lucy, and Colin) at 4pm. We dragged our jet lagged friends to the beach and paddled in the Pacific, a first for the Brits. We started the holiday tradition of group photos on the pier at Vincent Beach. We had a lovely meal Italian meal at C&O Trattoria with yummy complimentary garlic knots (fancy garlic doughballs). Diana and Yongbom then took us to ‘The Grove’ but we didn’t spot any celebs. With traffic we got to the travelodge in Passandre by about 10pm. Finally the jet lagged were allowed to sleep.

Vincent Beach

At the Grove

At the Grove

On the way to Yosemite

The Travelodge had complimentary breakfast which gave us a natural meeting place in the morning. I also had a chance to do my first sketch of the holiday. Palm trees seemed like the best snapshot of LA. After breakfast we set off via Fuller (seminary where Diana and Yongbom went) and Trader Joes (grocery store where we bought lots of food) for 6 hour drive (+ numerous rest stops) to Yosemite. Lunch was at Grapevine where we ate in an “In ‘n’ Out”. This is a fast food burger place but it sells good quality meat and fries that taste like they might of actually come from a potato. They also have bible verses printed on the base of their containers, turns out with 3 trained pastors in the group they knew all the references – that’s reassuring! 

On the way to Yosemite

On the way to Yosemite

In 'n' Out for lunch

Orchards along the road

I found the way the rows in the orchards made patterns as you looked at them fascinating...

Of the springing of spring and Birthdays

The days are getting longer and the sun is becoming a more frequent visitor to Seattle. The plants are slowly waking up around us after their winter nap.

Freeway park

Magnolia trees coming into bloom in front of the surrounding skyscrapers.

Pike's Place daffodils on a sunny Friday afternoon

Flowers from the market

Birthday dinner at Ivars. Cherry Blossom.

Looking South over Lake Union

Yummy Salmon

Inside Ivars

Making Birthday Cake

The finished item...

Thanks for the cards and presents!

Bird and Icicle Spotting with the local Fulbright Chapter

The nature preserve

The remains of a redwood at a rest area on the journey

A couple of weekends ago I got to go for a trip up north to an area called Skagit Bay that is the same latitude as Victoria on Vancouver island. We went to a Nature Conservancy Port Susan Bay Preserve/Skagit Wildlife Area  and Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. This was with the local Fulbright chapter, there were about 14 of us, half visiting scholars and half previous scholars, including one lady who did her Fulbright year in the 50s not long after the commission was set up.

never far from the mountains

The Nature conservancy owns an area of wet land with a dyke that keeps the water off the farmer's fields. They are working to keep the river delta at the right salinity and keep it from drying out. The research reserve allows a place for visiting scientists to investigate the environment including a large eel grass meadow that is important for baby salmon.

on the journey

It was a wildlife tour but to be honest most of the birds were sensibly not around. We did see two bald eagles from a distance (but a bird enthusiast had bought a good telescope so me could see them), and one eagle was sat on a telephone post when we were leaving, by the time I got out of the bus it decided to take off though...

two eagles hanging out

one eagle escaping the Fulbright paparazzi 

 We also saw a field of snow geese and a few swans, they were also a long way away...

The white stripe in the middle of the shot is snow geese

The snow geese up and flying

We walked for a mile along the dyke and saw lots of Dunlin's these were super cute. They move and fly very fast.

 Dulins flying 

 Dunlins busy finding food in the mud

We were all well wrapped up

lots of the standing water was frozen.

The surrounding fields

The surrounding area

more of the surrounding fields

The research center has a teaching area as one of their goals is communicating to the public. They had a small aquarium and this guy, who was rather fun to watch.

January

I just had a long weekend and I still didn't get to write a post. It's not for want of trying but I seem to have writers block on anything more than trivial, and I'm struggling with trivial. Over the last six weeks I have been doing lots of walking and lots of work, and in between time quite a lot of netflix. Which doesn't make for the most scintillating blog!  Worse still I have mental pictures not digital photos - fail!

Part One - a lot of walking

The hill I walk up to get to Church...

I've been walking around the local area in about a six mile radius. Some of this has been on the Burke Gilman Trail which I've mentioned before. Some has been along the streets. This is always a challenge because I have to use Google Street View to find streets with sidewalks! My longest walk on the Burke Gilman has been to Lake Forest Park. That is six and  a half miles there and six and a half miles back. I always go a little insane walking long distances on the Burke Gilman. The track is about 10ft wide, mostly flat, and lined with either trees or houses. You can't go more than a few minutes without meeting a fellow walker, jogger, or cyclist. Traffic stays on the right and they call out 'on your left' as they over take, or simply whiz past if they are coming in the opposite direction. It's always interesting to see the houses or vegetation but after a few miles I always feel like I am on a treadmill.

A typical street intersection with 'round-about'

My other favourite walk at the moment is the five mile trip 'through the houses' to the North Gate Mall (5 miles away). Yes, all my walks do end in either a mall or a tea shop. It's nice to have a destination. The only problem with walking across the city is the hills. You reach the top of one, start going down and then have to climb another one. But the houses are fun to look at, mostly clad and painted different colours, all different shapes and sizes. Most have well kept yards (gardens) and some have special 'rain gardens' to provide a soak away for the rain that comes out of the gutters. With all the lakes around Seattleites seem to be very conscious of water pollution and how they can do their bit to prevent flooding. Finally, I have to say, I've really been enjoying twilight here in Seattle because many houses keep fairy lights (usually white) up well into the spring to provide some brightness for the dark winter days. Hurray for fairy lights!

The mountains can be seen from most of the hill tops

White fairy lights provide some brightness to long winter nights. 

Part Two - Sleeping Beauty and the Sea Hawks
The first Sunday of February was Super Bowl Sunday and the Seattle Sea Hawks had made it to the game against the Denver something or others. So naturally me and my landlady went off to the ballet! This time it was Sleeping Beauty. I'm not so familiar with the music of sleeping beauty compared with the Nutcracker. From the untrained eye the choreography of Sleeping Beauty was harder than the Nutcracker which made it more of a spectacle. There were definitely more leaps from the ladies and the gentlemen and a lot more 'standing on your toes till your feet are broken beyond repair' action from the principle. It's a curious similarity between ballet and american football that professionals in both areas put there long term health at serious risk for the possibility of a few glory years, and people queue up to watch them do this. We think we are so much better than the Roman Empire watching Gladiator matches, then again the gladiators were slaves...

We returned home in time to watch Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers perform the half time show for the super bowl game. Then I retreated downstairs and low and behold with no support from me the Sea Hawks won! This is the 48th Superbowl so all things being equal almost every state should have won once, but never the less everyone was justifiably excited. Wednesday there was a parade through Downtown Seattle. I could have popped out from work but decided to let the fans celebrate in peace. The parade was midday but the buses were still super full. A ridiculous number of fans were trying to get on the 8am buses which are usually "can't physically jam another person in" packed anyway. They really needed to consider extra transport, but that would be far too sensible. I get on at the start of the route so at least I get a seat. Sea Hawks colours are navy blue and green, one presumes they have never heard the rhyme 'blue and green must never be seen'. So the city has been a wash with blue and green flags, hats, sweaters, jackets... my favourite of all is the 'Sea Hawk' hat, which given that there is no such creature as a Sea Hawk looks like a composite bird of prey.

Sea Hawk fever has died down now. The Seattle Methodist churches had a friendly competition with the Denver Methodist churches to bring in food for the food banks. They thrashed us in this competition bringing in three or four times as much food as us, then again their are probably less attendants in Seattle where people are notoriously non-religious. So now hopefully I will always know the answer to the pub quiz questions who won the 48th Superbowl and in which year did the Seattle Seahawks win the Superbowl etc. Also who is the twelfth man on an American Football team? - yes, indeed, the fans.

Part Three - SAM

As I've previously mentioned the first Thursday of the month is free museum day in Seattle. It's surprising how many of them I've not been here for in the last six months. This time I went to Seattle Art Museum. Which is only 8 blocks from my work (or half a mile if you don't speak 'block'). They have a total mix of stuff, some modern art installations (cars with rods of florescent lighting bursting out of them), some photography (one women's study of her family that live in one of the poorer and polluted areas in Pennsylvania), some native american headresses, some Japanese kimonos. They also have work by Robert Davidson, a contemporary take on native american artwork; For example he uses similar motifs to more ancient artworks but in primary colours. I always forget how much I love wondering around art museums, especially when they are free.

Well I'll call it quits for now and start uploading pictures of Skagit Bay, more on that later...