Friday Night Boat Ride

We have been telling the kids how pretty downtown Seattle is in the evening when viewed from the water.  We were going to go back that way when we came back from spring break but the ferry schedule’s worked against us.  On Friday night I had arranged to pick up some snowshoes (more on that later this week) that I had found on craigslist near where the ferry launches from.  We decided to pony up $11.55 to take the boat ride rather than drive back.  Here are some pictures and comments.

We left Bremerton at dusk.  Very peaceful.

Chas has never seen Titanic so we thought this unposed picture was very funny.

It was coooold but the kids had fun out in the open air on the ferry.  I was very sick so only came out to take the occasional picture.

This is what you see from the Ferry at night when you come in.  To the left you see the space needle, dead ahead is downtown Seattle and to the right is the port of Seattle.  In the background you can see Safeco Field as well.  The thing that kills me is that most of the people riding the ferry are bored out of their minds.  I guess riding the ferry eventually becomes as boring as riding the bus.

Comments on Charlie's last Blog entry

Not sure why but there is no place to comment on Charlie's post about his new "Dog Wagon". So this should allow anyone who wants to comment to do so.
Dad

I think this is a great idea and have told Charlie so. I asked if the dogs jump in the "Doggie Trailer" when they see him getting ready to go. He said no but they do get excited when they see him getting it ready. He said "They muct know they're about to get a ride". He also said "but they are always ready to get out when they return home".

I loved Kathy's Face Book comment noting that Charlie is a high tech kind of guy with his new tow-a-long bike trailer including a video camera catching the whole rider experience. I think so too.

Love to all,

Dad/Grandpa

Tour de Chihuahua

I've blogged on facebook about the gift Mom and Dad helped me buy for my 40th. It's pretty fun. Check it out! I'm sure there must be a way to link my Facebook blog to the screaming pigs, but don't have time to do it today...it was hard enough getting it on facebook! I'll figure it out. If you want to see the photos, you'll have to go to my facebook page. Sorry.

______________________________

Happy 3rd Birthday Chloe Carla LaRee! Who could have known that something so cute could turn out to be so evil! LOL. Ok, so she's not really evil she just has "the wiggles"... kind of like her pop.

Speaking of birthday's... my Grandma, Breck's parents and My parents all sent me money for my 40th birthday last week. (Yea! THANKS!)
I didn't even have to THINK what to buy! I was so excited, I got right online and bought a "DoggyRide Mini" bicycle trailer! (WHAT???) It came in the mail a couple of days ago and we've been using it every day since. It sounds crazy (even to me as I type it) but it's been a lot of fun. We all love it (and by "all" I mean me and the Chihuahua's... Breck, not so much... but more on that later...

So here's my train of thought (you may need a map to follow this logic).
1-Making my dogs happy is one of my greatest joys in life. They’re rarely happier then they are at the dog park. Watching them frolic and play; I swear they’re smiling… it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside.
2-I get (what I imagine is a similar) joy from riding my bike. I feel 10 years old every time I get on my bike… and that’s regardless of the fact that my current model isn’t purple with a glittery banana seat like my when-I-was-10 version.
3-If I could combine the two activities... HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?!?
4-(Here's where it gets fuzzy) All I needed was a safe trailer to haul them all in…

They make bike trailers engineered to haul and hold anything (as I most recently found out from seeing Howard Fulmer's trailer which hauls a loaded golf bag and then converts to an on course bag cart). Previously I'd seen trailers carrying small children, and I thought I could convert one of those; but all the ones I saw either didn't have a solid floor (which is no good for claw tipped toes), or (even worse) there was no way secure the dogs inside the trailer. I'd almost given up hope but then one day...

I came across a blog "Tour de Dog"
It’s about a guy named David Sylvester who biked across America with his dog Chiva (in a DoggyRide bike trailer). His goal was to "teach responsible animal/human relationships." The blog is totally worth a look.

The point being here that I found a custom made trailer JUST FOR DOGS! How cool is that (or how uncool am I, you decide). I was so excited.

My goal is not nearly as lofty as David's... I just wanted have fun going to and from the park, and maybe get in a little extra stimulation and exercise while doing it. There are few things in life that I love and that love me unconditionally in return: My Dogs and My Bicycle are among them... And now that I've found a way to love both of them together, there's no turning back.

Just for fun I attached a camera to my tool bag under the seat of my bike and took this video of the dogs coming home from the dog park. I took one of the longer way's home, so it's a little long, but funny nonetheless. Just one note before you watch... the angle of the camera, it's proximity to the rear tire and the lose tool bag it was attached to make the ride seem much more treacherous than it actually is. I never was going faster than 15 MPH on residential streets. Enjoy! Click link for Video

An inconvenient truth…

I read online yesterday that our old home in the Atlanta area is no longer in a drought.  I have been keeping track of the lake as water preservation is an issue that interests me as well as having a lot of friends who still depend on that lake for drinking water, to fill their pools and water their lawns.

Below is a graph of the lake level on Lake Lanier north of Atlanta.  I wonder if the news medial will pounce on this story like they did when the lake was low?  Somehow I doubt it.  When the lake got to a record low it was national news.  It was never reported that the lake had gone low like this several times in the past 50 years.  Lakes all across the southeast were in the same condition but none of those were mentioned.  This is just another example of taking what you hear on TV or the newspaper with a very large grain of salt.  News outlets produce the news to sell ads and make money, not to report the whole truth.  The storey de jour is now what color iPod the queen received from our president!  No time for the news outlets to go back and admit they might have been wrong about this ‘crisis’.

Anyhow I’m glad that the pools will be full when we visit GA this summer to show off Lucy! 

A sunny day on the cape

On Sunday the sun came out which was wonderful!  We went to church and then spent some time at the park enjoying the nice weather while some people ran up to hurricane ridge.  The park was great and the kids all had a wonderful time.  After hours of driving it was nice to sit for a bit.

Here we are at Leah Bay in the Makah nation.  We were doing the Hokey Pokey to try to get Lucy to laugh.  We had stopped to feed Lucy and stretch a bit.  We had been driving for a couple of hours to get to Cape Flattery which is the most northwestern point in the contiguous united states.  This is also the entrance to Puget Sound so we were able to see ships coming and going in the distance.  The cape itself was amazingly beautiful.  The water was almost Caribbean blue with the rugged landscape of the Pacific Northwest coastline.  This is definitely a place where I would come back to.

The best part of the whole day did not get a picture taken though.  I was the last one of the Simmons/Ward group to leave. Katie was bugging me to leave with her but I told her I wanted to take a few pictures and that I would catch up.  After about 10 minutes of taking different shots I heard a teenager say in a not very excited voice ‘Hey, a whale’.  I thought to myself ‘Sure' but I looked anyway.  Low and behold there was a whale sitting right off the cape.  I didn’t even stop to take a picture.  I took off running up the trail screaming for Crystal, Katie, Emma, Chas and Kristi.  When Emma heard me say there was a whale she stopped in her tracks, yelled WHALE! over her should and took back off for the cape.  I was only able to get the Wards as the Simmons had started back up the trail before we did.  I was really worried that the whale wouldn’t breach again so close to land.  However we were lucky and he came up two times for us.  The whale turned out to be a gray whale.  We were excited for hours afterwards as we had never seen a whale.  Lucy wasn’t very impressed and she slept through the whole thing.  Uncle Wayne couldn’t believe that none of us took a picture. :)

Rainforest Visit

The Simmons clan invaded Washington this weekend and Stacey was kind enough to invite us to come along. We rented a house in Port Angeles which sits on the Strait Jaun de Fuca with Canada visible across the strait. The price of admission was a pot of chili which I was glad to make!

Stacey beat me to the punch on the blog post. Here is a link if you want to read more about the weekend.

http://ihavenogreaterjoy.blogspot.com/

On Saturday we went to the Ho rain forest which is completely different than the Quinault forest. There were no Cedar trees and the trees were not nearly as big in the Ho forest. Here are a few pictures of a very fun day.

Kristi and Chas on a stream bank on the way into the forest. It was very COLD and appropriately rainy. The snowline was only a few hundred feet above the valley floor. It was the first time my southern kids had seen that phenomenon. As we were driving in I could see the steelhead fishermen standing in the stream. I thought of you Dad. Maybe next year we will get a shot at those trout!

The forest was very, very mossy. I was astounded to read that it gets 140 inches of rain a year. It has snowed the week before and there was patches of snow on the ground still.

This water was about 6 feet deep at this spot but was crystal clear. I found out later that it comes from spring. Can you see the K in the picture? I didn’t notice it until I created this post.

I’m amazed that the trees survive with all this moss hanging off their branches. Seems like this would just choke them out. We will have to make a visit in the summer to see what these maple trees look like with leaves on.

I thought this one was classic. If you leave anything standing still in the Ho Rain Forest it will soon be covered in moss!

Lucy the great hiker. She did great in one of her homemade hats and her wonderful carrier. Saturday was a wet and yucky day but she didn’t care.

We finished off the day with a couple of beautiful waterfalls. I remember seeing these types of falls in Oregon when we went for the Harris Reunions. Now that I have lived through a winter I understand where all that water comes from!!

Here we are on the banks of Crescent lake or Lake Crescent. It was beautiful. We were wet, cold and ready to go back to the house and have some hot chili!

Winter in Wonderland

I love this picture of "our" Temple; hope you do too.

A Visit to South Kakalakee

Eliott and I trecked down to South Carolina to see Jay, Jaqui and Jaylin. While we were there the J3 family showed us many new things - we especially loved Charleston where we found a building (US Customs House) that was "born" on Jaqui's birthday ... October 9th. The buildings age makes Jaqui realize that she is very young :-) 

Jayson fell in love with a seafood resturant called Hymans and we ate lunch there. Jaqui, El and Jaylin are sitting out front in the pic above. It's been voted "best seafood in the South (across 16 states) and it is DELICIOUS. Jaylin has eating out down to an art. She colors and drinks out of a straw while she waits patiently for her food. She'll eat anything and she loves having her family sitting right where she can see all of us!

Charleston is well known for ironwork. Jayson is well known for being totally awsome and incredibly handsome.

Grammy didn't get a very good pic of this, but Jaylin is awash in shoes glorious shoes. That's Grammy's girl (my new office is two blocks away from a huge DSW - Designer Shoe Warehouse  ... I'm almost more exicted about that than I am about having my very first corner office)

Deb & Jaqui at the I-Hop ... Jaqui's omellette had mashed potatoes in it. I love that Peru and Idaho both know that potatoes are the bestest. 

Here we have Grammy chasing Jaylin ... I thought she was headed for the street, but she knows better than to go into the street or try to go down the stairs alone. What she knows how to do best is communicate. She has a few words - I love the way she says "mama" and "dada" ... all males are "dada" and all females are "mama" but when the words are applied to her parents they are said with so much love and enthusiasim you feel the joy right down to your bones. She is a beautiful and well loved child who learns something new everyday. I'm a very lucky lucky lucky grammy ... thanks for the visit J3 (and thanks to Eliott for being an able travel companion).

Happy birthday Charlie!!!

Happy birthday to Charlie, now there is a majority of us in our 40's...man your old now!!

When Lucy Talks…

everybody listens!

Katie has been home sick for 5 days, this is a picture of her huddled under a mound of blankets with a fever. She looked very small and sweet but didn’t want her mug taken so it is only the part in her hair showing. She is feeling much better today just in time for Spring Break and our peninsula trip.

Katie thinks that this looks like Lucy is giving you all a sleepy little wave, so “Hi”!

The Land of Enchantment and a long drive there and back again (get comfortable! This is a long post ... but I hope you will enjoy a snippet of my week long journey =)

I spent the last week on a great SouthWest adventure.  It has been far too long since I have taken a proper drive so when the opportunity to present with my research partner at the Society for Applied Anthropology conference in Santa Fe became reality, I decided to drive down and explore along the way. 

I have long loved the land of the Navajo Nation as I have driven many times across the Western edge going back and forth between Phoenix.  I have always wanted to explore further into its interior but there was never sufficient time nor motivation until this week.

Monument Valley

 

Mexican Hat

Entering the Navajo Nation

It was hard to make it to Monument Valley itself because there was so much beauty en route.  This is looking back North at all of the formations I had already passed.

As I was photographing, I noticed this small window that had formed in the rock (this is a close up of one of the mittens).  In our research we study the stories or narratives that our participants tell us.  The immediate effects of injury often creates a disconnect between a person's changed physical state and the story that a person has created of their life in the past and of what they expect in the future.  Our findings show that there are multiple ways in which occupational therapists can assist a person in creating an individual, hopeful, and meaningful story of what their future will be within the context of their changed body.  This rock reminds me of narrative.  As I see the small space I think of how the formation of the mittens once started and I wonder at what future formation may yet emerge from this small space.

 

The Mitten

Rain God Mesa

This was one of my favorite places in the whole park.  Not because of the view, although it was beautiful, but because of the serenity.  Having grown up in Idaho, I love the wind.  I feel enveloped, embraced, comforted by it.  This spot was beautifully quiet except for the gentle comfort of the wind.

Canyon De Chelly

Canyon de Chelly is another place that I have wanted to go since the time that I found out about it in an Arizona Highways photo article.  Canyon de Chelly is a fascinating place because it is still so full of life and the history is far more than dates and names, it is sacred and rich with meaning to the Navajo.  It is hard to not sense that life and meaning in looking at an ancient ruin or petroglyth or the sheep grazing in the canyon, the lines of a field currently being farmed, or the basket ball standard for recreation after the work.

The canyon was almost impossible to photograph because of the intense light and dark shadows ... but this same light and shadow intrigued me as I looked at objects on the canyon floor.  I love the two trees that emerge in this image.

This is one of the spots in Canyon de Chelly where the Navajo were able to resist the Spaniards.  The Navajo, but not the Spaniards,were able to climb this rock island through its natural features and large "moveable notched poles" that when removed made the climb impossible.

White House Ruin.  Because this is Navajo land (important both because it is sacred and it is a place to live, work, and continue the Navajo lifestyle) going into the canyon is prohibited without a Navajo or Park Service guide with the exception of a 2 1/2 mile hike to the base of White House Ruin.  It was a fantastic hike for many reasons, ironically, the least of which was seeing the ruin. 

Canyon floor

View of the canyon part way down.

Spider Rock ... atop Spider Rock sits Spider Woman who taught the Navajo women to weave. 

 

Window Rock

Window Rock is the Tribal Headquarters of the Navajo Nation.  During the 2002 Olympics I went to a temporary museum about the Navajo beliefs about the creation of the Navajo people.  The exhibit alone was wonderful but an experience that still makes me tear up to think of it was being able to meet a couple of the Navajo Code Talkers.  The sculpture above honors their work in saving the lives of many Marines, which now of course is even more meaningful to me as I pray for our Marine heroes Jay, Josh, and Clay, but also pray for heroes like the Navajo Code talkers to protect them.

Rio Grande Nature Center - Albuquerque, NM

I first fell in love with this song when I was in the Eastern Sierra and Yosemite.  Driving with the Merced River I was enchanted with the idea of the life of a river and its relationship to temporality and personal and cultural history.  It is perhaps because of this song that when I found out that the Rio Grande ran through Albuquerque and that there was a nature center on its banks, I knew that I needed to stand on its shore.  It was enchanting!  My other encounters with the Rio Grande on the drive home from Santa Fe were serendipitous and added to my affection for the "canyons white and wild, stretches calm & mild ... cutting through my soul and to my veins."

Canada Geese at a wetland at the Nature Center

Santa Fe

Santa Fe was super busy with lots of conference sessions, getting ready for our presentation, walks, meals, etc, etc and I didn't take many pictures ... but I will copy over the pics that I posted on facebook in case you didn't see them.

 

3-19-09 "Taking a quick break during a session in Santa Fe"

3-19-09 "Out for a bike ride, saw a church sign that said 'stand still and consider the wondrous works of God' and I decided that I would =)"

3-19-09 "New Mexico State House - This is the best sculpture that I have ever seen at a seat of government, a depiction of a tug-of-war!"

3-20-09 "Long tiring stressful meeting"

3-21-09 "Walking back to the conference center ... almost time to present! Ah the exhilaration of nerves!! Love it!!!"

3-22-09 "Leaving Santa Fe ... But first a drive through the mountains to Taos! =)"

3-22-09 "Rio Grande Gorge -- 'an unbroken chain. Snow and tears and rain. Cutting through my soul and to my veins. And the waters rise, paint the Rocky Mountain skies' Tish Hinojosa 'By the Rio Grande'"

3-22-09 "Taos, NM"

3-22-09 "Rio Grande Gorge - even more gorge-ous here! 'Canyons white and wild, stretches calm and mild cutting through the stones of history ... one more circle round the world again, one more year rolls down the Rio Grande.' Tish Hinojosa 'By the Rio Grande'"

The long drive home

New Mexico mountains

Near the junction of Hwy 64 & Hwy 84 in New Mexico

This is right near the New Mexico / Colorado boundary.  When I saw the image and photographed it that fact was not foremost in my mind.  However as I continued to drive, I realized that one mountain was in New Mexico and the other in Colorado.  A beautiful juxtaposition between the personalities of the two states.  I was sad to cross the state line, to leave the land of enchantment; for it captured my heart.

Mesa Verde - I came here as a child and was quite impressed with it.  I think that in my young mind I thought that it was one of a kind because I had never seen anything else like it.  I think that it is fitting that I return to one of my early anthropological experiences after having seen so many cliff dwellings in Canyon de Chelly at the beginning of my trip and after having gained so much knowledge of culture and occupation at the Society for Applied Anthropology conference.  It brings my week long journey full circle.

Mesa Verde felt different to me than did Canyon de Chelly.  Perhaps it was the disconnect of between the stories of the ancient and modern inhabitants of the space which leaves dates and names but lacks present connection to place; something that Canyon de Chelly so richly had. I think that it is reflective of what I have learned in doing research and in attending the conference. The world can be viewed at the superficial or factual level but without considering the complexities of meaning individually and societally, the majority of experience will be missed and the opportunity to affect positive change will be stifled.