Head East

EAST SIDE: Saturday we took a field trip across Lake Washington to Redmond, Bellevue and Sammamish, all suburbs east of Seattle.

The draw was the Sammamish River, which Christian and our friend Glenn kayaked on Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon, the kids and I drove to Bellevue's relatively new Bellevue Brewing Company, to meet them for lunch.  There, CJ and Annabelle donned the Frisbees that served as their plates under their lunches. (My friend Glenn took this photo.)

After lunch, we drove to Redmond, to walk a waterfront trail along the Sammamish River.  We parked right by Redmond City Hall, which had a neat water feature and sculpture out front.

The kids walked around in the water for a bit.

The park by city hall also had a couple of art installations.  This dancer was one of my favorites.

From a distance, we spotted what we thought to be a playground in the park, adjacent to the senior center. Turns out, it was exercise equipment.  But the kids didn't know that, so they 'played' on a rowing machine, an elliptical, with a bench-press type weight lifting machine and even did some situps.

  Fitness is fun! :)

The Sammamish River isn't particularly wide, and you're not going to see anything much bigger than a kayak floating down it.  It's a tranquil ribbon of water, winding between Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish.

Glenn and Christian paddled past this couple in a canoe a couple hours before they saw them again, while walking.

There are a number of bridges over the river, including an old railroad trestle that was torched at some point in the past.

That must have been one heckuva fire.

We found some art work along the waterfront trail, on the east side of the river, including these beavers ...

and a striking native American Indian-influenced wood carving.  . 

The kids jockeyed for position in the cutout of this stone sculpture.

We happened upon a wedding in a grassy expanse, just moments before the bride walked down the aisle.  May they live happily ever after.

We were all impressed by the number of public art pieces we encountered in our short walk.  Turns out the city of Redmond has a public art collection over over 100 works of various mediums. Good for them - and for art lovers visiting Redmond!

And speaking of Sammamish, we've been watching Little League World Series games for the past several days, and the Sammamish team is representing the Northwest in the series. They won their first game handily, but suffered a defeat in their second game, when their starting pitcher got knocked out of action by a line drive.  They played their third game tonight (Monday), and won, which means they're still in contention. They play again tomorrow (8?20) at 5 p.m. Pacific.

While on the topic of Sammamish, I should mention that Forbes named Sammamish number one on its list of "Friendliest Towns" for 2012.  I'd love to know their 'scientific' criteria when it comes to determining that award.

And speaking of Sammamish again, I was curious where the city's name came from.  According to a couple of sources I found, it's from a couple of native inhabitants words, "samma," which means 'the sound of the blue crane (or heron)' and 'mish,' which means 'river.'  Christian said he and Glenn startled a blue heron during their Saturday paddle.

OVERHEAD:  We've had the pleasure of watching International Space Station fly overs several times over the past few days.  I don't think it will ever get old.  If you haven't done so already, do yourself a favor and go to Spot the Station's Web site: http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/home.cfm, and with a few quick clicks you can find out when the ISS is flying over your place in the future.

FINAL ASSIGNMENT: On Sunday, we completed our two last assignments for our "Science of Gastronomy" course.  One assignment involved us having to make six (!) different sauces using various combinations of water, cornstarch, salt and curry powder.  The point of the assignment was to demonstrate how different the intensity of the curry flavor was by adjusting the cornstarch, salt and curry.  It was surprising and dramatic in some instances.  And the experiment made our house smell delicious.  I was hungry for curried something for the rest of the day.

Another lecture we watched was all about how gluten is formed in dough.  Its corresponding assignment required us to make four different dough balls, varying the recipes slightly (adding oil to one, vinegar to another, etc.).

The kids' hands were tired after kneading the tough dough for five full minutes.