Finally Friday

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE: Thought I was through posting camping memories from the kids' recent trip, but this morning we received an email from Uncle Steve and Aunt Therese with a couple more cool pics.

The neat-o boat the MPA trio is on, a catamaran, belongs to Uncle Steve. It was the first time the kids have been out on the water under sail power.

Pretty scenery, and it looks like they had the reservoir pretty much to themselves.

Christian said he kept the catamaran level/(both hulls in the water) during their sail, not wanting to dump anyone in the water or tip the boat over.  Good idea. :)

HARD LABOR:  Guess what Christian and I did today? Moved rocks.  We have managed to wrestle a little over fifty 200- to 300-pound rocks down our cliff so far this week, just the two of us, plus ropes, pulleys, a couple of BIG hand trucks, lots of sweating, and some swearing. We're working safely and slowly, no real injuries to speak of, which is great.

The top of our lot was starting to look like we were making a serious dent in the 15 tons or so of rocks we procured a couple of weeks ago, but guess what? We're picking more up tomorrow.  We have another 5 tons or so to get, I'd guess. Super! At least it's not going to be 93 tomorrow, like it was last time we gleaned rocks.

While Christian and I rocked it, CJ and Annabelle did lots of reading (Time for Kids, chapter books and online), and Annabelle worked on some artwork.

We will all be glad when the rock project is over.

CAMPUS TOUR: The University of Washington has a lovely  690-plus acre campus here in Seattle. This time lapse video gives a unique and beautiful tour of it. http://vimeo.com/68808396

University in Motion (Hyperlapse) from Edward Aites on Vimeo.

Look Back

MEMORIES:  We're still getting caught up with the good times the kids had while camping last week.  

Above is a sunset over the dam that creates the reservoir at Dorena. Pretty!

I love Annabelle's colorful swim cap!  Esther Williams would approve, no doubt!

BTW, there should be style points for things like this while riding the 'biscuit.'

And check out these super cool lights Nonnie bought for the kids' bikes!

I asked the kids to write their recollections of their trip. Here's what they came up with. ...

Annabelle:   Starting on July 15, my father, brother CJ and I went camping at Dorena Lake, OR. We had beautiful surroundings, and lots of fun! We stayed at Dorena for 5 nights, and visited our relatives. One of my favorite activities was biscuiting (being towed behind a boat in an intertube) around the lake. I almost had my first wipe-out!

We already had a tent set up when we arrived, so all we had to do was set up some beds! Our beds were very comfy, layered as a cot, an air mattress, egg-carton foam, a sleeping bag, and a light blanket. So soft! Every night, we'd have a delicious dinner, some of which included- but weren't limited to!- Riblets, hot dogs, burgers, and even pork chops! 

Spending time with our Nonnie, Bops, countless aunts, uncles, and cousins was fun! I even performed some water ballet with my aunt Theresa and cousin Symone! Swimming in the river that comes off the lake was also very fun! (there was a bit of algae, but not blue-green like last year.) I also discovered my swimsuit dries very quickly.

We even got some lights for our bicycles from cousin Scott! I had mine in a spiral, while CJ wanted a pentagram (which they couldn't pull off). We even had a parade around the campground! We had lots of fun showing off our lights.

Camping was really fun, even though it seemed like we only stayed for two days! I love going camping at Dorena every year, and visiting family (who I don't usually see other than that or Christmas). Overall it was amazing just like the years before.

CJ:  Last week, I went on a camping trip to Dorena, a place in Oregon where there are many camp sites. Here are my five paragraphs describing my camping experience:

First off, I'd like to talk about biking around the campsite. I had brought my bike over to the campsite, and I constantly rode it around the path circling our campsite, sometimes to go to the bathroom. One time while riding the bike around the campground, my front wheel suddenly stopped and I fell over. A couple of nice boys from another site happened to come across my wreck, and they helped get my bike back to the campground. I thanked them for helping me, and we visited a town that had a bike shop so we could repair my bike. Many people at camp got lights on their bike wheels which made their bikes look nice, and I got the color yellow on my wheels (I asked for the lights to be arranged in a pentagram on my wheel, but we ended up having to go with an average circle design).

Next off, I taught some of my family in the campground how to play a card game called Kings In Corners, which you can easily look up to learn the rules yourself. Some of my family learned it quicker than others did, and some of them even kicked my butt, which is a sign that they are learning well. Some of us even jokingly called the game a "Blood hunt"!

In my tent, our bed was very comfortable. According to my dad, there were many layers of different padding below the part of the bed where Annabelle and I actually slept, for example, a blow-up mattress, held in place by a cot. Sleeping in the bed that we had in camp reminded me of sleeping in the bed that we set up on our deck, which was assembled in a very similar way to the one at camp.

I'd rather not inform you about this, but I guess I will word it like this: At camp, I caught a disease that made me have to go to a certain place several times during the day. Times when I needed to go to that place often appeared out of nowhere, and I often times had to get on my bike as quickly as possible to get there (at one point, I even had to borrow my cousin Ben's bike).

Last, but definitely not least, I will mention *biscuiting*. On my uncle John's boat, we went for rides where we rode on inter-tubes and had lots of fun. Two people could go at a time, and I especially liked kneeling in the tube and riding behind the boat. One time, when I wasn't biscuiting, but on the boat, I talked with my uncle John about how cell phones have evolved since the 1970s.

In the end, I found my camping trip very fun and I can't wait to go next year!

SOFT STUFF:  A recent email from the folks at SpaceX brought us up to speed regarding their ongoing efforts to make rocket stages recyclable. That's a big step forward in the space race, as it would save millions of dollars if they could be recycled. 

Check out this video of a "soft" landing of a Falcon 9 on the ocean. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQnR5fhCXkQ&feature=youtu.be

From the SpaceX press release:  "After landing, the vehicle tipped sideways as planned to its final water safing state in a nearly horizontal position. The water impact caused loss of hull integrity, but we received all the necessary data to achieve a successful landing on a future flight. Going forward, we are taking steps to minimize the build up of ice and spots on the camera housing in order to gather improved video on future launches.

"At this point, we are highly confident of being able to land successfully on a floating launch pad or back at the launch site and refly the rocket with no required refurbishment. However, our next couple launches are for very high velocity geostationary satellite missions, which don’t allow enough residual propellant for landing. In the longer term, missions like that will fly on Falcon Heavy, but until then Falcon 9 will need to fly in expendable mode.

"We will attempt our next water landing on flight 13 of Falcon 9, but with a low probability of success. Flights 14 and 15 will attempt to land on a solid surface with an improved probability of success."

MIND BOGGLING:  We played a couple of rounds of Boggle today for our language arts learnin'. 

Here's CJ's scorecard.

WAR FROM SPACE:  A somber tweet came yesterday from German astronaut Alexander Gerst on board the International Space Station.  He wrote: ""My saddest photo yet. From ‪#‎ISS‬ we can actually see explosions and rockets flying over ‪#‎Gaza‬ & ‪#‎Israel‬."

Here's the photo Gerst posted.  I added the green arrow to point out the flash from a rocket (the killing kind, not the space going kind) in this photo.

Trailing

GOLDEN LOCKS:  This morning we decided not to let a couple rain showers stop us, we wanted to get a good walk in.  We drove to Ballard and parked on the north side of the locks, as I wanted to show the kids one of the trails the dogs and I took while the kids were camping. 

About the first 'highlight' of the tour was visiting the spot where the dogs knocked my backpack off the deck and down a cliff while I was taking a photo. 

Here are the kids and the trouble making dogs on said deck.

And here they are by the statue I was looking at when I heard the sound of nylon sliding.

Happily, we left the deck without incident today.

Just beyond it, I spied a gravel trail I hadn't noticed when the dogs and I were there last week.  We saw signs saying it was open to the public, maintained by Seattle Public Utilities.  We were surprised to find a horseshoe pit along the way.

CJ was pretty dangerous with the horseshoes, let me tell you.  I was taking my life in my hands by standing here.

A little bit down the trail Annabelle noticed a sign that said shore access.  We tromped down some stairs next to SPU Pump Station 38 and, sure 'nuff, we could have gone right on down to the water. (The photo of the access point is at the top of today's blog.)

There were a number of Canada geese enjoying shore access.

 We passed hundreds of boats at Shilshole Bay Marina.  One in this group caught our eye. ... 

Here's a aerial view of the place, thanks to Google Earth. As you can see, the marina goes on and on and on for many a city block.

Our path today (locks to Golden Gardens and back), is traced in bright green.

HOME IMPROVEMENT: We spent the afternoon in West Seattle, helping Rick with a few things around his place.  We put CJ and Annabelle to work replacing the old, ugly, over-sized white plastic knobs on cabinets with some bright, shiny new silver ones.  MUCH better. 

ROCK STEADY:  The Great Rock Wall of Magnolia project continues.  I think Christian and I moved 6 or 7 rocks this evening, which is better than we did yesterday.  We''ve got our system down, and are doing it as fast as the two of us can while being  safe.  However, while our current approach is working find for the first couple of rows in our wall, it's not going to work for higher rows, as we can't lift or tip these big rocks up that high to stack them.  We're going to need to devise some kind of skid set up. Stay tuned. ...  

Moon & Rocks

Photo: NASA, naturally
MOONWALK:  Our happy campers came home last night after six nights away from the MPA campus.

Not long after they arrived, we tuned in to NASA TV to watch a special re-broadcast of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, and the first moon walk.  The broadcast started at 7:39 p.m. our time, to coincide with the real time landing back in 1969.

We watched Neil Armstrong take his 'small step' onto the moon's surface, and watched Buzz Aldrin follow shortly thereafter.

It was interesting to watch their first tentative steps on the lunar surface, and then witness their confidence grow with each passing minute. Within 45 minutes, Buzz Aldrin was literally buzzing all over the moon's surface.  Cool!

It's wild to think The first footprints on the moon will be there for a million years, give or take, since there's  no wind to blow them away.

AND SO IT BEGINS:  If you're a regular reader, you know that we recently gleaned  about 15 or so tons of landscaping rocks (from a Craigstlist posting for free), with hopes of turning a 10-foot cliff/drop off in our yard into a pretty rockery.

A couple of weekends ago, we managed to glean  the rocks from a lovely old home in Madrona (on the west bank of Lake Washington), and drag them cross-town to our yard.

Turns out that might have been the easy part.  Today, we started trying to move the rocks into place on our hill.  It involves a whole lot of planning.

We had all sorts of tools to help us out, including pulleys (above) and heavy duty pry bars (below).

We managed to move six whole rocks today. :/

At this rate, we'll be done in 2017 ... or '18.

WET 'N' WILD:  Lots of laundry today post camping trip.  But here's some video from their adventure that puts a smile on my face!

http://youtu.be/XFYuq7PMBFs

Quiet Friday

BACK TO BLUE:  I guess the gray was just for a day, because we were back to sunny and blue today.

I needed to return a book to the library, so for our For our morning walk, I parked 1.5 miles away, and the dogs and I walked there and back for a total of 3-miles.  This evening, we went back out, this time in Discovery Park.  

I parked by the Daybreak Star Native American cultural center there and we strolled a couple paths by the shoreline.

Then, we headed inland, for the beaver pond.  I don't see any evidence of any new beaver activity, but there were a couple of ducks paddling around. 

And a blue heron was keeping its eye on us.

HAPPY CAMPERS:  Hey, we actually have some *action* shots from the campers today.

It is reported that CJ has ridden his bike around the campground 'at least 100 times.

And here he is, teaching fellow campers the fine art of playing Kings in the Corner/

I made sure to send a bunch of art supplies with Annabelle, including a big stack of paper.  Looks like she's out of paper. ;)

They'll be heading home Sunday, with stories to tell, no doubt.

Quiet Thursday

GRAY DAY:  For some reason, I was thinking it was going to be sunny and 80-plus every day in Seattle from here to eternity.  Guess I was wrong.

Today dawned cool and cloudy, a thick marine layer hanging close to the ground.  The dogs were probably happy for it during our four mile walk this morning.  Today's destination: the Olympic Sculpture Park, along Puget Sound.

Our walk took us past the huge grain processing facility at Terminal  86.  The Atlantic Hawk, under a Nassau flag, was in port. It's a big, BIG ship.  It felt like it took us 10 minutes to walk past it, but it's really 'only' 225 meters (738 feet) long - way more that two football fields! 

This photo isn't particularly pretty, but it does capture the essence of today: gray.

I was very happy to find this pretty lady waiting for us at the Sculpture Park.  I've been wanting to see it ever since it was installed a few months back.

Her head is 46-feet tall, and no, my photo is not, in some way, squished.  The head's proportions are not those of a standard human.  Viewed in person, it's very dramatic. 

The sculpture is the work of Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, who has won a litany of awards.  Called Echo, the piece is named after the mountain nymph from Greek mythology

THE NEXT GIANT LEAP: Lots of talk about Apollo 11 these days, on the 45th anniversary of the first manned moon landing.

NASA has scheduled a a special program about NASA's "Next Giant Leap." It will be broadcast online at 10:30 a.m. Pacific time, live from their Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Morgan Freeman is hosting and astronaut Reid Wiseman, who is on the space station at the present, will join the broadcast.

You can view it here: http://ustream.tv/NASAJPL2

FIELD REPORT: News from down south and the happy campers.

Christian sent me this photo today ...

See! They're doing more than eating. They're also sleeping! (and it looks like quite soundly, might I add).

Wednesday Drama

TRAIL MIX: The MPA student body is away at summer school (a/k/a camping), and the dogs and I are here holding down the fort.

Have I mentioned our dogs are neurotic ... on a good day? Well, when 3/4 of their pack is gone, they're off-the-charts frantic. And so, it's in everyone's best interest if I take them for a loooooooong walk first thing in the day, in hopes of wearing them out a bit.

Mission accomplished this morning!  Of course, they wore me out, too. Stay tuned for details. ...

We parked on the Magnolia side of the Hiram Chittenden Locks. Fighting our way through the tourists, we made it across the locks, through the park on the north shore, and then entered the western end of the  Burke-Gilman Trail, a two-mile stretch between the locks and Golden Gardens, a great park along Puget Sound. 

One of the first things we passed was Red Mill's "Totem House" location.  It was a fish and chips eatery for 65 years before the local burger chain bought it out in 2011.  It's kinda hard to miss from the road. ;)  - a destination for tourists and locals, alike.

Just beyond that, there was a nice lookout point I'd never seen before. It offered a great view of the train bridge, which we're used to looking at from the south side.

At the landing, there was also an interesting statue.  As I turned to take a photo of it ...

 I heard a furry commotion - namely, the dogs, who were both on leashes, and I was standing on the leashes.  Not only did I hear them, but I heard the sound of nylon sliding.  Not sure how I *knew* that sound, but I did.  And I knew what it meant.  That would be my backpack.  My NASA backpack, which I happily donned this a.m. as a nod to the 45th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11.  Because I'm a nerd. But I digress.

As it turned out, my NASA backpack had 'liftoff' of its own, alright.  As in, off the viewpoint overlooking Puget Sound, and and down a cliff. With my phone, my keys, my driver's license, and a credit card in it.

I still don't know how the dogs managed it, frankly. The deck was surrounded by a rail with cables less than three inches apart. I'm almost convinced one of them SHOVED the pack through. 

The *good* news is the pack didn't fall all the way down to the water. Instead, it got caught in weeds about 18 feet down.  Of course, my first thought was to find a way down to it. We patrolled left and right, and saw nothing but steep cliff with no access point.  I was OK with that. I really thought the best bet was to fish it up.  I had the dog leashes, which I thought could get me the 18 or so foot reach I needed. And I thought I could lash my sunglasses to an end using one of the side/ear rest pieces as a 'hook.'  But I worried that my dollar store glasses might not be strong enough.  I've had many a pair of dollar store glasses disintegrate while just sitting on my face.  

I looked around and noted there was a van near me in the parking lot. It looked to be one of Ballard's many 'city campers' - otherwise homeless people who live in their autos.  From where I stood, I could see the van was packed to the 'rafters' with who knows what.  If he had even one bungee cord of any length, that would make a great hook and I'd be in business.  As my good luck would have it, the owner hopped out at that instant and I asked him if, perhaps, he had a coat hanger or bungee cord.  

Curiosity piqued, he asked why, and I showed him where my backpack was. 

"I can just go down and get it," he said. 

I told him I'd already explored access routes and that it was super steep and that looked like a really BAD idea and that I had leashes, I was just looking for an easy hook.  However, the homeless man in flip flops INSISTED on climbing down the cliff to retrieve my pack. 

He jumped the fence, and that's just what he did (as I held my breath).  Fortunately, he was back within 30 seconds, declaring, "You were right. That was a bad idea. It's super steep down there." 

I thanked him profusely and apologized to him that I didn't have any cash to reward him for his trouble. He smiled, as if it was no big deal. 

As we walked away, I said to the dogs, "That man is our hero today!"

We continued our 4-mile walk and along the way, I found an ATM. I was going to slip our backpack retriever a $20 or leave it under his windshield wiper on our way back.

However, as we approached the parking lot where he had been parked, I saw red lights flashing. "Oh great!" I thought. "He hurt himself climbing down the cliff!" 

Fortunately, the lights weren't a rescue. But they were from a fire truck, and the city campers (a/k/a homeless people) were being cleared from the lot. The man from the van was long gone. 

We all know firemen are heroes, every day. But sometimes, the homeless guys are the heroes, too.

By the way, none of the photos I took today were worth the drama they involved, but here are a couple more ...

I saw hundreds upon hundreds of boats today, and I want to buy a fleet, just so I get to name boats. ;) A couple of my favorites today were 'Little Wharfin' Annie' and 'Tipsea.'

I also stumbled across Leif Erikson. Probably not that unusual, given all the Nordic-heritage folks in Ballard. :)

Here's our proof that we made it to the end of the trail ... 

FIELD REPORT:  I had a number of updates from the MPA field trippers today. 

It looks like Annabelle got some water time in. I'm glad she's wearing a life vest, but I'm not sure what's on her head. ;)

And here's CJ's breakfast. Peanut butter and Fritos on a bagel.  That's why people go camping, right? To eat stuff you can't eat at home? ;)

Our squad was in charge of dinner tonight, too. Even though I wasn't there, I say 'our' because I planned the menu and did the shopping.  On the menu were delectable riblets in a special sauce ... 

as well as a side of red potatoes and green beans in a Greek feta dressing.       

Via text, Christian reports it was "a phenomenal success" - no easy feat, cooking for 30 or so in camp!

TO THE MOON: On this day, 45 years ago, Apollo 11 launched on a mission like no other. ...

Below is the scene at the Launch Control Center in Firing Room 1, where NASA and contractor managers and engineers monitor computer consoles, ensuring all is ready for liftoff of Apollo 11. 

You can listen in on a Mission Control audio clip here;
https://history.nasa.gov/ap11fj/audio/t-0010100.mp3

July 16, 1969, was a turning point for this nation - and the world. It was the day the 363-foot tall Saturn V rocket rose from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, at Kennedy Space Center, 

On board were Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, command module pilot; and Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot. What those astronauts and their massive support team would accomplish in the next few days would become legendary for all humankind.