5/31, Saturday evening. Drove south to Seattle, stopped by Whatcom Falls Park. Not bad for a city park.
The waterfall is small due to low snow fall this spring.
A very nice stone bridge.
A hatchery with no water, no fish.
Not busy, as it was quite late in the day: 8:30pm.
5/26, Memorial day. A rare chance to be in town, so I went to the annual NW Folklife Festival.
It's always fun. See this paper creature walking around.
So many music/dances of different ethnic group, many participatory: dances and drums.
Very colorful costumes, or traditional dresses.
In this Rhythm Tent, you can pick whatever percussion instrument and drum with the group.
I went to a "workshop" of how to clap Rhythm Bones.
I missed the singing-along of Mozart's Requiem.
My favorite is The Spectacles - a 3 lady singing group, all wear glasses.
Their songs are so fun, and the arrangement of these 3 difference voices are clever.
It was a complete happy accident when I walked into their booth. Highly recommend.
Vendors with all sorts of food, and arts and trinkets, beer garden. I like these 2 cartoon sellers, side by side.
And this one sells bags made of films.
5/24. Saturday.
First stop in Federal Way, Rhododendron Garden ($12).
Now is a good time to see rhododendrons in flower.
This garden has many rhodies, most from Asia. Some exotic flowers like the large blue poppy.
A greenhouse with some rhodies inside, some don't resemble the Pacific pink ones at all. Of course, in all color.
A small pond, an area designed around tree stumps.
Next door is the Bonsai Museum. Nice to walk through.
Not only the miniature plants are cool to look at, many containers are interesting.
Some of these small trees are hundreds of years old.
Each has a sign indicating species, age, from which year that plant is "in training":)
There's also a small exhibition of Dave Creek's mini treehouses.
So much detail. Must took ages to make.
Outside is the former Weyerhaeuser headquarter. Very large with a small lake. Quite handsome.
Now this Woodridge Corp Park is sitting empty. Yellow ribbon tied here and there. We were not the only people who walked around here today.
Now driving up to Olympics.
Hiked up Mt Walker.
May-June is a good time to hike low elevation of Olympics hills because of the wild rhododendrons
Should be good for another 2 weeks.
Our native rhododendron is large and pink.
Nice well-maintained trail.
You can, of course, drive to the summit. So, it's busy.
A small opening gives 180° view.
A display showing the peaks to the north.
Quite nice today.
The icing on the cake is fairy-slippers about 2/3 way up. My first this season.
Pushed the bike over the gate. Biked on the paved road until this point. A white bike lied on the ground.
This road was broken for many years.
Water is too high to wave through.
To the left (east), find a narrow trail, push the bike up and down over roots and rocks, a little log bridge.
A van drove here, from it, spewed out 5 day hikers.
One of them took the bike, they disappeared into the trail. We followed them.
You can see the last guy pushing the white bike. My ebike is so heavy, this section is not easy.
Back on the pavement, the ride is easy. With the road closure, even on this long weekend, it's quiet and pleasant.
In lieu of the dam, now a lookout is built where the spillway dam was bombed: Gline Canyon Overlook.
Great view. We met a few day hikers who walked here and back.
From here on, the road goes up. Thanks to my ebike, I had no problem. Peddling up on a normal bike is a lot of work.
It's still about 6 miles to the road's end.
The former TH is at 1025'. ~10 miles from the car.
Many bikes are locked here and there.
I took this chain, and wrapped our bikes together with one U-lock.
The next 2.4 miles are on foot. However, the trail looks like abandoned road, broken here and there.
Narrow at some points. Saw one bike all the way at one of the pools.
Cross this nice bridge over Boulder Creek. A short easy scramble down to the creek for a cold rinse or soak.
A campground is nearby.
It started to smell like sulfur.
Soon one small and shallow pond.
Then, a nice looking pond. Since it's right by the trail, no one in it.
The 2nd nice pool is slightly higher, occupied.
We claimed the next pond.
Nice hot water. Any movement would stir up the soot.
The final pool looks nicest. A trek to get there. A naked guy claimed this pool, but a young couple barged in.
Even though tomorrow is still a holiday, ferry is already busy. Not too bad.
On the way to Kingston ferry, Google would route you around the "traffic". Of course, that's the wait line for the ferry. The cops would not let you merge in, and will direct you back to the end of the queue.
Took the Bainbridge ferry back. Sunset is a bit too cloudy.
5/23, Friday. SAAM Open House.
I came to see Ai Weiwei's large lego work: water-lily.
Cannot imagine how many little lego pieces are there, the amount of effort.
The room is too small to display it. Took an entire wall.
I joined the last few minutes of the guided tour of the temporary exhibition:
Suchitra Mattai - She Walked in Reverse. A Guyana American artist born with Indian heritage,
Suchitra Mattai takes worn fabric and repurpose them into colorful objects, often very large.
5/21, another excellent UW Public Lecture.
Kenya Court of Appeal judge Joel Ngugi speaks about political movement, alternative judiciary system, having hope, making small efforts collectively. Justice is never done, it's always an on-going effort.
He talks slowly and very deliberately, almost like everything he says may be used in court as an evidence.
Definitely brings hope.
This comparison of continental European law and US law is interesting.
First stop, a buckwheat garden south of Ellensberg on a rocky wind-swept ridge. We came here almost every May. This year maybe 1-2 weeks too early. Bitterroots were still in buds. Saw daggerpot in seeds.
A bit windy today.
2nd stop, Joe Watt Canyon, closed from early Dec to May 1st for elk wintering, part of WA state wildlife management areas.
This is my first time here. Very heavy gate with a chained lock.
Large parking lot outside.
Unlock the gate to enter, and lock behind you.
It's a large area. Typical balsamroot, lupine and lomatium. Saw some bones. Saw a small snake. Didn't see any elk.
Did a small loop. The north part, along Hutchins road, is better, has view of the Teanaway mountains.
Cross the small Rattlesnake Canyon. Link to various dirt trails, out on Joe Watt Trail.
The little blue "pond" on the map next to Joe Watt Trail is now just a grassy bowl. No water.
I did come across a small shallow and dirty pond (not on map). Probably will soon disappear.
Less flowers in the trees. More flowers out in the open.
There're gravel roads in the area. Probably hunters come and camp here.
3rd stop, Roslyn Urban Forest for chocolate lily, because of a recent trip report.
We started on Slickrock Trail, at the end of a street behind some houses. Elevation ~2400'.
It doesn't look like a TH, but marked as one on Gaia Map.
Interesting formation of rocks shortly after the start.
Then an area with prescribed burn, some piles of dead branches, some fresh cut here and there, indicating that someone has been working on these trails.
This section is quite boring.
Going up hill more or less directly, in trees. Some lupine, arnica.
At around 3200', we started to see chocolate lily.
They are so numerous. I've never seen or even dreamed of seeing this many chocolate lily.
However, because the flower is brown and small, if you don't pay attention, you'll miss them.
Now, count how many blooming lily you see in this photo.
We walked all the way up to the ridge, where a cell tower is. Elevation ~3500'.
Some peekaboo view of the Teanaway mountains.
Walk the road a bit west (not many lilies along the road).
Took a different trail down. Around 3200-3400, there are fields of lilies here and there, and some pockets none at all.
We didn't encounter a single person here. It's a treat.
By the time we returned to the car, it was already 6:50pm.
Going back to Seattle had no traffic.
The SLU Farmers' Market is going to be moved from north of Wholefoods to next to Amazon's HQ.
A preview is setup to showcase some of the vendors.
The fake pink cherry blossoms were setup in April for the spring.
5/16, Friday evening.
The main event of this year's Seattle Reads is Ada Limon herself.
I forgot to bring the book for her to sign.
As the 24th Poet Laureate of The United States, her signature project is called “You Are Here” and focuses on how poetry can help connect us to the natural world.
This book of poetry from 50 poets collected by Limon is this year's choice for Seattle Reads.
She talked about how the project came about, and in general.
She seems quite approachable and candid.
She read one poem about rain, which I really liked, but I forgot who's the author.
5/14 Wednesday.
Nucleate Seattle Demo Day showcased six Activator teams.
Winners are: FateShift (regenerate retina), BioLegacy (organ freeze for transport), Aulembic Theraputics (walker for patient with foot injury).
These startups are a lot more advanced than other pitch events I went to.
Each speaker had more time to present their work/progress.
Watch on Youtube.
This weekend 5/10-11, is the annual Seattle Art Book Fair at Washington Hall.
Vendor tables stacked side by side through two floors. This photo shows the 2nd+3rd floor.
A letter press to print on your tote bag or T-shirt.
On Saturday, you can print your own slogan starts with "Books ARE".
Many young creators, even students learning book binding. Zines, posters, anything printed.
Also service providers like open studio
I attended this talk by Carletta Carrington Wilson, Jane Carlin (Board of the Book Club of Washington and Puget Sound Book Artists), Jodee Fenton of Aubergine Atelier (chair of Northwest chapter of Guild of Book Workers), Bonnie Thompson Norman of The Windowpane Press, and Esther Ervin (a visual artist), ordered by seating in this photo (left to right).
I very much enjoyed the thought that went into each project. After the talk, we were able to flip through the books that they talked about, and ask questions in person. They are all very easy to talk to.
At 2:30pm, Taha Ebrahimi (author of Street Trees of Seattle) led a walking tour of the Cherry Hill neighborhood.
By the time I knew about this guided walk, the tickets were sold out.
So, I just went to the starting point and waited.
Not everyone showed up (as usual), so I got to go with the group.
Very much enjoyed her walk. She's loud and clear, very enthusiastic about trees and Seattle history.
She also made a zine of a map of our route!
We stopped at some very large trees (all non-native except for the maple): Black Locust (fix nitrogen), a male palm tree full of flowers, Lawson Cypress (thick bark, resistent to fire),
Western Red Cedar (not a cedar, funny looking seeds), Big Leave Maple, English Laurel, Horse Chestnut (the inside of the flowers turn from yellow to red after being pollinated), Incense Cedar (look at the young seed cones), Manna Ash in full bloom across the street from Hugo House, Golden Weeping Willow,
Some of these are no longer allowed to plant, need permit Street Trees.
We also walked by the People Wall of the former Black Panther HQ, the restaurant where Martin Luther King ate, and the very first first Judo Club in US.
Walking back to downtown along Boren Ave. Saw a row of pink flowered horse chestnut trees on University Ave. The inside is also yellow and red. What an amazing detail that I never noticed.