Sunday, Sept 30 I took some more lovely pictures from our pasture tonight of the smoke and colored sunset and two contrails of jets headed somewhere. One was to Seattle. Don’t know the other’s destination, but it was in the opposite direction. The smoke was so bad today that I had to wear my mask while going to town, and once there to get into the building from down the block. I am still going through my hay project work. I went in today and met for 2.5 hrs with my co-author in his office. We worked through the text and PowerPoint together, eliminating many words, to make the presentation about 18 minutes. He is working on the paper part and I’m working on the visuals. It’s going to be fine. We leave Wednesday afternoon about 3:30, for Olympia, WA. We have to get through the pass before they close down I-90 for an hour or more, for blasting near Keechelus Lake. There is also the opening plenary session on Sustainability of the South Sound at 7:00 we hope to make.
Monday, Oct 1 John and I left at 9:30 and went by way of one of the hay processor’s barns and took a photo of the large Japanese writing on the I-90 side of one of the storage facilities (we needed it to add to our PowerPoint presentation). It was not easily obtainable except from I-90, just east of the Kittitas ramps. The next exit is Vantage, 30 miles away. John and I were on our way to Moses Lake, WA about 1.5 hours away, to meet for lunch and a visit with our friends, the Joyals, from graduate school days (early 1970s). [Back in 1974, they helped us relocate using a large moving van pulling a car, and our loaded station wagon with dog (and their Black Lab) and cats, from Iowa to our new home in Troy, ID.] They now live in Marquette – upstate Michigan, but come back every year to visit relatives in Spokane, WA and Moscow, ID. We always meet half way at Michael’s on the Lake, a neat place with good food and views. Today, the Joyals had a pulled pork sandwich, John had a Texan burger with pulled pork, and all three of them had a pear/walnut/cranberry/cherry tomato and greens salad. I had a Cobb Salad with Romaine lettuce, which it turns out has more Vit K than I should have. Still, I enjoyed it and the in-kitchen-made rolls that went along with it. The four of us shared one piece of cheese cake with whipped cream and strawberries. The meal was filling and delicious, and cost us $22.25/ person. Still the 2+ hours together was super. We only get to see them once a year. I treated us with my award from the raffle associated with my donation to the American Brittany Club 2013 Specialty Show. The debit gift card I won is worth $250.
~~~~ On our way home, we drove through the alfalfa fields (pivot irrigation) in the Columbia Basin irrigated region. Tree crops are being expanded to the west of our path.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Basin_Project
Airplane view here:
This is from the NE looking SW over the town of Quincy. The town and irrigated areas show in the upper-left part. The big labeled buildings in the foreground are data centers – here because of cheap Columbia River electricity and favorable local tax incentives. Sabey is a developer and operator of multi-tenant data centers.
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/05/04/sabey-breaks-ground-on-huge-quincy-project/
~~~~~ The winds picked up in the Kittitas valley, right before we arrived home. As we topped the ridge and looked westward, we saw large smoke plumes north of our house over the Table Mountain area. As we drove toward home, I had John stop for me to take a picture of a huge updraft cloud that appeared as we watched. He stopped for me to take 3 pictures outside the car, under the wires, but not being able to see my screen well for composure, only one came out, yet quite well. I will eventually put it on my slowly evolving web page. Meanwhile, here is a link from early on:
http://www.kimatv.com/news/local/169912656.html
Tuesday, Oct 2 now this morning, after the wind blew all night, around us the air is much cleaner. Still a little hanging in the low spots. The fire activity is “way down” to nothing new in the past 12 hours, and everything most recent back to from 12 to 24 hrs. It must be burning itself out in the enclosed perimeter they have been trying so hard to create and contain. Now today I have my work cut out to get ready for the trip’s leaving tomorrow. I did fill my car with gas ( only took 10 gallons). But, it cost me $4.07/gallon for middle grade. And I took it by Les Schwab for them to check the tires pressures. I realized how dirty the windows inside and outside were so, unfortunately I hadn’t driven it through a car wash, so, at home, with a spray bottle, paper towels, and my energy – I cleaned. Also needed to discard a build-up of stuff in the back seat and trunk. Good thing because I found a couple of missing items I needed to deal with! Went by the bank for some cash, and to get my meds refill and sodas for John. I still need to read through the paper and presentation comparison once again. John is out moving gravel and I have two photos for him to change the contrast on and make smaller. These are from John B whose camera needs adjustment on color balance, as does one of mine.
Wednesday, Oct 3 We did get a delivery of hay this morning for the year, plus extra – too much is way better than too little. John moved out the “loose” unstable bales from the new metal building so all the new hay could be stacked there. It is on one side alongside our travel trailer.
I left this afternoon to pick up John Bowen (my co-author) for our trip to Olympia. We made the trip in just under 3 hours, in time to get him checked into his motel and for us to proceed to the convention motel where the opening session was and where I was staying. Sadly the parking lot was full, so we found a place on the street (parking metered). We went to the opening reception expecting there to be food (as there normally is), but it went long — with no food. John and I were starved, so he walked out around the block and found some cranberry/orange muffins ($$) and chips which he shared with me. I was grateful.
However, I do want to review positively the several speakers and give this link to one of them, who is a columnist for The Olympian news. Here is is wonderfully geographic description of his talk and his connections to Geography. I sent a nice comment to the online version to commend him on his advertisement of our discipline. He is a great spokesman. Here is the link for your pleasure:
http://www.theolympian.com/2012/10/05/2275759/soundings-look-near-home-or-in.html#storylink=cpy
Thursday, Oct 4 On our drive over the afternoon before, John B. had read the text and we altered and eliminated a few words and one slide, to shorten the time of the presentation. We were trying not to exceed 18 minutes with 2 minutes for questions. As it turned out we were right on, and John did a fine job of presenting it in 18:45 minutes. We had time for 2 questions, and had nice feedback from the audience throughout the conference, but I’m ahead of the story for the Friday presentation.
Actually, last night my first roommate came in after I was in bed, and our other roommate was not to arrive until the next evening. She is a UC Davis student, non-traditional student, working on her Ph.D. She has a large family (6 children). She was arriving to receive a travel grant from the APCG at a luncheon on Saturday where she was to give a 3-minute description of her research (on suburban neighborhoods). We visited last evening and then went to breakfast (huge continental one provided free by the motel (Phoenix Inn Suites). They had cereal, fruit, cottage cheese, eggs, sausage, potatoes, waffles, and oatmeal from which to choose. Drinks were available (4 juices, including orange), coffee or hot chocolate. That was a real treat to start a long day, especially without a decent dinner the night before. From the motel entrance, we got into a van with 8 people, plus our driver, the conference chair, Martha Henderson. I sat in the front seat with her, so I had an ideal spot to hear the commentary, see, and take pictures. John B. was along on the trip, but got a back seat, too much road noise, and a woman sitting next to him talking on her cell phone. We went through some small towns depressed from the changed economy from timber and railroads. Some of the old factory housing was still evident, along with old boarding houses. We took back roads through the towns of Elma, Satsop, rural & agricultural areas (including flower bulb growing) around the Wynooche valley bottoms, through the towns of Montesano, Aberdeen, on our way through Hoquiam to Grays Harbor, to the Port there.
http://www.portofgraysharbor.com/
Opening page includes a slide show.
We got a fantastic tour of the port. We started in the commissioner’s boardroom, with an excellent PowerPoint introduction to the facility by the public relations person, Kayla Dunlap, and by Leonard Barnes, Deputy Executive Director of the Port. He was quite knowledgeable on the history of the port’s recent development for international trade, and willing to share many inside stories of the recent changes and growth. The port specifically decided against being a container shipment port (with Tacoma and Seattle so close by), plus the large investment required in overhead cranes for moving containers around. They were a timber port from the past, and now still export logs and bulk chips
http://www.portofgraysharbor.com/about/history/index.php
. . . but have added 6 rail lines into the port that bring automobiles from the East and soybeans from the Midwest, barley is delivered to the port as well as a few other grains. These come into the port on unit trains (up to 110 cars).
http://www.trainweb.org/ttos-pnw/pictures/grain2.jpg
There are fewer units on the car delivery trains. Huge grain elevators are present for the storage of grains. Also at the port are large tanks for liquid bulk. It is a thriving port in recent years. We were taken on a tour in our van, with Kayla sitting behind me in the front of the van. We were allowed to take photos throughout the port. Another of their exports is large fancy cars such as Jeeps that look like hummers, and they are a major Chrysler exporter. In addition, they export large mechanical equipment (called OHOW=Over High Over Wide) including things such as construction earthmovers, Caterpillars, Hyster trucks, and so on. They have rail loops to and through their terminals and storage facilities. They are in charge of the Bowerman Airport, (a service), not a moneymaking entity, but a 5000′ runway to accommodate jets, as well as having a number of other properties.
Inside the headquarters are fascinating historical photographs. In 2011, they celebrated their century of existence and service. Anyone with an interest in transportation would benefit from a tour of the port properties and facility. From Port Headquarters we drove west to the Gray’s Harbor Wildlife Refuge at the end of a long peninsula. A long hike was required to get to the boardwalk for great views. I gave my camera to John Bowen, and he took pictures for me. Elaine Lycan and I were not up to the 2 mile walk and we went across the street instead to Lana’s Hangar Cafe for a milk shake (50s style). It was a great atmosphere and there was some nice food being served. They are known for their hamburgers and fries. We had already had our box lunch at the Port, so we only had the dessert. Thankfully, we chose a small one. If you are in the area, looking for a unique place to eat, check it out. From there we returned to the Port and visited a craft spirits distillery, that specializes in mead (honey wine) distilled to honey vodka. They also made a whiskey. It is called the Wishkah River Distillery and the owner provided a tour of the process, a tasting, sale of their products and associated items, such as 3 sizes of tiny aging barrels; again, it is worth a stop if you like that kind of thing. It was quite interesting. Another geographer from my past was on that trip, Gundars Rudzitis, from the University of Idaho. He will be retiring this December, at 70. He actually bought some of their products, as did another couple of folks from Oregon.
http://wishkahriver.com/ContactWishkah.html
From that trip, we returned to the Phoenix Inn a little after 5:00 p.m. and there was a dinner (no host) at the Mercato, an Italian “Ristorante” up the street 3.5 blocks. I decided to drive my car. I knew I would have trouble parking when I returned, but I didn’t have to worry because the hotel pays for parking on the meter adjacent to the hotel block. Problem with the parking from last night was I had to move the car at noon, and I would have been on the road. I was fortunate to find a spot when I left the evening session slightly early. Sadly, however, I missed seeing a fellow whom John and I had known from the Univ. of Cincinnati graduate program in the mid-1960s). Okay, back to Thursday night’s dinner. It was held at http://www.mercatoristorante.com/mercato-ristorante.html across from the Farmer’s Market. I drove myself there. On my way into the restaurant (pictured on their web page), I passed by the cooks. I stopped and asked one for his recommendation. He suggested Wild Mushroom Risotto, which I actually ordered. I found a large group of geographers in a back room, and it was extremely noisy, so much so you could only hear the person to your left and right, and if you leaned forward and shouted, you could talk to the person across the table. I was at a high powered (geographers) table, sitting with Alex Murphy from Eugene, past President of the AAG (Association of American Geographers) to my left, to my right was Eric Sheppard, current AAG President, across from me was Doug Richardson, the Executive Director of the AAG, and Martha Henderson, President of the APCG (Association of Pacific Coast Geographers) and head of this regional conference meeting. She also led the field trip described above.
Back to my recommended and chosen meal. It was Risotto (rice cooked in broth to a creamy consistency), with wild mushrooms, lettuce, and a hard cheese like Gouda, only another name, five letters long, starting with G. Possibly, it had onion grated and cooked with the mixture. It was scrumptious. Cost me $15, considerably less than other meals around me, some of which were ordered with salads, at an additional price. I had water to drink and several people ordered a glass of wine, followed by Doug ordering a bottle ($42) of Cabernet Sauvignon (2008) from Sovereign Cellars (Olympia) made from grapes grown in the central part of the state (closer to us); their grapes are sourced from vineyards in the Red Mountain, Columbia Valley (AVA) and Horse Heaven Hills. Sovereign brings the fruit over and processes it in its winery near Steamboat Island in Olympia. I had a small taste of it. On my way out, I was followed by an older couple, the man of which (Myron Paine) is in his late 70s and a retired but still active geographer. They asked me if I was walking back to the hotel and wanted to walk with them. I thanked them and said I had my car and would be happy to give them a ride. They took me up on it, and gave me his cards. He is working on a project, and has a web page in the Frozen Trail for Merica. He lives in Martinez, CA and writes on Lenape Epic topics. He gives presentations from 10 minutes to 2 hour seminars on topics including The Lenape Epic, Frozen Trail to Merica, Maalan Aarum Saga, and How Christianity Came to America. Here is his fascinating and informative research web site:
I visited with them again at the evening reception Friday night. Take a peek at the website above. It is quite educational with research and historical thoughts of migrations into North America from the Norse. His hypothesis: During the Little Ice Age ancestors of the Lenape-speaking people walked, en masse, on the ice from Norse Greenland to Merica. Check it out.
When I got back to my room, I saw Susan Digby for the first time this trip, as she was one of our other roommates. She is currently the president of the Association of Washington Geographers, of which I have been a member for many years, and was Treasurer for a dozen years at least. I have been a member since arriving to WA in 1988.
Friday, Oct 5 Started off early with getting ready to leave for a parking spot at the LOTT center (part of the water treatment facility for Olympia), within a half block of the Children’s Museum, where our talk was scheduled for the first thing and session of the day, starting at 10:00. I was there by 9:30 to be sure I could find my way in and get a good seat on the front row, to support John B’s presentation of our investigation. When I arrived I could not find an entrance in, and there were no signs. I saw a security guard so I yelled at him asking how to get into the building. He said, “Oh, you can’t; it’s under construction and no one is allowed.” I was fretting when the chair of my session and his student arrived. I explained and we went around the construction fence toward the back of the building. We found an entrance and suggested to the people inside that they post a sign out where we had been stymied. Then they showed us to the elevator and to the room. There was not a laptop there (and there was supposed to be). John and I both had ours along but it seemed appropriate to have them locate one. We visited while waiting for the laptop. Turns out these folks were from Alabama (the Univ. of Northern Alabama). I had been a student (undergrad) of an instructor of Climatology there, Frank Himmler in 1964, who had transferred to Alabama after I left Georgia State University. I found out he died of cancer about 7 years ago. Within minutes, the laptop arrived and we began setting up. The session was to start at 10:00 and our paper was not until 11:00. Three presentations were ahead of ours. We had a good turnout of folks for our session, filling the small room, so a way in had been found. From there we went to lunch. I introduced Susan Digby to John Bowen, we went to my car, and I drove us to the port of Olympia, where Susan had seen an ocean-going vessel earlier in the morning unloading some sort of white-wrapped bulk product. By the time we arrived, the longshoremen (dock workers) had broken for lunch. We climbed a viewing tower for a better view of the port. I told Susan and John I could make it slowly, but I managed to make it up not very far behind them, and I think it was 12 short squared circular stairs. I counted them because I knew John H. would not believe I ascended them. I should have taken a picture of it, and I did not. We realized we were not going to see anything, so we walked over to the farmer’s market and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant. I had a burrito, but found out from a friend later I should have walked farther, had fish and chips, or a clam chowder. Oh, well what I had was good and we found a place in the shade to sit and eat. On the way back to my car I saw the unloading of the ship but it was too far away to get a good picture. I surely wonder what those things were. The two geographers decided to walk back (yes, I offered to take them), but I decided to stop by the hotel and get rid of my laptop and heavy bag. I lucked out to find two parking spaces only, in the Phoenix lot, but as I found out later, I had parked in a disastrous position to be able to access the driver’s side of my car, to return to the paper sessions that started at 1:00. Jen Lipton, my colleague from CWU was the session chair, and she had a paper at the end of her session. I planned so that I would get there in time to hear her presentation. Sadly, one of her presenters did not make it and did not notify anyone of his absence. Normally, when that occurs, a session chair normally leaves the space open, and waits to keep it on schedule. The audience convinced her to go ahead and present her talk and not to wait. That meant I arrived for the last 5 minutes of her presentation. Actually, I was later than intended because of not having access to my car. Remember the comment above about the two parking spaces? A VERY large truck had pulled into the second (and last spot) next to me. I was evenly within my parking spot. His truck was only five inches from my driver’s door. I tried opening the door to squeeze in, but there was absolutely no way. I went around to the passenger side, but it was a chore for me to figure how to get my body in putting my left leg across the large console between the two front bucket seats. I hit my head on the mirror and had to push it out of the way, but still there was little room to get leverage and my strength and muscles still are not 100%. I managed, but it took awhile. I still got there in time for Jen’s paper, had the session been on schedule. I was very disappointed to miss her paper, but at least I got to say hi. She had just driven over in the morning with her family and was returning after that session. From there I went to a 3 o’clock session of papers, after having a visit outside the building with Gundars (mentioned above). We had not had an opportunity to visit during the field trip. This session was quite interesting because I got to see more geographers from earlier days. The first paper in the session was by a former undergraduate from Idaho (after I left there), who now is working on her Ph.D. in a German University. I had met her at last night’s dinner. I was sitting next to Carl Johannesson, who is now 84 and going strong. Jim Allen was the session chair. After that we went to the Boardroom of the Lott building for an afternoon Presidential Plenary session with Eric Sheppard talking on a Globalization and Urbanization topic. He had some interesting thoughts and very nice photographs. The screen in this room was clearly the best of any of the four rooms used for APCG presentations. Following that was a reception (WITH FOOD) and a poster session (where I was able to visit with a student, Markus Chisholm, who was my undergraduate student at CWU in several classes about 2006 or so. He has since entered the graduate program at CWU (Resource Management) and was presenting a poster on his research in Alaska, with a very interesting situation near the permafrost adjacent to an island whose subsistence depends on fishing (whaling) and hunting Caribou. I also had nice visits with other geographers in my past: William Bowen and his wife Marilyn, Gina Bloodworth (now in Maryland, but here early in the 2000s at CWU) and Naomi Peterson (still at CWU), the Paine couple I met the night before after the Italian dinner, and John Menary who I had had several instances to visit with during the conference. John was hired by John Hultquist in 1980 when we were at Idaho and John was acting chair for a year and a half. John M. lived in our living room for his first 4 months in Idaho. It was great seeing him again after all these years. We have kept in touch via email and only occasionally seen each other through the years at geography conferences. He has lived most of the time after leaving Idaho in California, teaching geography.
Saturday, Oct 6 Interesting last several nights of interrupted sleep, so awoke very tired. However, I got packed and loaded much of my stuff into my car, ate breakfast — this time I made my own waffle with a fancy machine a young man had to show me how to use (How times have changed!), and I made it down to the session starting at 10:00 that John Bowen was a panelist for and Susan Digby had organized. After that we went back to the Phoenix Inn for a special luncheon (with another boxed lunch, a rather full one: large wheat bread sandwich with turkey, cheese, red onions, tomatoes, lettuce; an apple, a pasta salad, and two little pieces of a brownie and of an apple cake). It was accompanying a meeting of several folks from the AWG (Association of WA Geographers) and served as our “smaller” fall meeting for the organization. The spring larger one will be held at CWU in May, 2013, and John Bowen is the local chief in charge. When I was at CWU, I hosted the meetings twice. Members there, many of them as panelists for the afternoon session at the APCG, included Rich Tebbetts, Dave Jeschke, I, Susan Digby, and her panelists: George Walker, Craig ZumBrunnen, Stacy Warren, John Bowen, Martha Henderson, and Patrick Buckley. It was a fruitful meeting. John and I headed back to Ellensburg, after picking up his luggage from his motel. As we came back into the Kittitas Valley, we saw a bunch of smoke still rising from the Table Mountain area. John Hultquist was off just west of the Stevens Pass area again volunteering trail work for the WTA. I will let him explain a little about the area near the old railroad west of Stevens Pass where two trestles crossed Martin Creek, and where they have been trying to revive history with a dedicated trail through the area. I hope he will add something here:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sure: A new trail is being built in the once-shadow of the Great Northern Pacific’s first route across the Cascades. The train is referred to as the Iron Goat. First, this word will come up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wye_(rail)
Then go here:
http://www.scn.org/sbtp/swbks-gn.html
Helps to see the view; here’s the location of Scenic
(lowest white dot on the map or diagram 2 at the above link.
47.711342, -121.161073
Martin Creek Trailhead is here:
47.729569, -121.207043
We cleared forest trees and litter near the tunnel portals on the left side of this map.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
He was gone from our house for 12 hours, and we arrived home within minutes of one another. The animals were quite ecstatic to see us. The smoke was bad through the night and into the day. The visibility reached its worst just before 10:00 a.m. when it was down to 3 miles. Finally about 2:00 it cleared up a little (to 10 miles).
Guess I should halt this treatise and have John post it late on our Sunday. It is much later in the East U.S. where several of our regular readers are. The temperatures have finally started to decrease, so we need to drain the water from the travel trailer and winterize it. John bought anti-freeze type stuff while I was out of town, but was waiting for my assistance with the project. I imagine now it won’t happen until tomorrow some time.
Hope your week was a good one. Ours was certainly a busy one.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan