Over the winter, a big tree blew down at Madison Park beach.
Liya shows Bree how to climb up into the big magnolia tree in our front yard — and also how to carefully lower herself down from the lowest branch. Bree and Liya spend a lot of time going up and down the tree. The tree’s bark is a bit dusty, and when one’s climbing up the tree, the dust gets in one’s eyes. Bree doesn’t like this, so she gets swimming goggles and wears those while climbing. She looks like a tree-climbing superhero.
Jan, Liya, and Bree talk a walk on the world’s newest, longest floating bridge: the 520 bridge across Lake Washington. It runs just north of our neighborhood. Afterwards, we ride the new light rail segment from the university to Capitol Hill to have lunch at the girls’ favorite ramen shop.
Liya notices the hair on Jan’s arms and legs, and says he is “hairy”. He points out that she has much, much more hair (on her head) than he does. She responds by creating this quick family poll.
The girls’ school hosts a new event: an afternoon school-wide art show. Bree shows off an “automata” diorama she made with parts that move.
One of Liya’s pieces in the art show is from a unit they did in which each student integrated a photo of their own face into an image of an old oil painting.
Self-portrait
Anya leaves on her first solo trip ever, to D.C. to visit Angela’s parents for Spring Break. When we spent Spring Break in D.C. last year, Anya said she wanted to come back again, so E-moon invited Anya to spend this week there.
Jan and Liya head out on a four-day father/daughter trip. The first part is a one-night backpacking trip up Palouse Canyon in Eastern Washington. Jan hiked the canyon last year, and liked it so much he wanted to do it again.
Palouse Canyon has a number of rock overhangs that served as shelters for Native Americans. The mouth of this shelter is clogged with lush green plants. In March, Jan took a short class on foraging for wild edible plants, and is delighted to be able to identify the plants here as an edible green called miner’s lettuce. It tastes great! Liya and Jan harvest a bunch to make a salad for dinner.
It looks like some wildfires swept through the canyon last summer (after Jan’s hike in March). A number of vegetated areas that had previously been very difficult to pass through are now swept clean, with spots of black earth being covered by new growth. This utility pole in the middle of nowhere was burned out, and is now hanging by the wires it’s meant to support.
Palouse Falls, as seen from the overlook at Palouse Falls State Park. The 200’ falls themselves are pretty impressive, as is the basalt basin and the rainbow that fills it. But perhaps more impressive are the three mountain goats we see picking their way across a narrow, steep slope on the opposite cliff (circled in red).
The state park where we’re camping for the night has a water tap that’s actually running (last year it was shut off), so it turns out that Jan needn’t have lugged 5 extra pounds of water up from the river for the last few hours. Anyway, at least we have plentiful water with which to wash our dusty feet.
Backpacking rarity: a fine salad of miner’s lettuce for dinner!
Jan and Liya wake up to early morning rain on their tent. But the rain stops during breakfast, and the sun peeks out a bit.
Liya hikes with her small raccoon, Timmy, on her backpack.
Crossing over railroad tracks on the way back down the canyon.
Negotiating a small scramble down a rock face.
Jan and Liya finish the hike about an hour later, and then drive down the scenic Columbia River Gorge to Portland, OR. They meet up with Jan’s sister Skye, her husband Jared, and son Leif for dinner. At 2 years old, Leif has somehow managed to get even more adorable.
Sunbreak
Breakfast in Portland at Blue Star Donuts. We try a flight of three donuts, and they’re delicious.
The Portland Japanese Garden
We celebrate our 18th anniversary with a long weekend on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. Lyn watches the girls for the whole weekend so we have our longest trip yet on our own. We drive up to Vancouver, and take a ferry across to Victoria, BC. We have enough time there to through the Royal BC Museum, including an interesting First Nations exhibit, then drive to Sidney. While waiting for another ferry, we have a great meal at a Swiss restaurant decorated with cowbells. We finally catch the smallish ferry to Salt Spring Island, and drive across the island to a small B&B called Stonehouse.
After a nice breakfast at the B&B, we drive the short distance into Ganges Harbor and explore the Saturday market. There’s a small outfit that offers kayak tours of the harbor islands, so we sign up for a 2-hour paddle around Goat Island. At one point, four seals pop up their heads to watch our group go by. In the evening, we have dinner at a tiny, but very good, restaurant called House Piccolo.
We do a short hike up Mt. Erskine. The forest is (locally) famous for its series of “fairy doors”: teeny wooden doors affixed to rocks. We manage to find three of them. It’s drizzling when we finally get the summit, but the view of the surrounding islands is still beautiful. We have another nice dinner in the evening at a place called Hastings House.
Happy 18th Anniversary!
Anya loves seasoned potato chips, but doesn’t like to get the seasoning on her fingertips. Her preferred solution is to eat potato chips out of a bowl with chopsticks. When eating directly out of a large bag, she’ll use long cooking chopsticks.
It’s Spring Concert night for the girls’ school — Anya’s last! The evening starts off with Anya and her 8th grade class joining their kindergarten buddies on stage to sing Paul McCartney’s “New”. The rest of the program proceeds from kindergarten up through 8th grade. Bree’s 2nd grade class sings “Try Everything” from movie “Zootopia”. Anya’s class finishes the evening with, of all things, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”. But the 7th grade upstages the other classes with the rap, “Alexander Hamilton”, the opening number from the musical, “Hamilton”. They’ve all sung and listened to the song so many times, they know it cold.
Since Jan works from home, he’s occasionally interrupted by door-to-door solicitors seeking donations, petition signatures, etc. So he’s not excited to see two people walking up to the door in the middle of the afternoon. It turns out to be our friend Dan, a lawyer who recently began running a campaign for the state legislature, and his campaign manager. We happen to live in the district Dan’s wants to represent, so he’s canvassing the neighborhood!