Angela invites Atsushi and Miho to her church, and since they’ve never been inside a church, they take her up on the offer. Angela leaves the house quite early on Sundays, so Jan drives them down to Buckley. As it turns out, Angela’s preaching on a passage from Genesis in which Abram/Abraham is walking for miles and camping with his family in tents. Angela makes some analogies to backpacking and thru-hiking, which is appropriate for our hiker guests.
After the service, Jan, Atsushi, and Miho have lunch at the nearby Main Street Bistro. Jan’s happy that, for a small-town restaurant, the menu isn’t exclusively grilled or deep-fried.
On the way back, Jan stops at Thomasson Family Farm in Enumclaw so that Atsushi and Miho can experience a corn maze. It’s pretty fun — long enough to be interesting, and short enough that they don’t overheat in the unseasonably warm October afternoon.
Jan takes Atsushi and Miho to Snoqualmie Falls. We’ve had a very dry summer, so the falls are smaller than usual but they’re still beautiful and never fail to inspire amazement. The three hike down to the observation deck at the bottom of the falls — a hike Jan hasn’t done in years — then have lunch at the Salish Lodge.
Bree is happy to be working on the Costuming team for her school’s upcoming production of the play, Clue.
Today she and the team run through the play’s characters and considering what sort of costume they’d need. They arrive at the character of Yvette, described as “a sexy French maid”. The girls consider the question: “How ‘sexy’ can Yvette possibly be in a production at a Catholic girls’ high school?”
Angela has this coming Sunday off! We make a last-minute decision to do actually something fun for the weekend, so throw together a trip to Langley on Whidbey Island. We have a short, pleasant ferry ride to the island, and check into a hotel apartment at the edge of Langley overlooking the water. Jan had trouble finding reservations for dinner, but we decide to pop in to Savory, which doesn’t take reservations, to see if there’s any chance of getting a table. The wait isn’t too bad, and we end up sitting outside to a great meal.
When we wake up this morning, Jan and Bree can see some bunnies nibbling grass across the street. We see some more bunnies as we’re walking to breakfast at the hotel. After breakfast, Jan and Bree head out on bunny safari, finding bunnies all over Langley. Bree observes that the Langley bunnies come in many more varieties than the bunnies at home.
Jan and Angela stop by Langley Kitchen, the cafe started by Jim, who previously owned a cafe in Madison Park. Jim and the Langley Kitchen staff are extremely busy with weekend customers, but when he sees us, he comes over to say hello and chat for a bit. He said business is doing well. During the busy summer season, the other restaurants in town had staffing shortages, with the result that at times his cafe was the only place open for lunch.
We spend the morning reading in the hotel. Jan’s happy that the missing volume of a 9-volume manga series showed up just before we left home, so all three of us can happily binge-read those.
We drive up to Coupeville for a nice lunch at Gordon’s, then stop at the Kingfisher Bookstore because one can’t have enough books.
After lunch, we make the short drive from Coupeville to Ebey’s Landing to do a short hike. Angela’s foot is still healing, so she stays on the beach at the trailhead. Jan and Bree climb up the short trail that leads to the top of a bluff. This trail is actually part of a section of the Pacific Northwest Trail that Jan hiked last year. Back on that day, the weather had been stormy, but today the weather is extremely warm for mid-October.
We spend the morning in Langley, then make the ferry trip and drive back home.
We’ve had four straight months of warm, dry weather — and also weeks and weeks of forest fire smoke. Today we have the worst smoke yet.
Normally the view looking from Seattle’s Space Needle looks like this:
This afternoon the same view looks like this:
At one point in the day, Seattle has the worst air quality of any major city in the world. And the smoke is much, much worse in the small towns closer to the fires.
Rain returns to Seattle! It’s suddenly very cold and very wet — finally, typical weather for October. The Air Quality Index drops from 246 (Very Unhealthy) to 17 (Good).
Anya is having a busy week in Santiago, Chile. On Tuesday, the country marks the third anniversary of riots that centered around Plaza Baquedano. Stanford’s study abroad tells all the students in the Santiago program that all classes will be remote so they can stay home and avoid encountering any unrest. So, naturally, the students go out to Plaza Baquedano in search of unrest to observe. Some chaos ensues.
On Wednesday, some new friends help celebrate Anya’s 21st birthday.
On Friday, several of the people who attended the birthday party come down with covid. On Saturday, Anya comes down with covid too.
Jan flies to Arizona to meet up with Chris for a long-overdue brothers’ weekend. They try to get together every year, but the pandemic interrupted that tradition, so this is the first time they’re getting together in three years.
The plan is to meet in Phoenix and drive up to Sedona for a long weekend. Because they’re arriving in different terminals, they end up in different shuttles to the rental car office. At stop light, Jan’s shuttle pulls alongside another shuttle. Jan looks in to see Chris inside, and sends a text to say hello. Chris looks over his shoulder to see Jan in the adjacent shuttle. After the light changes, the two shuttles are heading for the same place, so there’s a bit of a race to see which brother gets there first.
It’s getting close to 8:00 pm by the time they hit the road, and they haven’t eaten dinner yet. The closest restaurant seems to be a place called Tratto. It does not appear promising from the outside: the neon’s off, and the restaurant sits across from what looks like an auto junkyard. There is, however, a valet waiting to park cars, which is promising. The restaurant turns out to be packed, but there is room at the bar. It’s a great meal.
Afterwards they make the two hour drive north to Sedona, where they check into an AirBnB not far from the shops and restaurants of the Uptown neighborhood.
Jan and Chris make the short walk into Sedona’s Uptown neighborhood for breakfast. After eating, they drive to the Brins Mesa Trailhead to do a modest loop hike up to Brins Mesa and back over Soldier Pass. The weather is sunny and mild, mid 60s, and perfect for walking. The surrounding red rock hills and rock formations are beautiful, and contrast nicely with the dark green pines that cover the ground.
The two take the recommended side trail to Soldier Pass Cave, where it’s possible to scramble up inside a rock cavern with interesting lighting. The area outside the cave is shaded and has a nice view, so they stop to have lunch before hiking the rest of the loop back to the car.
They eat at Saltrock Southwest Kitchen, which is fairly good. Chris is delighted to eat at restaurants better than those in his current home of Bend, Oregon.
Today’s outdoor activity in Sedona is an off-road bike ride. Chris has rented two hardtail gravel bikes and picked out a loop to ride. The loop includes two trails popular with off-road vehicle drivers: the Diamondback Gulch Trail and Outlaw Trail.
The Diamondback Gulch Trail starts out fine, but quickly becomes harder and harder: some hills with plenty of loose rock, or rock steps, or loose sand. Jan and Chris reach some parts where it’s necessary to walk the bikes. They eventually reach one arroyo that’s quite deep. It’s nothing short of amazing to see the off-road vehicles powering up it. It takes a while to hike the bikes up and out of the arroyo.
After completing the Diamondback Gulch Trail, they stop for lunch in a spot of shade, then continue on a dirt road to reach the Outlaw Trail. Since the ride is quite a bit more challenging than anticipated, Jan and Chris elect to cut the ride short and take a bail-out route along a short portion of the Outlaw Trail to reach a regular gravel road that leads back to the car.
After cleaning up and resting, it’s time for another nice dinner, this time at René.
For Jan and Chris’ final day in Sedona, they do a short bike ride from Oak Creek Village to the trailhead for the Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte Trail. They take the trail along the desert floor around Courthouse Butte (pictured), then reach a point where they can scramble up the sloping base of Bell Rock a bit. It’s another perfect day for a hike: warm but not hot. After the hike, it’s a short ride back to the village where they can return the rented bikes.
The final dinner in Sedona is at Cress, which turns out to be the best of the places they’ve tried.