Wallace Falls

Last weekend Cheryl, Shawn, Megan and I went to do a quick hike to Wallace Falls. I had never heard of it before, so we thought it would be a good place to head rather than doing one of our normal hikes (Mt. Si, Tiger Mt., Rattlesnake Ledge, etc...)

The hike started out fairly flat, and wound alongside a really scenic river. It then climbed up alongside Wallace Falls where multiple look-outs were available. We hiked up to the upper look-out, and then sat down for a glass of wine and some crackers before heading out.

The hike was not too strenuous (about the same as Rattlesnake Ledge), and had great views the whole way through, so if you get the opportunity to head out there it's worth the drive.

Otherwise the weekend was pretty chill. We helped Trang move into her new apartment up in Capitol Hill on Sunday, and after that I played volleyball in my Sunday league: We won all 6 games, and my shoulder stuck through the whole time.

On a separate note I just noticed that my Flickr account (where I normally post my photos) has exceeded it's maximum size. Apparently they only store the last 200 photos uploaded unless you buy a premium membership. So this time I put the pictures up on my Live Spaces account. Turns out blogger doesn't support photo upload from Windows Live Writer, so I'll have to link to my Spaces post.

Click here to see the photos.

Inspiration at the back of the pack

A couple of weeks ago I watched the Vancouver Sun Run. I've seen a lot of races, but I never stick around to watch the final "stragglers" come through. I now think that's a mistake. In fact, I think you can get more inspiration from the people at the end of the race than the people crossing the finish line first...

Here's why...

Pardon me while I generalize for a minute... In a race of over 54,000 people (as in this one) the first 5,400 (top 10%) are generally fit, in tact, relatively young, and driven people. Most are near the peak of their conditioning...  Their daily routine is likely comprised of running, biking, swimming, going to the gym, or some combination of those, and their food intake is likely comprised of vegetables, chicken, vitamins, non-fat dairy products, and perhaps tuna (or name your fish). They are fine tuned machines - all 5,400 of them.

Don't get me wrong, this is very commendable...

But it's also boring. The difference between a good and a bad day for most of these 5,400 people is a matter of seconds, maybe minutes if something goes horribly wrong. They have their target heart rate, their target finish time, their trainer and teams cheering them on, and at no point are they really in jeopardy of finishing the race.

At the end of the pack however, you will find a completely different scene. Here you will find people who are 80 or 90+ years old, some do not have full use of their limbs, some are carrying other people, pushing wheelchairs, barely able to walk, using canes, or other aids etc... Some probably had a harder time getting to the starting line than others had finishing the race. Just the fact that these folks came out while I lazily slept in was an inspiration. For some I could feel the pain in every step, and I'm sure many did not finish the race: The difference between a good day and a bad day is a lot more than a few minutes for them.

That said, they are out there, they broke from their daily routine to have fun, get some exercise, challenge themselves, and try their best to do what they can to cross that line, with a smile. They're getting out in front of a crowd that could just as easily ridicule them as cheer for them, but they definitely deserve those cheers.

They really made me want to jump into the run right then and there. When I'm out hiking, biking, or running they will be a part of my inspiration.

Yakima Valley trip Easter 2007: Day 4

Finally, the final day. To recap, you can check out Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

Day 4 began with a golf game.

Yakima has a couple golf courses. Instead of going to a fancy one like the Apple Tree Golf Club, we opted for a par 3 course which only cost $9 for a round of 9 holes. Shawn and Megan don't really play golf, so overall it was really good to get out on a shorter course that didn't have any water.

Here's Megan and Shawn with their rental sets:

The game didn't really get off to a good start. As we looked to start the round I couldn't help but notice the busy 4 lane road alongside the first hole. This, I assumed would be a bad thing since I hadn't swung a club in months. Even when I'm playing well I somehow manage to play most of the course from the wrong fairway anyhow.

On the other hand, the hole was a short par 3 easily reachable with a 9-iron. It's hard to really mess up a 9-iron (I had convinced myself), so I just decided to tee off, and hope for the best.

It was fairly apparent the best had not happened, when shortly after contact, the ball started floating left into heavy traffic. As the ball slowly drifted off the fairway, over the fence, and into oncoming traffic, I couldn't quite shake my visions of the worst case scenario. Luckily the ball bounced between multiple oncoming cars without hitting any of them. Un-luckily the ball bounced high and into a neighboring high school parking lot. It hit someone's car, and, as Albert King would say "if it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have no luck at all"...  Turns out the owner of the car was out on his smoke break - lucky me.

He picked up the golf ball, sat there for a couple of minutes until there was a break in the traffic, and then ran across the street. At that time I was trying to remember if I was liable for my bad shot, if the course was liable for their bad location, or if he was liable for bad parking (9-iron distance from a crappy 9 hole golf course is not a great place to park.)

Shawn was nice enough to take a photo of me walking over to chat with him:

I suppose I had the advantage of having a long metal golf club with me, but this guy was very level headed for a senior high school student. I was expecting a show of emotion, and immaturity. As it turns out his dad owned an auto-body shop in town, so he wasn't worried about getting the dent fixed at all. I suppose I was a bit lucky there - hit the car of the guy who's dad owns the town auto-body shop... He gave me back my ball, I apologized for my horrible golf game, and we went our separate ways.

Instead of teeing off again I treated the highway as a lateral hazard, and dropped the ball where my ball went over the fence. I feel pretty confident that was the best way to go.

Related to this, I didn't play the 9th hole which was 6-iron distance, and even closer to the highway. I just assumed I'd hit someone, so I took out my pitching wedge, and aimed for the far right side of the fairway. Turns out it was Megan's turn to hit her ball into oncoming traffic, and hers actually bounced in the middle of the road and landed on someone's roof with a very loud crash - nobody came out, but Megan showed no interest in retrieving her ball from the yard where it stood out like a sore thumb.

At the end of the round I was just happy nobody was hurt...

Anyhow, we had lunch at a french bistro, and then decided to pack it in for the weekend.

Here's the wine I brought back to Seattle:

On the way back we ran into a snowstorm - which we weren't at all expecting - about 40 miles from Snoqualmie Pass. Yakima was sunny, hot, and beautiful, but just as we got on I-90 we started seeing the storm clouds in the distance. We had blizzard like conditions for about 25 miles, and I was a bit worried we'd run into a bad situation in Snoqualmie Pass, but by the time we got there it had cleared up. I called Shawn, who was going back to Seattle through the South highway to warn him about the weather, but I couldn't get through to him. Turns out he ran into a massive snow storm, and had to turn back. He later saw a snow plow coming by, and turned around to follow it through the pass, and made it back in 5 hours (almost twice as long as Cheryl and I took on I-90).

Here's a shot of the weather before the blizzard:

Anyhow, we did make it back, made a great pasta dinner, and opened some of our newly acquired wine.

That's it for now, hope you get a chance to head out to Yakima sometime if you haven't already.

Yakima Valley trip Easter 2007: Day 3

So we had a solid first two days biking between wineries, but Sunday we decided to go hiking east of Yakima "to do something"... Of course we assumed if we started driving towards the mountain we'd at some point find something obviously interesting to do.

On our way East towards Rainier we saw a national park visitor center. Of course since it was Easter Sunday there was nobody there to give us an idea of a good hiking trail, or something else to do, so we read the pamphlets, and maps within the center to try and find a trail.

Outside the visitor center:

We didn't see much interesting, so we took a photograph of the topographic map on the outside of the building and decided to go check out Rimrock Lake. It looked like Pinegrass Ridge would have a decent view, so we decided we'd try and find it, and see what kind of trail would lead up to it...

Picture of the map we were using for a reference:

As it turns out, there was still snow at this elevation. Lots of snow... The parking lot was blocked by snow, so we knew we were likely going to get wet feet during this hike.

Shawn and myself starting off on the trail:

It turns out that after we reached the ridge we found out that there really wasn't a good view, so it wasn't really worth the hour of trudging through the snow to get there. Given it was Easter Sunday Cheryl decided to bring up a chocolate bunny for a post hike snack.

Shawn ready to pounce on the chocolate bunny:

Cheryl decided she wanted to leave a Happy Easter message to anyone that was as ridiculous as us. I don't think anyone else will see that message for some time given how remote and ridiculous the hike was, but you have to hand it to her for putting in the effort.

Cheryl's Happy Easter message:

After getting back down to the bottom of the trail both Shawn and Megan were trying to decide if they wanted to plow through back to Seattle, or spend the night back in Yakima. They were checking out the map to see how much distance they would still need to cover.

One the way back Shawn and Megan ran into a herd of elk...

And back at the hotel Cheryl and I opened a bottle of the Kiona Cab/Merlot we bought at the safeway (cheaper than they were selling at the winery). Cheryl wanted to try out her birthday present from Henry and Trang (a wine and cheese travel kit), so we bought some Gouda and crackers, and uncorked the wine. For $10 the Kiona Cab/Merlot blend was a steal. So nice.

Cheryl preparing the snack:

Turns out Shawn and Megan decided to come back to Yakima, so we had one more day to hang out with them. They helped us finish off the Kiona, and also brought along a bottle of their own - it was safeway's last Kiona Cab/Merlot unfortunately.

Anyhow, we were going to go out and watch 300 in Yakima, but I realized I had to patch 4 tires, so I wanted to do that before going to sleep. I found a few extra holes in my tires from the puncture vines, so I came close to depleting my tire patches.

One more post left for the weekend. Stay tuned...

Yakima Valley trip Easter 2007: Day 2

We started day 2 with our free continental breakfast - waffles, fruit loops, eggs, bagels etc... Good enough for me.

We drove down to the Red Mountain area of the Yakima Valley. This area is about an hour outside of Yakima, but has been heralded as the premiere region within the Yakima Valley, so it would be silly to miss it.

We parked the car at Terra Blanca which was the most extravagant winery we saw on the trip. Shawn had a hard time opening the massive wooden doors, but once inside we were greeted with some of the best wine we tasted on the trip - in our opinions of course. Cheryl and Megan tasted the complimentary wines while Shawn and I decided to pay the $5 fee to taste the premiere wines. I did enjoy the ONYX blend, but for the price we decided the merlot was the best bargain.

We got on our bikes and moved on. The next winery on our list was Kiona (pronounced K'eye-ona). The Lemberger was unlike any wine we had tasted, so for $12 it was one we wanted to take back, but their Syrah was by far the favorite among our group. We later discovered that the Cab/Merlot blend was also a pretty good buy. 

When we got back out to the bikes I noticed that my back tire was flat. This was our first encounter with the Goat's Heads I discussed in the last post. After a bit of struggling I replaced my tube only to find out that Shawn's tire also had a puncture. Luckily he just pushed the Goat's Head back into the tire and that plugged the hole for the rest of the ride.

On we went to Hedges which was just down the street. When we got there the staff offered to let us take a bike tour of the winery, but it was getting late, so we had to continue on. Again, Shawn and I paid the extra cash to taste the premium wines, and although they were good, we were feeling a bit light on cash given the number of bottles we'd already purchased. Hedges had a great back barrel room that we were able to go visit. It was cool to see that much wine in one place.

Off to Tapteil. In addition to wine, Tapteil had a set of oils, and vinegar to taste. At this point in the day my taste buds were failing me, so I didn't find a wine I wanted to buy there either.

But the scenery was nice enough to take a quick shot before moving 50 yards to the next winery:

Next on the list was Hightower Cellars. They usually only book via appointment, but we decided to go down and say hi anyhow. We had the opportunity to meet Murray (their dog), and taste one of their house reds. Shawn bought it, but my taste buds had all they could put up with for one day...

On our way back we visited the Seth Ryan winery. The coolest thing there was the massive bottle they had made for the owner's daughter. It was made the day she was born, and is meant to be opened when she turns 21 (or on her wedding day).

From there we drove back to Terra Blanca to end our day in style. By this time we were almost as tired from our day of tasting as you likely are - just reading about it.

Here's a picture of Shawn and I relaxing at the Terra Blanca vinyard:

And, as with Day 1, Cheryl and I ended up with another small collection of wine at the end of the day:

When we got back to the hotel room, we realized that both my tires had sprung goat's head caused leaks. Shawn's tires both had leaks, and so did Cheryl's back tire. It seems that Megan was the only one who escaped the day without a flat. Those things are a pain.

We had a great night out in Yakima, but I think I've already put way too much time into this post :)

Yakima Valley trip Easter 2007: Day 1

Cheryl had Friday and Monday off work for the Easter weekend, so I took some time off, and we went out to the Yakima Valley to do a winery tour on our bikes. We stayed at a place called "Cedars Inn and Suites" which at $60 CDN/night was a great deal. That price included continental breakfast, wifi, and free nighttime cookies... The cookies weren't that bad either.

Anyhow, since we went to so many places on this trip I will split this post up into a few separate posts. This is "Day 1".

Cheryl and I woke up at a reasonable time Friday morning to head towards the Yakima Valley which is about 150 miles South East from Seattle. Here's a map of their wineries. Our plan was to bike between a few close wineries and meet up with Shawn and Megan for dinner when they arrived later in the day.

Our trip to Yakima was very quick, and after checking in we went to our first winery: Sagelands Vinyard. Sagenlands is a brand easy to recognize because some of their wines are sold in the local supermarkets (Safeway included). The wine spectator recently snubbed Sagelands, but I'm glad we went by to check it out. The views were great, and we both really liked one of their Cabs (2004 Cabernet Sauvignon Doval Vineyard).

Here's the view from the patio at Sagelands:

Here's the Doval Vinyard out on the patio:

From there we continued on. Cheryl and I next went to Wineglass Cellars where we both agreed we liked their Cabernet Sauvignon. We had a great discussion with the attendant who warned us of the dreaded goat's head (puncture vine) on the roads which can easily poke holes in mountain bike tires. Little did we know how many of those things we'd run over by the end of the weekend...  Anyhow.

On from there we started towards the Two Mountain Winery. It became apparent pretty quickly that Cheryl wasn't hydrated enough to make it to our next destination, so to make a long story short we took the gracious help from a local farmer back to the car and finished our winery tour for Day 1 in the car.

Given it was getting later in the day we decided to head on to Portteus which came highly recommended by Jeff - a friend of mine. We didn't want to miss it. Portteus had a large selection for tasting - I think 10 or so in total. We ended up buying their Zin, as well as their Bistro Red which both were well worth the trip for us.

Moving on from there we went to the Two Mountain Winery (which seems to have the only other site on the Internet other than mine using DXTransforms). I think by this time in the day my senses were overwhelmed because none of the wines from Two Mountain were sticking out to me. My taste buds had been on a long spin, so it was time to call it a day for wine tasting. We bought their house red which was reasonably priced, and will be a good drinking wine.

Catch of the day:

We headed back to our hotel to meet up with Shawn and Megan, and after dinner and a night on the town we were ready to sleep and go out for our second day at the wineries. On day 2 we decided to hit the Red Mountain region of the Valley, and we were certainly not disappointed.

More on that soon.

Cheryl's Birthday

It's that time of year again, Cheryl's birthday!

Saturday evening we went to dinner at the Buenos Aires Grill in downtown Seattle. The Buenos Aires Grill is an Argentine Steakhouse with live tango performances every Friday and Saturday night.

The only reason we really ended up there was because I couldn't get reservations at the first 9 places I called: The Met, The Brooklyn, Daniel's Broiler, El Gaucho, Rovers, Canalis, Union Square Grill, and even Ray's Boathouse were all booked. I was thinking we'd end up eating at McDonalds if the pattern were to continue much longer, but luckily enough the folks at Buenos Aires Grill were able to fit us in.

I'm really glad we had the opportunity to eat there too. The Caipirinha's were outstanding, and my rib-eye had a most welcome tangy zest I was not expecting. Cheryl enjoyed the tango dancing, and overall it was a great time. We were able to make it back for birthday cake at my place by 9:30 which was our main time constraint.

Earlier in the day I made Cheryl a chocolate cake, so we invited a few friends over post-dinner to sing happy birthday and have a few drinks. The cake was good, the singing was off key, and my usual Strawberry/Orange/Sorbet/Rum/Ice drink went down smoothly.

Sunday Cheryl and I went cross country biking out at South Sea Tac. Cheryl bought new shoes to go with her new bike, so she had a chance to try them out. She was pretty excited because these were her first pair of shoes that clip into the pedals. I'd say that's a milestone.

Anyhow, that's enough for now. There are a few more photos up on Flickr. Go check them out.