Site Title

Ragnar Trail Rainier: It Ain’t For Babies

“It’s Ragnar Trail for babies,” I told my teammates a month from the start of the race. I’d seen the trail map screen and neglected to notice that the 800′ of climb shown was for the Green Loop only. A week later, while scrutinizing the site, I realized my mistake. Total climb: 4,500 feet, which gives Ragnar Trail Rainier “RTR” the distinction of being the toughest race in the Ragnar series of 17 trail races in 16 states, plus one in Ontario, Canada.

Once I realized what I’d done, I had to inform my teammates, which I did via IM. Nobody backed out, but then, my teammates are trail runners and trail runners ain’t no babies. By my calculations, our team’s race duration would be about 31 hours, which seemed like a lot compared to last year’s 24.5 hours for Rainier Trail Cascade “RTC.” I emailed Pat, the race director, to point out the much later finish times because of the gondola ride and tougher course than RTC, asking to start “several hours earlier.” I never heard back; however, two days later, they’d updated the site. The gondola ride would now be outside the limits of the race (saving each team a whopping 3.2 hours), forcing the hardest (uphill) loop to become Yellow instead of Red, and requiring two exchanges, a brilliant, yet confusing, logistical fix. The earliest start times were moved up two hours from the typical Ragnar Trail race to 7:30 am. I calculated our finish time as 1:40 pm, which ended up being within 35 minutes of our actual finish. My only mistake: neglecting to account for how much tougher it is to run on trails in the dark.

I had zero expectations for our Women’s Open Division team except that everyone train hard and do her best during the race. We’d started out as submasters, but moved to the Open Division when we accepted a 25-year old as our 7th and a 16-year-old as our eighth team member, giving us a wide age range, from 16 (25, 33, 38, 44, 53, 54) to 57, for a total of 320 years of life experience. Less than two weeks before the race, smoke from the BC fires was still hanging around Crystal Mountain. Two years prior, Ragnar canceled their first Washington State trail race due to excessive smoke. We hoped it wouldn’t happen this year. And it didn’t. Here’s my assessment of RTR, for what’s it’s worth.

Organization:

Parking: Thursday night before the Friday-Saturday race, we arrived at Crystal Mountain’s Parking Lot B, as allowed, at 4:00 pm. The parking contractor crew of five was unprepared and uninformed. A woman greeted us with, “They’ll re-park you so just get in line.” Whatever that meant. Dozens of cars lined up while workers in fluorescent Ragnar Volunteer vests stood around looking frustrated, having been given no more instructions than to just show up. It looked like it was going to be a long day. The line began to move 30 minutes later with just one worker collecting the $20 each vehicle was forced to fork out, marking cars as paid, and sending them on their way. Just before 5:00 pm, they queued us up to drop stuff off.

Staff: In my experience, Crystal Mountain workers within the dining facilities and gondola were friendly and efficient. After a brief learning curve (needed to maintain the restrooms more frequently), things went smoothly. Lines were typically short, even for the free (Mexican food-themed) meal that was many times better than last year’s spaghetti-feast gluten-fest. Notably, when I arrived at the gondola at 5:00 am, after completing Yellow Loop, two women in yellow safety vests, wet with mist from the wind and fog greeted me. I said, “Poor you, it’s so cold and you’re wet.” They smiled and one said, “But you just ran all the way up here,” just a typical encounter with a Crystal Mountain employee. Because I’m not a Glampgnarian and chose to tent camp instead of staying in one of the lodges, I can’t comment on that experience; however, a search of next year’s likely race dates shows room prices to be about $150 per night.

Venue:

It would be nearly impossible not to improve on last year’s dust-fest, Red and Yellow Loops nearly the same, cow-pie prevalent, porta-potty under-maintained (though with beautiful, flat-campsites) venue at Loup Loup Ski Bowl, which was, I might add, a total and complete blast in spite of all that. This year, Ragnar took a risk by locating the race at an expensive place with the additional logistics and cost of gondola rides for every runner. And it worked. They had me at lavatories. There wasn’t a porta potty in sight! Dust was the exception as opposed to last year’s rule, and while Loup Loup was scenic, the spectacular beauty at Crystal Mountain raised the bar to another level. Except for the sorta-steepish path to the campsites, not a thing wasn’t better than last year.

Course:

The course is, in a word, brutal. Green Loop is super steep up for 0.5 miles, then downhill on a gravel road for a mile, then has a short, steep, single track descent before crossing a field, joining the road, and climbing again. Yellow Loop is beyond brutal. In fact, I kinda wanted to smack whoever picked the signs that greeted runners along the last steep, gravelly, uphill mile to the summit. Just kidding! Red Loop was two miles technical descent, four miles perfectly sloped downhill, one mile rolling uphill along a gravel road, and finally, one last torturous mile including single track, water crossings, and the longest final one-third mile to the Village you can possibly imagine. The course is so hard that 99 teams (that is not a typo) Did Not Finish.

Camping:

I don’t camp. Which is why when I was tasked with choosing, we ended up with a site too far up the hill that required a lot of energy to scale over and over again. Once we’d dragged our stuff up, we assembled our tents; set out our sleeping bags, chairs and canopy; placed our heavy ice and food filled coolers and camp stove inside; commented on the number of grasshoppers and watched others arrive to do same. After waiting in line for the safety briefing video, watching, and collecting our team packet (dinner coupons, gondola wrist bands, t-shirt coupons, KIND bars, tattoos, car stickers, race bib and waist belt), we headed up the hill to hang out. We finished setup before the sun went down, which was good because it got so cold that those of us who’d brought them were forced to pull out our parkas. Without clouds to provide insulation for the earth, the temperatures dropped. A lot. On the bright side, the One Billion Stars that Ragnar promises were visible. We slept little and arose early because most of us were uncomfortably cold. The second night wasn’t much better. Fog appeared. The air was warmer but felt it just as cold with wind gusts that threatened to take out our canopy. But at least we weren’t glamping like the gal I met in the dining hall. She confessed sheepishly that her team was booked in a lodge both nights. Darned Glampgnarians!

Semi Swifties:

We followed Ragnar’s standard plan: Run, Eat, Sleep, Repeat, except for the sleeping, which was almost nonexistent at our camp, save our 16-year old, Elly, who could nod off at the drop of a hat. Without fail, the gals on our team are women who love trail running and are willing to go the distance (and climb the climb). We had zero mishaps and the consensus was that most of us had killed more women than had killed us. This meant nothing, though we were hopeful that it could lead to us placing in our division, which would earn us a kinda cool belt to be proud of that none of us would likely be caught dead wearing. Our team crossed the finish line together, collected our medals, posed for Ragnar’s photographer, packed up and headed home. We awaited the race results with impatient, though cautious, optimism.

On the Tuesday morning following the race, I clicked on the Ragnar Trail Rainier Race Results link I’d bookmarked, filtered by gender and division and smiled. Semi Swifties had finished first, which came as a complete surprise. I sent a frantic group text to the team, excited to share the good news. While we bow humbly to the women’s teams that came in ahead of us (allow me to bold you, badass women: Scorching Stikers with reservations and Hb/Dc without), we were still thrilled.

After four years of captaining “just for fun” Ragnar NW Passage teams, and joining what turned out to be a fast women’s master’s team last year a couple of weeks before Ragnar Trail Cascades, I decided to do something different this year. I collected my willing fastish trail running partners, then advertised for female runners who could complete a road half marathon in two hours or less. But I still hadn’t a clue how we’d do. And before you chalk it up to us being super young, take note: the runner who completed the course the fastest (granted, running the easy Green loop in darkness) is a bow-legged, boy-bodied 54-year-old who took up running 2.5 years ago and hung around camp and the Village clad in a housewifely purple and white bathrobe. She’s a meat cutter by trade, a little crazy by nature as well as my sister and my best friend. That is to say, a graph of our team’s age versus pace would not follow a line with a negative slope, but would be more jaggedy.

Summary:

The percentage of teams that Did Not Finish for Ragnar Trail Rainier was 35%, that’s 25% (not percentage points) more than the next most difficult race: Ragnar Trail Los Coyotes in California. Our team came in 62nd out of 184 finishers, but every finishing team outperformed the 99 that Did Not Finish. Ragnar Trail ain’t for babies, nor is it for Glampgnarians (those who stay in the lodge during the race), nor parents compelled to bring infants and children (it tires the rest of us out who are compelled to pity those who make such a foolish decision to bring their kids, who are bored to tears and serve only to distract parents’ attention from the race), nor those who run only on roads. After all we went through with the 4,000 plus feet of climb each, the cold, the wind and the fog, the dragging things up the hill to our camp (and back down afterward) and the super scary gondola ride down (in the dark, wind and fog) after Yellow Loop, others wonder if I’ll want to return next year to give the super challenging course another try. I think about this year’s experience…and sigh. I’m not sure whether or not I want to do it all again, but if I had to choose based on the beauty, it’d be easy.

PS Bring This:

If I do participate in Ragnar Trail Rainier next year, I would not show up without the following items: running and camping gear for extreme cold, extreme heat, and a rainstorm; a propane fire pit; a good quality gear-carrying cart (the axle on ours broke when we overloaded it); a Nathan Zephyr Fire 300 Hand Torch; and a cooler with large enough wheels to roll easily over gravel. You’re welcome.

A Fish Called Wanda

My feet hit the slick, rocky bottom of Whistle Lake’s shore. I stood. And tried not to cry. I’d just completed a quarter mile out and back swim with my friend Erin, relieved that I hadn’t drowned but afraid to do it again. Signing up for a triathlon from the comfort of my warm, dry computer chair had seemed like a good idea months before the race. Now, after my second scary attempt at open water swimming, I wished there was a way to back out. Only one thing stood in my way: Wanda.

I met Wanda a couple of years ago at the pool. The fiftysomething snowbird had arrived in Anacortes, as she usually did, in the spring, to escape her City Mouse life in Houston before it got too hot. Wanda was training for a triathlon. My friend Erin, her daughter, suggested the two of us train together because we are both slow swimmers. Before meeting Wanda, my typical workout consisted of lap after boring lap of a combination of freestyle, sidestroke, and backstroke for about 800 meters, which was about all I could stand. I say I let Wanda boss me around in the pool, but it’s more like student and sensei. We both majored in engineering in college, and Wanda thinks like an engineer when it comes to training, explaining the mechanics of the various strokes and why one technique is better than another to improve efficiency. Our first workout together was the least awful lap swimming experience I’d had to date. The variety made the time almost fly by. As we left the pool that day, I remembered her name by thinking of a phrase that fit A Fish Called Wanda. She loves to bike, hike, golf and run, but also: swim, Dragon boat paddle, and scull. This fall, she plans to take up stand up paddle boarding.

Wanda was raised like Roald Dahl’s Matilda, except without the magic and Miss Honey. She grew up in a foster home in Chicago, never knew (nor cared) who her biological parents were, confined most of the time to the basement. Like Matilda, books were her escape from an unconventional childhood. After high school, she left “home” and headed west, joined the military, started a family, attended community college, transferred to the UW, graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering, earned an MBA and became the first female chemical engineer employed by the Shell refinery in Anacortes. She worked there for eight years, then continued with the company for a total of 25, competing for a series of three-year assignments at positions in five different countries, eventually becoming Senior VP-Engineering Shell International.

Just before retirement, Wanda was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer that she’d tell you about but I won’t. She suffered through chemo, lost her hair but not her spunk, and got back to living the busy lifestyle to which she’d become accustomed in Houston from fall through spring, then Country Mouse-ing a similar, quieter lifestyle in Anacortes in summer. By the time the cancer returned two years later, she had implemented a more holistic defense against it, incorporating: meditation, prayer, chanting, tai chi, exercise and extremely healthful eating into her life, treating her body and spirit like a temple. Weak from chemotherapy, she turned down a chance to become a member of our Ragnar team in the summer of 2015 but joined us at the finish line for a beer sporting a super cute bald head. The following summer, she ran Ragnar and joined us for a post-race beer sporting a gigantic smile and a shock of white hair. Last fall, her tumor marker tests results showed the lowest numbers ever, but the cancer came back late last winter. When I learned she planned to complete the Lake Tye Tri while undergoing chemo, I knew I was screwed. There was no way I could back out.

A month before the race, I tried to crawl stroke my way to a tiny platform ten yards out from the shore of Lake Chelan. My lungs felt tight as I pulled myself onto the floating dock. A week later, Erin nearly held my hand as we swam the race distance at Whistle Lake. Every time I opened my eyes and spied the dark, murky water’s particulates, my lungs felt squeezy and my neck–chokey. The second swim went barely better. On the Monday of race week, I let Wanda boss me around Whistle. She had a plan (Wanda always has a plan) and it went well. We completed half a mile–twice the race distance, and I didn’t die.

Lake Tye, the site of the race, is a two-thirds mile long by one-eighth wide man made-lake situated on the south side of Highway 2 in Monroe. The Sprint distances: 1/4 mile swim, 12 mile bike, 3.1 mile run. We arrived an hour before the start of the Olympic distance race. I placed my bike and other items within the allowed handlebar-width space in the transition area, dashed back to the van to retrieve my forgotten timing chip, and started getting nervous.

The race director sent the Olympic distance athletes off starting at 8:00 am, first the men in green caps, then the women in white, including Erin. Most participants were on to the bike leg before the Sprint distance race even started. Huge inflatable red buoys marked our not-too-scary looking upside down U-shaped course. Wearing red swim caps, Wanda and I were in the final wave, women forty and up. We readied our watch timers and waded into the water as the director sounded our start. I walked out as far as I could, put my face in the water, and saw seaweed and darkness, which transported me back to that first anxiety-filled, lung-squeezing open-water swim a month prior. The wetsuit felt tight around my neck and I couldn’t catch my breath. Alternating between freestyle and side stroke, I completed the distance during one of the longest ten-minute periods of my life. As I pulled off my wetsuit in the transition area, Wanda arrived and headed to her assigned spot. Faster, fitter athletes passed me on thinner-tired bikes on a flattish out and back course with vehicles navigating the gap between racers on either side of the two-lane road. I saw Wanda again and Erin for the first time. Less than an hour later, I left my bike and helmet in the transition area and began the best part–the run. That each participant’s age was marked conspicuously on his or her left calf was a distraction, so after passing two women in my division, I refused to let my eyes stray to the calf-zone. Crossing the finish line 93 minutes later, I vowed never to try another tri, then waited for Wanda. She arrived sooner than expected, collected her medal and smiled. I gave her a hug and we waited for Erin to finish her first Olympic distance triathlon, which she did fast enough to land a fourth place finish in her division. I finished mid-pack in mine. Wanda finished first in a special one-woman category: athletes undergoing chemotherapy.

Dock Crabbing At Cornet Bay Is About To Become One-Third Less Fun

“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever,” said Jacque Cousteau. Spellbound seagoers who patronize Cornet Bay have the RCFB to thank for awarding a $1,664,000 grant to the Washington State Parks & Recreation Commission to fund a pier replacement project, which should improve their boating, or at least mooring experience at the most popular dock in the park. Project information states, “…demand for moorage has increased to 6,000 guests annually as well as thousands of additional day users, indicating a need to add additional capacity,” and, “The moorage facilities were built in the 1960s and have exceeded their useful life. Recent assessments determined that they needed to be replaced before they were considered unsafe and closed to public use….State Parks will replace the pedestrian access pier, gangway ramp, pilings, and moorage floats and build 384 linear feet of new moorage,” “The primary recreation opportunity provided by this project is motorized boating.” The contract agreement shows the end date as December 2018, with work slated to begin 31 July 2017 and end 30 September 2018.

Besides the benefit of new moorage for boaters, existing creosote-coated pilings will be removed. According to the Agency For Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, “Creosote is the name used for a variety of products that are mixtures of many chemicals…Animals that live in the water, such as crustacea, shellfish, and worms…take up coal tar creosote compounds. For instance, mussels attached to creosote-treated pilings and snails and oysters living in water near a wood-treatment plant had creosote in their tissues. Coal tar creosote components are also broken down by microorganisms living in the soil and natural water…The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has determined that coal tar is carcinogenic to humans and that creosote is probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Another advantage: metal grates along the new dock’s surface will allow more light to pass through, which helps eel grass grow. The Department of Ecology’s Puget Sound Shorelines page explains the importance of eelgrass, “Each blade of eelgrass is a small food factory,” “Eelgrass meadows cushion the impact of waves and currents, preventing erosion,” “During low tides, eelgrass shelters small animals and plants from extreme temperatures,” “Many animals use eelgrass beds for nursery areas, others swim or walk among the leaves, or burrow in the sediments,” and “Within eelgrass meadows, there is food and shelter for a wide variety of sea anemones, marine worms, snails, limpets, crabs, birds, and fish.”

The project isn’t without controversy. The September 2016 progress report asks, “Are there any significant challenges that might hinder progress or keep you from meeting your project milestones? If so, please tell us about them.” The answer, “Yes. The project could be subject to appeal by the environmental watchdog group, Sound Action thus delaying regulatory approvals.”

Sound Action is “a Puget Sound watchdog group working to protect vital nearshore habitat and species.” The site says, “We want to hear from you!” so I sent off some questions via email. Director Amy Carey, “What we do is review every state nearshore development permit issued by WDFW (called an HPA) and we appeal or reach out to the department if there the permit does not comply with state law or if it allows habitat loss.¶Last year, out of the 500 or so permits we reviewed, State Parks had two permits for projects in the San Juan’s that were overturned or modified on our appeal. Each permit – both for replacement moorage – was appealed because the project was allowed over protected vegetation including eelgrass and kelp and violated law. We were not stopping those projects by any means, just worked to ensure that eelgrass was protected. WDFW had given a free pass to damage habitat and we stepped in to change that.¶When this Cornet Bay project comes up for HPA processing, we will review the permit and the project – and will again take action if there is a threat to protected habitat. My hope is that parks has now learned they need to follow the rules and will be complying up front. Fingers crossed.”

In late July, I stopped by the Deception Pass State Park administration building hoping someone could confirm or deny a rumor I’d heard–when the project is complete, fisherman (and crabbers), will be prohibited from fishing (crabbing) along the pedestrian-accessible addition, which will be for boat moorage only. Park Manager Jack Hartt himself greeted me after a brief wait at the (unstaffed) counter just inside the door. I’d never seen him, except in photos, but I’d read the book he published last year Exploring Deception Pass: An Insider’s Guide to Washington’s Favorite State Park. I smiled and said, “I know who you are,” as I explained the purpose of my visit and handed him my (outdated) map of the moorage improvements.

He asked my name, offered me a copy of the current layout, confirmed the rumor and acknowledged that once the project was complete, the number of linear feet of dock available for crabbers (and fisherman) would decrease, though not significantly. By my calculation, the length of the new near dock, where crabbing (and fishing) will be allowed will be one-third less than it is now. As to Sound Action’s actions, he said he believes that the organization’s goal is only to ensure that rules are followed. As a combined crabber and sea-creature-watcher, I’m disappointed at the thought of a more crowded crabbing-allowed dock but excited at the prospect of additional pedestrian-accessible sea-creature-watching space.

Update 20 October 2017: Surprised by the lack of progress on this project, I exchanged emails with Derek Gustafson, NW Region Capital Program Coordinator of the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission and learned, “the projects were submitted to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) in accordance with all requirements and laws and the Hydraulic Project Approval (HPA) was issued by WDFW…Unfortunately, this project is now being held up at the Federal level as the Army Corps of Engineers on the basis that they have decided to conduct formal consultation with one of the services with authority (NOAA fisheries). We’re just now starting to understand the issues behind the decision as it appears that there is a cultural shift within the agencies on how they now review and condition these types of projects. It may be months before we fully understand the issues and can navigate the process. This will impact the schedule for construction but also may impact the design and force changes.”

The Science of the Clams

The intruder made a beeline for the shore, slowed and placed her hands in the frigid water. I watched, hoping she wouldn’t notice something I coveted and wanted to keep quiet: an unusual sea squirt species. She rinsed her hands, shook them off, turned and walked away. My secret was safe.

Three years ago, in October of 2014, I snapped a photo of a something I’d never before noticed while beach combing at Cornet Bay.

I didn’t think much of it at the time because there were too many creatures new-to-me to become obsessed with just one. At home, I Googled “brown” “squirt” “sea creature.” The search turned up “tunicate.” Kozloff‘s (p 31) description seems to fit what I found, “more or less cylindrical and abruptly cut off,” “rather solid and firm,” “the size and shape of the openings and the siphons subject to muscular control.” During a -2.0 foot tide this spring, I returned to Cornet Bay to track down the tunicates, which was like trying to finding a needle in a haystack. Each set of siphons is small, no more than an inch wide by two inches long, and the beach is 30 feet wide and a mile long. After wandering around for awhile, I eventually found and photographed them.

Unable to determine the sea squirt species by viewing images on-line, I checked in with two scientists, hoping they could identify the creatures outright, or at least lead me in the right direction: Dr. David Cowles, Professor of Biology at Walla Walla University, Invertebrates of the Salish Sea website manager and researcher, has answered my marine life questions in the past; Dr. Gretchen Lambert, a marine biological consultant, ascidian taxonomist and sea squirt sleuth, Ascidian Home Page for the United States website manager and researcher, was new to me. I emailed both a few photos from my first trip out this year with the subject line “a little help (please) with identification of a sea squirt.” Dr. Cowles offered to collect and dissect one and Dr. Lambert gave me her best genus guess (Pyura), a link to a sea squirt dissection video and offered to dissect a specimen if I mailed it to her.

I found a photo of a sea squirt species that looked almost identical to the creature I’d photographed on that first trip. Species: pyura vittata. A few trips later, I sent the scientists more photos. And that is when Dr. Lambert burst my rare sea squirt finder bubble. With the additional information, she suspected that the siphons were likely that of a clam, probably a geoduck, “You will have to get a shovel and dig down and see what you come up with.” Dr. Cowles agree. Dr. Lambert tried to be gentle by sharing the story of a colleague who’d made a similar, but more embarrassing mistake, but I still felt bad. Viewing images and the video Compare Three different Clam Siphons– Kitsap County, WA, I suspected the siphons were that of the Rough piddock clam. I awaited the next series of super low tides with a mixture of impatience and excitement.

On Monday, June 25, I set out for the site. I brought: a clamming license, two plastic bags, two shovels, a backpack, a camera and pair of gloves. I arrived forty-five minutes before a predicted -2.9′ tide to an empty beach, chose a siphon as far from the tide line as I could find, placed the shovel blade about six inches to the side of it, and dug up a big scoop of muddy, clayey sand. The siphon disappeared, but I knew that the shell could not move. A scary surprise arrived in one of the first few shovelfuls: the shell-less neck of my mollusk. I did exactly what any self-respecting prospective criminal would do: threw it in the water before anyone noticed. If it turned out to be a geoduck, I’d be breaking the law by not digging up the shell. I felt the pressure of time, that of the soon-to-be turning tide, and the knowledge that if I weren’t successful, it would be a month before another adequately low tide arrived. Messy layers of gunmetal gray, quarter-inch thick clay sheets mixed with sand piled up beside the hole as I dug with the shovel and my hands.

Half an hour later, the tide turned. I regretted my decision to leave the bucket at home as I bailed the clayey water with a Macy’s bag. Tired, frustrated and covered with mud, I knew that if I didn’t find the shell soon, the rising tide water would overwhelm my bailing efforts. And then I saw it–the neck of a clam! I bailed like crazy to get a few good photos of the siphon plus neck plus clam shell. By then, the jaggedy hole was about two feet in diameter and 18″ deep. I carefully extracted the shell and placed it on the sand, the way a doctor places a baby on its mother’s stomach after childbirth, except without all the pain and blood and slime and stuff. I couldn’t believe my last-minute luck. After taking a few more photos, I returned the muck I’d dug into the hole, packed up and left. No one saw me, except two guys gill-netting for salmon.

Once home, I cleaned, photographed and sliced open the Rough piddock clam, then sent off photos to Dr. Cowles, who offered to show me sea squirts in his lab later this summer, and Dr. Lambert, who said that she planned to use a few of the photos to show her Ascidian Taxonomy students another reason to be cautious about sea squirt siphon identification. The Rough piddock clam meat, sauteed with oil and garlic, tasted no different than your average clam. Fun facts from the Invertebrates of the Salish Sea site, “It can extend its siphons up through as much as 48 cm of clay plus 30 cm of sand. When boring, it holds onto the substrate with its foot and rocks its shell up and down against the burrow walls by alternately contracting its anterior and posterior adductor muscles. After each stroke, the animal rotates about 12 degrees. It takes about 30 rocking motions to turn in a complete circle, which takes about 70 minutes. After about one complete turn, the direction of rotation is reversed. Periodic body contractions create a current which shoots debris up and out the incurrent siphon. Lives about 8 years, and never completely ceases digging its burrow.”

In the end, I’m okay with the fact that I didn’t discover a rare sea squirt species, because if I had, everyone would be out there tramping all over the siphons while trying not to tramp all over them. Nobody much cares about Rough piddock clams. And now I can admire them at my leisure during the dozen extreme low tides they are visible without having to worry that someone might want to dig them up. I revel in the fact that I found a beautiful, uncommon sea creature at one of my favorite places, Deception Pass State Park, and the serendipity of finding scientists willing to share what they know with a complete stranger and being as excited as me to solve the mystery.

On July 25, I took Dr. Cowles up on his invite to visit Rosario lab. He showed me some sea creatures in an open-topped tank including a swimming sea scallop, delicate crab, lemon drop, sponge, chiton and, of course, a sea squirt! Then one of his students, a diver named Monica (many of the students dive!) showed me the things in her tank, which included several different species of sea squirts.

Race Report: 2017 Chuckanut Mountain Half Marathon

A Washington Department of Natural Resources publication includes the article Paleogeography and Paleontology of the Early Tertiary Chuckanut Formation, Northwest Washington, “Residents of northwest Washington feel at home in a landscape where majestic forests provide a foreground for rugged mountain vistas-except on the many days when the panorama is obscured by fog and drizzle. Fossils in the Chuckanut Formation tell us that the area’s environment was once much different-5O million years ago, the region was a swampy subtropical flood plain.” Read the 13-page paper yourself to learn more about, “a scientific odyssey that began in 1841 when sailing vessels of the U.S. Exploring Expedition arrived at Bellingham Bay under the command of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes.” Geologist James Dwight Dana collected “plant fossils from the Bellingham area, specimens that marked the beginning of paleontologic research in the Pacific Northwest.” The 40-year-old article may seem dated, but it’s like the blink of an eye in geological time. Saturday, 3 June, my friend and I, along with 104 other runners, ran along 13.1 miles of the trails located within Chuckanut Formation to complete the Chuckanut Mountain Half Marathon.

As runners congregated behind the bathrooms at the Lost Lake parking lot along Chuckanut Drive in Bellingham, we made our way to the back of the pack. The plan: be mindful, run just for fun, don’t take our pace too seriously. Just before 10 am, a volunteer provided pre-race instructions about the course markings: yellow signs with an arrow (go this way) plus pink flagging tape, or an X (wrong way) and sent us on our way.

We started out on single-track, keeping our places in line, but within a few minutes, reached the Interurban Trail where we chatted up a guy wearing a Ski to Sea t-shirt. Three miles later, runners transferred to a slightly narrower trail. An off-leash dog flew past me and continued down the trail to his people, so I screamed as I tend to do when surprised. Michelle’s uphill legs are faster than mine, so I insisted she take off and refused to talk to her if she didn’t.

A small group of runners separated me from my friend, folks trading spots at times as we all trudged up to the ridge. At the summit, Purple Shirt Guy stopped to take in the view. I photographed the forest from one of the course’s best viewpoints, then caught up with my friend.

This middle section was my second favorite part of the course, rolling hills with a net descent as we made our way down from the ridge. At Cleator Road, a volunteer sent us downhill with a lie, “No more climbing,” which, along with “You’re almost there,” and “It’s all downhill from here,” are lies well-meaning volunteers tend to tell. I didn’t believe him for a second. We sped down the road, pounding the pavement for one awesome mile. Gravity’s help ended too soon for me. At the Mile 9 aid station, Michelle stopped for water. I continued on wearing my still half-full CamelBak.

Although we had to climb during this section, the trails were wider and less technical than on the way up to the ridge. I tried to faux run rather than walk because I find it hard to start running uphill once I’ve started walking, even if the trail’s not very steep. At the bottom of a hill, two runners stood looking at their options. I stopped too. To the right, pink flagging tape. To the left, a yellow X/Wrong Way sign with pink flagging tape in front of a wooden bridge. Another runner arrived. The heroine of the race for me said that she knew we must go left towards the X/Wrong Way sign, pulled out the sign and headed down the trail in what we all hoped was the right direction.

It was.

The next part, before, at and after Fragrance Lake, was my favorite of the race because it was nearly all downhill with wide, soft, non-technical trails. The only negative was a number of hikers, all of whom were kind enough to stop and let us run past. We thanked them, apologized and kept going. I ran at least a mile on my own, took the wider trail once when there was more than one choice, hoped I was headed in the right direction, and breathed a sigh of relief when I spied a length of pink tape indicating that I was. With half a mile to go, runners return to the Interurban. Flagging tape guided me in either direction, but left seemed right, so I went that way. At Chuckanut Road, volunteers directed runners to the finish at Larrabee State Park.

This was the second time in as many races that I started out running “just for fun” and finished trying to fly. I took several photos during the first half, but from mid-race on, I stashed my camera away, unwilling to risk getting passed by stopping to take more. Race results showed my friend and I did just fine, but we want to be fitter, run faster next year. We stuck around for awhile to bask in the sun, enjoy the post-race food and listen to live music. In the past two years, I’ve completed three Bellingham Trail Series races. I loved the trails and the views of Deception Pass Half and the challenge of the Bellingham Trail Half’s chin scraper, but this course, Chuckanut Mountain Half, is my favorite of the three.

“Just For Fun” Sunflower Run

“Let’s run just for fun,” we agreed, lying to one another, though neither of us knew it then. Two years ago, my sister took up my favorite sport: trail running. Since that time, she’s gone from whining about the distance a few miles from the finish, to winning her division in a small local race. Last week, when we learned that she’d be able to join me in running the Sunflower Half Marathon Run in Twisp, we decided to “Complete, not compete;” be mindful and enjoy the wildflowers, especially the race’s namesake species which doesn’t exist on my (west) side of the Cascade mountains.

From the looks of the race shirt and medal, you’d think that we were destined to see Helianthus annus the common sunflower, but in fact, we raced across hillsides covered with clumps of balsamroot, Balsamohiza sagittata, a cousin of the common sunflower. Wikipedia explains their relationship, “The Heliantheae are the third-largest tribe in the sunflower family (Asteraceae)…The name is derived from the genus Helianthus, which is Greek for sun flower.” In addition to Balsamroot, I observed Dodecatheon jeffreyi, Delphinium menziesii, some sort of phacelia, tiny, white, low to the ground flowers and lots and lots of sagebrush.

At 8:00 am, the borrowed school bus dropped us off at the Chickadee Trailhead, part of the Methow Trail System, near the start of the point to point race. This gave us an hour to pick up our packets, stretch, warmup, and debate whether or not to wear jackets and gloves and temperatures at that time in the mid-forties, with warm weather in the forecast for later in the day. The sun peaked through the clouds as it neared 9 o’ clock, making our what-to-wear decision easy. Nearly 250 runners followed a race volunteer up the hill and beyond the start banner to await race instructions. He explained the trail markings, named the sponsors, counted down the seconds until the start, and sent us on our way.

The first mile was slow going not only because of the congestion of participants and the fact that we’d started a bit back, but also because some sections were along single track trail. Ten and a half minutes later, my watch beeped to indicate we’d completed the first mile as we looped past the start. The weather was perfect and we were on track in our plan to run “just for fun.” From mile 2.5 to 4, we enjoyed one of the most scenic sections, my favorite of the race, running behind a female leader in a line of guys and gals alongside Patterson Lake. We sped along oblivious to our save-energy-for-later plan. The next couple of miles were on Black Jack and Elbow Coulee roads where faster folks passed while we hit a consistent pace. The foot of the one hill we’d heard about, 6.5 miles in, was just past the first aid station. We joined the line of walking runners, trudged upwards, tried to be mindful of the “sunflowers,” snail-paced our way to our slowest mile.

Half a mile later, we reached the top of the dirt road and made our way through a short, grassy, swampy section. The wide trail continued briefly, then narrowed. I took over the lead with my sister on my heels, treading carefully while trying to enjoy the spectacular scenery: gorgeous trees, mountains off in the distance and flowers by my feet.

A woman in a blue t-shirt with kinky white hair and calves like fists flew by on the downhill as we returned to single track, and contacted lots of sagebrush, which brought to mind questing ticks. I attributed the rattlesnake-y noise I heard a few times to a cricket that produces a similar sound. During these last few miles, we completed a couple more super swampy water crossings. It would have been difficult to pass, so we held on to our places behind two younger gals navigating the group past the trails marked with pink flagging tape. A mile from the finish, we started down the steepest section on a hillside with the highest concentration of balsamroot of the entire course.

With half a mile to the finish, we encountered the photographer, Stephen Mitchell, who told us that fact. At the time, we didn’t believe him, because in races, that’s nearly always a lie, as is “it’s all downhill from here.” After speeding our way along narrow switchback-y hard pack clay trails and perfectly blossoming balsamroot, we reached a flat, dirt road embedded with round rocks, heard the crowd at the finish line, and realized that the end was near. My sister and I crossed together, accepted our medals, and checked our time. We hadn’t run “just for fun” the entire time, but had in parts. Our time was not bad for a couple of women with over a century of life combined although our mile splits were inconsistent (fastest: 8:06, slowest: 12:26, the rest: everywhere in between). In fairness, the course is relatively easy for a trail race, 13.2 miles with 1,300 feet of climb.

In summary, The Sunflower Half Marathon Run is fun, even if you don’t complete it just for that. The race is: well organized, located in a beautiful part of the state, has little climb and I’d bet contains the highest concentration of “sunflowers” around.

Do You Want to Build a Robot?

The buzzer sounded signaling the end of the match. Spectators cheered the outcome: the Anacortes Cyborg Ferret’s Blue Alliance outscored the top seeded Red Alliance in Carver Division semifinal 1 at the 2017 FIRST World Championship playoffs in Houston. Nearly one hundred teams of the 400 participating would compete in the semis. In 2017, the World Championship was split into two full competitions in two different cities. The week after Houston, teams would battle it for World Champion bragging rights in St Louis. Team 3238 had finished qualifying round play with eight wins and two losses, ranked 6th of 67 teams in their division. During alliance selection, they chose: Team 3339 BumbleB from Israel and Teams 1700 Gatorbotics and 2637 Phantom Catz, from southern California. After winning the first semifinal match in the best of three series, the Red Alliance defeated Team 3238’s Blue Alliance in the next two. The Anacortes Cyborg Ferrets ended their 8th season with their heads held high. It was their best season yet. A semifinal finish at Worlds placed Team 3238 in the top 3% of the 5,869 FRC Teams worldwide.

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, aka FRED (Fourth Rotor Execution Device), as this year’s robot is fondly known, from the members of Team 3238 Cyborg Ferrets. You exceeded all expectations.

What is FIRST Robotics Competition? ‘Combining the excitement of sport with the rigors of science and technology. We call FIRST Robotics Competition the ultimate Sport for the Mind. High-school student participants call it “the hardest fun you’ll ever have.” Under strict rules, limited resources, and an intense six-week time limit, teams of students are challenged to raise funds, design a team “brand,” hone teamwork skills, and build and program industrial-size robots to play a difficult field game against like-minded competitors.’

In an award-winning documentary entitled Slingshot, Dean Kamen provides the story behind several of his inventions and his inspiration for founding FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics. Kamen says, “FIRST is an organization whose sole goal is to convince a generation of kids that science and technology and engineering actually is fun and accessible and rewarding and important.” He tells every kid he meets, “Figure out something you really love to do [and] get so good at it that you can make a living doing it. If you don’t do that, you’re cheating yourself out of a happy, meaningful life.”

Although “FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded nearly 30 years ago, in 1989, to inspire young people’s interest and participation in science and technology,” FIRST Robotics Challenge (FRC) came to Anacortes High School in the fall of 2009. Three years later, FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Team 7198 was added. In the eight years of FIRST Robotics existence in Anacortes, the organization has grown to include teams at the high school, middle school and, beginning in the fall of 2017, students will be able to participate in robotics at every grade level in every school in the District.

On the 7th of January, FIRST revealed the 2017 FRC challenge: FIRST Steampunk. Teams were given six weeks, until midnight on the 23rd of February, to complete their robots. In Anacortes, subsystem teams of three to four students were tasked to construct: a chassis, gear collector, rope climber, shooter, and an electronics board. Programmers used Java programming language to produce 1,800 lines of code so that the robot could perform without human help during the first 15 seconds of the match, called the autonomous period and the driver-controlled teleoperated or teleop period.

About two dozen adults, ASD staff, parents, community members and robotics alumni, mentor as many students on the FRC Team. At the pre-season mentor’s meeting, Coach Joe Furin explained the job of a mentor, “Remove obstacles.” Coaches supervise the entire endeavor and work out event logistics. Mentors help guide the students, think through the feasibility of their ideas, and answer questions. This includes providing public relations support for the robotics program, strategizing, design, construction, and multiple cycles of redesign and rebuilding of the robot as well as the pit, which is where the robot and several team members hang out between matches. When things go wrong, as when the gear lifter assembly needed replacement before one of the semi final matches at Worlds, students break out the wrenches and screwdrivers and fix the problem. Volunteers also help with fundraising, transporting kids to and from events, providing food during the build season, and making costumes.

A typical competition goes like this: robots arrive early for inspection. The two page inspection checklist includes: mechanical, electrical, pneumatic system and power on requirements as well as robot weight (≤ 120 lbs excluding bumpers, and battery), frame perimeter (may not exceed 120”) and height (starting configuration height may not exceed 54”). Once done, the pits and machine shop open, followed by practice rounds, opening ceremonies, qualification rounds, alliance selection, quarter finals, semifinals and, finally…finals! Each team is paired with two other teams on an “Alliance” that then competes against another Alliance. Your foe in one round will likely become a friend in a later one, so “gracious professionalism” is key.

The top eight ranked teams move on in the competition to Alliance Selection, becoming an alliance captain, which allows them to choose two alliance partners from the remaining teams (three during Worlds). Breaks in play, while volunteers reset the field and team members reset the robots, are filled with sporting-event-style cheers and chants. Participants and audience members dancing along the edge of the field to typical robotics competition songs like Gangnam Style and The Macarena.

If you or anyone you know is interested in joining an Anacortes FIRST Robotics team, please contact Mark Jenkins at mrj4404@comcast.net or visit www.team3238.com for more information about FRC Team 3238.

Note: Aileen Travis, Arlene Cook, Billie Buttram, Elisabeth Jenkins and Will Palmer contributed photos for this post.

Ticked Off While Searching for a Glacier-Scraped Rock

I gripped the insect’s head with sharp-tipped tweezers. Its tiny front legs held firmly, refusing to release even as my skin stretched with the pull. I dug in with its pointy parts as far as I could stand. Within a minute…success! I dropped the bug into a plastic sandwich bag, sealed it and began to worry. In nearly a dozen years of walking, hiking and running hundreds of miles along the trails of Deception Pass State Park, Ebey’s Reserve, the Anacortes Forest Lands and Washington Park, I’d never before encountered a tick. The existence of this insect on Fidalgo Island came as a complete surprise to me. The CDC says, “Results of…studies suggest that the number of people diagnosed with Lyme disease each year in the United States is around 300,000 [that is not a typo]…Lyme disease cases are concentrated in the Northeast and upper Midwest, with 14 states accounting for over 96% of cases reported to CDC.” A report of Lyme disease by county from 2000 through 2015 shows a mere 2 cases in Skagit County and 4 in Island County between 2011-2015. This eased my I’ve-lived-in-the-Northeast fears, but I kept the tick as a souvenir.

I knew exactly where I’d picked it up: Washington Park. During the previous week, I’d climbed over, under, around and through grasses, Salal and tree branches more than I ever had before. I was trying to track down the glacier scraped rock described in Washington Rocks by Eugene Kiver, Chad Pritchard and Richard Orndorff. The blurb at Amazon says, “Washington Rocks! is part of the state-by-state Geology Rocks! series that introduces readers to some of the most compelling and accessible geologic sites in each state. The 57 sites in this book are scattered throughout the state…” Four of the 57 are nearby: 46 FORT EBEY: Ice Lobe Antics on Whidbey Island, 47 DOUBLE BLUFF: Comings and Goings of Ice Sheets, 50 WASHINGTON PARK: View Into the Mantle and 51 DECEPTION PASS. The authors explain (p 100), “Along the west side of the park is a rarely exposed ophiolite, the sequence of rocks that makes up oceanic crust, including part of the underlying mantle. We don’t often get to see deeper parts of the oceans crust because they’re 3 to 5 miles below the ocean floor.” I believe this is the area at the base of the concrete stairs just north of Trail 518, which I’d seen, but “An unusually large glacial groove on the south side of the park was formed about 17,000 years ago, when a large boulder or group of rocks embedded in the base of the 1 mile thick glacier scraped across the serpentine surface,” was news to me.

Determined to find this “glacial groove,” I set out with the book’s photo and caption, which placed it at, “one of the trails on the south side of Washington Park.” Unfortunately, nearly all of the trails at the park are on the south side. Fortunately, there are only a few miles of trails and the City of Anacortes has marked and mapped them. On my sixth trip, I found the glacial groove. It is located along the southernmost part of Trail 505. To see for yourself, either walk or drive to the trail head at the last pullout before the open area with the amazing view which most folks think is the highest point of the park, but isn’t (by a few feet), and continue towards the water until you see the glacial groove, which will be on your left.

The peak of the park along the loop road is 250 feet above sea level, just past Trail 510. It feels like more to walkers and runners because the climb takes place in half a mile. I had spent several days in mid February running the loop to prepare for the Dallas Kloke Sunset Loop 10 Mile Relay Run on 11 March. Participants may form a four person/2.5 miles each relay team or run solo. The race starts near the parking area at the northeast point. Runners first complete a quarter mile loop through the campground, then return to the road for three-quarter miles of flat, a half mile of climb, a quarter mile descent, back up for another quarter…then downhill to the handoff zone. I joined three of my favorite runners on a team named for our combined age: 165! and awaited race day with equal amounts of excitement and dread.

Team 165! arrived an hour early for the 9 am start, surprised to learn that only 22 persons had signed up. A gal from Friday Harbor introduced herself as we awaited the start. Then we were off and I experienced my favorite ten seconds of the race (might have been five), while I was in the lead. During the nearly ninety minutes it took for our team to finish, we cheered on and chatted with other participants, formed human tunnels and made friends. Our biggest competitors were the family members that made up The Zodi Team, which had the dad running the first and final laps, son running second, daughter third. The Zodi Team led during the first three legs, but the dad injured his calf on his first lap, which probably cost them the race. At mile one of our team’s final lap, our team captain passed the dad and never looked back. We “won,” (air quotes intended), or came in fifth from last as we competed against only four other teams. While it was fun to run the loop as fast as I could…I prefer to walk it.

Some advice if you want to do same: arrive at the park no later than 9:00 am so that you can complete it before 10:00 when the narrow, one-way road opens to vehicles. April is the perfect time to encounter some of the most beautiful species of wildflowers on Fidalgo Island at Washington Park, so risk the ticks and take to the trails (but check for them afterwards). Besides the loop road and trails leading to amazing views the park boasts: a playground, picnic tables, a dock, a beach and lots of wildlife.

Syzygy, Tides and Jonathan White

My arms ached as I pulled back and down on the boom, windsurfing towards an island on one of the last tacks I had the energy to make to avoid the embarrassment of a rescue. I zigzagged shoreward. The wind on my sail brought me closer, but the tide pulled me away. A fall would allow the tide to take me further from my goal: wet, jagged, barnacle-encrusted rocks along the water’s edge. Finally, I reached land, released the boom, made my way with water-shriveled feet through the barnacles, pulled the rig up a safe distance from the sea’s surface, and thanked my lucky stars.

In the introduction to his new book, author Jonathan White, who, like me, “lives on a small island in Washington State,” recounts the perilous event that made him (p 5) vow “to learn more about the tides,” which led him to write Tides, “a travel adventure, personal journey, cultural history, and provocative scientific inquiry into the forces that keep the earth’s waters in constant motion.” It is as great a book for those who are part of the (p 17), “More than half of the world’s population [that] lives on or near the coast,” as for those who aren’t.

Most of what I know about tides, I learned from Tides4Fishing, including information about: sunrise and set, the moon’s phase, the earth’s current distance from the sun, tidal coefficients and, of course, low and high tide times and heights for any given day for hundreds of locations worldwide. I care most about Cornet Bay, where I like to go crabbing and beach combing. Because it’s off the beaten path from the rest of Deception Pass State Park, or maybe due to the conditions along the beach at very low tide, it’s a great place to go, alone, to encounter sea creatures. Doing so requires a willingness to walk through muddy, sometimes slippery conditions, but this is the place where I’ve seen the seen the biggest variety of sea life with the fewest fellow beach combers, including: sea stars, plumose anemones, crabs, sea pens, burrowing anemones, dog whelks and blue top snails.

I combed through the tide data for Cornet Bay during 2017, which confirmed what I already knew: the lowest tides between sunrise and sunset occur during the summer months. In winter, they take place at night.

What I learned from White’s book was ten times what I knew from the time I spent at my favorite tide site **Spoiler Alert-the following paragraph contains information that you may not want to know if you plan to read the book, proceed with caution**:

Chapter 1 (Pp 34-35), “the moon, although smaller than the sun, is much closer to the earth and exerts about twice the sun’s influence on the tide;” Ch 2 (p 59), “The alignment of earth, moon, and sun is called syzygy. When the moon is full, it’s in opposition, when new, it’s in conjunction;” Ch 3 (p 82), “All rivers with tidal bores have two things in common. The first is a funnel-shaped river mouth with a gently sloping bottom. The second is a large tide at the river’s entrance. When this large tide–in the Qiantang’s case, twenty-six feet–enounters the shallowing river mouth, the energy shifts dramatically…It’s been said that a tidal bore is a sonic boom traveling upriver;” Ch 4 (p 121), “In a month’s time [the moon] darts like a hummingbird from 28 degrees north of the equator to 28 degrees south of the equator and back again…Newton figured that the moon’s migration north and south of the equator (its change in declination) must play a role in the varying heights of the daily tides;” Ch 5 (p 153-154) “an amphidrome has a center hub where…there is little or no tide. The arms or spokes rotate, with the highest tides in each amphidrome occurring farthest from the center hub…these circling arms are indeed waves traveling at 450 miles per hour;” Ch 6 (p 179) “The effect of global tidal friction usually acts as a break on the earth’s rotation, making each day 1/50,000 second longer. And as tidal braking slows the earth’s rotation, energy is transferred by angular momentum to the moon, speeding it up and pushing it away at a rate of about an inch and a half per year, or ten feet in a human lifetime;” Ch 7 (p 209), “Of the four hundred tide-generating constituents, only 12 are responsible for 90% of the tide, 90% of the time…;” Ch 8 (p 245), “Scientists agree that the 3.5 terawatts of global tide energy is the correct theoretical measure of the total, based on the physics.” Ch 9 (p 262), “the most extreme tides happen when the sun and moon are nearest the earth and as closely aligned as theoretically possible.” And that’s just about the tides! The stories of the people and the creatures whose lives intertwine with the tides are even better.

White also includes several pieces of information of local interest: (p 161) a nautical chart gives warning about Deception Pass, “rips and boils…should not be attempted by a small boat during maximum tidal currents;” (p 170), “Today, the Samish tribes believe Ko-Kwal-alwoot and her spirit-lover look after the people’s welfare. The turbulence in the water is Ko-Kwal-alwoot’s long hair, reminding the people of her presence, and (p 249) “In Washington State, Snohomish County PUD… planned to install two eighteen-foot-diameter, 150 kilowatt [tidal energy] machines…they would have been in Admiralty Inlet for five years…After years of research…due to funding shortages, the project was abandoned before the machines were installed.”

Tides4Fishing also provides information of local interest for beach combing aficionados: the lowest tides of the year (see table) so save the dates. Besides Cornet Bay, the Urchin Rocks at Rosario Beach and Penn Cove in Coupeville are great places to encounter marine life on North Whidbey/South Fidalgo Island. Save the date, 22 February at 7:00 pm, if you’d like to learn more about Tides from the author himself. Jonathan White discusses the subject at the Anacortes Public Library. It’s free and open to the public. Something to ponder in the meantime, my favorite pre-chapter quote from White’s book (p 44), “The most admirable thing of all is this union of the ocean with the orbit of the Moon. At every rising and every setting…the sea violently covers the coast far and wide…and once this same surge has been drawn back it lays the beaches bare…as though it is unwittingly drawn up by some breathings of the Moon.”

Get Grinch Quick With the Selfie Stick

Four camouflaged men carrying semi-automatic weapons materialized at the train station in Paris while we were breakfasting, welcoming us to the way the world had changed since my last visit three decades ago.

While deciding go/no go to Europe, it was my teenage son who insisted that our fears about potential terror attacks were unwarranted and illogical. Yet, we learned after returning from a walk along the Christmas bazaar-lined Champs-Élysées that our concerns weren’t completely groundless: a thwarted French attack was slated for December 1 at key Paris sites, including the very bazaar we visited, a week after we made our way through it. This was only one of several things that happened during our twelve-day trip that I hadn’t expected.

We had discussed our responsibilities and roles as Americans traveling abroad beforehand. I suggested that we be on our best behavior, acting as informal American ambassadors. But as we waited in the non-EU line at Heathrow, a woman in our queue lamented, “I got stuck by an American leaving Australia.” My heart shrunk a size. So, it came as no surprise a day later when I noticed an American man who hailed from Norfolk, Virginia sporting a Canadian flag ID tag on his backpack. What does he say when someone asks where he lives, exactly, “I speak of my experiences in one of my favorites cities: Toronto.” Grrr.

One truth and two lies: (1) Brits hate small talk, (2) Parisians will ignore your request if you don’t try to speak French, (3) TripAdvisor is a big fat liar.

In London, a helmeted, scooter-driving delivery guy offered us directions to our B&B, then followed (stalked?) us as we made our way through alleys and across streets on a cold dark night. For fifteen minutes, our feelings-pendulum swung between gratitude for his kindness and cautiousness in case he was leading us into a trap. In the end, we realized that he was just being nice. (1) Truth: the English do hate small talk, because of which I resisted the urge to do more than smile when interacting with them. Ironically, the chattiest tourists we encountered was a British couple, but they didn’t fool me. I know better.

(2) Lie: During my last trip to Paris, I traveled with a fluent-in-French friend. This time, no such luck; however, the locals were repeatedly kind to us, in spite of our faulty French. We annihilated the language, they nearly always replied, kindly, in English. A woman asked if we needed help as we stopped to check our map near a busy Paris street en route to our hotel and a younger, handsomer version of Kevin Kline in An American in Paris offered help at a laundromat with the confusing French-language-only machine instructions, sent me across the street for change and when I returned, only semi-successful (and almost in tears), he scowled, dashed off, and returned a few minutes later, change in hand.

(3) Truth: We visited one restaurant in Kensington (Maximo Italian Bistrot) and another in Paris (Chez Davido) based on average 4.5 star TripAdvisor reviews. Both had the restaurant owner providing excellent service and conversation, but the food was terrible. Growing up, I was forced to eat everything on my plate, so I’ll eat nearly anything. My standards for acceptable food items are not unreasonably high. I suspect that some TripAdvisor reviewers inflated ratings out of kindness to the personable owners. Eventually, we gave up on TripAdvisor, after which had better dining experiences.

The Original Selfie Stick Was Invented in the 1980s, but Wayne Fromm Patented the Modern Day Selfie Stick. I understand a person’s reluctance to inconvenience someone they don’t know with a photo-taking request, after which one must hand off his or her camera to a stranger, but in my experience, a typical user of the prolific-in-Europe stick may as well have been holding a sign that read, “Yes. I am trying to block your view.” Doing so would be no less discourteous than the actual view-blocking stick behavior. Not only can taking selfies lead to the death of the taker (a 2016 Carnegie Mellon study titled, “Me, Myself and My Killfie: Characterizing and Preventing Selfie Deaths,” determined there were 15 selfie-related deaths in 2014, 39 in 2015 and 73 through Sept. 2016) but travelers may have to use restraint to resist the urge to use rudeness against selfie-stickers.

On a boat ride along the Seine, it was impossible to ignore incessant selfie-stick-use and other photo-taking-related rudeness. Two fashion conscious teen girls spent much of the trip obstructing views to snap dozens of shots of one other, another man filmed himself with an iPad while we traveled under bridge after bridge, and a third person, a twentysomething woman, supported her pink-corded phone with a selfie stick held within inches of my kid’s head in order to videotape nearly the entire trip.

Fortunately, tourists resisted the lure of the selfie when it counted. We ended our trip with a tour of Dachau, where I was prepared to do battle with users if necessary. I needn’t have worried. Most visitors were on their best behavior, somber in dark clothing, speaking in quiet tones. I suspect they were too stunned by being in a place where such atrocities took place to do more than: listen to the tour guide, view the photographs, read the informational signs, and keep it together as they walked past the incinerator and through the “shower” facilities. My heart shrunk another size with the enormity of all the horrible things that had happened there.

After a dozen days away, we headed home, grateful for the experiences we’d had, the memories we brought back, and the fact that Whidbey and Fidalgo Islanders tend to resist the lure of an item that makes me get Grinch quick: the selfie stick.