Two fat flies spin wacky spirals around my head and torso, like tiny sharks circling their prey. House flies vomit and poop when they land on you, but they don’t bite, and I have worse things to worry about, so I leave them to their fun. I’ve reached mile 20 of the Jack & Jill’s …
Category Archives: Recreation
Tidepooling Along the Olympic Peninsula
The shell collector skillfully maneuvers his way across the beach, wades through waves, and sifts through sand to locate mollusks, identifying them by feel. A visit to an ophthalmologist at age 12 is fortuitous. The doctor introduces the blind boy to the beach. “Overnight, the world became shells, conchology, the phylum Mollusca,” the singular lifelong …
Anacortes All Stars Ski to Sea 2018
Best way to avoid worrying for weeks about how you might perform in a race–sign up last minute, which is one reason I agreed to join the Anacortes All Stars Ski to Sea 2018 team only thirteen days before the race. The other: I’d get to run almost entirely downhill. And since the team captain …
Nudibranch Whisperer of Deception Pass
Sea slugs cast a spell on me…and it all began with fake news. Well, semi-fake. Okay, it was actually two photographs, and the one that cast the spell wasn’t exactly fake, but it wasn’t of “the” sea slug. It was a vibrantly-colored red-tipped, black and white version of the same sea slug species taken underwater in all its …
Constitutional Rite
Mount Constitution, which tops out at 2,400 feet, is the highest point in the San Juan Islands. It’s located on Orcas, the largest of several hundred islands that make up the archipelago. ‘The name “Orcas” is a shortened form of Horcasitas, or Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo, the Viceroy of Mexico who …
Hal Higdon, Mount Si, First Road Race With My 19-Year-Old Guy
Three miles from the finish line of the Cinco de Mayo Half Marathon, I notice something half a mile in the distance that I’d hoped not to see: a dark-haired guy in a gray t-shirt and shorts…walking. I suspect my teenage son may have fallen into a trap common to inexperienced runners, like starting out …
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Deception Pass State Park Hiking Hacks
Get in the know before you go: Deception Pass Park Foundation hosts the downloadable map as an alternative to purchasing one at the main entrance for about two dollars. Since there are three distinct areas (Bowman Bay, Cornet Bay and Goose Rock), consider printing them out before you arrive. The map’s key contains numbers, but …
Snurfin’ USA
“Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of …
Cutting the Pool Baby in Half
The water surface was as smooth as glass during its last week of limited operation in mid-February, when it was open to accommodate the OHHS Boys Swim Team and the North Whidbey Aquatic Club. All appeared calm from above, but underneath swirled the stormy seas of controversy that have plagued the Vanderzicht pool for several …
Lab Girl, The Lorax, The Hidden Life of Trees, and Me
I used to think of trees as majestic, oxygen-producing shade-providers. Not anymore. Reading Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees and Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl transformed my view about these slow-growing humanoids. Now when I make my daily visit to the woods, it’s with a mindset of concern of a level that only freeway rubberneckers can understand. I …
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