Racing with the Rusens

Alison’s dad Al owns a sailing boat that is, I hesitate to say it, even more beautiful and less crash-damaged than the Ulithi, although perhaps equally temperamental. This year, Alison earned her captain’s wings and has organised Team Loon – a ragtag collection of misfits to crew the boat and drink mulled wine.

First race day was last Saturday. Well, actually the very first race day was in November but engine trouble stranded us at the marina. The engine problem recurred but we prevailed, with Al (in yellow) defty sailing us from the dock by wind power alone.

Sadly, there was virtually no wind at all. See the glassy Sound unruffled by the faintest breeze. Which at least meant we could enjoy our mulled Black Beret wine (Brian), cheesy nibbles (Trika) and spicy carrot soup (me) in relative peace.

Not as peaceful as these sealions, though, which we passed serenely in reverse as the light winds failed the battle the ever-so-slightly less light current.

Eventually, Al called it a day, fiddled around below decks with a pliers to literally spark the engine into life and we retreated to Shilshole. But Team Loon shall return!

Bellevue’s Garden of D’Lights

Here’s an hallucinogenic kick-start to the holiday season. Bellevue’s Botanical Gardens dressed up in half a million fairy lights. Ann and Ted took us here after a slap-up Italian dinner on Monday.

The place really has to be seen to be believed. It’s folk art with a serious bank roll – all done by volunteers.

At times, it feels like you’re floating through an 1980s pixellated video game. Tron – anyone?

At other times, it’s just incredibly cheesy, but always strangely beautiful, whimsical and even a little charming.

Uh oh, Ted’s getting some ideas for next year…

Snowshoeing at Mt Rainier - Carter Falls

A sunny morning, Mount Rainier towering over the city. Grab snowshoes, make yesterday’s baguette into sarnies, pack the peanut butter cups and hit the road. A speedy two hours to Mount Rainier National Park and park up at a Wonderland Trailhead just up from Longmire.

Of course, mountain weather being what it is, this is the last time we saw Rainier all day!

However, we do see a bunch of snow, a million ghostly trees and not another soul. Which occasionally makes finding the trail, buried under three feet of snow, a little challenging. Brave faces all round!

Bridges are a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it means we are definitely on the trail. But drifting snow makes them especially hard work – even following in footprints as big as mine…

We follow our ears as much as our eyes to Carter and Madcap Falls in the end. Shimmering streams of water and a delicate shroud of “ice sickles” (grrr).

When I see this face, I know it’s time to turn around.

Back to the car with plenty of daylight. Unclip. Swap socks. Freewheel downhill to Eatonville for a mug of tea and a slab of cake. This is the life.

A new trail for Hartstene

A rainy weekend in November. What more perfect time than to do something we’d been thinking about for a while – blaze a new trail through the woods?

We started from Karen’s bench up above Ann and Ted’s and just headed off in the brush. A couple of hours later we had the pretty good bones of a trail laid out.

Of course, we discovered some dreaded holly along the way. Here’s Karen and Raleigh wrenching up some roots. If you’re heading down to the island, please walk the trail – it’s an easy 1/2-mile loop and it needs some feet to keep it alive!

Oh, and it was a particularly lovely weekend for a walk along the shore, too…