Dry Socks

I love the feeling of rain streaming down my face. We are in a pace line, flying down the Green River Valley surprisingly fast. The light rain we have been enjoying all day has turned into a torrential downpour. And we're loving it. We're talking about how much fun it is. My fenders are keeping the spray down and Nadine says that water is pouring down the inside AND the outside of my buddy flap! Dressed well, we're wet but warm. I'm wearing a poly turtleneck, wool shirt and wool socks and bike tights (kicking myself for not wearing the wool kinckers!). I'm soaked.

Earlier in the day we pedaled up the Cedar River Trail, which after it leaves the highway and the pavement ends, takes us through rain forest that is just so beautiful it is hard to believe.  It fills me with joy.  I love that trail and look forward to it, and i'm always surprised at how magnificent it is.  Today, in the rain, the ferns and mosses, the cedars and alders were glowing.  It feels so RIGHT to be in the rain forest in the rain.  It just made me stronger, my legs had all the power i wanted pushing the bike up the gravel trail.  It just doesn't get any better that that.

A few minutes later i found myself in a log shelter in a park eating a sandwich looking out through the rain at the moss covered roofs and trees.  I couldn't be more happy.

My peanut butter looked exactly like the banana slugs we were dodging on the wet trail!

Right now, i'm sitting at home, warm and clean with wool socks on.  Dry socks.

I love riding in the rain, i'm very happy getting wet.  It feels good. And i love getting dry afterwards!  I appreciate the dry in a way i wouldn't otherwise appreciate it. Warm dry wool socks feel so good right now!.

Eclipse Party

As a kid i was fascinated by astronomy.  Of course this was when the Gemini and Apollo missions were going on and that helped, but i really loved the movement of the planets in particular and i couldn't learn enough about it.  I subscribed to the newsletters and magazines… not the ones for kids, but for adults, for astronomers.  And i desperately wanted a telescope.  In 1977 my dad gave me 4½ inch reflector which i still have and still use.

Eclipses are one of the most fascinating things about planetary astronomy.  The moon is one of my favorite things and i think it's amazing when the moon moves between me and the sun.  Orbital dynamics are so cool.

There was a 94% eclipse in my front yard in Washington DC when i was 6 years old.  We ran inside to watch totality (in North Carolina) on TV in the basement and then ran outside again.  From that time onward i really wanted to see a total eclipse.  I had my hopes set on 1979 in Montana or 1991 in Mexico.

I saw both of those eclipses, but only as partial eclipses from home.  In 1979 i went to a friend's farm and i used my telescope to project the 55% eclipse.  In 1991, i couldn't make it to Mexico, but there were people projecting the 21% eclipse at the electronics company that i worked at in Wisconsin. Finally in 1999 i traveled to Germany to see a Total Solar Eclipse.  I was extremely lucky to find a friend who took me to an amazing hillside in the path of 100% and then got very lucky when the clouds parted at exactly the right time.

I had been looking forward to yesterday's eclipse for a long time;  we haven't had a partial solar eclipse in Seattle for 10 years -- usually it's only 2 or 3 years between them.

For 6 months i have been planning an eclipse party at the park.  As Sunday May 20th approached, i was quite excited.  I was not particularly disturbed by the rainy forecast.  I was, as always, optimistic.  I would be happy with just a peek through the clouds.  In fact, sometimes you can see the disk of the sun through thin clouds and it acts like a filter.  I was kind of hoping for that.

I packed up my "big" telescope in my bike trailer.  I also brought 5 or 6 smaller hand held telescopes, binoculars, sun filters for the telescope, aluminized mylar for direct viewing, eclipse glasses from Germany 1999, a camera, cards and paper to make pin hole cameras, tripods for mounting pin hole cameras, a globe and some balls (for demonstrations) and cookies.

I rode up to Volunteer Park in the rain.  The trailer tracked nicely and smoothly, and felt fine, but i did try to ride gently and did my best to avoid bumpy pavement.   I arrived at the park right at 5pm.  I set out the bright red plastic telescope on the platform and stood by my bike looking at the clouds.  I was ready.

We were due to have a partial solar eclipse starting at 17:01.  The moon was going to move between the earth and the sun.  Slowly over about 2 and half hours the moon would start to cover the sun, starting with just a little bite and then slide off the other side. At it's greatest point, at about 6:15 pm, the moon was going to cover 82% of the sun.

The eclipse was annular in parts of Japan, the Pacific and Nevada, but not here;  it was a partial eclipse here.  In Portland my brother was going to see a partial eclipse with 87% coverage, and down in Nevada it would be an annular eclipse with the moon covering 95% of the sun, leaving only a ring (an annulus in Latin) of sun around the edges of the moon.  They will see the mountains on the moon!  That's pretty amazing.

Of course in the months approaching the eclipse there was not a peep about it in the newspapers, on the radio, TV & websites and then in the two days beforehand the media went batshit crazy reading off any idiotic thing they could find, occasionally even finding something that was true.  I couldn't believe how much mistaken and just made up things they broadcast as eclipse news.

And by the way NPR and Cliff Mass, and others, it's an annular eclipse, not an annual eclipse!  Duh.

You also heard again and again the silly scare tactics about eclipses making you go blind.  Staring at the sun is bad for your eyes, but staring at the sun also really HURTS and so if you try, you just look away and amazingly, that prevents damage.  The other, perhaps more important thing is that staring at the sun during an eclipse won't help you see the eclipse!  The sun is too bright.  So it won't help and it hurts so no one is going to do it, but they keep repeating the thoughtless frightening alerts because the of old superstition of eclipses being portents of evil.   They are not evil and you won't go blind.

To watch an eclipse you either have a filter to protect your eyes, aluminized mylar works very well i have a thick piece for my telescope and a thin one for direct viewing, or you project it on a white card using a pin hole, binoculars or as i planned on doing, a telescope.  It's the same for viewing sunspots on a normal sunny day, which i do frequently.

I had invited a lot of people to come join me, i was hoping for a party, but with the prospect of rain i wasn't expecting many.  A few people did come and one friend waited out the whole thing with me which i really appreciated..  I also figured that my telescope might attract some passersby because even at 82% of the sun covered on a sunny day, people wouldn't be likely to notice unless they were looking.  The sun is so bright that even that much blocked wouldn't be readily apparent.

Seattle sun view at 18:17 (May 20, 2012 partial eclipse)

I stood in the rain watched the clouds but they didn't clear or even thin.  I didn't see anything.  I was a little disappointed.  A little peek would've been nice.  But i enjoyed the time in the park.  And it wasn't a complete loss:  i was very pleased that i managed to carry my fragile, expensive, not small telescope by bicycle!  I packed a thick fleece blanket around it in a plastic tub on my one-wheeled trailer.

The next eclipse is in 4 years. (Not 60 like i heard on the TV news.)  In fact, there are two partial eclipses visible in Seattle in the next 5 years, both pretty big. 

Oct 23 2014  start 12:35  end 15:19  max at 14:00 - 55%  
Aug 21 2017 start 08:08  end 10:38  max at 09:20 - 92%

In that on in 2017 the narrow path of totality will pass nearby, it will go through Salem Oregon.  That's biking distance from here!

Here in Seattle, before  yesterday, we were 120 months without a partial solar eclipse, the longest wait in 200 years.  The 1990s were good, with a big cluster of eclipses about a year apart, now we're entering a period of 3 to 4 years between them here.

Here's a graphic i made of all the eclipses visible from Seattle between 1900 and 2100. The date is along the bottom and the height is the months wait since the last eclipse. The size of the circle indicates (slightly confusingly) the amount of the sun that is eclipsed:  bigger is more.  Total eclipses would be the largest circle and filled in.  There are none. The last total solar eclipse visible from the (current) city limits of Seattle was July 18, 1860 and the next one will be May 17, 2645.

Notice yesterday's eclipse at the top of the chart. I've put the year on a few notable ones.

I've been in the path of 18 solar eclipses, and i've seen at least 6.  All were partial eclipses except for the 1999 Total Solar Eclipse that i traveled half way around the world to see.

In December 2001 there was a tiny little 8% partial solar eclipse which i saw from my apartment.  I used my telescope to project the eclipse on the ceiling.  It was really cool.  In June 2002 i took my telescope out to Seacrest Park on Elliot Bay in West Seattle for the 37% eclipse in the evening.

So since there are no photos of today's eclipse, here are a couple from the December 2001 eclipse that i projected on my ceiling.  It was a very small eclipse, only 8%.  Notice the red plastic telescope in the bottom of the photo, that is what.is projecting the image.

2001-12-14 Solar Eclipse in Seattle (c) Mark Canizaro

2001-12-14 Solar Eclipse in Seattle (c) Mark Canizaro

Tulips 2012

We had long been planning a ride in the Skagit Flats during Tulip Festival. This morning five of us piled into Nadine's SUV and she drove us to Mount Vernon. Karen & Emily & Nadine & i ride regularly on Tuesdays. Julie joined us, Nadine and i have know her for many years but this was the first time she'd ridden with us on our Tuesday rides. And a friend from volunteering at Bike Works, Sue, also joined us -- she arrived just after we did. It was very good to have both of them along.

Sue, Emily, me, Nadine & Karen ready to start riding

There was lots of liquid sunshine in Skagit County on Tuesday.  Riding warmed us up quickly. We rode west out of Mount Vernon and turned north on Avon-Allen road. The Norwegeian Stave churches dot the lovely wide open farmland, making this a very nice ride. We rode north towards the hamlet (ok, crossroads) of Bow and then west to the tiny town of Edison. We got to Edison very quickly, we were flying today!  Nadine said it was the fastest average speed since she got her GPS unit.

Since i was the only person with full fenders and a buddy flap, i had to spend most of the time riding in front.  There were some big rooster tails!  The back of Nadine's jacket demonstrates the advantage of fenders.

Nadine on Avon-Allen Rd with a mud stripe up her back.

Edison is proudly the hometown of Edward R. Murrow, the founder of TV newscasting. (OK, he moved around a lot. It's where he went to high school.) There were lots of photos. We stopped at a magnificent bakery called the Breadfarm. Across the street was a wonderful Murrow quote painted on the wall. He was obviously a smart guy.

me in Edison with Murrow quote.

We looked over the two cafes in Edison and chose this one.  We invaded the cozy cafe with our wet jackets and excitement.  The wait staff was very friendly and we had a great lunch!

Julie, Emily & Sue ham it up after lunch.

Heading south out of Edison i suggested a detour to Samish Island. I'm always fascinated with little islands and areas like this. To my delight, everyone was eager to take a look. We rode into a stiff breeze along the reclaimed farmland surrounded by dikes that now connects the former island to the mainland. It was a beautiful little island and one of the nicest rides i've had. We really enjoyed it. And we got our first taste of elevation gain on this mostly flat ride climbing the small hill over the island (and back).

Julie admires the native flora while riding over the hill on Samish Island

Sue on Samish Island

Returning from Samish Island we had that moment of recognition that, regardless of experience, happens to all cyclists.  We realized why we were so fast up to Edison.  We had had a tailwind, but of course, we didn't notice it, we just assumed we were fast.  Now we turned south directly into a stiff headwind.  We practiced a bit of paceline riding, taking turns cutting through the wind in front and sheltering behind.

I had planned on picking up the Levee Trail as we headed south.  I had thought it started before the hill up to Bayview, that it would take us around it.  But it didn't; we had a second hill for the day, not a big one, just enough to get warmed up.  Emily and Karen are both strong riders, but while they climb they like me to tell them travel stories to distract them.  I'm always happy to oblige, so i fell in behind them for the hill.

By the time we got on the Levee the rain had started again, pretty hard this time.  It was a gorgeous trail along the mudflats and we saw lots and lots of birds: herons and hawks and eagles and ducks and Pipers and lots of things that we couldn't identify.   We thought about Dennis who often rides with us.  If he were along, he could identify all of them.  But then we would make no progress because he would be stopping to photograph a bird every quarter mile.

We were all getting a bit peckish.  I was really focused on the upcoming ice cream stop at the Berry Barn.  As soon as we crossed highway 20, we stopped for ice cream.  The map calls it the town of Whitney but there is just this one building.  I got mixed berry ice cream  It was GOOD!  I really needed that fuel.

Nadine checks the flag to confirm the headwind in Whitney

In the morning i had a sore muscle in my knee -- i strained it on Sunday.  It worried me.  At first i wasn't even sure i could ride today.  I was careful with it, very alert to keep my position on the saddle correct and to pedal a full stroke.  And i stretched a lot, something i don't normally do.  By the time we were finished with ice cream and ready to head into the Tulip fields i was feeling very strong, my knee was not a problem.  I took the lead into the headwind.   We didn't have time for the detour into La Conner  (will have to wait until next year for fry bread i guess!) so we zigged and zagged through the tulip fields which were ostensibly the reason for today's ride.

Me in the Tulip fields along Best Rd.  (At mile 41)

Karen & Julie having fun with the Tulips

Purple jacket, purple tulips.

Sue

Emily copies her daughter's pose from the day before.

I'm riding past the colorful fields.

Karen cruises past the daffodils

Emily on her wheel.

Sue admires the rows of yellow

Julie's jacket matches the field of flowers

It was a great day with good company, wonderful scenery and good exercise. We all finished the 45 miles feeling very invigorated and happy.

Here's an overview map of our route.

And here's a closer up, more detailed view and elevation profile (as always, click the photo for a bigger view).

Tulips in the rear view mirror.

Finally, the creaking is gone.

This was a great ride.  I always enjoy riding.  There are times when it's hard to ride alone, or when someone else is being difficult that can make it challenging, but i can usually enjoy the bike itself, the scenery or the fantastic weather.  Today riding to work in the morning the weather was fantastic.   Heavy rain, but no wind.  It was very nice.

Tonight after the volunteer work party, a good group of us rode north from Bike Works.  These are always the best rides.  Riding at night in the city is one of the most wonderful things.  Tonight the crescent moon and an extremely bright planet Venus were shining down on us as we left Bike Works for the dark shore of Lake Washington.  Good company, quiet roads and a beautiful calm night made my legs strong.  One person was heading further north than Capitol Hill and i stuck along the lake with her for a few miles, crossing the Montlake Bridge and doubling back over the University Bridge.  It was a very pleasant ride and conversation.

On the way back i decided to ride up Interlaken Drive.  I was coming from the other direction so i couldn't ride through the heavy dark forest of car-free Interlaken Park, but instead came through the shaded wealthy houses on the approach from the west.  My strong legs and quiet bike gobbled up the smooth fast pavement and glorious curves of the dark quiet street.  It was magnificent.

Wait a minute!  My QUIET bike?

For a several weeks i've had a terrible creak in my bike when i stand up, or when i pedal hard.   While i love a quiet bike, i accept little sounds, rattles and squeaks, if i know what they are and know they are not doing any damage.


I COULD NOT identify this creak.  I tightened the crank bolts, a common cause of creak.  Bottom bracket too.  I took apart the cranks, handlebars, stem, and examined every inch of the bike.  I had my bottom bracket professionally replaced. It really needed it.  It was creaking, but that didn't get rid of the annoying creak.  My expert mechanic couldn't identify it.  I was getting pretty stressed about it.   I was starting to worry it might be a frame crack!

I installed new handlebars recently, it wasn't that.  I've been adjusting them every couple of days, trying to get used to them.  I took apart the stem, cleaned it and greased it.  That didn't fix it.  I re-ran the cables.  Nothing seemed to do it.  Yesterday while doing something else, i popped off the front wheel.  I adjusted the generator wire and rattled the locking quick release skewer a bit and i cleaned the dropouts and put a tiny layer of grease on them.  Then i re-mounted the wheel.

I guess that must have done it.  It was raining pretty hard on my ride out this morning so i probably wouldn't have heard it if it was creaking.  But it was quiet riding across the city tonight.

My bike was quiet again.  For the first time in weeks.  It was calming.  My new handlebars were finally perfectly adjusted, and i was adjusted to them.  I enjoyed the ride in the rain this morning, loved my steel fenders too.   I really enjoyed the company on the beautiful, stealthy night time scramble up Lake Washington. And as i sped through the sweeping curves from Roanoke to the start of the climb in  Interlaken, i felt one with the bike, i felt fast, felt strong.  I felt happy.

Seattle Has Four Seasons

I ran some errands this afternoon.  It was cold and clear.  About 35 degrees, blue sky.  Very nice.

I left home on and rode a mile up hill to my first errand, parked and locked up under the clear blue sky.  I was only there about 3 minutes, so very soon i was riding again.  As i rode along the crest of the hill, about half a mile to my next errand, the west wind kicked up and blew me around a bit - it was fun.  I bought a cookie and chatted a bit at the bakery and was soon on the road again.

I rode to the food Co-op, another half a mile.   As I was in line at the Co-op it got very dark and started raining hard.  I took my shopping basket out to the bike as the rain changed to graupel (also often called winter hail).  It was coming down very hard.  In the 2 or 3 minutes it took to pack the food in the trunk bag of my bike, a quarter inch layer accumulated on my seat.   I thought it was really cool.   A couple of people sitting at the coffee bar by the window were smiling at me.  I smiled back like, isn't this great!  I think they were actually laughing at me.    

When i took my basket back into the Co-op, there was a crowd around the door staring at falling ice (or refusing to go out in it, i don't really know which).  I rode a few blocks north on 16th Ave E in the heavy shower of pellets.  Because it was graupel and not rain or snow, i wasn't getting wet!  It was fun riding in it.

Then i turned west to go down the hill towards my house. Riding into the (strong) wind, downhill, with that graupel coming into my face was a challenge.

When I got down to 11th Ave E it wasn't graupel anymore; it was big fluffy snowflakes coming down very heavy!  Visibility was about 50 feet.  I loved it.  It was snowing so hard that there was little bits of accumulation at the base of trees.   I went through Cal Anderson Park and the plastic turf soccer field was completely covered, completely white.

By the time i got to the library about 8 blocks later the snow was turning wet.

When I left the library 10 minutes later, the sun was out, the sky was blue and it was noticeably warmer, i had to take my sweater off for the ride 3 blocks home.

Just another Seattle bike ride.  I was gone slightly over an hour.  Rain, snow, sleet, sun, wind.  Seattle in the spring is always like this.

Who says Seattle doesn't have four seasons?  We have them all in one hour!

Des Moines Creek Trail

Some months ago my friend Aurilee needed to go to Des Moines, just south of Seattle, for an appointment. When we were discussing route choices we noticed an interesting bike trail on the map. She didn't wind up using the trail that evening, but we've both been wondering about that trail ever since, and this afternoon seemed like a great time to explore it. It's a short ride and we didn't have the whole day.

We started out on a sunny afternoon on Capitol Hill with a stop at Rancho Bravo and then a Molly Moon's milkshake. Milkshakes are the ideal cycling fuel!

(photo by Aurilee Gamboa)

We rode through the Seattle University Campus and down to SODO station where we hopped on LINK light rail for a quick ride to Sea Tac airport. This got us close to the trail, gave me a chance to explore some areas new to me and offered a relaxed opportunity to figure out the southbound bicycle departure route from the airport that i'd always wondered about. Yet another goal of this ride was for Aurilee to enjoy learning about her brand new camera.

When we got off the train, we were face to face with an beautiful piece of artwork called Flying Sails. Aurilee immediately pulled out the new camera.

I managed to get a photo of both of us reflected in the artwork.

I have friends who live outside of Karlsruhe, Germany, so i lined up this photo of my bicycle, which i think turned out quite well.

We left the light rail station and found our way to the bus stop next to the baggage claim. We recognized our friend Joe's bike. He's in Cleveland for the weekend.

It was the only bike in the rack that was locked up securely! The rest all had very thin cables and the wheels were not locked!

We easily found the (unmarked) bicycle route out of the airport on 28th Ave S, avoiding the major, heavy traffic streets. Once out of the airport we decided to take a loop around the Angle Lake neighborhood, just to see it. I had never been there before.

It was an interesting suburban neighborhood with a very nice park on the lake. Lots of folks were out in the park on this spring Saturday. As we rode into the park we almost got hit by flying water bottles. I couldn't really figure out what was going on. At first i thought they were water balloons (a couple exploded on the sidewalk) but they were in fact sealed bottles of water. There was a large group throwing them. But after watching for a moment it became clear that they were not throwing them at each other, or at us, but up in a tree.

There was a volleyball stuck about 35 feet up in the tree!!! We watched for a few minutes and at one point they hit the volleyball, and it jumped a foot or so up, but settled back down in the same branch. It looked kind of hopeless, and when they actually got a water bottle stuck in the tree next to it, we rolled on out of the park, never knowing the resolution to that story.

A few blocks later we stopped to check the map, to make sure we were on route to the Des Moines Creek trail.

A short ride, down a VERY steep hill brought us to the trailhead, and off we headed on a very nice trail.

This was not a flat trail!  Unlike most trails made from rail grades, this was a steady, significant downhill. I really loved the beautiful little trail cutting through the heavy forest next to the lovely stream.

It was very peaceful and pretty, but every few minutes you were reminded that a major international airport was just a couple of miles away.

There were lots of opportunities for photography.

I noticed a nice design feature on this winding, downhill trail.

When we would come to a tight curve, the center line was wide to prevent conflicts. I thought it was a neat idea.

Near the downhill end of the 4 or 5 mile trail, there was an underpass that was decorated in a fun way.

First there was the fake fern fossil!

And this salmon seems to be jumping out of the wall, while Aurilee looks like she's lost in a cartoon!

The trail which started so high up on the hill ended at sea level. We had found the Puget Sound.

The historical marker sign told us that this park on the water was the site of an old original homestead from the 1880s, and that the long beautiful downhill bike trail we had just ridden was the road to burgeoning settlement of Duwamps (Seattle)!

We spent a half an hour or so sitting on the beach, watching the kids play in the cold, cold tide and taking photos, looking out at Puget Sound and Maury Island in the distance.

It was a very high tide, and the seaweed was washing up.

There was a long public fishing pier and we walked out to the end. The clouds were starting to gather and the wind was brisk out there. I liked the fish cleaning station.

Obviously it is often windy here, because this small beautiful tree has been fighting the wind, and apparently, kids, for many years.

Aurilee taking a photo at Des Moines Marina.

As we cycled along the marina the clouds started to look darker and darker.

We decided to loop down 3 or 4 more miles before turning back. It was a fascinating area. In 20 years in Seattle i had never been there, and it was quite different from anywhere else i had seen. I enjoyed it a lot.

The magnificent old Masonic Retirement Center, now an event center, sits like a massive castle on the hill overlooking the water. I've seen it from a distance before, when riding on Vashon & Maury Islands and even, i think, from Tacoma. It was fun to ride directly in front of it.

We rode to Salt Water State Park, descending fast down to the beach. Aurilee took this amazing photo of the magnificent clouds.

photo copyright Aurilee Gamoba

The weather had changed considerably from the warm lunchtime sun. Now we knew we were in for a bit of rain soon. We were prepared.

But first we had to climb up out of Salt Water State Park. The thing about living on a fjord, every time you go down to the water, it's a big, big hill back up!

Once back up a the height of the cliffs, we discussed different routes, but decided the Des Moines Creek Trail was so beautiful that riding it again was essential, and besides, all the other choices involved riding busy streets, probably in the rain. We rode back through Des Moines as it got darker and darker. The rain started just a few minutes after we started back up the trail. We stopped and donned our rain gear. The rain wasn't a soft, typical, Puget sound rain, it was raining HARD. Riding the trail was the right decision. I can't possibly express how beautiful the trail, the stream and the forest were in the rain. I almost had tears in my eyes. The sound of the heavy rain on the canopy of the trees above our heads was amazing. I felt lucky. It was a joy to be there in the rain.

The ride up the trail through the forest in the rain was lovely, but once out, we had to climb a big hill on S 200th St.

and then it was just 5 or 10 minutes back to the airport where we got back on light rail.

We stopped for excellent, warming, Cambodian food on the way home and thrilled at how hard the rain was thundering down. There was thunder too, as we pulled up to the Cambodian restaurant in Chinatown. It wasn't from the clouds though: The Seattle Sounders FC were playing a MLS soccer game against Portland, 38,000 fans in the pouring rain were having a great time. Someone must have scored because right as we were pulling up to the restaurant, they set of some extremely loud fireworks!

A short afternoon ride turned into a fantastic, diverse exploration. What fun!