The haps

Spent a beautiful day in the field on the water yesterday, driving the Lizzie and the Kingfisher around from Brentwood Bay to Sidney and then out to Moresby Island for some ground-truthing. Amazing sunrise followed by an absolutely beautiful day. Wind came up as we headed back up Saanich Inlet at the end of the day, but it let me practice my boat-handling skills a little. This is work - sunscreen, hat, wading boots, ropes, skiffs. Have I mentioned lately how much I love this place?

My neighbor just harvested his organic hops because it looks like it's going to rain tonight... he has 6 gigantic gallon-size ziplocs full of the stuff!

A friend sent me this great article... it is an excellent, brief, well-written piece from the NY Times on harvesting and consuming fish. It touches on the controversial bases while also giving some great advice on what not to eat and why.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/opinion/08greenberg.html?ex=1158379200&en=be18809a57ff755d&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Headed to Seattle again tomorrow, this time to retrieve Mom and John from the airport for some city fun followed by two weeks on Vancouver Island with me. I have some creative things lined up that will keep us all active and happy.

DMB concert and a climb

Labor Day weekend... Dave Matthews Band at the Gorge in Washington! Took an early ferry to Anacortes on Friday, a blazed up to Bellingham for my new post office box (email me if you want the stateside address), and a trip to the Seattle REI to buy a climbing harness and rent some climbing shoes and a helmet. Not for the concert... for the climb at Frenchman's Coulee afterward. My friend Keith is an accomplished rock climber (although he prefers ice-climbing) and agreed to trade me a climbing lesson for a spot at the DMB concert.

Saturday morning brought errands in the city, shopping, and a 3-hour drive east through the Cascade Mountains and the rain-shadowed desert on their eastern side.

The campground at the Gorge - what a sight! There were tents and cars and campers and people as far as the eye could see. I was afraid it would be a dirt-pit, but it was actually grassy and fairly clean for as many people as were there. Very exciting!

Very little organization, so we just drove laps until we found a "spot" ... it was barely a spot big enough for the Subie... but there's no worrying about impinging on people's rights and space in this environment. We cracked open Full Sail Ales and set up the tents and a nice shade shelter using the Thule box on top of the Subaru as an anchor.

Met our "neighbors" -- Jake, Tom, and Ryan. In this photo, Ryan is attempting to open a beer bottle with a water bottle. We were in a male-dominated area, but this was not intentional, I swear. They were very curious if Keith and I were on a "date" - noting the separate tents.















They were also extremely interested in Keith's giant lawn blanket, hand-made from a collection of bar towels gathered over the years from English pubs. (I thought of how covetous Den would be.)















The Dave Matthews Band concert was absolutely incredible! You'll have to take my word for it because I have no photographic evidence. This is a link to the play list.

What a great show! Many reasons...
- outside under the vast stars at the beautiful Gorge Amphitheater
- tons of energy!
- they did a LOT MORE JAMMING than I've ever heard... Boyd was on fire on the violin! at the end of one of my favorites tunes - "Grace is Gone" - he jammed on and on with a ripping hoe-down piece that I thought would cause an explosion! major creativity
- they played some unreleased tunes - "Butterfly" (which he said he sings to his daughters to get them to sleep), "Shotgun" and "Break Free"
- and some rare tunes I hadn't heard live - "Pig" (This blessed sip of life, is it not enough?) and "Anyone seen the bridge?"
- they didn't play the tunes that'll break my heart in pieces and get me bawling (Stolen Away)
- met a great group of people and danced, danced, danced!!
- sold-out crowd 28,000 and I didn't see a single fight or even a bad mood!

The next morning we were up early to survey the damage and find our way out of the car-tent maze and down to the Columbia River for coffee and a pre-climb breakfast with an incredible vista.















At the climbing spot, Frenchman's Coulee, we hiked a short way up and over the cliffs



(and through this narrow crack!)




to the back side of the gorge where we looked out across a giant bowl surrounded by mesas.















After about an hour of hiking and surveying our options, Keith chose a route appropriate for a beginner like me but not too boring for him.


After the climb, we named this the "Hot Choss Route" -- but at the time of this photo we had no idea this would be the case. You can see Keith near the top in this photo.

The temperatures were up close to 100, and our flesh seared on the rocks ("Hot"), which were often loose and crumbly boulders ("Choss") rather than solid rock.




But hey, I got to belay, climb, and rappel down, Keith did the same, and neither of us got signicantly injured. A great time! Celebrating at the Columbia gorge on the way home. Even the gigantic hat can't obscure the smile.



Thanks for the hat, Tex.
Thanks for the incredible music, DMB.
And thanks for the climbing lesson, Keith.

Take care all!
-- Jo