Lunch on Bainbridge, and Mt. Si

This weekend I treated myself to two of my favorite activities: sailing and hiking. Oh, and I managed to attend two Halloween parties on Saturday night.

Saturday, I invited my friends Holly and Adam B. (and his friend) on L'attitude for a trip over to Bainbridge Island for lunch on the waterfront. After striking out at a Thai restaurant (which for some reason closed for 30 minutes in between lunch and dinner...just our luck!) we we over to The Public House, which was basically an organic pub. The food was delicious, and the sailing was just as good. I made it back in time to go to my former roommate Jonathan's Halloween party in Magnolia. He and his girlfriend Laura went all out in their decorations, including a full-fledged haunted house in the basement with motion-sensing props. Most impressive!

Sunday I was hoping to go sailing with a different set of friends, but nobody was able to commit, and so Tracy, Goldie, and I decided to summit nearby Mt. Si instead. We got a late jump on it, so it was a race against time (which was an hour shorter due to daylight savings ending). Needless to say, there was a "chance of rain", but it stayed dry the whole time, and we were even treated to some grand views from the 4,000 ft. peak. We hurried down, but still didn't make it before it got dark, and we had forgotten to bring headlamps. Lack of daylight savings takes some getting used to, I guess!

The new job, including a trip to the zoo

Another post, by popular demand...

I started my new job this week at a company called Groundspeak (see link to geocaching.com in an earlier post), and it's been a very fun ride so far. The company is made up of only 11 people, but they've been fabulous to me. It very much has the feel of startup, with hardworking people often engaging in complete randomness. Video games are a popular topic of conversation, though as you might expect, I get rather quiet when this topic comes up.

This morning, instead of going to the office to work, I went to the Woodland Park Zoo on a work assignment. My goal was to map out various zones (and other interesting points) on my GPS, for use on a top-secret project. So, there I am at 10:00am on a workday with all the stay-at-home moms and their toddlers, plus a field trip here and there. It was supposed to rain, but turned out to be mostly sunny and quite windy (par for the course for Seattle forecasters!). Unfortunately, I didn't have too much time to be a regular sightseer, and instead spent most of my trip focused on the GPS. Mission accomplished! I think I could get used to this job...

Port Townsend by boat

This past weekend, four friends (Terry, Heike, Aimee, and Chris) and I decided to sail up to Port Townsend, a quaint artsy town about 30 miles NW of Seattle. We set out Saturday morning for an anticipated 8-hour trip up to PT, with plans on getting back on Sunday evening. The wind and weather forecast was not particularly favorable for sailing, with light wind on Saturday and showers on Sunday, but that didn't stop us.

On the trip up, we managed, to actually sail for about two hours before having to turn the engine on for the rest of the way. Fortunately, we didn't experience any rain, though we heard that there were severe thunderstorms in Seattle. We arrived at Point Hudson Marina in Port Townsend around 6pm. After a lovely venison burger for dinner and some pool at a local brewpub, we headed back to the boat for a good night's sleep. Overnight, the wind picked up and howled through the marina.

The next morning we woke to 20-25 mph winds and showery conditions. It also happened to be the Port Townsend Kinetic Festival. What is this, you might ask? Apparently it is a 7-mile race over both land and water for homemade, "perpetual motion", self-powered vehicles. The entries were varied and unusual looking. People definitely got creative with their engineering, and pictures don't really do it justice. Unfortunately, though, in order to make it back to Seattle against a strong wind, we couldn't watch the race (though we pitied the poor people who had to contend with tall waves, whitecaps, and cool temperatures).

We launced around 1pm in very heavy wind and almost immediately got turned to a different route due to impassible waves and strong winds. We ended up motoring for a few hours before daring to open up the sails, and once we did, we made little forward progress in the challenging conditions. Rains and wind squalls came and went, as we seemed to be right on the edge of the front. The bow was getting hammered by the waves, and sea spray often made it back into the cockpit. To the west, the sun was setting beautifully, but in all other directions, ominous clouds loomed overhead. At 7pm, without about 15 miles left to go, we decided to turn on the motor for the remaining 3+ hours back to the dock. Fortunately, the wind and waves calmed down, and we were treated to a starry night toward the end.

For more pictures from this trip, click here