Weekend 6 (Sunday): Pike Place Market and Downtown Seattle

Weekend 6: Sunday, Downtown Seattle, Pikes Place Market
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After the ride to Windy Ridge observatory on Saturday, I decided to give my legs a break. Instead of hitting the hills, I hopped on a bus to downtown Seattle. By comlete chance I got off two blocks from Pike Place Market; a beautiful coincidence. I ended up walking around the city for around five hours, filling the memory card with pictures. Not a whole lot to be said except that Seattle truly is beautiful.
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With that, I’ll leave you to the best of Seattle that I could locate in a view finder.

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Welcome to the market!

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Pike Street looking towards Pine Street. Interesting shops and stands populate both sides of the street, the main market is on the left side of the street in this picture, covered from the rain by a building.
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Just look at that smile. I miss Zach.

Street performers are everywhere.

These pigs are to Seattle as the Cows are to Boston.

Rats with wings.

The Seattle Sports arenas.

Inside the market building. (It never fails: Whenever I raise the camera high to snap one of these photos, there is always at least one D-bag that destroys the candid shot by giving a great big goofy-ass grin (There are actually 7 in this picture). The main man, “Mr. Red-shirt” here, was lucky enough to place himself directly in the center of my picture. Well, Mr. Red-shirt, now you’re famous. You’ve made my blog! In all actuality, I really like this picture. The lines, the lighting, the slight blur giving movement, and the fact that in a frame full of strangers there is a weird personal connection with a few of them makers it pretty sweet).

These flower vendors are EVERYWHERE. So bright, so fresh, and so ridiculously cheap.

Shapes, lines, colors. Necklaces of the market.

Look closely.

Fresh veggies.

Badger, badger, badger, badger!! mushroom, MUSHROOM!!!

Tic-Tac-Toe, anyone?

From experience: A bundle of Asparagus such as this will not likely last (without beginning to destroy the once pleasant smell of your refrigerator) for more than a week(ish).

For Becky.

Delicious fish, fresh off the boat that morning.

The fish market. Check out how the fish he just threw matches the curve of the fish on the wall. PURE luck.

For Dizz: So the next mural will be more lifelike.

Fishy.

Pike Place Fish Co. The crowds that gather to watch a few college-age kids throw around fish (real: to eachother, stuffed: at the customers) and shout at random times is quite amusing.

A place that actually rivals Dr. Mirenda's kitchen in terms of spice variety. Tas-tea (get it?).

What'd I do?!

Reflection in the Seattle Library. That place is HUGE, and the architecture is incredible. This is a piece of the building protruding off of the main structure over the sidewalk.

My new hair Salon.

BLUE!

The Space needle, being visible from nearly every location in the greater Seattle area, makes it a great object to photograph. Hence, the billion postcards all boasting its large frame and giant point among the downtown skyline. While I circled the city from towntown through Belltown, I just kept snapping away. So, without further ado, the space needle:

I like the flag in this one.

SWEET.

It's GINORMOUS.

I've been pretty obsessed with sky/cloud shots.

Metropolitan Eastern Sky.

Angry Western Sky.

Community theatre at a park in Belltown.

The sunsets over the Puget sound can range from spectacular to downright dull. It all depends on whether there are clouds in the western sky when the sun goes down. Luckily, the angry sky of Sunday made f0r a incredible view as the hour hand crept toward 10 PM.

Boats of Alaskan Way.

Playing with shutter speed priority.

Weekend 6 (Saturday): Mt. St. Helens Ride with the Cascade Bicycle Club

Several weeks had passed since the July 4th ride when I first met with members of the Cascade Bicycle Club, and I was excited to experience what many of the members had called one of the "Washington Classics." On a screaming early Saturday morning (4:00 AM) , I awoke, grabbed a quick breakfast and headed down to West Seattle to meet with the ride organizer, Gary Strauss, who agreed to carpool down the 100+ miles to the ride start with me (i.e. I rode with him in his reliable car). We met around 4:45 and began the drive to Renton to pick up his friend Johnna, and the trip began.

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On the way down we all got acquainted with each other, current jobs, goals, etc... Gary is a lawyer who has worked in downtown Seattle for the last 18 years. Johnna is a working in Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Department, traveling the world busting up multi-million dollar piracy schemes, and I am a lowly grad-student, leaving no stone unturned as I search for a cool life-path to walk on.

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The Mt. St. Helens ride started at the Cowlitz Valley Ranger Station located in the Gifford Pinchot National forest. We arrive in the parking lot as the third or fourth car. There were already people getting ready, prepping their bikes, packing away food and water. As the minute hand approached the departure time, more and more people show up, and eventually we are standing around Gary who is giving directions, a crowd of around 25.

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Pretty self explanatory.

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A few members of the group. Gary is on the far right.

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The directions are simple: Ride as a group for a few miles until the hills begin. Upon reaching the hills, everyone will climb at their own pace. There were several regroup points where the rabbits would take a breath and the tortoises would mosey in. The destination was the Windy Ridge Observatory, the highest lookout point at St. Helens.

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At twenty past eight we depart. The first miles were flat and easy allowing our legs to warm up. The temperature was in the lower seventies, and the conditions were partly cloudy, perfect for a ride, as our bodies would be boiling within a few miles of the climb start.

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The first hill came and went with little difficulty. Before I knew it, we were cruising down a long, slightly sloped hill. My first thought? This is going to hurt when we come back down and we take this on at mile 72.

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Within 10 minutes, we started the ascent in the mountains. By the elevation profile provided by Gary, it looked like we gained approximately 5000 feet of elevation. Once we started climbing, it literally did not stop until we reached the ridge line. At that point, we would ride the ridge climbing and descending (ultimately gaining altitude) until we hit the road end at windy ridgy. The average grade was a 6% , but certain sections hit 18% leaving me extremely thankful to have a triple chain ring up front. While others thrashed their knees, I spun in a granny-gear up the truly horrid sections.

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Within 10 miles, the pack was well dispersed. I had taken a more lead position to keep from climbing up on peoples back tires. The temperatures remained in the 70s (a marvelous occurrence considering the previous year had seen mercury levels soaring into the 100s). Before long, there were only three of us climbing together and talking, everyone else was behind making their own way.

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And then, for no real reason at all, I decided to kick it up a gear. I enjoyed the company, but my legs were feeling really good, and I wanted to see what I could do. Greg, one of the three, shouted "Yeah Devon, HIT IT!", I started mashing, and I don't think I looked back for at least a few miles.

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When I did look back, there was no one behind me, and it became a goal not to be caught. The other goal? To catch whatever biker I saw in front of me. There were plenty there. Many bikers had started at our 19 mile point, in a camp ground parking lot. Others had started from the South side of the mountain and worked their way around.

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With 6 miles remaining, I started to feel the effects of my anxious pedaling. I was up and out of the saddle more often, and I my legs were juiced, the lactic acid threatening to devour me from the inside out. The efforts paid off when I dashed into the Windy Ridge parking lot and sat down with a Cliff bar and some water to enjoy the view.

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There were a lot of bikers hanging around, and an amazing group of Frat Alum from a nearby Oregon school had come up with about 10 enormous water jugs, bananas, oranges, pretzels, etc... handing it out to whoever was interested. Let me say, a banana smothered in peanut butter and washed down with Gatorade hits THE spot after a ride like that.

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After talking with one of the fellas handing out water for a bit about his former job as a Botanist in the JMU area a VA (talk about a small world), some of the other riders in my group started to roll in, each splitting off to eat, take pictures, and talk. After shootin' it with Greg for a bit, I grabbed the camera, pointed to the top of one of the nearby mountains and said, "I'm going up there. I'll see you later." There is an AMAZING benefit to wearing shoes made for mountain biking wherever I ride; I can hike around anywhere comfortably with little chance of slipping and breaking myself.

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Off I went, walking up the hillside. The first half mile was completely set up for the person that has never hiked before... steps to the ridge that looked out over the lake and back at Mt. St. Helens. At the time, no one was up there, so I had the mountain to myself. I took the opportunity to snap a few pictures of Helens which was keeping warm by wrapping itself up in a cumulus blanket. Continuing up the trail, I snapped pictures of wildflowers, so panoramics of the views around me, and some longer distance photos of Mt. Adams and the far off Mt. Rainier.

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The "hike" I took started on this ginormous staircase.

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A panoramic of the lake and surroundings from the Windy Ridge parking lot. St. Helens is in the FAR left in the clouds. The forest that grew around that lake on May 17th 1980 was old growth. On May 18th, it quickly became a desert.

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You'll just have to take my word for it... Helens is the plateau looking mountain covered by clouds and it looks like I am trying to vertically hug it.

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Some flowers on the trail. Red flowers are relatively rare in WA from what I've seen.

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Another panorama. This is from the other side of that hill I hiked up and around. Rainier on the right, Adams somewhere on the left, and the destruction of the volcano can be seen in the lake... thousands of old growth trees turned into toothpicks.

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That's me!! I was clearly in the mountains shadow; Nice and Cool.

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This is a zoomed shot of Mount Adams. Check out the trees. Pure devastation.

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When I returned to the parking lot, everyone was gone. I wasn't too worried, as I had heard they usually meet at the first, last, and only shop on the mountain to grab lunch on these rides. I quickly spun up the ridge to the shop, but I didn't find a soul. I did buy post cards... that I might get around to sending.

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Feeling worried now because I didn't know how far behind I was and there was a possibility that I was so far behind that I would be unable to catch up to Gary and Johnna (leaving them waiting for me at the car) I started absolutely mashing down the mountain. That is when I began to realize what I had just climbed. There were instances where I would stop pedaling, and cruise for a bit, I would look down and I would be hitting 45 mph. Bloody fast, for not putting any effort into it.

On the way back down I was finally able to catch Rainier. Since early morning when we first ascended it had been hiding behind clouds. I like the light, darker, and even darker of the green in the foreground. I also love the sky fading from nearly overexposed to clear summer blue.

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A closer shot of Rainier. Playing with the zoom.

Whoa there, 12x optical!!!

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As I predicted, the long sloping downhill that we had cruised down in miles 3-6 of our ride smacked a few of our riders in the face. Luckily, Gary and Johnna were of these. I was able to catch up to them with just 4 miles to go to the ranger station, carry on a bit, and then leave them to go snap a few more pictures ahead.

Quite different from the scenery of Windy Ridge. The valley was remarkably beautiful.

The map, the elevation contour, the final distance. SWEET!

Stoked to have finished, and full of confidence.

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All in all, it was a truly phenomenal day. I had grown more comfortable with the group, meeting more amazing people. I had seen some sites previously only seen on Wikipedia, and I had instilled a level of "I can do this..." confidence in myself. I was ready for the tour of Whidbey Island, the my birthplace (Oak Harbor), taking place the following weekend.