Intriguing Bookmark

One of the pleasures of reading a pre-loved book is that sometimes an unusual bookmark is found between the pages. Over the years I have found bus and train tickets, a shopping list, sweet wrappers, a piece of string, a cigarette card. Presumably just whatever was handy.

Today I came across one of the most intriguing. It was tucked into an old book - probably one which I bought at an auction years ago. It is a postcard. Nothing special or intriguing about that then...

Except that this postcard is printed on thin wartime card.

It is a wartime postcard, but it wasn't posted until 11 August 1962, sent from Torquay in Devon, to an address in London. It was addressed to 'Oberfuhrer ....'.

No valid postage had been paid on it, so the 'Oberfuhrer' had to pay the princely sum of 5 old pence to have it delivered.

I suppose it was written as a joke...but I shall never know.

Alta Vista Snow Pit

Howdy Everyone!

This week's snow pit is from the east side of Alta Vista and features the massive amount of new snow that we received during last week's storm cycle.

As you can see from the pit graph, there is small sun crust at the surface (that made for bad skiing) and below that is a 105 cm layer of cold, new snow. This layer has settled about 5" and continues to stabilize. Below this layer there are a number of complex ice crust layers that were observed just below the surface in the Feb. 9th snow pit near The Castle in the Tatoosh Range. These layers remain a source of instability and are acting as release surfaces for the deep slab avalanches that have been occurring in Washington.




Stability tests from the Alta Vista snow pit did not indicate deep instability. The compression, extended column, and the Rutschblock tests had failures either near the surface or did not fail. However, as noted by NWAC, even as the snowpack stabilizes there are still persistent weak layers, and localized areas throughout the region are experiencing large, slab releases.

The forecast is showing another series of fronts that are expected to cross the Northwest through the end of the weekend, bringing significant new snow accumulation. Cautious route finding is encouraged if traveling in the backcountry.

Fridge Repair Seems Cursed

Our attempts to get the gasket on our refrigerator door repaired have been going on for over two months. The first repairman replaced the thermistor which fixed the "n" code we had that caused our refrigerator to go off and stay off. Then we asked him if he could fix the broken gasket. We didn't hear back from him, and didn't hear back from him. I called and called. Finally he called back and said the whole door had to be replaced because the gasket is part of the door, not a separate component. I gave him our Good Sam Extended Service Warranty information so he could get the repair authorization number. Then we never heard back from him for over a month. At that point, we called another mobile repair service.

The new mobile repairman came out, got the model number of our refrigerator and ordered the door. He also got authorization to replace the inner seal on our toilet and, while he was out here, we got a quote for replacing the torn fabric in our front door screen.

Ronnie has been very responsive, keeps us informed of what's happening, shows up when he says he's going to, and runs a professional business. Today was the day to get our new refrigerator door/gasket. I moved all the food off the shelves in preparation. They arrived on time, brought in the new door and got it all set up to put it in. Uh-oh. The hinges didn't match up! He had his assistant call technical service at Norcold to find out what the story was because the door was the same size.

Come to find out Norcold makes two different doors for this model of refrigerator. The inside of one door has a waffle pattern and the other has a smooth pattern. There are different hinges on the different doors and they're not interchangeable. Not only that, but the shelf tracks are different on each model. Our shelves would not fit in the new refrigerator door. So, the refrigerator repair stretches on. The repair people got a Return Authorization Number from the place they ordered the replacement door and will return this door for the correct one. Who knew?

The screen repair went smoothly and we had a heavy duty metal screen guard installed so the cats can't claw it anymore.

Screen guard.

The replacement of the inner seal in the toilet went smoothly. The problem was mineral deposits around the seal which hardened and let water seep through. Nice to have that fixed.

While he was working on the toilet seal, he asked why we are using our
fresh water tank and water pump rather than city water directly from the
faucet. I explained that for no apparent reason our water pressure went
way down and we couldn't figure out what was causing it. We have full pressure using the water pump. He immediately
diagnosed the problem as the fresh water in-flow filter where our hose
hooks into the 5th wheel. Minerals get trapped in the filter reducing
the water flow. They will get an authorization number to replace that too.

Regarding our broken black tank valve handle: Thankfully, he can drop our black tank here in the park to work on the handle, but he doesn't want the tank to be full when he has to do that. Since it will likely be next week before he comes back, we will be considerate and use the park restrooms.

The front awning that won't retract automatically was diagnosed as having two broken springs which will need to be replaced. He manually rolled up the awning and wrote down the part numbers he needs to order.

Plus on the next visit, they will replace the refrigerator door with, hopefully, the right model.

On the car registration front, we have not registered any of our vehicles yet, but we now have new insurance for our Texas residency. Bob is waiting for a copy of the title on his truck. We should have all of this done by the end of October when our current Oregon registrations and license plates expire.

Tomorrow, the doctor will discuss with me results of my mammogram, bone density test, and repeat lab work. That should be the end of poking, prodding, x-rays, and lab work for another year.

Oh, on an entirely different note, I made a very yummy quinoa salad. It's spicy sweet. Here's the recipe:

Spicy Sweet Potato and Quinoa Salad

Spicy Sweet Potato and Quinoa Saladfrom About.com Vegetarian Food


Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa, uncooked

2 cups vegetable broth or water

1 sweet potato, baked (or boiled whole), peeled and diced

1 red bell pepper, diced

2 Tbsp olive oil

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

2 Tbsp lemon juice

salt & pepper to taste

Preparation:

Bring the quinoa to a boil in the liquid. Reduce heat and simmer the quinoa in vegetable broth about 15 minutes, or until water is gone and quinoa is light and fluffy when stirred. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Toss together the quinoa, sweet potato and bell pepper in a large bowl.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil and cayenne pepper. Gently toss this dressing with the quinoa mixture. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

[Note: Cook the sweet potato first as it takes the longest. Then cook the quinoa. While the quinoa cooks, you can dice the red pepper and sweet potato.]

The cayenne pepper gives the salad some spicy heat.

Th-th-that's all folks.

Travel Bug out.

Shooting the Twin Cities at night

Today I left home for a 3 week road trip to the southwest, with the primary destinations being in southern Utah and northern Arizona. On my way through the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul I stopped to create some night images of the cities, which is something I've been wanting to do for a very long time. As I drove towards the cities I wasn't sure if I would even be able to do any shooting or not, since the forecast was calling for snow later that night. Luck was with me as the snow held off long enough for me to get the shots I wanted. Tomorrow I'll be in Nebraska to spend a day or two photographing Sandhill Cranes on the Platte River.


(Above: Mill City Museum and Gold Medal Flour)


(Above: Foam trails at Stone Arch Bridge, just below St. Anthony Falls)


(Above: The St. Anthony locks were wide open, to let the high water run through.)


(Above: the I-35 bridge is lit with these really powerful lights, which I've heard can change color. On this particular night they were green. It looks like a martian bridge!)

(Above: Hennepin Avenue Bridge)

The Harold Angel

I belong to a sentimental kind of family - the kind that remembers loved-and-lost people, that revels in sharing images in old photos, in old home movies and on video, the kind of family that not only emails candid photos to each other on birthdays and anniversaries, but also has the birthdays & anniversaries of departed relatives marked on their current calendars.
Sometimes we remember those we loved by raising a glass to toast their memories. Sometimes we remember them in .... the kitchen. Does anyone else connect certain relatives with their favorite foods? We do! Oral history tells us that Grandma Kitty loved kidney stew, horseradish and coconut macaroons, Grandpa Jim ate a whole raw onion every night before dinner, Uncle George was a broccoli fan and the key to Uncle Ollie's heart was a big dish of stuffed peppers.
Beloved Uncle Harold's favorite pie was mince - so his wife, my piano-playing Aunt Helen, made sure that a mincemeat pie was always included in the holiday desserts - a choice that was soundly rejected by the kids in my generation. Luckily for us, Harold's other favorite pie was banana cream - one we were happy to share. His December birthday plus St Nicholas Day plus Christmas also confused us into thinking that Herald Angels were Harold Angels.... not too far off the truth! He died a long time ago, but some years I find myself making a banana cream pie on my uncle's birthday and thinking about him.
Harold grew up in Chicago, second son in a big family. His dad had a furniture finishing shop where Harold learned to like making furniture as a hobby... as a young man he worked in the office of a big furniture company, falling like a rock once he saw my cute little aunt -the feeling was mutual. Harold's generosity and courtesy soon made the whole family love him. A few years after they were married, the Second World War separated them, and Harold served with the Army Air Corps (forerunner of the US Air Force) in the Mariana Islands where he worked on the cameras of reconnaissance planes. He contracted malaria, returning to the US many months after the war ended.
With no children of their own, Helen & Harold shared love and worldly goods with the children of their brothers and sisters. They were wonderful godparents! Harold bought a 16mm home movie camera to record family parties and the antics of the youngsters... and this attention made more than two dozen nieces and nephews feel special, and as time went on it was hilarious to watch ourselves grow up when the projector came out for movie shows. We saw Helen and Harold at least once a week when we were growing up, but he was usually behind the camera - not in front of it, so we don't have enough photos of him.
Aunt Helen and Uncle Harold hosted family picnics at their small, perfect cottage on a large lot - with landscaping that he designed, planted and maintained - even letting a small, flower-loving niece believe she was helping.Harold's post-war work was in textbook publishing - and that lead to a perk for us! The display books from the office were nicely bound outside but with blank pages inside. They were replaced periodically and he passed along the outdated models. Having real books in which to draw & write our thoughts let us pretend we were real writers and artists.
Helen's piano was replaced by a Hammond Organ - she delighted in leading family singalongs. Once the group stopped singing and began talking, Harold would take a turn on the bench - coaxing a different set of melodies from the keys as background music for the conversation. How I wish for a recording of even one song!
The old camera was replaced around the time the older nieces and nephews traded dolls and baseball bats for mortar boards and bridal veils - now Uncle Harold was ready to film the great-nieces and great-nephews , traveling to see the younger generations as they set up housekeeping in distant suburbs and other states. There's the camera in his hand below - outside our rickety student dwelling. They drove 1000 miles to see us, and acted as if they were visiting a palace instead of a dump, complimenting our newlywed culinary experiments as if they were dining in a fine restaurant. That's the kind of gentleman he was.
Harold died too young - long before retirement age - breaking the hearts of all he left behind. Many years later as we ring in .., gone is not forgotten... in this Christmas season, you are still our Harold Angel!

Garden Beans With Shallots and Basil

Garden Beans With Shallots and Basil, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

This is an easy side dish that can be made in a few minutes. I used 'Tenderpick' beans from my not-so-healthy plants. Sweet basil (also from the garden) was added, as were shallots from Trader Joe's.

Green Beans with Shallots and Basil
Serves 1.
1 cup fresh green beans
2 shallots
5-10 fresh sweet basil leaves
1-2 tbsp. butter
salt
Peel and mince the shallots. Tear the basil into small pieces. In a pan, stir-fry the green beans, basil, and shallots in the butter (medium-high heat). When the beans are tender, serve immediately and garnish with leftover shallots from the pan. Salt as desired.

Pristine, Pink, Breathless

That's what it was like on the mountain this weekend. I made it to Camp Muir Saturday, my first opportunity in over two months. Finally, time to survey the camp and search for possible storm damage (and test the snow conditions on the Muir Snowfield).
Things looked normal for early December. There was access to the public shelter, but the toilets were drifted in with deep snow. As for obvious signs of rain and wind damage, it seems that only the NPS suffered. We lost two storage boxes. The weather telemetry equipment for the NWAC appears to be working. It's my hope that once the power resumes at Paradise, the weather data will come back up online.

I was a bit surprised that there wasn't more snow cover between 7-11k. Everything looked wind scoured, i.e, lots of exposed rocks along the eastern edge of the Muir Snowfield, Cowlitz Cleaver, Muir Rock, etc. As for the upper mountain, the Nisqually Glacier looked very, very good. And while we're talking, so did the Nisqually Cleaver and Gib Ledges. Plenty of snow and ice in those rocky steep sections

After surveying the camp, it was time to confirm the conditions on the Muir Snowfield. And it was just as I thought it would be: 4,500 feet of untracked packed powder, with a few rocky areas around McClure. As you can see, the mountain turned pink for our descent. Top photo by Ethan McKinley

JUST IN: The Camp Muir and Paradise weather telemetry data are back up. I hope they last! I know that they ran the generator at Paradise today.

Checking out the Chicago Harbor Lock repair

The Chicago Harbor Lock is a monumental structure. Designed and built in 1936 to 1938, it was part of the remarkable engineering feat that reverse the Chicago River so that the city's sewage would flow away from Lake Michigan, not into it. These days, the lock opens and closes for 40,000 ships per years--commercial vessels, tour boats, pleasure crafts and kayaks--according to the US Army Corps of Engineers, which operates it.

Or rather, it did until it was closed on November 1 so that its aging gates and hydraulics could be replaced.

McHugh was awarded the nearly $15 million contract to repair the Chicago Harbor Lock.

We've paddled through the locks many times, so we couldn't resist the opportunity to check out how the job was going. Everything was on a superhuman scale.

Two of the four new structural steel sector gate leafs.

Still life with construction equipment and skyscrapers.

The project is due to be completed by Tax Day , which seems appropriate for a taxpayer-funded project. Between now and then, we'll check on its progress.

Full Swing

The first couple of weeks in June of higher pressure and mild temperatures enabled many climbers to reach the summit. The climbing season has reached its full swing and it looks to be a great one.
Climbing rangers have been out again this last week on patrol. Look for new route reports on both Sunset Ridge and Little Tahoma as well as updates on the more standard routes.
June is coming to a close with weather more reminiscent of last year's June. Wind-accumulated snow drifts have been shin deep in spots. The new snow has skiers and snowboarders out again trying to get in a couple more turns.
Historically July holds some of the best weather and conditions for climbing. Hopefully this July will follow suit. See you up on the mountain...