With Fosteronomo’s family out of town, he and I went on a weekend camping trip in the Cascades. I dubbed this trip, “Cat’s Away Camping Trip 2006.” Our eventual destination: Snowy Lakes.

Fosteronomo could be such a sorry lad... he’d be eating bean burritos and working late if I weren’t around to help fill this time of temporary bachelorhood. But I digress.

We knocked off work a little early on Friday and made it to the Rainy Pass trailhead (elevation: 4800 feet) off of Washington Highway 20 around 6:20 pm. We hiked in 4-ish miles to the second campsite, which is located below Cutthroat Pass where the trees start to thin out. We spent both Friday and Saturday night there.

Saturday morning started chilly, but it quickly turned in to an incredibly cloudless blue sky with temps near 80 F. We headed out to Cutthroat Pass (6800 ft) where we ate second breakfast, gained a little more elevation before a seriously steep descent to Granite Pass (6200 ft), and finished our inward trek at Snowy Lakes (6750 ft). It's like you can reach out and grab jet contrails from up there. Off in the not-too-distant distance we saw smoke from the Pasayten Wilderness fires.

Campsite to Snowy Lake distance: 6.5-7 miles. Total roundtrip distance for the weekend, says Hiker Bob: 23 miles.

According to plan, we packed up camp Sunday morning, but with adversity. Precipitation started Sunday around 5:30 am, and it included some sleet. Re-engaging those muscles and joints that we destroyed the day before wasn't a figurative walk in the park, either.

There was no burn ban, so we built a campfire each night. Pipes were smoked, coffee was sipped, bull-pucky was exchanged. The temperature both nights was in the 40s. The howling wind on the second night was really cool--we didn’t feel it, but we could hear it swirling above us in the trees and up the basin walls that surrounded us.

Pictures follow. Click 'em for full-size images.

Mighty men ready for action:

The view above Granite Pass looking out towards Snowy Lakes and Methow Pass:

 
Foster cooling his dogs:

The hills are alive with the sound of music:

Staged photo of mountain man Jimbo crossing Porcupine Creek:

Click here for Foster's Google Earth overlay and details. Click here for a lousy screenshot of something sorta similar.

Last night I started watching the TV Series Firefly. Until now, I only knew the show through critical hype and the theatrical release of Serenity (which I loved, by the way).

The show is great. The characters are human; the writing is smart and quick-witted; the severe moments are palpable; the relaxed times are relatable. It's cowboys-in-space with Gilmore Girls-esque dialogue. You should watch it.

1. SPOGG -- The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. Here they manage to promote good grammar, make fun of The Hoff, and incorporate bacon all at once.

2. SPOGG is where I learned about Literally, a Web Log, an English language grammar blog tracking abuse of the word “literally”.

3. Unintentionally funny domain names (literally unrelated to the other two)

The one thing I did Sunday that didn’t involve church, food, sleep, or my getting trounced in word games was my unpacking of my book boxes.

The stack of books is still on the floor, but with them all out in the open like that, I can see what I have, what I’ve read, and I what I should re-read. Here is what I have tentatively added to my reading list, all of which come from my books on hand.

• Catch-22, Heller
• God at Work, Veith
• The Best of Verity Stob, Stob (borrowed book that I forgot I had)
• Wild at Heart, Eldredge
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Tufte
• Envisioning Information, Tufte
• Visual Explanations, Tufte

And here's where I weenie out and beg for mercy in accountability: Sure, I made a list, but don't hold me to it. :)

It’s been pretty warm around here lately... low- to mid-80s F. That may sound like “pansy talk” to people in warmer climes, but when you get soft from the normally mild Northwestern weather, a temperature spike can come as a shock. Sometimes the best thing to do is to slow down and take it easy.

Sunday was another no-clouds day with lots of warmth--perfect for a bike ride, a sail, a hike, hanging at the beach, reading a book, or whatever. After the morning church service, with all of these options before me, I grabbed a drive-through lunch and went home to plan my afternoon. I turned on A Prairie Home Companion, as is my custom, to get my down-home, Midwestern, bluegrassy, dry wit fix. I dosed off during Guy Noir and woke during News from Lake Woebegone. (Fun line from the Guy Noir skit--Scene: car rental counter at a South Carolina airport: “Do you want a dog with the truck rental?”)

Praire Home wraps up, but I wasn’t too motivated to get on the bicycle, especially not after the pastor’s wife’s Friday ride that nearly ended in heat stroke. The sun was out and in full-force... so if I was going to ride, it would have to be closer to evening.

So I unpacked boxes during Car Talk. I don’t have a lot of books, but the ones I do have were still packed away in plain site 5 months after my move. “I will get bookshelves,” I’ve kept telling myself. But I finally got wise to my lies... and now the books are out of the boxes and, um... on the floor. It looks better than the cardboard boxes, though; trust me.

This American Life came up next, and I’m realizing that this is all my day is. The choice as been made to stay in and do pretty much nothing, save being entertained by the radio. My name is Slacker. I was asleep shortly after All Things Considered started, and woke up again during an entirely uninteresting Fresh Air Weekend segment.

I had two thoughts at this point:
1. Two naps in one day. Sweet! Things are going my way.
2. My dear Radio: for this lame finish to a fine, fine day, you have betrayed me.

The grogginess wears off soon enough, and I realize that I still do not have anything on hand that is not frozen and is also not spoiled. Slacker, indeed.
 
Fosteronomo calls me minutes later to invite me over for Scrabble. Things were going my way today, right? I convince myself that today is the day I can beat a guy with a Masters degree in Communication and his book-reading, RN wife.

He gets two bingos in row; Rachel gets one a round later; and although ol’ Jimbo (that is, I) is regularly scoring 20 points or more, he still ends up last. Darn these book readers.

In all, Sunday was one of the most relaxing days I can remember. At least for one warm, sunny summer day, I didn’t have to care about all that stuff on my mind, or do that thing on my TODO list, or do that other thing for that other guy... it was just I, kicking back and letting my body catch up.

That whole “Sabbath was made for man” thing? I’m totally on board.

Boy, talk about your community involvement:

Folks in Beloit, WI got together and staged George Seurat's "A Sunday on LaGrande Jatte" over the July 4th weekend:



Flickr links here and here. Newspaper story here.

Very stinkin' cool.

A few summers ago I went through a special Seurat exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago that focused on Seurat's preparation for and execution of LaGrande Jatte. Sadly, I have no pictures to show (since the AIC folks were pretty serious about their picture-taking policies).

(Note: cross-posted to xanga.)

I went to get my haircut today.

I kept putting it off, and putting it off some more, as is my custom. But that's a different blog post.

My barber today was Erin. We got to talking, and at one point she asked, "So, are you from around here?"

In my experience, most people in Bellingham aren't originally from Bellingham. It didn't register as odd question in the least.

"I'm originally from Michigan..."

And before I could finish my standard response ("... and I moved out here after college for a job..."), Erin says, "I thought I you might be from the Midwest. I'm from Minnesota."

There's a Midwestern vibe. Who knew?

An ideal water experience for me is when I find myself sitting on a quiet, unoccupied Lake Michigan beach listening to the water snap and fizz as the sun sets over the waves. Or standing on a bluff at West Beach on Whidbey Island while a winter storm comes ashore--the water slams the rocks down below with thundering crashes, and the spray fills the air and dampens everything you thought was still dry.

The calm and power of the sea... both things I crave.

From shore.

I’m not really a water guy. Never have been. I rarely hang out on your typical beach. I’m not even sure I could swim if I had to. It’s not something I learned to do well and/or at all. (Reason #17 why I’m suited to computers. But I digress.)

The weather this past Sunday afternoon was perfect: Sunny, high clouds (if any), 72 degrees. After the Sunday morning service (Today’s you-should-know-this-already-but-you-always-need-a-reminder message is from Phil 2:3-10: It’s not about you; It’s about Jesus), Fosteronomo and family invited me to meet them at Lake Whatcom for a sail.

After Cap’n Dan’s wife and kids got some sailing time in, they headed home for naps and left two old (are we that old?) friends to keel, come about, tack, and move that thing... and the other thing. We'd been out 30 minutes or so when he placed his own life in my hands by giving me the helm. I must have been fiddling with the rudder and stuff (he's the sailing genius, not me) for next 20-ish minutes. I even maneuvered us hard alee a couple times. “Jibing would be our best chance of getting wet,” said Dan, lounging at the bow.

We didn’t have too much wind, and that suited me just fine. Being out in the middle of the water in what amounts to a shallow, masted, fiberglass bathtub is a far, far, different experience than sitting on dry ground near the water’s edge. And I don’t mean that in a negative way... it really is a great thing. What a kick. I can see why people like it.