Change we can believe in (the water edition)

Northwest Folklife is a huge festival with tens of thousands of people descending upon Seattle Center. Many a year, I have been to Seattle Center and viewed tons and tons of plastic garbage from the bottled tap water that they try to sell you. This year, they had the water stand pictured below so that [...]

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Please monitor this volcano 54 miles from Seattle

It’s kind of important.

Info on Mt. Rainier, here. This excellent photo is via Seattle rainscreens photostream.
Update: CNN article, here.

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Koalas suffering from the drought

What is it about animals in distress that tugs at our heart strings in a way human suffering often doesn’t? I suppose it’s because we believe animals are not at fault in their demise and they don’t have the resources that humans have to get out of their situation. While Australia burns, I find these [...]

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Iceland in trouble

An interesting post from Matt Yglesias full of gems like this:
And Iceland is a very small country with an economy that revolves more-or-less exclusively around fish, tourism, Bjork, and banking so a banking collapse amidst a global economic slowdown leaves them in bad shape and facing national bankruptcy.
A Canadian solution?
But David Hayes in a letter [...]

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Hidden Lake and mountain goats

On our last day at Glacier National Park, we did a modest six mile hike and finally we were able to see up close some moutain goats.

More photos after the jump.

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Logan Pass, Bighorn Sheep and Marmots

The weather finally cleared and we were able to do a 12 mile hike along the Garden Wall trail at Logan Pass in Glacier National Park. You get absolutely stunning views.

Lots more pictures after the jump.

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Give me your best LOL caption

For a Glacier National Park ground squirrel with straw in its mouth.

Or for a cute ptarmigan.

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It’s raining in Glacier

The last two days it’s been raining and I’ve seen at least five rainbows. I guess that’s because the rain and clouds tend to stick to the mountain areas while there is sunshine in the flatter parts. The weather report is categorized by whether you are east or west of the continental divide. It’s exciting [...]

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Many Glacier Animals

As I mentioned in my previous post, we asked where in Glacier National Park was the best place to spot animals. The answer was the Many Glacier area. Bears are very popular at the park. You want to see a bear, but you don’t want to see a bear…if you know what I mean. Almost [...]

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Many Glaciers

Our second day at Glacier National Park in Montana took us to the area known as Many Glaciers. Many Glaciers got its name from the fact that in 1850 there were 150 glaciers on the mountainside. There are now only 26. Judging by these pictures, the remaining 26 probably won’t last very long.
We were told [...]

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Two Medicine Lake

Our first hike at Glacier National Park was around Two Medicine Lake. Here are the photos.

More photos after the jump.

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Seattle to Glacier Park Montana on Amtrak

Despite a great deal of apprehension, riding Amtrak to Glacier National Park has so far been a success. You can read about all of the planning of our Amtrak trip and pricing information from my previous post here.
Knowing that Amtrak is notoriously late, I didn’t quite know what to expect when we arrived at the [...]

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Goodbye from the world’s biggest ass

This story has been well reported, so I don’t expect anyone reading this will be surprised, but I thought it might bring about a good topic for discussion and that is “is this guy psychotic or what?”
Bush has said many times that history will vindicate him as a president. I just have to wonder how [...]

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You can’t have our water

In the winter we often drive through the town of Enumclaw on the way to Crystal Mountain ski resort. It’s a small humble town where some parts look more affluent than others. The town gained some notoriety a few years back due to a rather embarrassing story that I won’t go into here.
But Enumclaw is [...]

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Sacrifice

The price of gas is a topic that has consumed Americans for the last year. Now Republican senator John Warner has made a surprising suggestion: reduce the national speed limit to stretch gas mileage. It sounds perfectly reasonable. In fact, there is a precedent. In 1974 faced with an energy crisis Congress decided to create [...]

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WALL E and Waste

I remember being a kid and learning about “bad” things in school like the effects of smoking and drugs. Later we would learn about recycling and re-using. I remember Arbor Day when we would plant a new tree. I suppose the idea was to encourage children to practice good habits hoping that some of those [...]

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The Last Polar Bear

The Last Polar Bear: Facing the Truth of a Warming World is an exhibition at the Burke Museum in Seattle of Steven Kazlowski’s amazing photography.
The polar bear — a charismatic icon in the struggle against climate change — faces a precarious future along with other ice dependent species as its Arctic habitat rapidly continues to [...]

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Purchasing Amtrak Rail Tickets

Oh the joys of Amtrak in America. Amtrak is the company which manages U.S. rail travel. It’s completely underfunded and never gets any of the lobby money that air travel companies get. Trips on Amtrak are often costlier and are exponentially longer than car trips. Take for instance a drive from Seattle to Portland which [...]

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Picture of the Day

One has to give credit to the BBC for the juxtaposition of this photo and headline. The article is here.

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Minimizing Garbage

In this article about Naples shipping some of its waste to Germany, I was struck by Hamburg’s waste management. This matches the experience from a friend of mine who lived in Stuttgart for a time. She told me people were given containers for recycling and garbage, but the garbage container was the same size of [...]

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Where are the drinking fountains?

So the mayor of Seattle, Greg Nickels, wants people to stop buying bottled water.
“Americans used 60 billion pint bottles of water last year,” said Nickels. “That required 1 million tons of plastic and generated 2.5 million tons of greenhouse gases.”
“What flows from our taps is some of the finest-tasting, purest-source water in the world,” he [...]

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Transportation in Seattle

Yes, that’s a highway in between this sign and the waterfront.

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Bush Creates Wilderness Area in Washington State

I’ll give him credit where it’s due. Nice work. I’m crossing my fingers that he won’t be announcing a snowmobile theme park in the wilderness area tomorrow. Click here for more pictures.
Nearly six years after it was first introduced, a bill to create a Wild Sky Wilderness northeast of Seattle has become law.
President Bush [...]

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Buying the Presidency

Can there be anything more flagrant than offering to suspend the gas tax for the purpose of getting elected president of the United States?
Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain are pushing for a gas-tax holiday, but Sen. Barack Obama says the plan is a quick fix that would do more harm than good.
McCain, the presumptive [...]

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Brew Espresso in the Woods

This is why I have a coffee category.
If you prefer your coffee fresh-brewed when hiking, Spokane-based GSI offers a number of coffee solutions. If you want a steaming mug of Starbucks Yukon blend during your hike, toss your favorite lightweight stove into your pack, then add a GSI Lexan Javapress — a French-press style coffee [...]

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