As North and as West as It's Going to Get

It's a rhetorical question, I think. Daniel Klennert can probably tell you more.

With this year's first trip looming rather alarmingly—in two days we'll be back in Port Charlotte, hoping to actually see a game this time—it's time for a photo essay on the rest of Northwest adventures. If this is insufficient, well....

Top-notch customer service at Safeco Field

Top-notch customer service at Safeco Field

Though our conversations were dominated for the next several days by our visit to the Airplane Home, much else of note took place. There was, of course, a corn dog:

And a darn good one, too—fresh dipped at the Hillsboro Hops. Is this a balanced meal or what?

And a darn good one, too—fresh dipped at the Hillsboro Hops. Is this a balanced meal or what?

Perhaps thematically most to the point, we made it to a simpatico breakfast joint in downtown Portland:

God, I love Monte Cristo french toast.

God, I love Monte Cristo french toast.

We then headed upriver along the Columbia, admiring the landscape and the very heavy infrastructure along the way:

Backstage, almost, at the Bonneville Dam

The main event

The Columbia River at Maryhill, Washington. The color of the ground cover and the haze should tip you off that we were in wildfire country.

For a small, remote town, Maryhill was a target-rich environment, with both the Maryhill Museum and its sculpture garden...

This is also an energy-rich environment: water, wind, and—120 miles to the northeast—plutonium. Well, once upon a time, anyway.

This is also an energy-rich environment: water, wind, and—120 miles to the northeast—plutonium. Well, once upon a time, anyway.

This is as good a place as any to note that the museum and its grounds were once home to the man who did not give his name to the phrase "What in Sam Hill?"

This is as good a place as any to note that the museum and its grounds were once home to the man who did not give his name to the phrase "What in Sam Hill?"

...and a nearby Stonehenge, doubling as a World War I memorial. 

Some metaphors just don't even need to be elaborated upon.

From there we headed north, deeper into wildfire territory near Yakima, and took the slow route through the Cascades. That brought us to Daniel Klennert's iron compound:

But somehow I suspect that even though he built it, not all that many have come.

We got to Tacoma that day in time for a Rainiers game—a long drive but memorable.

Longtime readers of these wanderings know that land art is never far from our minds. Some of it is more memorable than others, however. Here's a Robert Morris south of Seattle. I don't regret stopping, but I can't really recommend it, either.

Yep, still hazy.

Then it was off to the Mariners and their... storied history?

Watson's mother can't quite get the rhythm of the Cubs (mediocre) victory song, usually rendering it as "Go, go, go, you you Cubs."

The self-inflicted tyranny of the schedule was such that, after a brief tour of 1976 Freeway Park, we skedaddled from Seattle to catch the Everett AquaSox.

"When an eel hits your eye like a big pizza pie / That's a moray!" This is actually back at the Bonneville Dam fish ladder; I don't have any worthwhile pictures from Everett.

The next day, after a memorable breakfast at the Stilly Diner, we fled the country. Stopping first to see the eponymous white rock in White Rock, British Columbia—no picture; it's a rock—we alit in Vancouver midday. We learned some valuable lessons:

Flowers can kill you.

Henry Moore is inescapable.

You don't have to go to Flushing Meadows–Corona Park to realize that the future ain't what it used to be.

We had a nice dinner with some of Rob's relatives, then spent a delightful evening at a very well attended Vancouver Canadians game. If the season weren't so short, it'd be a place to think about retiring to. (It's been just about eight years, by the way, since that nice young woman in Iowa asked if we were retired gentlemen of the road. We're getting there.)

I see from my notes that I spent a good part of my trip home—an odyssey to boring to recount—working on the spreadsheet for this year's trips. Well, that's as good a transition to the next post (whenever it gets written) as any.