Washington Week (Weeknotes

We spent the week of July 1–7, 2024, hiking around Mount Rainier and Olympic National Parks.

New Photography Blog

📷 I launched a separate photography blog this week, using my favorite blogging platform, weblog.lol. I had been experimenting with different ways to present my photos online, including Micro.blog and Pixelfed, but this way gives me the most control over the user experience and allows me to continue to use Flickr as a storage solution.
🎥 I’ve begun experimenting with video, a medium I have resisted in the past. Rather than making home movies, I’m making short (10 to 30-second) clips that I call video vignettes. What do you think?
🛠️ Now that I have three separate blogs under the same domain, I’m going to try to weave them together into a more seamless user experience. Watch this space—and wish me luck!

🪵 We spent three nights at the Paradise Inn, an historic lodge in the shadow of Mount Rainier. It’s a great place to stay because you can walk out the front door and onto any of several beautiful hiking trails.
🥾 Our first day’s hike was out and back along the Skyline Trail to Nisqually Glacier Vista. Unfortunately, the mountain was shrouded in fog that day and visibility was very poor. Although it was only a total of 3.5 miles, it was difficult because it was entirely through the snow! I was very thankful we bought new poles for this trip!
🥾 Our day two hike was the most rewarding of the entire trip. Our 7-mile hike along the Lakes Trail took us to Ruby Falls, Narada Falls, and Reflection Lakes, where we had some stunning views. Unlike the previous day, it was sunny and much warmer, although we had to contend with a lot of snow and be on the lookout for snow bridges.

🚙 We spent a good chunk of Thursday driving 4½ hours from Paradise to Port Angeles, a port city across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Victoria, BC (Vancouver Island). I didn’t have high expectations for our hotel but I was pleasantly surprised and it provided a nice home base for our visit to Olympic National Park. Dinner at a little place in town called the Hook & Line Pub.
🥾 On Friday we hiked 8 miles round-trip from the Madison Falls Trailhead along the Elwha River to the former Glines Canyon Dam. The dam had impounded Lake Mills, but was demolished in 2014 as part of a project to restore the Elwha River ecosystem. Afterward we stopped into the visitors center then walked into town and had sushi at Songoku Hibachi & Sushi.
🥾 We drove further afield Saturday to La Push, on the Pacific coast, and hiked to Second Beach, where we explored the sea stacks and saw some starfish. We also drove over to Rialto Beach where we walked on really big rocks and driftwood. On the way back we stopped off to see Marymere Falls before returning to Port Angelese for dinner at Sergio’s Hacienda Mexican Restaurant.

In “The lingering focus on Biden’s shaky debate obscures Trump’s major verbal miscues”, the Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer reminds us that no matter how bad President Biden’s debate performance may have been that’s nothing compared to Trump’s sheer bat shit crazy.
In “No Bull, No Compromises” (Cowboys & Indians) Joe Leydon interviews Kevin Costner about Yellowstone and Horizon.
After reading Lea Verou’s “Forget ‘show, don’t tell’. Engage, don’t show!” I came away thinking there’s not much new here really. You’ve got to get your students interested in what you have to say, one way or another. There’s not a one-size-fits-all approach because everyone learns differently.

One of the “perks” of staying at a national park lodge is that the rooms don’t have televisions. (We were lucky to have a private bathroom!) But after a long day of hiking—and having little inclination to do much else—watching a movie is just what the doctor ordered. After our first day of hiking we huddled around an iPad to watch Airport (1970), a campy disaster film that set the stage for several sequels and sendups. One of those, Airplane (1980), was our pick on night two. Neither is great cinema, but we had a good time watching as a family.

Have a great week, y’all! See you back in Columbus soon.