ROSS LAKE

Ross Lake has got to be one of the best kept secrets in Washington, and judging from the number of visits my blog is getting, it will stay that way well after this post. Most of the campsites on the lake are assessable by boat only. To rent a boat we had to hike in a mile to the floating resort shown in the third picture. You actually can't reach the resort by land, you have to locate the hidden telephone across the lake from the resort and request a boat pick-up (this isn't a joke). Ross Lake Resort started in 1950 when a enterprising young man bought all the floating houses that workers lived in while they were building the neighboring dam. Today the small resort has a one year waiting list due to its popularity. Unfortunately for the timing of our visit, wildfires were raging in the area and actually got worse over the course of our two night stay. Smoke from the fires can be seen in the first photo. By the time we got our boat back to the resort we discovered that they had actually been evacuated the night before. It made for a nerve-wracking hike out, though we weren't in any immediate danger. The whole experience gave me a new appreciation for how dangerous and destructive fires can be. 

MY AFTERNOON WITH A DEER

Cat Island is a tiny speck of an island just off the mountainous coastline of Ross Lake in Northern Cascade National Park. To see it on google maps click here. Cat Island sits about 50 yards from the adjacent shoreline. Julie and I arrived on Cat by small rowboat in the morning and set up our tent, then left to explore the lake. When we got back we found this deer in a neighboring campsite. It seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see it. I wondered how this deer came to be on the island. Perhaps there was a whole family of deer here. I decided to get my camera and go on the easiest tracking mission ever (the island can be crossed in any direction in a few minutes). At this point the island was also becoming engulfed in a hazy smoke from the nearby Thursday Creek wildfire, giving the sunlight a beautiful diffused quality great for photography. I found the deer without much trouble. I knew it was the same deer because she had black scars on her side, perhaps from a run in with a bear or a barbed-wire fence. The deer didn't run off when I approached her, so I just sat and watched her for twenty minutes or so. It was during that time that I noticed her full teats, and figured she was pregnant. I suspect this deer, sensing she was pregnant, swam to this island to give birth and raise her young in an environment that lacked any predators. I was amazed by the sophistication of this animal. I left her after a while and returned to my campsite to read a book. About an hour later the deer came right down next to me as if to say, "I'm curious to see how you live too." I wonder what she would blog about me.   

MISUNDERSTANDING GOD?

I find it hard believe that God wants anyone to own a million dollar yacht, so I take some offense to this ship named Trinity pretending to be bathed in Christian ideals. I'm fairly certain Jesus didn't die so this person could have an opulent boat.  There is a reason why people like Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and other godly folks lived modestly. There is something that comes with understanding the connectedness of all life that pushes people away from indulgence. Extravagance always comes at a cost to others, from the $10 an hour employee that gets cancer from breathing the marine epoxies that seal the boat's fiberglass, to the indigenous people who are kicked off their land so their teak trees can be harvested to make the yacht's cabinetry, to the innocent Arab families that have been killed as the collateral damage of war to secure the massive amounts of oil required to push the boat from port to port. Perhaps godly people are those with eyes that see these connections, but I'm not sure. Americans do a great job of isolating ourselves to avoid the uncomfortable truths about how our lifestyles effect people in other parts of the world we've never met. If you want to own a luxury boat because you feel like you've worked hard and deserve it, that's your business, but better to call it the Ayn Rand or the Bill Gates, and change the Jesus fish to a dollar sign. As we push deeper into the age of indulgence, I hope these connections become more apparent to the well-meaning well-to-do. Perhaps Trinity could discover some truth on a yachting adventure to Bangladesh to see where boat shoes are made.    

THE OLYMPIC MUSIC FESTIVAL: QUILCENE, WA

The Olympic Music Festival is an idea I wish I'd had or could afford to pull off. In 1984, a violinist named Alan Iglitzin bought an old farm property north of Quilcene, Washington and started hosting  informal music concerts in the barn for his friends and fellow musicians. He quickly realized that others were also interested in hearing classical music in his barn, and The Olympic Music Festival was born. The barn is now filled with old church pews and hay-bail seats. In 1990 Alan received a call from a man named Sam that claimed to have been born in the barn in 1914. The two ended up meeting and it turned out that Sam's parents were Japanese and were forced into an internment camp during WWII. Because of this, they lost their farm. Alan had no idea the place had such a troubled past. The two ended up becoming good friends and Alan has been very outspoken about the history of the property. Julie and I heard a duo named Anderson and Roe play in this fascinating venue. They actually played together on the same piano. Anderson and Roe are both piano virtuosos who studied at Juilliard. Part of their mission is to make classic music cool again. Click here to hear them play a great version of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean.

PBS REFUSES TO AIR RICK STEVES' TRAVELOGUE ON ISRAEL & PALESTINE

When I think about Rick Steves, I think of a politically benign guy who loves to travel and has a penchant for picnics. He strikes me as a very fair-minded individual, and I don't just say that because he briefly attended the University of Puget Sound. With this in mind, I was surprise to find out during a talk he gave a few months ago that the PBS station that serves New York City (the most viewed PBS affiliate in the country) refused to air a travelogue he made about his travels to Israel and Palestine. According to him, the mostly Jewish board of that PBS station asked the network not to run it. During the talk, Steves showed this documentary, which was about as fair and even-handed as a documentary on such a sensitive subject can be. In it he travels to both countries, led by soft spoken hosts that take pains to be fair and sympathetic to the other side. What is most surprising is that nothing comes up in a google search using keywords like Rick Steves, PBS, censorship, refuse to air, New York City, Israel, Palestine, etc. It is a big story that simply hasn't been reported by any US media outlets. Steves has written that he became sympathetic to the Palestinian's story after watching the documentary Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land.  To watch Steves' travelogue, The Holy Land: Israelis and Palestinians Today, click here.

REFRIGERATOR DOOR CONCLUDES FORMAL EDUCATION

This refrigerator door was my final project for my Master's program at the University of Puget Sound. I wrote my thesis on neurodiversity in the classroom. Neurodiversity is a movement that attempts to reframe neurological differences in humans like attention deficit disorder and autism as normal variations in the human genome and not as pathologies to be cured. In order to honor the different ways people's brains are wired, I highlighted using assignments and projects that allow for creative thinking in the classroom. The refrigerator includes some examples of my students' creative work this year. On a related note, I was hired to teach high school English at School of the Arts here in Tacoma. School starts in two weeks!