Ginkgo Watch 2008 - April

Last year, I posted about my special secret tree friend, a ginkgo that grew on one end of Riverfront Park. I use the past tense because, late last summer, the ginkgo and many other trees in the vicinity were cut down. Those trees surrounded an amphitheater at the east end of the park. And honestly, they were originally planted 35 years ago to shield the theater from the pathways beyond. It takes a lot of young trees to shield a theater. After 30 years of growing and over growing, it was time for a change.

And, it really was a positive change. The amphitheater is visible again (and rehabilitation has begun). You can see the river now where it splits to surround the park. And this area now looks like it is part of Riverfront Park, and not some forgotten corner.

So the parks department thinned the trees. And, on a second little hill that used to be jammed full of pines, there is another ginkgo.

Man my observation skills aren't very good. Goodbye ginkgo friend. Hello new ginkgo friend. I'll see you next month.

Road Trip! - Chicago

In March, I traveled to Chicago for a convention. It was called GlobalShop and it was about store fixtures and Point-of-Purchase advertising. Woo-hoo! But I did do a little sight seeing, and ate a lot of pizza while I was there.

First I had to get there though. I flew Northwest into St. Paul. Which is an odd airport in that all of the terminals you can easily get to are operated by Northwest or an affiliate airline. As Airports go it is a very busy closed shop. Oh sure, they have one international terminal. But even that is used primarily by KLM, an affiliate.

Apparently, it is also the home of the Mall of America. Honestly, I thought it would be, well, bigger.

It rained while I was in Chicago, but it wasn't very windy. My hotel was in an area of the city called North Loop. The original Pizzaria Uno was just a few blocks away (very yummy) and I was also just a block or two from the Miracle Mile (high end shops and an Apple Store) and about six blocks away from this view of the river. The tower under construction is the Trump Tower and Hotel. My hotel, a Courtyard Marriott, was a 12-story place hiding behind the Trump.

I was also fairly close to Millennium Park which is home to the big silver bean, some giant video walls and a great outdoor concert facility. Parking? under your feet. The bean is a lot more impressive than I believed from just looking at pictures.

Under your feet. If I have any lasting impression of Chicago, it is layers upon layers of city. Many of the roadways are stacked two to three deep in places. On one bus, we came out of a tunnel to a busy intersection, took a ramp up to another covered area with a busy intersection and then came up again into a covered intersection (many stories of parking above) before heading out into the light. Its like, every time Chicago reinvented itself, it covered up the layer before but left the systems in place.

I had a fun three days in Chicago. But am happy to be back in Spokane.

Spring almost here

Yes, the first day of spring was back on March 20th. But it snowed again last Sunday (briefly) and there is still some snow in the yard. Climate change is not going well for those of us who would prefer a bit more warm. But things may actually start warming up this week and the last ofthe snow drifts may be gone soon. Its just that the last time it felt like this, we woke up to many inches of snow. Here's hoping spring will actually start soon.

Meteor!

So there's a meteor crater outside of Winslow, Arizona. It is a very large hole in the ground.

You aren't allowed to hike to the bottom of the crater for "scientific" reasons, although I would guess in this instance, "scientific" = "liability. So instead, the gift shop has set up a diorama for photo ops, so you can send out pictures of yourself at the "bottom of the meteor crater."

Interpret Matt's expression here:

a) I have made an important scientific discovery at the bottom of this large hole!
b) AAAA! A METEOR!
c) I have paid $30 so that my wife can take a picture of me in front of a picture of rocks!

I'm going to have nightmares for a week.

The 101 in California

Beth and I have driven a large portion of US-101. We've driven around the Washington Peninsula, where 101 turns east, then south, and then west to meet up with 101 again. We've driven the length of Oregon (or would that be the width of Oregon) as 101 winds down the coast. And now we've driven it in California to San Fransisco.

The 101 in California is both amazing and strange. One moment you will be driving a two lane twisting road through redwood forests and then it is suddenly a six lane divided highway – in seemingly the middle of nowhere. But it will narrow to two lanes again once you're back in the protected forrests. Which is great. But wherever California can fit six divided lanes, they seem to put six divided lanes.

California also doesn't have mile markers. Roads are marked showing distance to or from the county line. And seemingly at random, sometimes as close as a few meters apart. I'm guessing that with so many roads to maintain, this system allows crews to pinpoint problems to, well, the exact meter.

101 seems to have its share of problems. Several times as the road would wind along the coast, we would come upon recently patched areas, on top of an older repair zone, where the road washed away over the winter. Kudos to the California Department of Transportation for getting everything repaired before we came on down. We know you did it just for us.

And they do the same for their own. We were on the 101. Also listed as the Redwood Highway. Also known as a Blue Star Highway in honor of those who have served the country at war. And individual stretches would be named in honor of Transportation workers who dedicated their lives to making California drivable.

If you were driving the 101 on Saturday, we were the ones in the red jeep driving the speed limit, being passed by everyone.

Roadside Attractions and Giant Trees

Driving down Highway 101, it is clear that there are different touring styles. Some people drive by, see the giant T-Rex in front of the Prehistoric Gardens and think "What a rip-off." And then there are people like Matt and I, who can't resist paying our money to see what's behind the gate.

As we worked our way down the Oregon and California coasts, we stopped at the Prehistoric Gardens:

The Trees of Mystery:

And the Drive-Through Tree.


The verdict? Worth every penny. OK, I'm not entirely sure we got our $5 worth of fun out of the drive-through tree. There are only so many times you can go through before you become fairly blase about it being a large tree with a hole in for driving through.