Touring Seattle

My friend C joins me. She has driven all the way from Atlanta on a round the country tour to deliver artwork from a huge collaborative exhibition on the Iraq war that she organized...and did pretty much everything. People made gloves, 6 for each week of the war. No one knew that so many gloves would have to be made. C did hundreds herself before asking for help.

We portage down the hill to the east end of the ancient portage. C's dog, EJ comes with. I have never canoed with a dog. It is a cloudy, warm and calm day, an ideal summer day, a truly peaceful summer day. A heron sits on the dead birch that sticks up out of the Workbench Lodge...I've never seen one sit there in 3 years of steady paddling.

This time of day is not a busy time for the marsh, but there are many herons around and they are always a wonderful bird to watch. EJ enjoys the trip, having never been in a canoe, I can tell it is exciting and the dog is well alert to everything that goes on. When we get back in the dead end of the East Marsh, the backside of the beaver forest, EJ launches herself from the canoe in a ridiculous attempt to outswim a few ducks. We haul her back in and clip her leash to my backpack. EJ can now launch herself all she wants, but she will only swim two more feet once she hits the water.

The little pile of "salad" at the water's edge in the center of the photo is the nest of a pied billed grebe. As we approached, she quickly covered the eggs with vegetation and then slipped off of the nest and submerged herself without a ripple, as only pied billed grebes can do. We hurried past so that she can get back on the eggs as soon as possible.


We cross to the NE lagoon, and skim the NE shore to the mouth of Ravenna Creek. There are a great many great blue herons today. I find and point out one of the marsh wren nests near the osprey tree and we are lucky as the hole in the side is facing us. EJ launches herself a second time somewhere in here and then decides that it is best to sit on my backpack and watch the world slowly go by.

I have so much to show C, a visitor to this town. My tours of Seattle have a tendency to take on adventure/epic proportions....and my visiting friends sleep well. We pass by Dale Chihuly's little shack and head down the dead lake to show C some of the working boats.