Mile 1932 - Wingnut and Big Dog, WA

When Aaron thinks of Seattle, he remembers his ever first cup of coffee at the Pike’s Place Starbucks.  And he thinks about Wingnut. Wingnut is actually Jake, who is a long-time friend from camp, who is married to Fraggle, but that’s too many camp names already.

Jake is a computational astrophysicist who specializes in soft lensing. Yeah…he’s legit.  Prior to learning everything there is to know about space and time, Jake was an integral part of many epic Aaron adventures. There was seatbelt scavaging, saving the world with duct tape, and who could forget peddling for money in downtown Santa Cruz with a garage sale accordion and gorilla suit. We’re talking some seriously good adventures. There was even a recent attempt to calculate the distance to the moon by triangulating it from Chico and Seattle using a sextant.

Unfortunately, space and time has a stronger impact on friendships than it does on galaxies, but it was so fun to be together again. Our highlight was a tour of the universe in Jake's Planetarium (technically it belongs to University of Washington, but Jake runs it). Jake is so good explaining the complicated dynamics of our universe, and his passion for learning is contagious.

There are some people that you feel fortunate to know, because knowing them gives you a glimpse into their passion. It could be an instrument, art, reading, cooking, a certain language, or in Jake's case, the dynamics of the universe. There's something about witnessing a person doing something they love. Before we left, we were lucky enough to be invited to a friend's senior violin recital. In the 60 or so minutes that it took to hear all four pieces, we witnessed the product of a lifetime of her work. This is not her account, but you can imagine she's had moments of intense aggravation, moments when she had to push on to keep trying, days of disinterest, as well as the rush of accomplishment, excitement for the next piece, peers that became allies, and a deep understanding that develops. Her love of music has grown deep, and the music she makes is not just a product for an audience's approval, but it's a fascination that excites something deep within her.

Jake is a person who is driven by fascination, and its made him fascinating to talk to. After our tour of the Universe and the Deep Space Field, we grabbed some spicy Thai food and had more prosaic conversation about careers and road trips and life. It wasn't enough time to catch up completely, but it was enough to really miss those epic adventures, deep conversations about God and love, and late nights at Redwood Camp perfect for just staring up at the stars. Well, at least Aaron was just staring.

  

Mile 1901 Paddle Boarding - Seattle, WA

Paddle boarding and Green Lake: Who knew you can Paddle board in Seattle? So apparently Seattle has a few bodies of water around it, I guess it’s some sort of port.  North of downtown and within walking distance of our Seattle home, Green Lake became our favorite hangout spot.  It was great to walk around it while having amazing conversation, stop off for a bite at the local taco truck, or read a chapter or two and the lake-front Starbucks. But if you really want to experience the lake, you gotta get in it…or on it!  Green Lake Boat Rentals rents out paddle boards for $10/hour before noon!  That gives you an hour of paddle boarding, which is enough time to circumnavigate the entire lake, while your wife stalks from the shore with the camera, awaiting the big splash.

Smiling because the water is suprisingly not cold

 There's even people to meet on the lake

Aaron heads out for the island across the lake

Gotta go for a flip off the diving board

Local kid says, "Whoa, you made like a Tsunami"

Mile 1897 - Seattle, WA

Let the games begin!  An intense match of Settler’s of Catan was long overdue.  As was a visit to Seattle to see Kimberly (aka Kimbo) and Josh.  They were married 2 years ago, 1 week after Saaron, and their wedding gift was this addictive game.  We both knew what this visit was about, so we hunkered down at The Pub at Third Place for the long awaited match. The basement level of “the Hobbit hole” is filled with long, wooden tables, which seemed like an appropriate location to do battle.  It was a grueling and close match, many resources were exchanged, roads became longer and longer, but in the end, Josh was the winner with a last minute bonus point from a resource card!  Besides the game, much time was spent enjoying catching up between Kimbo and Sarah, who have been friends since the awkward 7^th grade era.  As well as each getting to know each other’s spouses as the one and only time they’ve met was at each other’s weddings.  If you're familiar with the Seattle area, you may know Josh and Kimbo as the people who live in the famous "Giraffe House".

For those of you concerned about the nerdy level of the group because our love for Settlers, you’re probably not too far off.  But the next day we balanced it out by playing a very high-class game called Hampton Horseshoes.  It’s an east coast lawn game for the highly distinguished.  The point is to knock the opposing team’s bottle off the stick with a Frisbee, as well as prevent them from getting points by catching your own bottle before it hits the ground.  The classy part is that every player must hold a bottle of beer in one hand at all times (or lemonade if your Kimbo and Sarah…beer is gross).  The boys taught their girls how to throw Frisbees straight as they both pretty much sucked and fun times were had by all!  In fact, we can’t even remember who won.

We didn’t just spend our whole time sitting around playing games, Josh and Kimbo also took us out to see some of Seattle’s best treasures.  Any trip to Seattle requires a mandatory visit to the Fremont Troll.  It’s always fun to see, but this time, Aaron searched high and low and found some special treasures.  As the sun was going down, we went up to Queen Ann, which had an amazing view of downtown.  All of Seattle’s photographers came out of the woodwork to get a sunset shot of the Space Needle with Rainer as the backdrop.  We were told that clear days are a rarity in this region, but we’ve yet to see a single rainy day in the Pacific Northwest.

Thanks Epperson’s for an amazing visit!  We look forward to a re-match in the near future.

Josh's pre-game warm-up

Mile 1715 - Ape Caves, WA

We had planned to take the scenic route through Washington to get to Seattle.  This was all changed when we came across a sign that said "Ape Caves, 20 miles".  We had been told by a friend in passing that we should go to the ape caves, but conversation turned and we never actually talked about what they are and why we should go there and the topic was forgotten...until we saw the sign, which bring us to our afternoon activity.  

What does your mind think of when you hear "Ape Caves"?  Sarah first pictured an opening into a dark, rocky cavern, which would lead to the home of an ape.  But then she realized that that was silly as they were currently in Washington, not Uganda.  She realized she was influenced by the bat cave that she hiked to in Queen Elizabeth National Park, which housed millions of bats and one happy python who lived in deep crevice and had a million tasty snacks flying around him that he could snag whenever the hunger urge struck. 

Well, it wasn't exactly like that...

Aaron was just excited. Caves are awesome, Apes are awesome; this was bound to be worth the 20 mile diversion.

In reality, it was a 2+ mile long lava tube, carved during a volcanic explosion many moons ago, which did not contain a single ape...or does it!?!  We found it didn't contain much of anything: no sunlight, no wildlife, no plants...just rocks, darkness and crazy people who decided to walk from one end to the other.  Of course we chose to do the more difficult upper cave, we will not take the easy way out!  You must bring a light source, and a mandatory back-up for when that one goes out.  It's about 40 degrees as it's totally underground so you must dress warm.  And of course, we brought our cameras.

Just as we descended underground, Sarah realized that this actually may cause her to feel claustrophobic and made a light comment about it preparing Aaron.  What resulted was a comedy of errors in which Sarah needed to keep moving and Aaron "needed" to stop and get just the right picture. In addition to claustrophobia, Sarah started suffering from frustration and needed to hurry Aaron otherwise the walls were going to cave in or lava would start flowing through the tube and wash them away. Aaron also became frustrated that Sarah didn't share the desire to take 2 minute long pictures in this ideal environment for long shutter speeds.  Hmmmm....After a few hours, they made it to the exit up top and breathed a sigh of relief.  Sarah had TONS of amazing space around her and Aaron formulated an appropriate apology. The hike back down was a very pleasant experience for all.

So why is it called the Ape Caves?  The world may never know.

The Descent into the Cave

Prepared for Darkness

Aaron doing his thing

This picture took 4 minutes. Seriously?

Sarah is not so thrilled at this moment.

The light at the end of the tunnel

See? It's pretty cramped space.

State Count #1 - Oregon

Nickname		Beaver State
Capital		Salem
Did we go there?		No
Sales tax		None!
Famous for		Oregon Trail, forests, rain, beer, not being able to pump your own gas
State beverage		Milk
The truck smells like		Fresh air
Favorite meal		Pine State Biscuits
Oops moment		Sarah getting a blister on her third toe, then putting moleskin and Band-Aid on it for the next hike, then getting a blister on the forth toe from all the rubbing of the Band-Aid
Highlights		Swimming in Crater Lake, the hymenoptera research with the Bailey’s, catching up with friends, making homemade blackberry ice cream, realizing that sleeping in the back of the truck was more comfortable then sleeping in the tent, coasting for miles on a bike
Best drive		Along the Gorge from Portland to Hood River
Conversations		Health insurance, blogs, childhood vacations, medicine and consults
Adjectives		Full, Green, Hearty, Refreshing
Friend Count		8

Mile 1555 - Portland Art Museum: Part 2, OR

While I was in the Museum I took some notes on my observations of a few paintings that grabbed my attention. These notes are mostly about methods that the artist used to achieve depth; there is no details included about the history of the painting or the artist. Here's a few observations on three paintings I spent some time with:

Boats Returning Home, William Ritschel, 1864-1949
A California Impressionist

The paint texture gives a sense of depth; large unarticulated daubs of paint dominate the foreground and gradually the strokes are smaller and more defined while the distant horizon is smoothed out.

Vibrancy of the color is also used to achieve depth: the water in the  foreground has a complex range of colors of contrasting yellow and violet mixed in with touches of vibrant red.  The foremost ship has a faint touch of red which a connects with a muted red in the sea in the focal point.

Focal point of the painting is the fifth ship from the foreground, this ship has the sharpest contrast  lines, features the most distinct warm/cool contrast, and includes touches of every color found on the painting.

Background is very low-contrast and low-vibrancy. Flat grey strokes imply ships so far that they eye can barely see them.

Various colored unarticulated daubs in the foreground give the impression of the depth of the water as well as the difficulty to focus on your bottom field of vision. 

Gabriel Revel 1686

Depth is achieved through masterful use of perspective lines in the architecture of the building as well as in the background.

Focal point is achieved by use of vibrant colors; main foreground characters wear primary red, blue, and yellow, while side characters wear muted secondary violet, green, and orange.

Main casts down on woman and blue with a little extending to man in red sash.

One of the characters faces is partially translucent; very peculiar. Is this a sign of it being added later to balance the focus more towards the man in the painting? Without this figure he would be cut off from the main party and the painting as a whole would be unbalanced. However, depending on the paint, it could have just been difficult to paint that figure over that column without giving him too much of a focus. Interesting to think about.

What's especially interesting is that if you simply look at the architecture of the building, the artist was trying to place these figures in a very large space, but he has a number of factors that flatten out the painting. The figures that you can see through the column are so small that you can see he was really trying to convey an immense depth.
        The light in the foreground also gives a nice sense of depth in the foreground, but the background has it's own lighting that is equivalent in tone and even saturation, which makes the mountains feel feet away.
        The foreground characters are pretty much all there is to look at in this painting except for maybe a quick glance to the random guy on the far right, so even though there's perspective lines, your eye just gets stuck on the figures in the foreground.
        Lastly, there really isn't much foreground. The people are right there at the bottom of your field of vision

Water Lilies, Claude Monet, 1914
A French Impressionist

Foreground is painted with circular strokes and reflection is painted with vertical strokes

There is a definite sense of depth though there is no horizon line.

Depth is achieved by complex range of colors, background at the top of the painting is all cool colors and family of color gets progressively more complex towards the foreground at the bottom of the painting.

Swirls of green and blue give an impression of lily pond leaves stacked on eachother and partially covered with water reflecting the branches of the tree above.

What I think is remarkable about this painting is that the blue lilies are the focal point of the painting. Almost the entire painting is saturated with cool colors except for the five bright pink lilies at the bottom. You would think they would stand out more and yet the uncontrasting blue lilies hold your focus. It should be noted that the blue lilies are slightly bigger in size. It's as if he wanted the focus of the painting to be the blue lilies, but he knew that if the lilies were just blue, they wouldn't become a focus. Adding the pink lilies places a focus on all of the lilies and since the blue ones are a little larger and span the entire painting, they become the focus. 

Mile 1555 - Portland Art Museum: Part 1, OR

With Sarah having ice cream girl time with Sharon, I snuck in a few solo hours at the Portland Art Museum. There was alot to see and only four hours to see it, so you have to be intentional about how you go through the museum. So what do you do when you go through an art gallery? Take an audio tour through every room? Find the most famous names and check them off your list? Art Museums can be daunting.

My strategy for the day is to go into a section of the gallery, briefly walk around the whole room, and then spend at least ten minutes with a single painting. What ended up happening is I spent 10 minutes in a room deciding which painting I want to look at, and then I spent twenty minutes staring at one and jotting down notes. 

How do I choose you ask? 

I once read something profound about the impact that an artwork can have on a person. Art is created because language cannot describe everything that can be found in the human soul. Our feelings and thoughts are not limited to the words that have been made to define them. We are not shallow beings and words are only one way of expressing our experience of being, which is why so many people have chosen alternative ways to express themselves.

Joy can be made with a guitar, grief can be told with a color, need can be carved, revolution can be written into symphony, feelings can live in a ring; and when someone finds a way to bring to life a piece of themselves, it brings to life an experience shared by someone else that they never thought about before. 

How many of us fully understand our grief, our anger, or so many emotions that we live with everyday? We all have more to learn about who we are.

So in a way, I let the paintings choose me. I walk around and trust that in all of history, there were a few artists who have felt what I have felt or who have put on a canvas something that reaches something deep in my soul.

This has happened enough times to know it's worth looking, but no, there's no guarantee. Sometimes you quickly understand, but often you have to spend time with a painting that strikes you. I think it can be because you're trying to understand the artist's motivation, maybe the historic significance; but sometimes being vulnerable about your own life experience reveals what's behind the artist's intentions, or it could reveal something else.

There's one painting of my sister's that I have stared at for a significant amount of minutes. There's nothing about it that immediately jumps out at you, but it has always struck me. I don't know why she painted it, and if she told me, I think it would lessen it's impact. I can't tell you what it means, but looking into it, new thoughts have awoken about the complexity of life. I don't really want to say much more, because these thoughts are very personal to me, but I love those thoughts, and I hope for you that art could slow you down and awake the mysteries in you.

So you didn't really get a tour of the Portland Art Museum, but it was really great, so next up I'm going to post some notes I wrote on a few of the pieces I spent some time with next.