Saturday, August 08, 2009

Not Quite 10,000 Steps



On Friday, I spent most of the day canning soup and only had a couple of hours to get in 2 miles on the Longfellow Creek Trail in West Seattle. My Granny used to can this soup every summer and so I worked with her recipe and worked on vegetable soup most of the day. I was able to use the last couple of tomatoes from our tomato plant!

Longfellow Creek Trail has some terrific public art. Practical Art, like a pavilion that is a dragonfly and a bridge that is salmon bones.





















Saturday I arrived home from work and only had the energy to hike 1 mile at Dash Point State Park along the Beach Trail up to the campground and back. Pictures of these tall stumps show evidence of old logging in the area. That cut in the side of the stump was where the men would put a board so that they could stand on it when they cut down the tree.
Loggers found that they could save themselves labor by cutting the trees ten or twelve feet above the ground. The bolls of large fir trees are covered with a tough bark from 8 to 12 inches thick at the bottom and the wood of the bottom part of the tree is also thoroughly impregnated with gum so that it is very heavy and very hard to cut. The loggers found that by standing on short springboards that were inserted in notches cut in the stump, they could get above this gummy wood and tough bark and it made cutting down the tree that much easier.

I also got in 1 mile at Saltwater State Park, on the McSorley Creek Trail and the Bluff Loop. Saltwater State Park is very popular for its underwater marine park. There is a sunken barge and tires about 50 feet offshore forming a reef that is a favorite spot for scuba-diving.

There is also a cute story about Saltwater State Park. When the park was created in the 1920's a hatchet was symbolically buried under a rock somewhere in the park. It was meant as a peace effort to stop the bad feelings between the cities of Tacoma and Seattle.

So far I have hiked a total of 20 miles and we have raised $733 dollars for WTA. I will need to collect all money from my pledges by September 3, 2009. If you do not want to make a pledge by credit card to the website, checks can be made out to WTA (Washington Trails Association) and mailed to me and cash is always welcome. Just click on this link to go to My WTA Fundraising Page

Thanks so much

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

SOUP! I never thought of canning my own. What a great idea. We experimented with planting tomatoes from seed this year and have LOTS more tomatoes that we expected. If you'd be willing to share your recipe, please drop me an AQ mail.

Thanks! brandicat

sarah said...

Go Amanda Go!!!!

Anonymous said...

Hi Amanda,
We loved seeing your posts as a window into what we'd be doing if we were in the Pacific Northwest.
We thought you might like to see what your counterparts are doing on the east coast.
Bernice and Dan

Bernice and Dan said...

Hi Amanda--
We forgot to give you the link to our site. It's:
http://trailtramps.blogspot.com/

Thanks,
Dan and Bernice