Yay!

Miss V is returning today!

I know, her family in Utah will miss her, and she will miss them as well. But Captain Midnight and I have missed having her here. She's creative and funny, she has a strong desire to do what's right and she never fails to make life interesting. Our lives are better with her than without her.

Salal jam! (No, it's not an alt-rock band.)

The other day, as Captain Midnight and I were out geocaching (as we are admittedly prone to doing), we came across this wooded section of the Microsoft campus that was covered in low-growing bushes, each bearing hanging stalks of little blue berries. I knew they weren't blueberries or huckleberries because I can spot both of those on sight, but they did look maddeningly familiar. I could have sworn I'd read about them in a book or seen them online. They had been described as edible, I was sure... but not so sure that I was willing to try one and see. Accidental self-poisoning death can ruin your whole weekend.

So I went home and commenced Looking Stuff Up (as I am also admittedly prone to doing). And BEHOLD! Gaultheria shallon! Salal berries! -- well, sepals actually, but there's no point kicking about definitions. Salal was a traditional staple food of most native tribes of the Pacific Northwest, so they're definitely edible. And tasty.

Today I went back with a container and picked about a pint of salal. Took them home, washed them up, proceeded to ponder what to do with them.

They're so dark they almost look like little cured olives.

Finally, I settled on salal jam as the likeliest culinary candidate for this batch. I tossed the berries into a saucepan, added a teeny bit of water and cooked them for a while...
...mashing them up as necessary to help them release all their juice. This made a beautiful dark purple slurry.

Since sugar is not a good idea for people with busted pancreatic function such as myself, I added some Truvia to the mix instead. (Substitute sugar or some other sweetener if you prefer; I just happen to like the taste of Truvia, especially with fruit.) You don't need much; salal berries are naturally sweet. I only added a tablespoon or so to this small batch. We'll see how my blood sugar responds to the final product.

Once I arbitrarily decided I was done with mashing the berries, I squeezed in the juice of half a lime (lemon would work fine too) and stirred well for a few more minutes. Then I strained the whole mixture through a sieve...

...and voila! Homemade forest jam. Dark maroon, mysterious, beautiful, sweet. If anything, a little too sweet. I think I'll try cooking one part cranberries to three parts salal next time and see how that turns out.

There are probably a number of things you could do with this jam: spoon it over pancakes, eat it on biscuits, use it as the center of a cake, or just make salal mousse.
I'll be tasting this in a few hours, when it's nice and chilled.

Nerd Brigadery

The Nerd Brigade will not be meeting today, due to their dungeon master being temporarily imprisoned in Cap'n Bill's Wide World o' Nerds, and I've been cleaning up some of the flotsam left behind on our kitchen table.

To help his little party of adventurers keep track of the important stuff on a quest, Captain Midnight draws up index cards with pictures of weapons, armor, potions and other quest items.

Some of them are rather amusing.

Not to mention vaguely familiar.

I hope they call this one The Burninator.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man engulfed in flames cannot be accosted by ninjas.
Here's the origin of this one.

After a while, the guys decided to get into the act and drew up a few of their own.
I can't tell whether this is a weapon or a disposable razor.

...OK, I got nothin'.

Unseen (part 18)

previous

I half-wake in the night, deliciously warm, and I think, There was something to burn after all, and feel a drowsy sense of satisfaction. Later -- and it might be moments later or hours later, the way it is when you're half-asleep -- I try to remember what I found to burn and how I got it back into the cabin, but it doesn't matter. I drift off again, warm and safe.

"Mom-MEEEE!"

I sit bolt upright in bed. The daylight streams in from outside. A blonde-haired boy, about five years old, a blue backpack hanging off one arm, is staring at me in shock. It looks as though the owners of the cabin have arrived. For some reason the safeguards I'd put in place didn't warn me ahead of time. Despite the jolt of adrenalin from the unexpected noise I'm still struggling to think at full speed. Kids aren't as easy to fool as adults. He takes another breath, and I know he's going to shriek again unless I do something quick.

And I transform. I've never transformed before, but somehow I know what to do. My body shrinks and twists and changes in uncomfortable ways, and ebony feathers sprout from my skin, and I spread my new dark wings and fly straight up and out of the open cabin skylight.

I flap strongly until I'm well above the cabin, then I settle down to glide on the piping cold air currents, grateful for warm feathers. I look around in all directions, trying to get my bearings. The snow is starting to melt in the sunlight; a large swath has already half-slid off the pitched roof of the cabin. I hear the faint sound of the boy still shrieking for his mother, and his mother responding with a hysterical "What is it?" But she'll never believe him, and in time he'll come to believe he made up the whole thing. Over the next ridge, fifteen to twenty miles straight to the north -- dare I think "as the crow flies?" -- is a small town, apparently the closest, and I decide to make for it. It would certainly be a safer bet than staying in this remote icy wilderness.

But rising up inside me, stronger than my own thoughts, are other sensations crowding into my brain -- oddly shaped, not composed as human thoughts are -- compulsions to strut and preen, to find shiny objects, to pick out the choicest bits of roadkill. And I realize, as these animal sensations become louder and more insistent, drowning out my own thoughts, that there's a very real danger of losing my human self completely and becoming the form I merely inhabit.

I flap swiftly, trying to make it as close to the town as I can, trying to concentrate on human thoughts and not on shiny distractions. I recite songs and nursery rhymes in my head, skipping over the one about "four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie." Finally, as the crowlike thoughts threaten to drown out even my sense of urgency, I land in the snow on a ridge overlooking the town, ready to change back. But I don't know how I changed in the first place, and now, in a panic, I discover I don't know how to reverse it. I flounder in the snow, cawing in distress, flapping to keep my balance and trying to hold onto my inner humanity, but I can feel myself slipping away, being held down and rapidly strangled by mindless instinct. And just as I complete the transformation and become wholly a crow in mind and body, just like every other crow that ever existed --

-- I wake up. I'm human. I'm still in the cabin. The dawn is just starting to break over the mountains. The fire in the stove has gone out, but the residual heat still warms the space.

It's time to move. I could probably stay here safely for several more days, but I'd rather take my chances in the snow. There's something about this cabin that brings on horrible dreams. And perhaps at least part of the dream is true, and I should try going north from here.

next

The lost weekend, part 2

Apparently we didn't have our fill of geocaching on Saturday, because on Sunday after church we drove up to the tiny community of Hyak, Washington to participate in the Washington State Geocaching Association event. This shindig was officially titled "Going APE... All Over Again," the reasons for which should become clear a little later.

We checked in with Fen, who was volunteering for the event. Didn't see Mitch anywhere, though we heard he'd be attending, but there was a tall, silent-but-genial black-furred ape hanging around with Fen. We signed the sandwich board he was wearing, waved goodbye and headed down the trail.

This is the cute little Hyak train station. It's well maintained despite not having any trains to service.

There is no train to Hyak any more because in 1977 the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, whose rail line serviced Hyak, went into bankruptcy. The right of way for this rail line was acquired by the state of Washington. In the 1980s, the state also acquired the property, ripped out the rails and converted the route into a gravel-covered walking and mountain biking trail. The railroad's loss is our gain, since the scenic route over Snoqualmie Pass which was once only visible by train is now available to hikers and bikers.

Because the park is essentially one long rail trail, it's closely bounded in some places by private property, so if you wander off the trail you could end up in someone's back yard.

So down the trail we went, hum-de-dum.

This part of the trail was lined with ferns, mosses and greenery, refreshed by water that dripped from the rocks.

Even before we rounded the bend in the trail, we both noticed the persistent chill breeze that began to blow over us -- odd for such a warm summer day. The breeze smelled of damp, of mosses and old stone.

And pretty soon we could see what was causing it.

This is the east side entrance to the Snoqualmie Tunnel.

Built between 1912 and 1914, the Snoqualmie Tunnel was blasted out of the basalt rock of the mountain. It's about 25 feet tall, about 18 feet wide and over 2 miles long, and it's completely unlit inside.

The Doors of Moria here are closed during the winter for safety. Huge, heavy, fragile icicles form on the tunnel ceiling from water that seeps out of the mountain, and it's dangerous to walk beneath them.

The mountain breathed out its stone cold breath at us. Waiting.

So in we went.

"Aren't you coming?" asked Captain Midnight. Uh... okay.

The light coming in from outside dropped away quickly, and soon we were walking along in near-Stygian darkness. Even with our own faint flashlights and the headlamps and lightsticks of other geocachers visible off in the distance, there was a powerful feeling of solitude. The persistent chilly breathing of the mountain -- about 50 degrees Fahrenheit throughout -- turned our breath to fog and seemed to freeze our sweat. At several places in the tunnel, water trickled from the high ceiling, turning the route to grayish mud and dripping onto our heads or down our backs.

And that was before we found The Fen Dweller. Or more precisely, he found us.

See, The Fen Dweller is a solitary Sasquatch -- possibly a relative of Grendel -- who sometimes hangs out in the tunnel. He has a little stash in one of the tunnel alcoves, where the train signal machinery and junction boxes used to be (and where some leftover bits and pieces of machinery still remain). He leaped out and grunted insistently at us, quite keen to make sure we didn't miss the geocache parked on "the fridge" in his alcove. So after my heart started back up again, CM and I signed the log and continued on our tenebrous journey.

I think it took about an hour, but eventually I began to notice that one of the lights ahead of us was too big to be a flashlight.

Could it be the end of the tunnel? Why yes, it could.

We emerged into the warmth of a beautiful late summer day. Many bikers and geocachers were gamboling about in the sunshine.

A look back at our accomplishment. Woot woot.

You can read the inscription much easier on this side of the tunnel.

After a few moments of satisfied basking, we turned to the task at hand, which was to find more geocaches. And find them we did.

The other side of the tunnel is a beautiful area, with leafy green trees...

...little mountain rivulets...

...and lots of wild flowers which turned out to be common foxglove.

They were pretty enough to deserve a closeup shot.

Foxglove, although it is mortally toxic to humans and horses, is also used to make a heart medication called Digitalin. Beautiful and useful, but deadly! This has been your Useless Trivia Moment for the day.

"This is all fascinating," I hear you say, "but what about the APE thing?" Well, we did already run into The Fen Dweller, and he's sort of a crypto-primate... but he wasn't the primary reason for the event.

See, back in 2001 20th Century Fox and the Groundspeak powers that be got together and released about a dozen themed geocaches associated with the release of the film The Planet of the Apes. Until recently, the last of these caches in the United States was hidden here, in a location just west of the Snoqualmie Tunnel. I say "until recently" because back in June, some chronic mouthbreather stole the cache. (You really have to wonder what motivates cache thieves. Who are they going to brag to? People who don't geocache? "Uh, yeah, you stole a Tupperware box covered in camo tape and filled with three ice-cream-shaped erasers, a pin, a novelty pencil and a spiral notebook. Total showcase value less than $10. Goody gumdrops." They certainly wouldn't brag to other geocachers: "Oh, look, you stole 40 caches and now you're telling me. So you're a thief AND a moron.") Anyway, the point of this get-together was to celebrate the replacement of the original cache with a tribute cache in about the same spot, but with certain safety features in place that would make stealing it both difficult and potentially painful. We found this cache, signed the log, looked over the goodies inside, and pondered the machinations of idiot thieves.

We did NOT look for geocaches down this hidey hole. It would have been a Very Bad Idea.

Before heading back through the tunnel, we had a look at the detritus on the west side.

Any phone that was once here is now long gone. All that's left is some old machinery that's been repeatedly used as target practice.

I'm not sure exactly what this item was used for -- it's probably some kind of junction box -- but it was manufactured by the Union Switch & Signal Company of Swissvale, Pennsylvania. Thank you, Internet, repository of random knowledge!

"Hey, honey, what's for dinner?" asked Captain Midnight. Alas, nothing but graffiti.

All right, once more into the breach, dear friends!

This time we tried walking without flashlights for as long as we could. This experiment came to an end pretty quickly as we discovered we needed the light to keep from being dripped on.

Just out of curiosity I tried taking one shot in the tunnel with my camera flash on. The light didn't penetrate very far. (Those little glimmers in the distance are reflector dots stuck to the tunnel walls.) On either side of the trail are scuppers -- covered ditches that help route the seeping water out of the tunnel. Leftover bits of train wiring and other structural supports line the tunnel walls.

The trip back was just about as eerie as before. Although The Fen Dweller had abandoned his alcove, it was getting late in the day and nearly all the other geocachers had gone home. At several points along our route we felt very alone inside the dark heart of the mountain. We didn't run into any Balrogs, nor wizards shouting "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!", so it was all good.

Fortunately I had Captain Midnight with me, who is fully rated to take down a Balrog if necessary.

By now your humble writer, who is sadly out of shape, was feeling this journey in a big way. In the feet and legs, which was no surprise, but also in the hip joints, which was singularly unwelcome. Ow ow ow ow. Stupid Balrogs better leave me alone if they know what's good for 'em, rassnfrassn.

But wait, what's that light in the distance?

I do believe it's the tunnel entrance!

And so it was.

Captain Midnight spontaneously broke into The Big Fig Newton to celebrate our return to civilization.

We made it! Woot! Ow!

So there was our lost weekend. Speaking of lost, if you see Mitch, won't you let us know?

The lost weekend, part 1

And by "lost" I mean "filled with geocaching geekery."

First up: the Geocaching Block Party in Seattle.

(Woot.)
CM and I carpooled with Fen, Mitch and Mike, and once we got there we picked up another participant, Basal. We wandered freely through the Fremont neighborhood, accomplishing various challenges and picking up all sorts of goodies in the process. These included shelling cacao beans at Theo Chocolate, filling bottles at Mischief Distillery, deciphering signal flags strung between some local houseboats, completing a scooter challenge (hey, I only fell off near the finish line!) and looking for Fremont trivia at History House.

Oh, and for those scoffers who say "Pix or it didn't happen!":

Behold The Proof! Neener.

We took in the many sights of Fremont...
...the Highway 99 bridge...

...the troll under said bridge...

...and the three Billy Goats Gruff going to meet him.

There was also the Fremont Rocket Ship...

...the tribute to the J.P. Patches children's TV show...

...and the Center of the Universe signpost.

(Not shown: the huge statue of Lenin, who spent most of the day having his finger pulled by goofy geocachers.)

Even the sewer covers are pretty in Fremont. It's just that kind of place.

We met geocachers from all over the world (at least one couple had come all the way from Australia) and picked up some geo-goodies. Captain Midnight even succumbed to the siren call and turned our car into a trackable item.

And just for kicks, we had our picture taken with Groundspeak's mascot, Signal the Frog (who was being a real trouper on one of Seattle's rare hot days; I hope Signal went immediately to Dunk the Frog tank duty after this photo was taken).

Next up: Captain Midnight and I go ape.