LABOR DAY VACATION WEEKEND

 

Sunrise from the guest cabin

 

 

The stint in Columbus forced an ‘active’ vacation.   This last week we tried to do a number of things and largely succeeded.  We had to deal with storage as some of our stuff was in a friends basement and they are soon to be moving.  Then it was up to the island.

 

Ken and Kelli were joining us at the island, but first there was some more deck work to be done.

 

 

Some of the deck boards showed signs of rot and needed to be replaced.

 

 

The weather didn’t fully cooperate.  Here we had one of the best summers ‘in generations’ according to the newspaper yet when we get  back it rains for a few days.  On the plus side, being on the island when it rains beats being on the boat. 

 

Kelli had a fever that kept spiking, so Ken left early on Thursday to get a doctor to check her out.  In retrospect she was probably on the mend, but after 3 days of a sporadic fever it was a good move.  We took a later ferry ‘back to America’ as they say in the islands, and had one of the most convoluted trips back dodging traffic.  There were two backups on I-5, one was a 4 mile backup, the other 11 miles.  Thank goodness for navigation systems.  We used city streets and residential streets to keep moving and it worked.

 

Ken had secured Seahawks tickets for their last preseason game and as Kelli seemed to be doing better we fired up the boat and headed down to Bell Street Marina, effectively taking the boat to the game.  Just as we neared the marina we were treated to an impressive lightening storm and an absolute downpour.   You know traffic is bad when you take a slow sailboat followed by a cab to a game and the sailboat was the faster part of the journey.

 

We did avoid the worst of the rain being in the cab and just as we approached the stadium it stopped raining – for good as it turned out. 

 

The seats Ken had secured weren’t really seats.  They were to the corporate box on, bordering on ‘in’ the end zone.  Food was provided and it was a very special way to see a game.

The view from inside the suite

 

The view from just in front of the suite

Food was provided -- including crab sandwiches!

Pregame festivities

 You know you are close to the action when you can use a cell phone camera to get decent shots of the action. 

 

 

I sent this shot to Devin and got a very funny response from an envious son.

 

Food included a special cake for dessert

 

We took a ‘pedi cab’ back to the boat and that was a great ride.

 

Friday morning we walked up to the Market to get some mussels and fresh produce for the evening meal.   We didn’t think the Market would be that crowded, but then learned that there were two cruise ships in town.

 

Flowers near pike place Market.  Note the coast guard cutter in the lower left

We were trying to understand what Ken was communicating at this particular point in time.  How to select the perfect peach?

The fish throwers.  Requests to throw fish outnumbered the requests to buy fish by about 20 to 1.

The culprits for the crowds at the market

 

 

Later in the afternoon we headed over to Poulsbo under sunny skies.   I was able to nap and Ken took the helm navigating through Rich passage and up the west side of Bainbridge.

 

We lucked out by using the Poulsbo Yacht Club reciprocal moorage.  I had expected to anchor out on what was the front side of a holiday weekend, but there was only one visiting boat on the dock.  Perfect. 

 

On Saturday morning the seals were out in force.  There’s a log breakwater that seals use as their personal couch.  Rex viewed each seal as a personal threat and gave them what for each time he walked down the dock.

 

This Heron was either practicing country line dancing or had to go to the bathroom

Was it trying to clap?

Hi!

 

 

A Pacific Trawler

Nice Trawler

We hit the Poulsbo farmers market and then headed back to Shilshole. 

 

Saturday night Dinner in the cockpit was excellent.  Mussels and shrimp over homemade pasta with an ale fennel broth.

 

Saturday night was also the much anticipated beer tasting event.  Ken had secured a few of the finest IPA’s available and threw in some of his personal favorites as well.  Wrapped in foil, each beer was kept on ice.  Ken wrapped them and then we mixed them around so no one knew which beer was which.  A portion was metered out to each of us and we sipped, swirled and smelled then debated the merits of each one.   I found the tasting difficult as I thought the bandwidth between them was narrow.  I liked them all, but there were subtle differences between each one and that was what we were focusing on.

 

The contestants

The tasting notes

 

 

After all was said and done, the Ballast Point Sculpin IPA was declared the winner.

Sunday included a quick trip to the Ballard Market then Ken and Kelli were on their way back to Portland. A good week!

BACK ON THE BOAT

After being in Ohio for a month, coming home was something special. Jodi took the above picture just before picking me up at the airport.

Columbus is nice. Great people, nice restaurants, and some vibrant areas. The ‘Short North’ is pretty cool and reminiscent of a combination of Capital Hill and Ballard Avenue. German Village is very cool with great architecture. Ohio State is a fine university. Worthington is a real cute town seeming built for a perpetual fourth of July parade down main street every day. Columbus brewery has a killer IPA, and North Star has a very fine vege burger and their Bhudda bowl is out of this world. Traffic isn’t bad around Columbus although there’s a higher percentage of aggressive, nearly insane, drivers.

But it’s flat, away from any great body of water, and the overall topography is better described by what it isn’t than by what it is. There’s nothing to look at. No views. None. Everything you look at or do is manmade or has a business model. There’s nothing wrong with that and I imagine that huge segment of the US population lives that way. If you get a away from the coast, and away from the mountains, you are probably living somewhere in the mid west (or from a Seattle perspective, just shy of the east coast).

Much of the mid west was summed up by a gal we met at a pub. She was from Iowa and was extolling the virtues of her small town (pop 1000). It had all you needed. A doctors office, a pharmacy, dentists and a grocery store. Her central point was that this is what made her town a great place to live. She actually repeated her points a couple of times to ensure we knew that all health care providers were close and you could obtain food. I can’t remember which Iowa town it was, but wherever it is, it’s firmly cemented in last place on my ‘places to visit’ list.

Compare it to living on the dock. The dock has its own vibe. Last night we sat in the cockpit of a Cape George. A boat that came down from Juneau and, in two years, will be somewhere in the South Pacific. A powerboat near us is getting ready to head out for the weekend with a new crew mate, exploring the area. This morning I helped an older couple push off and they are headed down the sound for a 4 or 5 day cruise. There’s a new sailboat on the dock that looks destined for a round the world voyage. I talked to Rick this morning and he just took off his Satellite dish as he just didn’t want to pay those fees when he takes his boat down to Mexico this fall. There’s a laid back, casual feel on the dock but when the conversation touches on ‘where’d you go last week’ or where are you headed next weekend (or next year), it can get pretty interesting.

Certainly there are tradeoffs living on the dock, but after being in Columbus for a month it re-affirms that the relatively small hardships of living aboard are worth it. It is comfortable and last night’s chat on the bow, followed by a barbecue, followed by some time kibitzing with neighbors was really nice. What many want to escape to, we are living in. I’ll take it.

KENTUCKY BOURBON COUNTRY

 

 

 

Under gray and rainy skies we left Columbus bound for Kentucky’s Bourbon country.  Quick stop at Strabucks and headed south on 71 for a 4 hour drive.  Uneventful drive with the exception that heavy rain dropped the visibility at times to a few hundred feet.

the navigator

 

Our first stop was Maker’s Mark.  We signed up for a tour and were joined by about 30 others.  On this particular tour, the average displacement of our fellow tourers was up there.  To the point that collectively there was more of a waddle than a walk.  But I digress.

The grounds of Maker’s Mark are terrific with a stream running right through it.  A stream with several rattlesnakes sunning themselves on the rocks adjacent to the stream.   The first portion of this tour (and all the subsequent ones) was the building where the Mash was cooked and fermented.  Every distillery had their points of what made them different and Maker’s was differentiated by their more sweet flavor.  Eschewing Rye, they used wheat.  The vats that are used are huge old cypress tubs, some 15 feet in diameter.  Our perky tour guide encouraged us to stick our fingers in the goo and taste it.

 

I hope I didn't screw up the proportions at Makers Mark by flipping some switches.

 

We went on to the distillery house, then the aging houses and finally to the bottling area where the now quite valuable liquid is bottled with the trademark red wax seal.

 

 

 

 

Makers was pretty cool in that the bourbon was the vision of one family and was different from the other products on the market.   Created in the late 50’s, the bourbon was the product of Mr. Samuels, but the marketing was all Mrs Samuels.  The bottle’s shape and wax seal were all her ideas.   While many of the other distilleries seem to have been buffeted by corporate direction, Maker’s appeared to be a family tradition and vision.  Now owned by Jim Beam, they are trying to keep that same attitude.

 

 

 

The real fun began when the tour ended.  In the corner of the gift shop they had an area were you could dip your bottle (or other paraphernalia) into the hot red wax.  Jodi donned an apron, sleeves and safety goggles and dipped our bottle of Maker’s and our bottle of Maker’s 46, their new upper end product.  While all the bourbon is aged, the 46 product is put into a second barrel with additional charred staves built into the barrel, giving off more of the wood flavor and mellowing the overall taste.  I liked it.

note the extra staves within the barrel

 

In all the tours, the folks listed what was required to make a bona fide bourbon and it was the inclusion of at least 51% corn (most used more) and that the final product was aged in new, charred white oak barrels.  Aside from the other grains used, nothing else is added for color or for flavor.

 

 

Maker’s was a fun tour and they certainly have branded themselves well.

The Detox cell

 

hood used for hangings

 

 

The next stop was Bardstown, a short 20 minute drive to the north.  We checked in at the Jailers Inn, a rather unique bed and breakfast. From the late 1700’s through to the late 1980’s, it served as a Jail and a few of the cells were still intact, including the detox cell were up to 30 drunkards were housed in a very small space.  Several executions were carried out on the grounds.  Justice in the 1800’s was swift.  One fellow committed a crime (rape) in Mid December, was caught and tried by the end of December and hung the 2^nd week of January. 

The room was nice with an outer small living room and a nice bed with a deep and very comfortable king size foam mattress.

After  check in we went over to Talbots Tavern, which is right next door to the Jail.  Other than renovations and repairs, it was supposedly in continuous business since the late 1700’s. The food was OK with the clear highlight clearly being the Kentucky Burgoo.  Oh my word was that good.  Jodi found a recipe and that’s on the list for this fall.

As we had travelled for hours, missed lunch with the Maker’s tour our ‘dinner’ at the inn was either a very late lunch or an early dinner.  We were done eating shortly after 5, so after a brief walk we went back to the room and relaxed.  It had been a long week.  Jodi and done several audits in Illinois and Indiana and I had put in some hours as well and it all caught up to us after dinner. 

With some reluctance we ventured out shortly after 9 and went back to the Tavern to check out the band that was playing.  Oh were we glad we did.  It was the ‘Dev and Doug’ show.  The gal, Devon, had a great voice with a sound somewhere between Stevie Nix and Janis Jopin.  She had pipes.  Doug was an accomplished and inventive guitarist with a pretty good voice as well.  The real fun begain when she whipped out a fiddle.  Doug was crazy fast with the guitar and her fiddle work was right there to compliment.  Great evening of music.

The jailer’s Inn was listed by the Travel Channel as one of the top 10 haunted sites in America.  Jodi had talked to the spirits, inviting them to visit, as apparently you are supposed to do.

Sure enough, about 3 am, I awoke with a start.  There was a light on the ceiling.  Chills went up my spine.  This was it.  The light was real.  A ghost?  Ancient spirit?  Nope.  Just confirmation the smoke detector was on and working.  So much for ghosts.

Sunday morning we were treated to breakfast in the same courtyard where the hangings occurred.  Breakfast was pretty good, with Dixie serving all the guests.  No ghost sightings were reported by any of the guests.  After breakfast we toured the cemetery behind the Jail then headed out to see what else we could see.

view from breakfast in the courtyard

same courtyard in the 1800's.  note the gallows to the left

We ended up touring Four Roses distillery which turned out to be our least favorite.  The grounds were beautiful and the distillery was unique in Kentucky owing to the Spanish mission style architecture. 

 

 

 

Their product’s claim to fame was the fact they aged their bourbon in a single story facility.  The bourbon was so so in my opinion and while Jodi found all bourbons objectionable, this one was exceedingly so.

We moved on to what in retrospect was our favorite distillery.  Woodford Reserve.   The grounds were beautifully elegant with stately buildings in the midst of Kentucky’s Thoroughbred Country.  Oh what a setting.  Their claim to fame was a ‘triple distillery process’ unique to the industry.  Most other bourbons are distilled twice. 

Unfortunately the elderly monotone speaking tour guide was boring to the point of lacking a pulse.  Or a sense of humor.  And the fact that the restaurant, which looked great, was supposed to close at 3:30, but allegedly had run out of food around 2.   Other than that, the grounds and the bourbon were excellent, especially their ‘double barreled’ product.  Very tasty.    Woodford’s double barrel product was more rye based (instead of wheat, like Makers) and initially aged like all the other’s in new charred white oak barrels.  But the product was poured into a second barrel that was ‘toasted’.

The charring process takes about 40 seconds with flame, but the toasting process was done by roasting a new set of fresh barrels for about 40 minutes, bringing a caramelized like finish to the interior of barrel.   The aging in that 2^nd barrel mellowed the bourbon and took the ‘burn’ out of the liquid.  It was smooth.

After Woodford we angled back towards Columbus and Jodi found a neat café near Lexington where we had, what for this trip, had become either a late lunch or early dinner tradition.

As I write, Jodi has us hurtling back towards Columbus at the conclusion of an excellent weekend in Kentucky’s bourbon region.  

 

 

 

ROAD TRIP

When the Columbus opportunity came up, I thought “hmmmm. I can make this fun”, so even though I only had a week’s worth of notice before getting here, I had my eyes open for opportunities for side trips on the weekends. There were plenty of suggestions from helpful associates, and while all sounded interesting, nothing really stirred the soul.


I missed hitting the trail out west. I’ve always had visions of the great Pacific Crest Trail, perhaps even the Appalachian Trail. Where are the trails in Ohio?

Then I realized that Ohio bordered on Kentucky. As in Kentucky, birth place of Bourbon and the famous “Bourbon Trail”. OK, not really a trail per se, but small roads linking several distilleries together in what they call, in Kentucky, a trail.

ROAD TRIP!!

Part of the fun of a road trip is the planning. And planning involves tradeoffs. All the literature says that you need 3 full days or more to do the ‘bourbon trail’. We’ll only have a weekend forcing the twin thoughts of nailing what you want to see as well as getting over what you won’t see.

While the region encompasses a fair area, the one place we really wanted to see was Maker’s Mark to honor dear old Dad. He loved his Maker’s Mark. That’s in Loretta, just 15 minutes South and slightly east of Bardstown, self proclaimed bourbon capital of the world and listed in the book 1000 places to see before you die. Also described as America’s most beautiful small city. And, our intended hotel the Jailers Inn, was listed by the Travel Channel as one of the top 10 haunted sites in the America.

I write the above with the full knowledge that the true ‘best places’ never make any list. Top 10’s, best of’s, etc are usually due to marketing, arm twisting, or outright bribes. One of Bardstown’s former or current civic leaders has a hankering for self promotion and marketing. But it’s only a weekend and it does sound like fun.

So the wide region just narrowed. Right next to the inn (a former Jail dating back to 1797) is a Tavern, which has been in continuous existence since the late 1700’s. Among the luminaries who have visited that Tavern? Abraham Lincoln, Jesse James, and Daniel Boone. Cool.

Unfortunately I don’t have the camera. So this will be captured via cell phones and the tab. Don’t expect visual excellence. Given the bourbon, don’t expect grammatical excellence either.

Speaking of bourbon, I’ve been reading up on it. Interesting history. Scotch, Beer, Wine, Vodka, and virtually any other form of drink trace their lineage to the ‘old world’. Europe or Asia. Bourbon, while sounding French, is uniquely an American product. While bourbon has a couple of other ingredients, two of the things it must have is first to be distilled from 51% or more from corn, and be aged in new, charred, oak barrels. Corn and Oak (only white oak is used) were only available in the new world. Both were unknown before the Europeans got here.

Other tidbits. Ever wonder where the word ‘proof’ came about? Seems that early distillers using primitive stills could only get their spirits up to about 50 percent alcohol. Various techniques were used to measure the alcohol content and if it passed these tests, the content was considered ‘proved’, or ‘proof goods’. With 50 percent alcohol being the then standard, it became 100 proof. Or so the story goes.

So, we’re off to the land of Jim Beam, Evan Williams, Wild Turkey, Old Grand Dad, Makers Mark and a whole host of others.

One more nugget. Is Whiskey a good thing or a bad thing? Seems a southern legislator made a speech many years ago on that very topic.

His speech: “….here is how I feel about Whiskey. If, when you say whiskey you mean the devils brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples he Christian man and women from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation and despair and shame and helplessness and hopelessness – then I am certainly against it."

"But if, when you say whiskey, you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer, if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty, crispy morning, if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy and his happiness and to forget, even if only for a little while life’s great tragedies and heartaches and sorrows, if you mean that drink the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our pitiful aged and infirm, to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it."

"That is my stand, and I will not compromise.”

Looking forward to the road trip and reporting on same!!!!

SEATTLE VS COLUMBUS WEATHER

So far the weather here, despite all the warnings, has been pleasant. Very pleasant. Like in the mid 70’s, and the humidity seems quite reasonable. I’m thinking that this feels like normal. The local weatherman here in Columbus used a different phrase – as in “another day of near historic lows”.

Mid seventies are ‘historic lows’? Uh oh.


So with an abundance of discretionary time at hand, I thought I’d look into some quick stats and compare Seattle vs Columbus weather. There were some surprises!

First, let’s look at temperature. The year starts out with the Seattle average low for January (the Green solid line at 37 degress) being identical to Columbus’s average high (the red dotted line).

In March, our average highs converge in the low to mid 50’s but from May through September it’s hotter in Columbus. No surprises there – higher highs and lower lows.

But what about rain? Certainly the drippy northwest is drippier than Columbus, right? Fun fact. Both Columbus and Seattle have nearly identical average annual rainfalls (both just over 38 inches annually).

But the real surprise is how the rain is distributed. Columbus is more egalitarian how it spreads rain through the year, Seattle tends to give summer a pass. Take a look:

From April thru September it rains much more in Columbus (red line) than it does in Seattle (green line).  We get the title October through March, but hey, it's winter.  Summers are supposed to be dry, right?  Not in Columbus!  July is our lowest month while it's the 2nd wettest month of the year for Columbus.

I think Cliff Mass was on to something with his recent post.....Cliff Mass reveals secret of Seattle/Portland Summers

Yes, there is some degree of boredom -- no projects to build, no brightwork to maintain, but I've blasted through two books and work looks like it will be pretty interesting.