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Otter Falls and Big Creek Falls

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Just yesterday I did my first hike of the year: I followed a trail to two amazingly beautiful waterfalls in the middle of the forest, the Otter Falls and the Big Creek Falls. It was a very nice and surprisingly easy hike and it couldn't have been a better way to start the hiking season. The falls are located in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, deep into the woods past the Snoqualmie river. A somewhat rough dirt road takes you to the trailhead, and then you follow the Taylor river through what used to be a forest road: that makes for a trail with little elevation gain and a relatively wide path, so it is pretty easy to cover the more or less four miles until the Otter Falls. I've been blessed in my life that I have been in places where you can say that pictures don't do them justice. That is very much the case of the Otter Falls. They sit on this vast rocky mountain side, a narrow stream of water going all the way down to a small lake. The only way to absorb the sca...
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A Literary Salon at the Hugo House and Amanda Knox

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A literary salon is a gathering in which a host brings people together to listen to and talk about prose and poetry, typically with the people who wrote said prose and poetry. This last Wednesday I had the opportunity for the first time to participate in one, at the Hugo House in downtown Seattle. The Hugo House is a non-profit community center for the writing community of Seattle. It has a number of programs for new writers and it is a great institution for the local literature. This was my first time at their new location: the Hugo House used to be in a previously residential house in a somewhat improvised fashion, but now they occupy the ground floor of a new building in Capitol Hill (the "bohemian" neighborhood in Seattle and quite an appropriate location for a writing community center) in a much better setup. In addition to a small bar, various small rooms for writers and lots of bookshelves, there is a small theater, the Lapis Theater. "Collections: a Live Magazine...
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
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Historical Witness: No Kings Protest

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NOTE: this is not any kind of political commentary. It is fair to say that we're living through historical moments, and an expression of one such moment happened close to where I live. Being lucky and privileged enough to be able to witness such historical moment, I wanted to document it for posterity. However, you should not extrapolate any political preference from what you see here - I am very happy to be an observer to a historical moment. Last Saturday the third "No Kings" protest was organized across the country and, given that Seattle is one of the major metropolitan areas in the US, it had its own protest. As before, it was set at the  Cal Anderson Park , a nice little park right in the middle of Capitol Hill, the "bohemian" neighborhood in Seattle. Everything was well organized: there were porta-potties, a stage with sound equipment was set up, there were booths selling little works of art and mementos and, this being Seattle, there were multiple cof...
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
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New Experience: Sweet and Spicy Peeps

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Easter is coming and in the US that includes the tradition of eating Peeps. For those who don't know, Peeps are a candy made by a small company in the United States, which very simply consists of a piece of marshmallow shaped like a little chick with bright colors and two dots for "eyes". They are popular around Easter time and as the years passed, the company has tried variations of the candy. This year they are coming up with something brand new: chili-lime-mango flavored peeps. One of my friends saw that at the grocery store and her reaction was to write to me and dare me to try them. I obliged. I just had three of them, to be sure that I was having the full experience. However, the first one already left a very clear impression: it is a cacophony of flavors, many of which don't belong together, with only a barely noticeable hint of lime and I couldn't detect any mango flavor at all (and I had many mangoes in my life). I don't like spicy food in general, b...
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
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New Experience: Roller Skating!

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This was a very fun new experience: for the first time in my life I tried roller skating! In this case, I'm talking about the old school roller skates: the ones that look like a skate board on your foot, as you may have seen in movies set during the 70's and 80's. In fact, my experience resembled a lot what I've seen in the movies, with the lights and everybody going around having a great time. I had always wanted to try roller skating, and fortunately for me I found a perfect place for that:  Southgate Roller Rink  (by the way, it seems that their website hasn't changed since the 90's...), an old school roller skating rink in South Seattle. Honestly, the place felt like it was stuck in time in the 80's, but it was in good shape. I went there this afternoon, and I paid just sixteen dollars to enter the rink and get a pair of skates. During the afternoon the place has lots and lots of kids, and in fact there was a birthday party going on there. It made for a ...
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
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