Adventures of a Discoverer

"Bumbershoot" is the name of a famous music and art festival that happens every Labor Day weekend in Seattle, since the early 70's. I went to it once in my first years in the US, but it was a terrible experience: it got cold early and I wasn't dressed for that, I had injured my foot previously therefore I could barely walk, so I don't think it really counted as my first experience in it. Also, in recent years Bumbershoot was in crisis, lacking an idea about what it should be, losing lots of money not being very sure what it should be about, and finally it just hasn't happened since COVID-19. So it felt like a great first experience yesterday when I could actually go to Bumbershoot and enjoy myself, and the festival was back, with new organizers, a renewed focus on art and music of all kinds, and a glorious sunny and warm day to top it all off. The idea of the festival is to be a really tasty all you can eat buffet of art in many forms: live music, sculpture, p...

Today I could hike one of the best trails in the Mt Rainier National Park: the Eunice Lake and Tolmie Lookout trail. It is a very interesting hike, with a number of different things to see. To get there, you need to enter the National Park via a rough dirt road (in case you're thinking about doing it too, regular cars can do it, as long as they drive slow and easy ), which itself has great views already, even if they are vertigo inducing. Interestingly enough the trailhead is at a lake itself: you park by Mowich Lake and you start the hike already at a high altitude. The trail starts flat but sooner than you think it becomes very steep - my thighs are still remembering that. It was a beautiful clear day, but that also meant that it was hot even at altitude, which resulted in a very sweaty hike. The rewards were great, though: soon we were reaching the subalpine fields, where the trees are much shorter and more sparse, and we started seeing amazing views of Mt Rainier nearby. After...