Swimming Across America in WA #2

This will be the second year for Swim Across America in Seattle on Lake Washington. It takes place on Saturday, September 11 and here is the link for all the information about the long distance swimming event, which gets under way VERY early in the morning... good place to see the sunrise!

http://www.swimacrossamerica.org

I was a volunteer last year and have offered again for this year but have not heard back as yet. Whether or not I am doing that, I will certainly be there to support the swimmers.

The upside-down triangles are prayer flags which are filled out by anyone who wants to remember someone who has been affected by cancer or by family members paying tribute to the swimmers or for groups to recognize someone. Last year I honored the late competitive motorcycle rider, Andre, who wrote the blog "http://motocancer.blogspot.com/" He was afflicted with Multiple Myeloma.

My dream is to not have to put anyone's name up there for this disease or any other kind of cancer.

As you can see, the weather was ideal for this kind of an event. I will be intending for a repeat version for this year as I cannot imagine how much harder it might be to complete such a course in the rain or other inclement weather.

As the swimmers complete their two miles, there is a group of volunteers ready and waiting to help them out of the water, give them refreshments and a towel. When it is all over and done, the donations received will be going to the local Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, as it did last year.

HOPE WE WILL HAVE LOTS OF SUPPORTERS!!!

Swimming Across America in WA

On Saturday, Sept. 12, at o-dark-thirty, I headed south from Everett to Lake Washington to Mercer Island's Luther Burbank Park for the first annual Swim Across America event as a fund-raiser for a beneficiary which this year was the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

The sun seemed to take forever to get up over the horizon, and before it actually made it, the first swimmers began to arrive to get registered and marked up. A team of volunteers, of which I was one, were already in place to blow up balls, prepare the coffee, cut up the bagels, hand out t-shirts and answer questions.

One of the swimmers is someone I know very well, and I had not advised her that I was going to be a volunteer, and she was significantly surprised to be standing in line for a t-shirt and see me standing there. I was there to support the swimmers, a family member who has cancer and to memorialize those who have recently died from Multiple Myeloma or another cancer.

About 90 men and women signed up to swim the two-mile route under the Mercer Island Bridge on the western side of the island and another 35 or 40, including a number of teens, were ready to swim a half-mile course. Each of the entrants had to raise $500 as part of their "training" for the competition along with other physical conditioning activities.

The efforts of these swimmers raised $65,000, along with other donations, putting the total raised near $100,000 for the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. The "prayer flags" were comments by various people about the event or about their motivation to swim the distance.

When the bus came to pick up the two-milers, the sun was shining brightly, there was little wind and the water was 69 degrees. They hit the water at 8 a.m. and the first swimmer, a guy, ran up on the beach at about 8:37 a.m.!

This was just after 8:30 a.m. when the half-milers got the gun and they were off, swimming furiously.

I took a break from being a spectator for a walk around the park and discovered a dew-covered spider web plus loads of blackberries ripening, and they were a tasty breakfast treat!

The announcer proclaimed a new wave of arrivals from the 2-mile group and I found the best spot to watch was up in the lifeguard's chair. My hat is off to all the swimmers who churned up the water for at least an hour; a few took longer than that to complete the course.

The last of the half-milers came in as well, moving the event from being spectators to the animated talk between swimmers and supporters about the event. Friends and relatives began arriving to share in the post-event breakfast and awards ceremony.

Young boys and girls were now bored with the adult conversation and quickly found a way to entertain themselves - a dried up fountain offered an opportunity to discover what it was supposed to be doing, where the water came from, where the water would go. I was fascinated by their youthful conclusions and research as they worked together easily, boys and girls, to reinforce their ideas.

One enterprising young lady had seen a number of bottles of water not being taken by the adults, and she offered to make several trips from the dry fountain to the source to carry more than a few bottles of water back to be poured into the dry spot to see if it would either generate more water or when overflowing would run down to the outlet. As I was her temporary "caretaker," at the request of her mother, I let her make a few trips without comment. Finally, after 9 bottles of water had been 'sacrificed,' I had to be the spoil-sport and stop her, partly because her parents were getting ready to leave. She was quick to think of another way to get the water... go to lake and fill up the bottles she already had! I hated to

be the limiter of her fun and stopping the energy of youthfulness.

The lazy sun was now heating up the day without a cloud to slow it down. People were leaving the park, heading off to other weekend duties or adventures. I had been a part of something powerful and moving... and my thoughts went out to the individuals who had committed to the swim and why they did it. How many times did their arms reach into the water to pull them along over a two-mile area? How many kicks did it take to get to the end? It was impressive and thought-provoking. And because of each one, combined into many, SCCA would have some additional research funds perhaps to help solve the mysteries of MM. Like this last shot suggests, a victory over cancer for good!

Too many "closures"

Today we took a trip to Ballard, a district of Seattle which used to be, according to Jey-hu, very charming and prosperous. Our mission was to go to Ballard Camera to get our cameras cleaned for the trip to Florida. When we arrived, the store was plastered with signs, "Store for Lease," and "Building for Sale" and a small flyer on the front door that said, "You can find us on-line now. We closed out this store on June 30."

Darnitall... and across the street a "used" books store was featuring a "Going Out of Business" sale until the end of next week. And two doors down from that was another empty building with signs in its windows suggesting it could use new tenants. We had lunch at Lombardi's, a delicious resbite, as we waited for the cameras to be cleaned at CameraTechs just down the street from the former objective. The fellows in there were extraordinarily helpful, got the job done in the one-hour window they promised and - it was reasonable. Of course we will go back to them.

Not far from them is the old Carnegie Free Public Library building which has been converted into an upscale restaurant, but even they were selling office space to lease. To learn more about this historical building - finished in 1906 - go to this history site. Apparently the "Ballard Chain Gain" did the landscaping, "under the watchful eyes of the police." The current landscaping of the old building is appealing and we promised ourselves that if it's open when we get back from Florida, we'll go and see how their dinners are. As we headed back to our car, across the street, I saw "The Matador," which suggests from their signage that they might be a sort of "cow-house" or perhaps feature Spanish food... another possible adventure here.

Couldn't miss the bookstore's sale and found a

couple of treasures there... but I was struck by the shelf with business books on it... read through the titles and see if you saw the irony that I did in one of them.

So, it was off to find my favorite bread bakery in Sandpoint Village and after that Jey-hu drove me through Lake City to show me where his 'ancestral home' was - it used to be where a bank now is, and he grimly remarked that the actual foundation was probably under the garbage container. He grew up in a two-bedroom house where he noted, "I used to get hot and cold hot chocolate..." telling the story of one rather chilly morning when the spoon in his hot chocolate was solidly inserted and

he went to his mother and asked, holding the spoon and the "hot" chocolate on it in his hand, if he could get it warmed up... His father was a naturopathic and chiropractic doctor back then and had his practice in the old justice of the peace office.

This picture of someone stopping to "smell the flowers," sort of touched me on this greyish day... only in color because in all respects it was a pleasant time with Jey-hu who has been working very hard from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day this past week so it's been a challenge to share much time together.

Sea Fair!

Wall to wall boats of all sizes and shapes and utility, a sunny day with temperatures in the 80's, good friends to laugh and talk with, and capped off with the always intense, always loud and always thrilling performance of the Navy's Blue Angels jet air show and you have the ingredients for a memorable Sunday on the last day of SeaFair 2009.

We were fortunate to have an invitation to be on a 90-footer motor yacht and the owner knew exactly where to place the anchor for the best viewing, so we had front rows seats for all

the action. In the second picture you can see two of the six jets circling around for another set. The aircraft were flying, in some cases, quite low and after one pass, the shock waves from the jet engines were quite intense on my ears.

Here is a shot of what I determined was the "smallest" boat in the fleet and in the non-commercial category, I think our host's boat and one other may have competed for the largest.

Curiously, there were a number of jet skis, including the one shown here, but very few sailboats. It appeared to be mostly a power-boater's event. Notice that the jet ski operator is still attached to his cell phone - just like behind the wheel of his car, I expect.

I've included a shot of seagull who not only appeared to be trying to learn how to fly like the Blue Angels, but who was also witnessed

deliberately taking some item (water-soaked bread, we think), carefully carrying it over a boat, stalling out and dropping it on them!

There were some hydroplane races following the air show, but our host had to head back to Everett to complete some renovations before the boat is taken to Mexico for the winter.