Daley Ponderings

I went on a fairly long walk tonight (take a look at the topological map too, there were some decent hills) - I am in Seattle with one of my customers who is having their annual retreat, and invited me to come along.

We are staying at the Palisades Retreat Center, which is a lovely place to be - my bedroom faces Puget Sound (basically the same view as in the picture on the above link), and it gets dark at 10 or so, and light at 4 or 5.  I can see a couple thousand trees from my bedroom, and if I go outside can probably be within 50 feet of three or four hundred.  I have renewed my statement that Pittsburgh doesn't have any trees.  People had convinced me for a while that it does, but now being back in a place that actually does have trees, I reject that statement.

I am not entirely sure what the difference is - I think the trees here are taller, more varieties, and more of them around, in addition to all the ground vegetation - there apparently is a problem with some vines that are strangling the trees - I can believe it as I saw some trees where I couldn't see the trunk, just a couple foot diameter column of vines that goes up a hundred feet and then I can see some branches of the real tree sticking out.

I saw another tree that had been cut or fallen partially down, so there weren't any branches on it, just a trunk that went up twenty or thirty feet and then stopped.  The vines covered the entire trunk, so I couldn't see it at all, and then when they reached the top of the tree, extended back down to the ground again.

Apparently, the "cool" thing to do here is skimboarding, which I hadn't heard of before, but watched some people with more or less success ride along the beach for 15 to 20 feet or so, without getting very wet.  I actually forgot to go feel the water, but people said it was cold.