Maeve Howell, theater critic

Maeve was quoted today on the UW Computer Science & Engineering News Blog.  There is also a picture of Mike in the article.

Thanksgiving running

November 24, 2011
Thanksgiving 2011.

2010 Turkey Trot

Last year, we helped with registration at the Turkey Trot, a 5K benefiting the Ballard Food Bank. Maeve had a great time stamping registrants' hands after they paid. That year, Seattle had an uncharacteristic Thanksgiving snowfall.

This year, for Thanksgiving we decided to run it! We parked at Golden Gardens Park on Puget Sound and climbed up the cliff. All that elevation to lose during the run! Maeve ran/walked the whole thing, with Silas in the jogging stroller/Mike's arms most of the way, and we finished in 55 minutes. We played a bit at the park and, despite a foreboding forecast, it started to rain only as we got in the car - perfect timing. It was a really lovely morning, and then we went home and had tortellini and cauliflower for Thanksgiving dinner (per Maeve's request, and also very popular with Silas). I forgot my camera so the photo is in our side yard (great view of the artichoke and winter cover crop coming up in our garden) once we got home.

In early October, just 6 weeks after she first rode a 2-wheel bicycle unassisted, Maeve biked 12 miles as part of the Shine On Seattle fundraiser for green energy. Most of it was very flat on the Burke-Gilman Trail. Silas rode on the back of Mike's bike, as usual.

It's snowing up in the mountains so the plan is to go up for some snow play tomorrow.

Reading foreign-language books on the Kindle

I like my Kindle e-book reader.  It's handy for checking out library books, and I like that I can use "Manage my Content" at Amazon.com to return the library books as soon as I finish them, to reduce wait times for other people.  The Kindle is good for inexpensive, out-of-copyright, classics, even though sometimes the OCR is of poor quality.  I don't read so much that the Kindle reduces the weight of my luggage significantly (more's the pity).  The Kindle makes it very easy to buy more books than I would otherwise, which was surely a design consideration.

But, the "killer app" for an e-book reader, for me, is foreign-language books.  More often than I like, I need to consult a dictionary to translate a word I do not know.  When reading on the Kindle, this becomes extremely easy:  just move the cursor onto a word, and the dictionary definition pops up at the top or bottom of the page.  No longer do I need to interrupt my reading to page through a dictionary, then find my place again.  This has transformed my reading by making it easier and more enjoyable to read books that are slightly beyond my reading level.  You need to buy a translating dictionary; installing it is an easy process that is available from the Home menu under "Menu > Settings > Change Primary Dictionary".

Many dictionaries have some problems with word forms, such as the frequent case when a pronoun or article is appended to the end of a Spanish verb.  If navigating to the word doesn't bring it up, you can always type the word into the dictionary search, but at that point I usually just keep reading.  If I do choose to type the word, another problem is that you cannot type accented characters on the Kindle keyboard.  Instead, I type the word without accents, then go to the list of all nearby words and select the accented form from the list.

The main downside of the Kindle is its slow display refresh.  This is completely tolerable for turning pages, but is irritating in navigating menus and other activities.  I do notice it when navigating the cursor to the word I don't understand:  the definitions of other words along the cursor's path flash at the top or bottom of the screen.  Slow refresh also makes it hard to judge when I should let up on the "5-way" joystick controller.  The forthcoming Kindle Touch may solve this problem by letting you touch the screen directly rather than using the somewhat clunky "5-way" joystick.

I notice that battery life is a bit lower when using a translating dictionary, probably because of all the display changes that occur as I navigate to the word.  But, battery life is still great:  the Kindle battery lasts weeks.

Update, October 2014:

I have now read many Spanish books on my Kindle, including ones I had given up on in hardcopy.  I feel this experience has significantly improved my Spanish.

The Kindle Paperwhite improves the experience I described above in two ways.  First, you can just touch the word you are interested in rather than using the irritating joystick (called the 4-way).  Second, the Kindle will fail over between different dictionaries.  If a Spanish word doesn't appear in my Spanish-English dictionary, then the Kindle searches in other dictionaries, such as the Spanish-Spanish dictionary that now ships with the device.  And if a word isn't found in any dictionary, the Kindle goes to the web -- though at this point I generally just go on with my reading.

By the way, someone with a PhD in linguistics gave me some advice about choosing books.  The ideal reading level for learning is one at which you need to look up about one word per page.  So try to avoid reading that requires more than that.  Furthermore, if you understand the gist of a sentence, then have the confidence not to look up words in it even though you might not know them by heart.  You will learn more by working on the fluency of your reading than by interrupting it to solidify the meaning of every last word.

Review of the FollowMe Tandem Coupling

The FollowMe Tandem Coupling attaches a parent's bike to a child's, creating a tandem bicycle in which three wheels are on the ground.  The child can't steer nor turn the front wheel, but can pedal to help power the bicycles -- or can just rest and enjoy the ride.  The child's bike attaches or detaches in one minute, so the child can ride attached or separately and switch between these modalities.

Mike, Silas, and Maeve ready to bike to daycare

I have been using the FollowMe Tandem Coupling daily for a year.  I carry two children:  my 5-year-old daughter on her own bike attached to the FollowMe Tandem Coupling, and my 2-year-old son on a bike seat attached to my rear rack.

My experiences are generally positive, but differ from other available reviews, many of which seem to be based on a day or a week of using the coupling.  This review is divided into four parts:  the good, the bad, the ugly, and the bottom line.

The Good

Children are upright.  I transport two children every day on my bicycle.  I wanted a setup that seats both kids upright, where they can see and participate in the bicycle ride.  For this reason, I didn't want a trailer; a trailer would also be harder to store and would be a step down for my daughter.  I didn't want a front-mounted child seat (such as the Bobike Mini and the Co-Rider), which are deathtraps that unbalance your bicycle -- even the few that fit on drop handlebars and don't interfere with your steering or your knees.  I didn't want to buy a new bike, which feels wasteful of resources and which I would have no room to store.  I had good luck transporting a single child on a tag-along (a single-wheel "bike" whose front attaches to the parent's bike), but most tag-alongs attach to the seat post, preventing use of a child seat on the rear rack.  The Roland add+bike looks great:  it is a tag-along that is compatible with a rear-rack child seat, but it does not seem to be imported into the US.  The FollowMe Tandem Coupling attaches to the rear axle of the adult's bike, so there is no problem putting a child seat on the rear rack.

Solid connection.  The FollowMe Tandem Coupling attaches my daughter's bike very firmly to mine.  She loved this immediately, compared to the small amount of wiggle she experienced when using a tag-along bike.  I am very safety-conscious, but I am comfortable going 28MPH every day with two kids on the bike.  There is a bit of road noise -- the metal components rattle a bit as you ride.  This has no effect on safety, nor does it cause any looseness in the connection, but it took me a little while to get used to it.  Really, it just means that the designers didn't take road noise into account.  The coupling I use also has a small build problem:  a weld connects two parts slightly crooked, so that two holes don't quite line up.  With a bit of a shove I can still get a pin to go through them as required.  As you'll see below, I didn't want to deal with the distributor (Clever Cycles) to get a replacement.

Easy attachment and detachment; coupling folds up.  It is easy to attach or detach the child's bike -- I do this every day, and it takes perhaps 60 seconds.  When attaching the child's bike, I do need to lean my bicycle against a wall rather than having it freestanding.  You will probably want to do this too, unless you are more physically gifted than I am and you have at least three hands and an armspan of 8 feet.  Attaching and detaching the coupling was a bit tricky for me at first, and in the first month I tipped my bicycle twice while attaching, but with practice it is now effortless.  The coupling folds up onto the adult's bicycle, so I can detach my daughter's bike when I want to run an errand or store the bikes.  You can also remove the coupling entirely; since it is extremely heavy, this is smart if you plan not to tow the child's bike for a while.

Attention magnet.  I get a lot of comments about the coupling.  People pull up beside me in their cars and roll down their windows to tell me how great my setup is.  People on the curb stop talking on their cell phones when I ride by.  People ask me whether I built the coupling myself, or ask me where to get one.  (The coupling says "www.followme-tandem.com" in big letters...)

The Bad

Expensive.  The coupling retails for $399, and I paid almost $500 when you count shipping and the extra parts I needed.  On the other hand, other solutions can be pricy too.

Heavy.  The coupling weighs 10 pounds, just for the parts that detach from the bikes, and the parts that stay on my bike are at least another 5 pounds, though I didn't weigh them before installation (and the last time I removed them, it look a hammer because of all the rust; see below).  Furthermore, all of this weight is on or behind the rear axle, which can affect the balance of the bike.  I balance this by putting my panniers on my Old Man Mountain Sherpa front rack, which accommodates my disc brakes.  With two kids, the coupling, a bike, a bike seat, and the kids' gear, I'm carrying over 100 pounds of extra weight, in addition to my own (steel) bicycle and my gear.

Fit problems.  The coupling consists of 3 parts:  axle extensions for the adult bike's rear axle, a small bracket that gets strapped to the child bike's down tube, and then the big heavy coupling itself that connects to the othre two parts.  I've attached the coupling to two adult and two child bikes (in all 4 combinations), and have had minor fit problems with three of the bikes.

The first problem was with the disc brakes on my bicycle.  I asked the reseller (Clever Cycles) three times whether my disc brakes would be a problem, and each time they assured me without question that the FollowMe Tandem Coupling was fully compatible with disc brakes and I would have no problem.  My rear disc brake is mounted on the trailing side of the seat stay (that is, behind the seat stay) rather than on the leading side of the seat stay (that is, between the seat stay and the chain stay).  This location is not compatible with the upward arc of the coupling where it attaches to the parent bike's axle; I don't know why that upward arc is even necessary.  So, I bought an extension that adds a fake axle several inches behind the real one.  Clever Cycles swore to me that this extension would not interfere with the mounting of either a child seat or my panniers on the rear rack.  They were half right:  my child seat fits fine, but my panniers do not, at least not without bending them.  So, I usually put the pannier on the front rack even when I don't have my son in his rear-rack seat.

On my wife's bike, the retaining clip that safeguards the coupling from falling off the adult rear axle doesn't fit -- it's simply so big that it needs to be in the same space as the derailleur.  The coupling itself fits, as does the retaining clip on the other side of the bike.

Finally, the coupling barely fits on my daughter's 20" bicycle -- her tire is too low to the ground and drags in 4 places on our 1-mile ride to daycare.  The coupling fits fine on my daughter's 16" bicycle.  I don't know whether a 20" bicycle with different geometry would fit better or worse than the one we have, but this is a concern for older kids.

Rust.  Essentially every piece of hardware on the FollowMe Tandem Coupling started to rust within a month.  This affects looks and ease of installation/removal, but I am not concerned about safety.  Really, this indicates unnecessary cost-cutting by the manufacturer.  Did they not imagine that people might use their product in the outdoors, where rain is possible?

When I received the coupling, the plastic bags holding the parts were torn open (I blame not the manufacturer but the distributor, Clever Cycles, for this:  apparently, the coupling had been demoed or used before), and I couldn't find one of the bolts.  I bought a stainless steel replacement at my local hardware store, at a cost of less than a dollar but quite a bit of inconvenience.  That bolt is the only piece of hardware on the bike that isn't rusted.  Why didn't the manufacturer spend a few extra cents on stainless steel hardware?

Defective small parts.  A small pin that keeps the coupling from folding up while being used (and that rattles around while you ride) has a small metal wire tether.  This broke within two months of purchase.  The distributor says that its warranty doesn't cover small parts, so I bought a replacement pin and spring-type cotter pin at my local hardware store.  This works great.  It isn't tethered to the bike, but I haven't lost it yet.

Another defect is in the strap that holds the coupling folded away when you are not towing a child's bike.  It looks a bit like this.  Every time you hit a bump, the weak spring lets out a little bit of the strap until the whole thing goes crashing to the ground.  (This happened to me when I was carrying my son in his bike seat to the emergency room for a head wound!)  So, I bought a one-foot nylon cord and a plastic clip from REI, and these have given me a year of faithful service.

The Ugly

I had a terrible experience with the distributor/reseller, Clever Cycles.  I have to give them credit for being the only importer of the FollowMe Tandem Coupling into the US (if you know of another one, please let everyone know!), but that doesn't make up for all the other negatives.

• They told me they had the coupling in stock, then that they didn't, then that they did, then that they didn't, and I finally got one months later.
• They told me that the coupling is compatible with disc brakes, but some disc brakes require extra hardware.
• They told me the extra hardware was compatible with panniers, which it is not.
• They shipped me a product with missing hardware.
• They didn't stand behind defects in small parts, but did try to sell me replacements for the broken parts.
• Once they had my money, they were extremely hard to contact.  I generally had to contact them at least 3 times before I got a reply:  2 emails and 1 phone call, or 1 email and 2 phone calls.  The other employees, when I gave the name of the one who was supposedly helping me, clucked in sympathy but didn't offer to give me any assistance themselves.
• Worst of all, the customer service was offensive and patronizing.  It's bad business to belittle your customer when the customer is wrong.  In my case, I was right, yet the Clever Cycles employee was still derogatory and impolite.

The Bottom Line

The FollowMe Tandem Coupling is an ideal fit for my needs:  I want to carry two children on a standard bicycle, safely, in a way that involves them in the ride.  If you have only one child to carry, then there are other devices with similar benefits, such as a tag-along or the Trail-Gator bicycle tow bar.

I would buy the FollowMe Tandem Coupling again.  But, I would wish that there is someplace to buy it from besides Clever Cycles, whose terrible customer service was a huge hassle, costing me time, money, and headache.

Last weekend, I went hiking without the family for the first time since the kids were born. I likewise haven't been on any long bicycle rides, though pulling 100 pounds of kids and their gear to daycare and back every day can be strenuous in a completely different way.

The hike was instigated by John Leo, who was my TA in a theory class when I was a student at MIT around 1986 or 1987. An avid mountaineer, he moved to Seattle and has done a lot of hiking and climbing. He ran across my name when looking up changes to the Java programming language, and he still remembered me. He saw from my webpages that I lived in Seattle and that 20 years ago I had done a lot of mountain climbing, so he invited me to go out with him. We chose to hike/scramble up Kaleetan Peak, which is relatively close to Seattle and non-technical (class 2). I enjoy hiking with my family, but sometimes a bit more challenge and speed is fun. We had a great time walking and talking, and the day wasn't even diminished when my car's radiator cracked on the way back to Seattle.

I still haven't downloaded the pictures from my camera, but John's pictures are most likely better anyway. The captions have a lot of information, too. He uploaded them that very evening.

Summer Hiking 2011.

I haven't posted in forever, and have lots to update about summer travels (HI, NC), but here's an update about summer hiking.

We started with a weekend on Orcas Island with my mom, and did some hiking there in the state park. Just lovely. This first photo is of Maeve and Mom on Orcas.

For Father's Day, 6/19, we hiked up Rattlesnake Ledge. This is close to Seattle and only a 3.5 mile walk with 1000 ft vertical gain. Maeve walked all the way up without really taking a break. This let us know we were up to some longer hikes for the summer.

Next we went for a hike in Cougar Mtn State Park. It doesn't have as showy views, but is also close and relatively quiet. No photos.


For the 4th of July we went car camping near Mt. St. Helens. We went camping once last year with some friends at Dash Point State Park, only 30 minutes south of Seattle and Silas didn't sleep in the tent. This year was much better. Silas still had issues napping in the tent, but sleeping at night was fine. We went on several hikes - one that had great views of Mt. Adams, although we ended up just walking on the forest service road since it was blocked a couple miles from the trailhead by fallen trees. Another day we went up towards Mt. St. Helens and did a short walk with in the blast zone from the eruption. Everything's growing back and timber has been replanted, but it was clearly decimated. We couldn't go up to the visitor center because of snow.


















On the way home, we drove the Mt. Ranier National Park. We walked a bit at the box canyon and then went up to Paradise to hike. Paradise was completely snowed in (this was July 4) so we did a snow hike to the Nisqually glacier overlook. The weather was nice and we didn't need jackets, just boots. Very lovely.












We stopped by Longmire on the way out out of the park and did a nature walk and looked at some trees that were in the process of being felled by beaver.










Our most recent hike was last weekend. We decided to do Little Si - about 4.5 miles long so a good hike for Maeve. We made it up with no problems and very little complaining about being tired. At the top is a great view of the I-90 corridor and Rattlesnake ledge across the valley.

Welcome to Seattle

Just after we arrived in Seattle, I was returning the rental minivan that took us from the airport. The person in line behind me said, "You're from back east, aren't you?"

I allowed that I had lived there and asked how he knew.

"Your backpack is from L.L. Bean. We usually run people with those out of town."

"But didn't you see that I'm wearing an REI jacket?", I asked.

He quickly changed his tone. "Oh, I didn't notice. In that case, welcome to Seattle!"

Thanksgiving, 2010

On Thanksgiving day, we volunteered for the Seattle Turkey Trot, a 5K fundraiser for the Ballard Food Bank. We'd been out of school all week with snow, and I was worried we'd have 33 degrees with freezing rain. But no, it was low 30's with light snow - just perfect. Our gig was at the same-day registration table. Maeve had the best job - putting a turkey stamp on runners' hands so they could get their free T-shirt. Either Mike or I worked with Maeve taking fees and the other adult ran around with Silas. Silas was in hog heaven - the race was very dog-friendly and he got to pet lots of cool dogs.

Maybe we'll volunteer for this until the kids are actually big enough to run it!

October 7, 2010
This is an older photo (a month ago) from when Silas started attending the same daycare as Maeve. They now both ride with Mike on the bike, Silas on the bike seat on the rear rack and Maeve on her own bike as a tagalong. Mike experimented a bit and found this contraption that allows him to hook Maeve's bike to his and still be able to fit Silas's seat on his rack. My bike is equipped to do the same, but I've yet to try it out. Apparently, it's quite a bit more work to carry both kids.

November 22-23, 2010
Snow in Seattle

We had snow on Monday of this week, and ended up having the week off from school. Seattle pretty much closes down with all the hills and little snow moving equipment. We were able to get out and about in our neighborhood, and Mike walked to work one day, but some roads are still quite bad. Maeve loved the snow - especially eating it. Silas is less sure - he has trouble standing back up again in all the clothes and boots and face planted several times in the snow.

Fairs, slides and Hiking

Two weekends ago we went to the Pullyup Fair, the WA state fair. Maeve has been very interested in riding roller-coasters for over a year, and we thought she'd enjoy some of the rides. Plus, it was a gorgeous fall day. We didn't do a roller-coaster, but Maeve did enjoy the swings, as long as I had my arm around her. Maybe once Silas is big enough to go on the roller-coasters, Maeve will want to go. In addition to the rides, the baby pigs were a big hit.



Yesterday (Oct 2) we went to the 5th Birthday party for Sienna in View Ridge Park. Maeve's highlight was the cake, but my highlight was watching my independent 14 month old son completely master the smaller play set. He crawled up the stairs, walked to the slide, and slid down feet-first on his tummy over and over. Unbelieveable.









Today we went for a walk up to PooPoo point, the local hanggliding take off spot in the Issaquah Alps. Unfortunately for us, it was also the weekend of the Issaquah Salmon Days, and we had to detour around a road race and lots of Salmon-related street closures and activities. We'll go back next year for that, it looked fun. This year was a hike, only 1.5 miles one way but 1500 feet and Maeve did a fair amount of complaining about being tired on the way up. We stopped at the lower launch site where the kids and I ate and took a break while Mike ran up to the higher site, which has a better view, though a bit fogged in. On the way back, Mike headed down in front, walking a bit quicker with a fussy Silas, and 20 minutes later walked back up with a sleeping toddler. Silas had on his Halloween costume, a bear? body suit, handmedown from cousin Hugh. It was too cute - I love the ears and the tail. At the bottom, we were parked at the landing site, and got to see a paraglider come in. Way cool.

Howell Beach week 2010

We were on vacation in NC for two weeks. The first with my mom in Lake Lure, where we spent the week in the water. Maeve is now much more happy to play in the water and well on her way to being a swimmer. We then spent a week down in Wrightsville Beach, NC with all my Howell family kin. All of my first cousins were there, and all 11 of the 2nd cousins - all under age 8. This shot is of everybody, except Mike, who was flying in and was delayed in Atlanta, and my brother's family, which was only there the second half of the week.
This is Maeve, Winnie and I floating in the sound. Maeve was able to hang with the bigger cousins in the water - she just had to wear a life jacket.












Granny Hazel was down on Thursday and we all took pictures with her. She's in her 90's and every time we get to see her it's special. This same day, we drove up to Topsail to see David Patrick, John David, and families - Duke friends from college.














Maeve loved the jet ski. This was her first ride with Aunt Noell and Winnie. She later went a lot around the sound with her dad.












She wasn't sure at first about the waves, but as long as we were holding her hand, she decided it was fun!

July 5, 2010

We finally got photos of Silas walking. We were playing the walking game, the one where the toddler launches himself from one person to another with the complete trust that he will get caught when he falls 5 steps later. Therefore the somewhat cautious look on Maeve's face, who had to work hard to catch Silas and not let his head clonk on the floor. Silas went from walking 1 step, which he's done for several weeks, to 3-4 steps this week, and now he's doing up to 5 feet and sometimes choosing to walk instead of dropping to crawl. He thinks it's great fun and has a line of bruises across his forehead to show his willingness to fall.

Father's Day 2010: June 20, 2010

We decided to take a short hike on Father's Day, a drizzly but warmish day. We headed out towards Snoqualmie Pass to Twin Falls. It's and out and back hike, very short 3 miles, in the river valley with less than 300 ft elevation gain. But it was lovely and in very old forest with very old trees. There was also a put-in at the trail head and lots of kayaks in the parking lot.

We got a little drizzled on over the day, but had a nice hike. We missed seeing the second falls and kept walking on the trail until we talked to someone headed back and decided to turn around. The trail was semi-crowded with families for Father's Day, and would probably be packed on a nicer day.

Maeve liked balancing on the rocks on the trail, and our big motivator was adapting a rhyme about elephants balancing on a spider web to little girls balancing on rocks and then repeating verses with all the little girls in Maeve's day care, her teachers, her girl cousins, her grandmothers and any other "girls" we could think of. This kept us going for a good 30 minutes. Yay!

Washington Park Arboretum, May 23, 2010

We went for a walk today on a trail in the Washington Park Arboretum that goes over a couple of islands and runs along the ship canal. We did this last year and saw an eagle's nest and juvenile blue heron. This year, once we got to the boardwalks crossing to the island, it was washed out. So we turned around and wandered back through the arboretum. Still, it was a pretty, though chilly day.

We had Dagan, a friend of Maeve's, with us and the kids had a great time playing, giggling, running and looking around. We spent a good bit of time watching the ducks, including this Mallard couple, in one of the lagoons off the ship canal.


There was a nice overlook into the ship canal where we could see buoys and kayakers as well as the UW stadium and Laurelhurst across the canal.


We stopped for a snack in a meadow beside the canal. Maeve and Dagan enjoyed crackers beside the water while Silas practiced walking with Daddy.


He smiled a lot when they finally got to where I was taking pictures.

Near the Arboretum visitors center, Maeve and Dagan played in the spooky trees.







































They also enjoyed playing hide and seek around trees, counting to 12 (Maeve) or 5 (Dagan) and then yelling, "Boo!"

May 20, 2010
Silas has been cruising for a couple of weeks, and is now comfortable holding on with just one hand and using the other one to play. He's falling more, but getting closer to walking.

This photoshoot was to try to get a view of his teeth. His top left incisor came in about a month ago, and is a big white tooth. The bottom two incisors cut about a week ago and are little, unphotogenic, teeth bumps. His top tooth features in the second photo.

Mother's Day May 9, 2010


My mother's day present was a hike. We went up Rattlesnake Ledge, which is in the foothills of the Cascades. Maeve's longest hike yet, 4 miles round trip and about 1100 feet elevation gain. The way up was no problem, and although the last bit of coming down she was tired, she walked it all. We were out there last summer around Memorial Day with the cousins, and we didn't even get halfway up before descending to play in the lake. This is the limit of what Maeve can do - now I need to find more 3-4 mile hikes with 1000+ feet of elevation gain. Maybe by the end of the summer we'll do Little Si.

Rattlesnake Ledge is less than an hour from Seattle and was super-crowded. I'm still not used to the hoards that go hiking here. Likely hikes for us (short, not to steep, close to Seattle) are going to be super-crowded. By the time the kids are bigger, I'm sure we'll be ready to get a little farther from home to escape the crowds and dogs and hang out in quieter country.

Anyway, the day was beautiful, the kids were good, and the woods were variable so we had tons of stuff to look at and talk about with Maeve. She identifies snags, cut trees where you can count rings, mushrooms, ferns with and without fiddleheads, conifers, deciduous trees, pine cones, and anything else we can think of to keep her interested. This time we didn't even play hide and seek, which would have been a bit difficult since the trail was crowded and there were quite a few dogs illegally off-leash. Silas slept for an hour on the way down in the backpack. Yay!

The photo is part of the view from the ledge, which has 270 degree views of the Snoqualmie valley and Cascades. Lovely.