JordanHay

The bargain books in the opening hallway are always a great deal. The bird book section is incredible. I like browsing the course books in the basement to troll for new interesting reading.

I stopped by the aquarium right at feeding time. The otters are cute as ever, but the surprise hit was a human in the giant local fish tank feeding a moray eel with squid. It was really neat to see the Moray eel outside of it’s hole.

I took a long walk through Discovery Park yesterday. The highlight was seeing a pair of Merlins flying, diving, soaring and nipping at eachother on the north side of the bluff—beautiful.

Alex got me a membership to the zoo and aquarium for my birthday. Yay! Bears and Tapirs.

Kelli, Eric and I rode bikes from mom and dad’s house, to the ferry, and up from the orcas ferry terminal to Eastsound. The ride was beautiful (though quite hilly). We took the advice in “San Juan Islands Best Places” to take the road less travelled. Turns out that was a mistake. It was an ungraded dirt road and the maintenance crew was covering it with a mixture of water and tree sap to keep the dust down. We got shlacked; I’ve never used so much Spray ‘n Wash! The bike ride on the regraded big road with traffic was much nicer on the way back. Overall, the ride was probably about 25 miles—certainly the longest that I’ve taken yet.

Alex and I just got back from Jordana and Aaron’s wedding at Rosario Resort on Orcas Island. Everything was beautiful, every night was moonlit. It was amazing.

Alex and I went Kyaking with his half brother David and a whole bunch of other guests from the wedding. We saw a ton of harbor seals and some beautiful Kingfishers chasing each other.

I also spent quality time with Babette, Marshall, and Grandpa Jack and collected much of the Edelman family history so I’ve beefed up their family tree.

Dad thinks that the Conway pub has the best Fried Chicken in Washington.

Dad and I went birding out at Fir Island this morning. We saw some beautiful birds including Killdeer, Cedar Waxwing, and Northern Harrier.

Killdeer
Northern Harrier
Great Blue Heron
Cedar Waxwing
Swainson’s Thrush
Robin
Barn Swallow
Tree Swallow
Ringed Kingfisher
American Goldfinch
Red Winged Blackbird

We took a 45 minute long whitewater rafting trip. It was very fun, but the rapids were pretty easy. Nothing was above an easy class 3 rapid. Graham kept jumping into the river and my dad got to demonstrate his rafting technique for pulling a party member back into the boat that he learned on the Zambizi. The trick is apparently to push the overboard member down into the water, so that they get momentum coming back up from the bouyancy in the vest. Good Dad/Graham bonding.

I was here 2 Mondays ago during our family trip to Montana. The Cutthroat Trout were just beginning to travel upstream on the rapids. They weren’t jumping yet, but they were definitely swimming upstream and waiting to make their move in the pools alongside the rapids.