After our pizza dinner at Delancy, we took a walk around the Ballard Locks.  We entered through a lovely botanical garden, where all the flowers were blooming.

I was trying to show the glow given by the setting sun, but somehow, it is never as magical once captured by the camera's lens.

The Locks connect the saltwater Puget Sound with the freshwater of the Ship Canal and from there Lake Washington. Above is one of the large chambers that fills with boats and water, raising or lowering, depending on which direction you are going.  When we first got out of the car, my nose started twitching, sniffing deeply as I tried to pull in the smell of salt water. I miss that smell. It isn't as if I smelled it every day when I lived in the Northwest, since Bellevue is pretty far from the saltwater of the region, but the smell reminds me of ferry rides, and trips to the beach, and a sense of freedom that comes from standing on the edge of a continent, with nothing to see but the ocean. There is no saltwater in Arkansas, and I sometimes think I can feel the weight of being so landlocked.

One of the interesting features of the Locks is the fish ladder, built when the Locks and Dam blocked the natural pathway for salmon spawning. The salmon of the Northwest are anadromous, meaning they live in saltwater for most of their lives, but return to freshwater to spawn (and then die, but that is another story). So, they had to come up with a way to get the fish from the saltwater to the freshwater.

Yes, it actually is like a set of stairs. I don't have pictures from inside the viewing room of the fish ladder, because it is just too dark, and besides, it wasn't the right time of year for fish.

This is the dam that prevents the lakes from spilling out into the Sound, and keeps the Sound from saltifying the lakes. The white tubes are where the smelt (baby fish) go shooting back into the Sound. Kind of like a neat water slide.

As we left, we noticed this Canada Goose sitting on a nest, in the middle of the garden. I hope she was left undisturbed.

Donovan Family Obsessions, or my visit to Bellevue, Part One

My dad in a standard photography pose.

I took a quick trip home to Bellevue over the Easter weekend, and got tons of good pictures. My family is fairly moderate, apart from a few obsessions, but whenever I get home to visit, we indulge those obsessions. This trip was no exception - we hit most of them: photography, good food, and books.
 

Obsession #1: Photography

The Saturday I arrived was their first nice day of the year, the kind of day that locals hope outsiders never see (because then they would never leave), the kind of day that compels you to go outside and do something, anything. So, we did. Dad and I took our cameras to the Bellefield Nature Trail, handily located about a mile and a half from home. It was always a great place to take the dog on a weekend afternoon, and there were certainly plenty of people there with the same idea. I took a boatload of pictures of the park, and the skunk cabbage (enough of those to make one entire blog post), but you are going to have to wait for the photography part of the trip, because this post is about obsession #2, good food.

Brandon (Mr. Orangette, owner) at the oven.

One of the first things I said to my parents when I made my plane reservations was "We have to go to dinner at Delancy." They were happy to oblige. I have been waiting impatiently for my chance to go, ever since the restaurant first opened, since the last time I was in Bellevue, it was Christmas-time, and the restaurant was closed for a short vacation. Wah!.

I forgot to take a picture before I started eating. Too good to wait...

 It is a wood-fired pizza restaurant owned and run by Molly Wizenberg, the blogger behind Orangette, and her husband (who she met because he read her blog - seriously, go read her book about it). On the blog, Molly's descriptions of setting up the restaurant, building the oven, and then of the food that they served, was enough to make me drool all over my keyboard. Anyway, if there was any chance at all that I could get to Delancy this time, I was going to take it.

 

Mom's white pizza - a cheesy, crispy bit of deliciousness.

We went that first night, and was it worth the wait! Not a fast-food place, the pizza took a while to come out of the oven, mainly because the restaurant was packed. People, it opens at 5, we were there at 5:10, and it was already full. We barely squeezed in. By the time we left, there was a line out on the sidewalk waiting for our seats. The salad was perfect to share with my mom - lettuce, a green goddess dressing, bacon... yum...

Dad's pepperoni and sausage pizza, with homemade sausage.

But the pizza was the star of the night, of course. Crispy from the wood-fired oven, topped with the best tasting ingredients. We got three, although that was being a little greedy, just because we wanted to taste them all. And we had dessert, a rhubarb poundcake with mascarpone that was tangy and sweet and oh so good. Oops, starting to drool there a bit. Anyway, it was delicious, and if you live in the general Seattle/Ballard area, you should go. If possible, go often. The menu changes regularly with the seasons (and it has changed since I was there), so you need to go a lot to get all the goodness they have to offer. Wish I could join you!

Griffey's back!

After 9 years away, Ken Griffey Jr. is coming back to Seattle to play baseball. Griffey was just getting started when I began watching baseball, and during those years when the Mariners were so bad, he was the show. Dad and I would go to the Kingdome and sit in the 300 level, in the cheap seats, each with our own walkman so we could listen to Dave Neihaus, and watch Griffey patrol center field and hit homeruns. You had to have Dave, or the game wasn't the same. Mom always thought it was anti-social of us to both have headphones on, but we were sharing the same moment that way. I was sad when Griffey left, but it wasn't as bad as when A-rod left, because he didn't make it seem like a rejection (and it wasn't a money thing, it was a family thing). Benjamin asked me the other day if I would be excited to have Griffey back. Benjamin doesn't feel anything one way or the other about it, since Griffey had just left when he started watching the M's, and he has more loyalty to Mike Cameron, who replaced Griffey. Out of nostalgia, I am glad Griffey is coming back. But will he help the team? I hope so. Anyway, baseball spring training is starting up, another sign of spring!