Birth Week 2025, Day Five: Poo Poo Point, Tiger Mountain, Issaquah

This morning, I left home at 8:55, walked to 5th & Union to catch the Sound Transit 550 bus at 9:23, and we at the Bellevue Transit Center by 9:55. Valerie texted me shortly before my bus arrived, I'm illegally parked on 108th. It was about a half-hour drive to the Poo Poo Point trailhead—or, specifically, the longer-yet-more-moderate of the two access trails. There's a steeper, 3.6-mile trail with lots of apparently steep switchbacks. But, we elected to take the 6.4-mile trail that is not as difficult a climb. Those distances are round trip. So, Valerie and I hiked 3.2 miles up to Poo Poo Point, from the trailhead by Issaquah High School. We found a small parking lot and snatched the last available spot. It was about 10:35 when we started walking; it was 12:30 when we reached Poo Poo Point. So, the roughly three miles took us about two hours. This involved a roughly 1,200-ft gain in elevation. I should note now that the entire impetus for this hike as an idea for my Birth Week was that view from Poo Poo Point—on a clear day. When I was looking up best views of Seattle, I came across Tiger Mountain, from which you can find some spectacular cityscapes—of both Bellevue and Seattle. Now, seeing those photos, I am not absolutely certain these were the views specifically from Poo Poo Point, as other photos I have found specifically from there appear to only have a view of Bellevue—again, on a clear day. You could hardly tell today, because it was cloudy nearly the entire day, and most of the brief time we spent at Poo Poo Point, the panoramic view was totally obscured by clouds. I had hoped I might at least have a view of the area under cloud cover. But, nope: we were largely right up in the clouds. Plus, even though the forecast had shown clouds but not rain this morning, it literally rained the entire time Valerie and I walked up to Poo Poo Point. Maybe I jinxed it: it wasn't raining until we got there, and as we got close I said, "I'm so glad it's dry." Oops! We both carried backpacks, but Valerie was much more prepared in a hiking sense. She had a backpack designed for this, and told me she had "the ten essentials" with her. We discussed this on the hike back down, actually. When I asked her what all the ten essentials were, she could only remember most of them, off the top of her head. But it did include things like a knife, an emergency blanket, a fire starter, and of course food and water. Hmm. Well, I had food and juice! I had packed more food than I needed, really: a panini sandwich; a half pint of smoked mozzarella pasta; and a 12oz bottle of Private Label cucumber juice that was actually kind of gross. All of that was purchased at PCC yesterday—the juice was actually free, as part of a Member Only Offer. The only other flavor available was Orange Cayenne, and I sure as shit wasn't going to drink that. Anyway, I also packed a container of fresh pineapple, which I never ate any of until after I got home. I had thought I would share it with Valerie, but she was starting her prep for a colonoscopy on Friday and already cannot have nuts or fresh fruit. Well, crap. I know it would have been prudent to take water. Valerie had a bottle of water and a tube wrapped around from another container in her backpack, so she could just suck on it. She had forgotten that she washed it out with bleach the last time she used it, though, and had to spit out a few mouthfuls of water as a result. Anyway, I simply waited to drink my juice until we reached the top, because I did not want to wind up having to pee really badly in the middle of the hike up there. Anyway. Once we reached Poo Poo Point, we were pretty amused—there was truly no view to speak of. We commented on the brightness of the clouds, and hoped they might magically clear up while we were up there. No such luck, except that after we ate our lunches, we did see a few brief breaks in the clouds, which at the very least offered us glimpses of Issaquah down at the base of the mountain, and a portion of the south end of Lake Sammamish beyond. As for the rain, it actually stopped falling right as we arrived at Poo Poo Point. This made the time we spent on that vista much more pleasant than it might have been otherwise. I should clarify, the rain was never exactly a torrential downpour. But, it was moderate enough to get us pretty wet, hence the state of my hair in the photo at the top of this post—my rain jacket was wet all over, only barely keeping the water from finally seeping through. My one pair of lace-up shoes is rather porous, and they got quite wet on the way up; had the rain stayed as consistent on the way back down, it might very well have soaked through to my feet. Thankfully that never quite happened. My jeans got pretty wet on the way up (Valerie even said she was surprised I wore jeans, but the only other option in my wardrobe would be shorts, and it wasn't warm enough for that today), but again, they were dried up again pretty well by the time we made our way back down. I had kind of hoped there might be a shelter of some kind up there. We did see a couple of benches, and even a couple of picnic tables—all exposed to the rain and soaking wet. The open ground of Poo Poo Point is a popular launching spot for hang gliders, though of course there were none up there today. We only sporadically passed couples or small groups of people on the way up there for the most part—we did pass one large class of kids clearly from nearby Issaquah High School both on the way up and on the way back down, different groups each time—and when we reached Poo Poo Point, we saw just one other couple there, who left shortly after we arrived. They were two young women, totally covered in brightly colored tarps and carrying cameras. Valerie took my suggestion that we eat our lunches standing under the eaves of the bathroom structure which, thankfully, was up there—I didn't have to piss in the woods! We stood right outside the two bathroom doors, me often leaning against the wall to get some half-rest, as I ate my panini and Valerie had what appeared to be a turkey sandwich. It was made with sourdough bread she said she made herself. I could have been satisfied with my pesto panini sandwich, which was delicious. But, I also had the smoked mozzarella pasta with me, and I just had to eat that too. I took that out to eat it after we walked over to the flattened area again where people launch on their hang gliders. It was then that the brief breaks in the clouds happened, and we had to re-take our selfie. The best view I got of the landscape at the base of the mountain and beyond happened to occur when I took that selfie, better than any of the other shots I tried to get of the view between the clouds. It must have been around 1:00 when we headed back down—we were not up there for long. The hike back down, of course, was a lot faster, and we got back to the car at about 2:15. There was an odd effect of the hike back down, which was definitely easier and faster, but it also seemed to be harder on my legs. My thighs were killing me by the time we got back to the car. On the upside, it really didn't rain on the hike back down, and we actually got a few genuine sun breaks. I almost thought maybe it would have been better to hike later in the day, except that by the time I was later waiting at Bellevue Transit Center again, it was fully overcast and quite chilly, So: never mind! Valerie suggested we find a coffee shop to get a hot beverage, but when we found one nearby and it turned out to be just a drive-through, she said she realized she had to prep for her photography class, and decided we'd just order from the car. She bought herself a latte and bought me a hot chocolate, which was actually quite good. She drove me back to the Bellevue Transit Center, and I was back on the westbound 550 at about 2:50. That bus from downtown Bellevue to downtown Seattle takes barely more than half an hour. My posts to socials for all these Birth Week outings tend to be much longer than the single-post character limit for at least two of the four socials I post to, which means I cannot just click a button to cross-post from Facebook to both Instagram and Threads like I do for more regular, shorter posts. Instead, I have to post to all four of them individually: first to Facebook, which involves checking in at the location plus tagging the people I was with; then to Instagram, which also involves checking in at the location; then Threads, which I have to break up into separate posts in a thread due to character limits; and then to Bluesky, which I have to break up into a few more separate posts in a thread than I even do with Threads, both because Bluesky has a lower character limit and because Bluesky allows only four photos per post and will not allow you to combine still photos and video clips into one post. All this is to say, by the time I was done posting to all my socials about my outing with Valerie today, my bus was arriving in downtown Seattle. I transferred to the RapidRide G bus up Madison to get back home, processed my photos, uploaded them, and now I've written my blog post about the day. Valerie has now participated in my Birth Week six times—the last five in as many years in a row, 2021-2025, all in the wake of Auntie Rose (Valerie's mom) passing away in 2020. There was no in-person Birth Week in 2020, but Valerie did join Auntie Rose and me for the Bellevue Botanical Garden, my first Birth Week with a theme, in 2018. Since 2021, though, I love that Valerie now fills the Birth Week void since Auntie Rose's passing, as a way of honoring her. In certain ways, Auntie Rose lives through her—though I noted today that she is clearly a very different person from her mother. Valerie was just swearing up and down and left and right today, which cracked me up. Now I just have to think about what I'll do with her for my Birth Week next year! [posted 6:00pm]

Birth Week 2025, Day Four: 34th Street Bridge, Stanley & Seafort's, Tacoma

Yesterday morning, I left the condo at 12:40, and Laney and I reached the East 34th Street Bridge in Tacoma at 3:00. This involved walking six blocks from home to meet Laney waiting for me at the corner of Pine & Broadway; walking with her the next 12 blocks to 9th & Stewart; riding the Sound Transit 594 an hour and 22 minutes to downtown Tacoma; and transferring to the Pierce Transit #1 bus which got us to within a few blocks of the 34th Street Bridge just a few minutes before 3:00. So for me, door-to-bridge, the trek took a total of 2 hours and 20 minutes, one way. And you know what? It was totally worth it! People who drive by default can't fathom this, taking so much time to get from point A to point B. There's no time! Actually there is, if you just make time. Laney got rid of her van something like a year ago or more, which made her maybe the most ideal person out of everyone in my life to go to our Happy Hour in Tacoma via public transit. Had I driven straight there, it would have taken about 40 minutes—with no traffic. And even on the bus, we encountered pretty thick traffic. I'm certain the drive would have taken, at minimum, a solid hour. And I should note, the actual ride time on public transit was from 1:17 to about 2:50, so barely more than 90 minutes. I just added 37 minutes with the walking to 9th & Stewart beforehand, and about 10 minutes after getting off the bus at the end. Because not only do Laney and I not mind the time it takes to ride public transit, neither do we mind taking the time to walk places. We both agreed that, even with the added time, particularly the ride from downtown Seattle to downtown Tacoma was a far more pleasant experience than if we had taken the car. We never had to deal with the traffic, really; we left that entirely to the bus driver. It allowed Laney and me to pass the time, visiting effectively as we always do, with no other concerns on our minds. It was lovely, and having a companion for bus rides makes the time pass even faster. It hardly felt like it had taken that long at all once we reached downtown Tacoma. Then, it was a matter of minutes before a #1 bus arrived to take us up the hill to 34th Street. In the early stages of planning for this day, we considered just walking up tp 34th Street from the Sound Transit stop at Pacific & 24th. This is about a mile. But, when Laney looked at the satellite images on Google maps and saw that there was a massive bridge over the freeway and it freaked her out, she said she wanted to transfer to a bus. And that was fine—and in retrospect, I'm glad we saved the 25 minutes it would have taken us to walk that distance anyway. We discovered when we got there that it's quite a steep hill. Laney let me know that Jessica had expressed just yesterday morning an interest in joining us—which of course was totally fine, Jessica is always welcome. Apparently it's easier for her to drive into Tacoma from where she lives with Mike in Bremerton, as apparently the drive into Seattle can take a couple of hours with the fewer sailing times specifically with the Bremerton Ferry. In any case, Jessica was already at the bridge when we got there. Bridges, actually. I had looked up best views of downtown Tacoma, and learned online that there is a great vantage point from the East 34th Street Bridge. We happened to see on Google Maps that there was this restaurant at the west end of the bridge, Stanley & Seafort's. We checked out their Happy Hour menu and it had good options and good prices, so we decided it was the perfect place to go for our perennial Birth Week Happy Hour. What we did not know, until we got there, was that Stanley & Seafort's is actually in between two bridges. It's sort of odd topography, the south side of the restaurant level with the ground that just goes further up the hill to the south, but the north side of the restaurant overlooking a steep hill as it goes down to the north. 34th Street, which runs east and west and thus cuts across said hill perpendicularly, has a bridge over a greenspace on the block to the west of the restaurant, and a bridge over Washington State Highway 7 to the east, just south of its interchange with I-5, on the other side of which is the interchange with the short span of I-705 that goes from I-5 into downtown Tacoma. I guess you could say Stanley & Seafort's sits atop a bluff, with steep hill running down on three sides, and bridges across two sides. Here's the weirdest part. The bridge over Highway 7, the one with the spectacular view of the Tacoma skyline, is called the East 34th Street Bridge. The road as it goes further east is called East 34th Street. You'd think the road to the other direction would be called West 34th Street, right? Nope! That's actually South 34th Street. So I suppose maybe the bridge over the greenspace to the west of Stanley & Seafort's would be called the South 34th Street Bridge? It's not identified as such on Google Maps, which merely identifies "S 34th St" at that spot even though it identifies the E 34th St Bridge on the other side—I mean, whatever! I'm calling it the South 34th Street Bridge on the greenspace side. Side note: the street technically runs southwest and northeast, though not at a strict 45° angle—it's more like west-southwest and east-northwest. Whatever is going on there, I cannot account for the lack of logic among the Tacoma city planners. What I can account for is Laney's fear of heights. Jessica tried pretty hard to convince Laney to walk out onto the bridge with us when we got to the East side. She had a hard enough time crossing the "south" bridge, and that one just had greenspace below it—she has a much harder time when something is flowing beneath the bridge, be it traffic or water. She made it just a few feet into the west end of the East 34th Street Bridge, and then stopped and was like, "Okay, I'll wait here!" Jessica and I went out to the middle of the bridge, If you like Tacoma (it's all right!), the view is spectacular. I'd love to go back there again at night sometime. I took all of seven photos on the bridge, and then we all headed back toward the restaurant. I commented that I was glad we were going there, instead of going through all that effort just to spend five minutes on the bridge. Tracy had texted me that she was running a little late, and I'd say she pulled into the restaurant's parking lot, passing right in front of us, about 10 minutes after 3:00. I had struggled a bit to come up with a Birth Week idea for including Tracy, given that most days could only fit one Observation Deck or viewpoint activity, and I had nearly the entire 10 days scheduled pretty early on with other people. I had been saving Sunday May 4 for Lynn and Zephyr, but they turned out to be unavailable. I could have slotted Tracy there in the end, but Laney thought to invite her to our Happy Hour before that became a possibility. Laney knew that Tracy lives in Puyallup, and it seemed logical to invite her since we'd be in Tacoma. I had initially thought I would have the same approach with Gabriel: he and Lea also live near there, in Federal Way. I was going to just throw it out to him that we were going to be in Tacoma and he and Lea would be welcome to join us. It's just as well that I wound up meeting up with Gabriel in Port Orchard on Saturday instead—he would have wanted to sit on the outdoor patio at Stanley & Seafort's, and it was a bit chilly yesterday. They were not seating on the patio when we got there yesterday, and the Happy Hour menu is only offered in the bar & lounge anyway. With Jessica joining us, we were a party of four now as it was. We took a wonderful group selfie right outside the entrance, again with the Tacoma skyline behind us—the view there, it turned out, was nearly identical to that from the East 34th Street Bridge. We went inside and to the bar lounge, and found a four-top table right next to the window. It's no Seattle skyline, but I still quite admired the view the entire two hours we were there—for the entirely of their Happy Hour, which lasts Monday through Thursday between 3:00 and 5:00. My being on PTO right now was the only thing that made it possible to go there at that time. The Happy Hour menu is quite reasonably priced, and the food was impressive across the board. I shared an order of the panko fried deviled eggs with Laney, which were the best things any of us had—they were hard boiled egg whites deep fried and then stuffed with the deviled egg yolk filling. Holy fuck, it was delicious. I also had an order of the "warm brie with macadamia nut crust," which was slightly difficult to eat on the small toasted bread slices, but was still very tasty. As for drinks, Jessica and I both had two of the Botanical Berry Mules, which were absolutely delicious and refreshing. (Laney had her regular beer and tequila shot; Tracy doesn't drink and just had a couple of Pepsis.) All three of the others ordered the Hot Crab and Artichoke Dip, which of course I couldn't eat as it had crab in it. I might have liked an artichoke dip dish otherwise, but the only had the crab dip. Oh well; the one and a half Happy Hour food orders I had proved to be more than enough anyway. It must have been the first time I went to the bathroom that our server—a woman with definite lesbian vibes who Laney said, "She can reach around me any time"—when the table was asked if they were celebrating anything. I was just about to get up to use the bathroom a second time, and I was told to wait just a minute. A birthday dessert was brought out, which the others clearly thought was for me—and it was brought to a table next to us. It was a guy named Mark's birthday. My birthday isn't actually until tomorrow, but moments later, the right one came for me as well, and then I got my second round this week of three people at a restaurant table singing me Happy Birthday. At least this time they weren't obnoxiously loud about it. Laney sang to both me and to Mark. It was a crème brûlée, and it was fantastic. Maybe the best crème brûlée I have ever had. This is never my first choice of dessert anywhere, but if I ever go back to Stanley & Seafort's, I might order it again. Jessica had to bow out a bit earlier than the rest of us, as she gets up super early for her job at Washington State Ferries. The rest of us paid our bills and left shortly after, though, and Tracy generously offered Laney and me a ride to our Sound Transit bus top on 24th Street, preventing us from having to catch the Pierce Transit #1 bus down there first. And then, the timing was spectacular: the bus pulled up to the stop right as we were getting out of the car! Laney and I were slightly less talkative on the bus ride back to downtown Seattle, partly because I had to take several minutes to post my Birth Week post of the day in different ways to four different social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky). Once that was done, we got back to our regular chatting and easily killed the time it took to ride back to Seattle. And even though it was raining slightly by the time we were getting off the bus at 9th and Howell, we walked together back up Capitol Hill from there. And now, with Laney's Birth Week day out of the way, I'm not scheduled to see her again until Tuesday next week. That's an eight-day gap, what will we ever do with ourselves? Well, I'll continue having a blast every day and she can have fun reading about it as they go along. That'll work!   [posted 7:08am]