Mossy Cottage Knits

Day Three of Ryan's Excellent Adventure

I think the high point of the family’s visit—I know it was for me—was the trip to the Ballard Locks. When Big Sister and Little Niece came to visit two years ago, they gently but firmly pooh-poohed the idea of a visit to the locks since the family had just returned from a cruise through the Panama Canal and our comparatively puny locks would have left them rolling on the sidewalk. But by this visit, enough time had passed since the cruise, and they were, if you’ll pardon the pun, on board.

The locks allow boats to navigate from our landlocked lakes to Puget Sound and out to the ocean and vice versa. Every conceivable type of boat passes through the locks, from kayaks to huge, sleek yachts to quite sizeable ships. On the day we visited, we were entranced by this tugboat which looked like something straight out of a children’s storybook. It was small and chunky, yet perfectly in proportion, lovingly painted in bright blue and yellow, and quite earnest about its task of towing two huge barges through the locks (although, due to a little mis-navigating, barge #2 actually scraped a considerable number of barnacles off one wall). The only thing missing from the tugboat picture was cartoonish puffs of perfectly shaped gray smoke coming out of a smokestack.

The kids were also fascinated by this railroad drawbridge which opened as if on cue to let a tall sailboat go through, despite Little Nephew and Little Niece’s earnest and vehement insistence that there couldn’t possibly ever be boats that tall. Never ever ever. Never. Ever. Oh.

The locks also have viewing windows for watching migrating salmon climb up the man-made stairs built into the locks. Usually it’s a spectacular display with salmon leaping desperately and wildly up the stairs, but that particular day the tide was low so the salmon were just milling about as if they were waiting for the next subway train. I almost expected them to be clutching a briefcase in one fin and a folded newspaper and a double-tall latte in the other.

So, the slideshow of Ryan’s Excellent Summer Adventures is over. I leave you with a picture of Mount Rainier behind our two sports stadiums.

Knitting Knews
I surfaced from Pillow Swatching Land long enough to finish the first sleeve of the Baby Norgi. It’s not perfect—trust me, this is the good side—but I’m still pleased with it, despite the ugly jumble of loose and tight stitches in the armpit area where I changed colors and switched needles at the same time. Oh, wait, a thought occurs to one: Maybe the next time I use dpns for stranded knitting, I should put the color-changing spot and the needle-changing spot in two different places. Why didn’t I think of that before? Because, silly, you are A Woman of Unswerving Habit.

(Note the creative way I kept the curling end of the sleeve in place. Yep, that's a metal circular needle skewering the purled hem!)

Posted by Ryan at June 25, 2004 09:29 AM