This is the third part of a series that follows the Group Health Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic along its route, and explores the history and transformation of the Pacific Northwest through the communities and stops along the way. See here for part 2. Twenty minutes south of Olympia we take exit 95 off I-5 towards Little Rock. The road changes name a couple times until we're on 28th Ave SW, which ends at Waddell......

"Molten Sky" by aaronbrethorst The sun goes down over a quiet Bainbridge Island. Inspired, a man named Aaron snaps a photo. He shares with us. We share with you. Suddenly we're all enjoying the same sunset. And that's what it's all about. All we need now is a blanket to share.......

"but we were just getting to know each other" by Taylor Hain ...from our glorious Flickr pool. Thanks for sharing, Taylor!......

"What did you do on Saturday?" Always with a smile, we've asked--and have been asked--this question many many times today. It seems everyone around us is genuinely interested and excited to hear what we were up to during our glorious sunny Saturday. Us? Once we finished mowing the lawn for the first time this year, we packed a sandwich, a book, some tunes, a thermos of Tanqueray & tonic, and biked down to Richmond Beach......

ENVIRONMENT: Down at the Aquarium, KC Golden, policy director of Climate Solutions, talks with KING 5 meteorologist Jeff Renner about the innovative work the state is doing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and the history of the struggle to get global warming on the public's radar, concluding with the obligatory list of "things you can do." There's a reception with light refreshments beforehand. 7-9 p.m. // Seattle Aquarium, 1483 Alaskan Way // Tickets: $20......

Message in a Bottle by Flickr Contributor, pawprintsuk Twenty-one years ago, a suburban Seattle elementary school science class signed type-written messages, put them in bottles, and dropped them in Puget Sound. Earlier this month, Merle Brandell, a bear hunter in Alaska found one of the soda bottles in the Bering Sea and was intrigued by the message. The letter read:[This letter] is part of our science project to study oceans and learn about people in......

Well, the local transit blogosphere is all atwitter about the results of Sound Transit's recent survey. Over at Carless in Seattle they're not so keen on how the surveys were conducted. The Web results are useless, they say, because they're from people who are already interested in talking about transit, which makes them biased. We tend to agree, seeing as we took the survey ourselves and we know we're biased. They are encouraged by the......

After Seattlest arrived at the office today, saw all of these big white trailers across the street, and had our little "Well, this is unusual" moment of tilted equilibrium, we got curious. Is this another episode of our friendly German invasion of last August? Not so, apparently. We asked the security guard in our lobby if he knew what was up. He said, "They're going to shoot a movie today." Then he smiled and said,......

A friend of Seattlest sent us a link to Cakespy's examination of the history of the ubiquitous pink frosted cookie. Turns out "ubiquitous" only applies in the Seattle area: If you don't live in Seattle, you might not even know about this cookie (while it exists elsewhere, we've never seen it in quite the same proliferation in our assorted travels); even if you do live in Seattle, you might not have stopped to question why......

A Tacoma barista has gone far beyond offering good customer service. The barista, Sandi Anderson, is donating one of her kidneys to long-time customer Annamarie Ausnes. Like hundreds of thousands of other Americans, Annamarie's kidneys are failing and none of her family members are a match for donation. In November, when she broke the bad news to her friendly Starbucks barista, Anderson decided to lend much more than a supportive shoulder to cry on.......

Photo by Shawnmebo There’s nothing like a clear winter day to illustrate how beautiful Seattle’s natural skylines are. As the only major American city to boast not one, but two mountain ranges easily within view (the Aurora Bridge is a dangerous yet spectacular place to catch both ranges with a simple swivel of the head) it’s days like this that make Seattlest reflect upon what an overrated piece of shit Denver is. Folk cornball John......

Around the Seattlest newsroom, this contributor's distrust of Real Change News is well known; we've long been dubious of how their editorial side balances activism and reporting. (Since the paper has paid, non-indigent writers, supported by charitable donation and the sale of copies, which is itself more or less an act of charity, we've always wondered why they aren't more consistent and aggressive going after the city for its manifold failures. Could it be they......

"Shipping cranes" by Murray plays guitar We never tire of looking at pictures of the cranes. Here, Murray was able to sneak up on them as they pause by the waterside to enjoying a refreshing drink. We can almost hear the classical music in the background as they raise and lower their necks in time to the melody. Fortunately, our shipping cranes don't migrate south for the winter, and neither does most of our......

While the city goes about with itself, Seattlest spends countless hours in an ivory tower somewhere between Pike Place Market and the Lusty Lady. We pace the floor with a hunched back, wringing our hands, wrinkling our nose and whispering, "what, what, what... is the meaning of this?" Location: 2nd and Pine. Old purpose: parking lot next to Macy's Garage. New purpose: Huge gaping hole. For at least six months now, we've walked past this......

There they were last night, perched at the counter at Steelhead Diner, enjoying a glass of bubbly and gossiping with the chef: Jon Rowley and his wife, Kate McDermott, quietly celebrating their appearance in the new issue of Saveur. The least ostentatious of Seattle's food stars, Rowley is probably the most influential. He's the oyster guru, the peach guru, and above all the salmon guru. No one in town has done more to change the......

Dennis McLerran, head of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency is "pissed." Governor Schwarzenegger is suing federal regulators. According to more than 500 news articles, The Environmental Protection Agency denied California’s bill to place limitations on vehicle emissions, which would have cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 30 percent in the next 10 years. McLerran claims in a Seattle Times article the EPA’s decision is purely political, not factual. Washington was one of the 18 states that......

Don't you want to go outside and gulp huge mouthfuls of this stuff until you collapse and start burping up moose hairs and stray Denali snowflakes? It's supposed to start raining tomorrow and Wednesday, but today and the weekend preceding today we've had the best Seattle winter weather we could possibly hope for. The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, however, doesn't share our enthusiasm, grading air quality today Orange; Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups. What do......

Behind our couch lives what we refer to as our "third cat." Much more well-behaved and definitely lower-maintenance, petting-wise, than the two actual cats from whence it came, but more or less inert unless there's a breeze. When we sweep behind the couch every three or four years we generally don't carry the third cat down to the Sound and chuck him in, but that's what storm runoff is doing right now to a lot......

Are you a seasoned editor with online media know-how, management experience, a passion for the news, and an appreciation for life's absurdities? If so, Grist may be the place for you.... Grist.org is the country’s leading online source of environmental news and analysis, reporting daily on the events, issues, people, and trends that affect our planet. We shape the nation’s conversation around all things green, educating, informing, inspiring -- and eliciting guffaws -- from our......

This upcoming Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the annual Phinney Neighborhood Association Winter Beer Taste. 26 different breweries will be there to pour some of their outstanding Winter beers to get us ready for the upcoming season. Admission includes 10 samples and are $27 for the public in advance, and tickets at the door are $30. We've been told that this event usually sells out in advance, so it sounds like a good......

Someone just forwarded Seattlest the coolest Washington State ferry pictures of all time saying they were embedded in an email going around the office. We'll paste them all below, in order and with the authors commentary intact. If you took these or if you know of a place online where we can link to these, please email Seattlest. [UPDATE: We've been directed to the Bitter End blog, although he didn't take them either. Ross Fotheringham......

There's nothing like the prospect of a smart hip-hop show to build up our anticipation on a Saturday night. One where we know that the act we're going to see can't fail to deliver, cranks that up a little higher than we can generally handle when we're forced to first stop by a friend's party before the show. To all those in Shoreline that we bored with excited chatter about Lyrics Born and Blackalicious......

Winds the likes of which haven't been seen in nearly eight months are set to descend on our little burg tomorrow night. Forecasters say it's fifty-fifty right now whether they'll miss us to the north or land right on top of Duvall's fragile little power system. The good news is that everyone's generators haven't even had time to gather dust, much less make their way onto Craigslist. In fact, Seattlest even has some propane cannisters......

Along with the million other words being written on this topic, we at Seattlest thought it was a good time to share some of our thinking on the Roads and Transit bill we're going to have the chance to vote on this November. The crux is this: Voters in the greater Puget Sound region are being asked to approve almost $11 billion for a 50-mile expansion of light rail and $7 billion on highways around......

It seems Puget Sound Business Journal writer Jeanne Lang Jones might be a bit upset as she writes, “Now there's a further blow to Seattle fashionistas. The Bellevue Square Nordstrom is getting Prada (designer clothes as part of its remodel; the Seattle flagship store is not).” Jimmy Choo and Neiman Marcus will also be squatting in Bellevue, Jones notes. Honestly, do Prada, Jimmy Choo and Neiman Marcus really feel like Seattle brands? Does Seattle want......

Over the weekend, we made three trips to the new Stumptown Coffee on 12th Ave (next to Cafe Presse). We're not actually coffee geeks, it just worked out that way. (These people are coffee geeks.) We're more of a cafe geek. If you aren't familiar, Stumptown Coffee is based in Portland, and this is their big move into the Seattle market. (Edmonds' ZuKafe claims to have been their first Puget Sound wholesale account.) Here's Seattle......

Gas Works Park may not recover its former place as our #1 greatest park ever after its little tar leak last week. We took a walk over there yesterday and wandered around what was basically an empty space on a gray and prematurely cold day, pressing our nose up against the chain link here and there and dwelling on what exactly this park sits on top of: benzene, mercury, lead, etc. It's gross. Current......

Feel like doing a little Oktoberfest drinking this weekend, Washington style? The Washington Beer Commission is holding their 1st annual Oktoberfest at St. Edwards State Park on Lake Washington in Kenmore. There are going to be some great local brewers there, but don't expect to find any of the big German brewers. There will of course be the requisite oompah music and German food from local vendors (doesn't get much more German than that!).......

As noted previously, we're fans of the Uptight Seattleite persona because it seems to be gloriously, teeth-grindingly true. The Weekly's incarnation makes us laugh every so often, but the best gut-punch comes when we run across someone's real-life experience. The September issue of Harper's captures a great moment in an article on Canada's stepped-up defense of a less-iced-up Northwest Passage. The Canucks have been steaming around up there with warships, pissing on islands to piss......

If we were a building older than sixty years or so in Seattle right now we'd really think about going on the lam, laying low for the next few years, maybe sending the wife and kids off to her sister's lake cabin, although they'll probably come for that, too, eventually. It's just not safe for an old landmark building in the current environment. Next up on the block is the Rainier Cold Storage Stock House......