Birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, celebrations — there are some nights when a regular old dinner reservation won't do the trick. Fortunately, lots of Seattle restaurants can accommodate large groups — often in special dining rooms that are used only for special occasions like yours.
By Geoff Carter | June 20, 2007
SILVANA -- Atop a slow tractor probably would be the best way to experience this quaint farming village and its green pastures and cows, its historic wooden schoolhouse, white-steepled church and the sluggish Stillaguamish River that meanders through its heart.
But pedaling a bike with a bunch of friendly cyclists is just about as good.
"You see so much more on a bike than in a car," says Greg Vlasak of Whidbey Island, president of the Skagit Bicycle Club. "One of the neat things about our rides is all the new places you learn. It's so much more fun to ride
By Greg Johnston | February 17, 2005
It was, in fact, a blind date. A bus full of strangers and, for me at least, destination unknown. I toyed with the idea of asking the bus driver where we were bound.
I had failed to call for the last-minute phone message that reveals the location of the One World Outing Club's next expedition. I didn't want to seem overanxious.
The custodian of the message, Lance Young, is a serious environmentalist and director of the Outing Club, an outdoor party on skis and snowshoes that makes tracks anywhere from Snoqualmie Pass to Norway.
By Barry Truman | January 27, 2005
STEVENS PASS -- There weren't enough burly hemlock trees to go around.
Each of us needed one to hide behind and shed clothes after 20 minutes of glorious sunshine.
As we crunched up the steep hill to Skyline Lake on snowshoes, with Stevens Pass in our rear-views, a slam-dunk stellar day unfurled.
David Coffman, an accountant with Snohomish County, was working on a new Christmas song based on the grinding, percussive sound we made on the packed snow.
By Barry Truman | December 30, 2004
As I stand in the soft gray light of a late-summer day, I'm munching nervously on an energy bar and listening to the clicking of chains as my companions ready their bikes for the trail ahead. We're in the parking lot of Philip Arnold Park in Renton, about to attempt the daunting Tapeworm.
It is a difficult trail, known for battering mountain bikers, and I'm not getting any reassurances that I'm going to come out unscathed.
"I did my first endo on this trail," I hear one woman say, using the biker term for a buns-over-handlebars pileup.
By Ericka Chickowski | September 23, 2004
PEDALING ALONG HIGHWAY 507 — Lucinda Williams sings that she envies the wind. Riding my bike on a gusty mid-July afternoon, I am beginning to despise it.
Seventy-five miles into the 2003 Seattle-to-Portland Bicycle Classic, feisty headwinds are taunting me relentlessly just outside the town of Yelm, Thurston County. On an otherwise ideal day for cycling, the wind adds an extra burden to uphill climbs and erases the momentary relief of coasting downhill.
By Jake Batsell | February 19, 2004
BLAINE I've never met a paddler I didn't like, but I've met few I enjoyed more than a slightly wacky group from a Bellingham-based club called WAKE the Whatcom Association of Kayak Enthusiasts.
They're some of the most serious, experienced paddlers to pull a blade through Northwest coast brine since the days of dugout canoes.
But they also can be funnier than a sea lion on a slippery buoy and are as enthusiastic as a teenage orca about exploring the incredible bays, islands and passages surrounding the place they live, year-round.
By Greg Johnston | November 13, 2003
Nothing beats the sweet kiss of warm butter dripping down your chin as you bite into a thick slice of freshly baked bread -- now that's bicycling!
Bicycling?
"Every ride needs a destination," says Denise Chan, a volunteer ride leader for the Cascade Bicycle Club. "The Bakery Fun Ride is one of our favorites."
For sun-starved Seattleites, there's nothing like a mouth-watering temptation to get you out on your bike on a crisp winter day, and the unexpected dose of vitamin D from el sol is an extra special treat.
By Amy Poffenbarger | February 28, 2002
