The Olympic Game Farm in Sequim, WA

July 23, 2014 2 Comments read Attractions, Pacific, Travel, USA, Washington, West

“Dad, don’t you want to know where we’re going?” “No.” “DISCOUNT LION SAFARI!” “Damn these childproof doors!” –The Simpsons, Old Money

The Olympic Game Farm used to be the home of Disney’s nature film animal actors; they were the bears and big cats they’d film for close-up footage when it would be too difficult or expensive to obtain in the wild. The animals on the farm today are the slackabout progeny of these animal celebrities (plus a number of rescues), and for a fee, you can drive through the farm, pat some of them, and feed them whole-wheat bread. When we arrived at the farm, after giving us a waiver to sign, an employee asked if we’d like to buy any loaves of bread to feed the animals. I’d told him that not only would we like to buy bread, but we’d take as many as he could sell us. It turned out the number they could sell us was only limited to money and car space, so instead, we bought his recommended amount, two loaves, so we could feed out each side of the car.

The tour started off slow, with nothing to be seen on either side of the road. The general consensus was that we hoped that eventually they’d have animals on their animal tour. I heard a noise out of my window, and Jason whipped a slice of bread past my head “just in case.” Eventually, there were some yaks alongside the road. They mostly stood quietly, doing their yak business, although one of them would eat proffered bread if you placed it within an inch of his nose. This is when we learned that yaks can eat an entire slice of bread at once, much like a vending machine sucks in bills.

Further down the path were some utterly disinterested fallow deer and zebras. The deer stayed far away from the car path, wanting nothing to do with bread or tourists, while the zebras were closer to the road. I had hoped to feed one (even though we had been warned to watch our fingers as zebras can bite), but I was still excited to see a zebra so close. Zoo zebras are generally far away, and before that, the closest I’d come was a sad donkey painted with stripes in Tijuana.

A little further down the path, we both had a “Is what’s happening down the road what I think is happening? OH MY!” moment. As it turned out, yes, two llamas were in fact giving a mating demonstration on the side of the road.

Now, I could be an adult about this, but instead I’ll tell you that the noises that a male llama makes when he’s getting down are the worst. Imagine a regular llama sound but much throatier and jucier and you’re halfway there. Thankfully, Jason took video so you don’t only have to imagine.

A bit further down the path, we had our first encounter with an animal that wanted all of the bread we’d feed to it: another llama. It is really disconcerting to have an animal stick its head into your car to be fed, especially when it knows that you’re holding out because it can smell the loaves you both have stashed between your feet. We tried to creep the car along, and it kept right along with us, insisting that we were being stingy and unfair by only feeding it four slices. Eventually, it was attracted to another car by the passengers waving bread out the window. I don’t know what the last car in line for the night does…maybe they take a llama home with them, or they’re subjected to a llama tantrum.

In the bear fields, they had both kodiak and black bears; these were separated from the cars by two fences: one that a bear could use as dental floss, and the other electrified. I think the first fence was there mainly to keep the average dumbass from trying to hand-feed and/or ride a bear. The Olympic Game Farm advertises their waving bears, but no bears waved at us. One did, however, fetchingly snap a slice of bread out of the air. It reminded me of summers in northern Wisconsin with my grandparents, feeding marshmallows to the bear cub outside of a restaurant called The Honey Bear, only with slightly more nutritionally sound food and less cruelty as these bears have much more space.

Speaking of space, the part I didn’t like at all (actively hated would be more accurate) was the predator zone. Here, they have a lion, a few tigers, some wolves, and other big cats in tiny, tiny pens that have chainlink on all sides. This area strikes me as cruel, and the farm would be better without it. Considering you can only see the predators on the driving tour and you obviously can’t interact with them in any way, the people coming to visit wouldn’t miss much from not seeing a bunch of chainlink fences and depressed animals, and on the flip side, the animals would benefit immensely from being in a sanctuary situation where they could actually stretch their legs and, you know, live.

After the predator area, visitors are given the option to leave or enter the high risk area with the bison and elk. Since our last encounter with bison was with the invisible variety (and we didn’t get to feed them), we pressed forward. They make it very clear when you enter the park not to stop in the bison area, but to roll through at a low speed, as this reduces risk of damage to you and your vehicle. They state it in the rules pamphlet they hand out. They state it on a big sign before you enter the bison pen. What I’m saying is, they are very clear that you should not stop your car at any point during your trip through the bison pen.

Unfortunately, the farm was so busy that just one person stopping was enough to create a domino effect, and so eventually everyone was stopped in the bison pen. I’m sure it didn’t help that they were standing at the entrance, waiting to mob anyone with bread. All of a sudden, you were in a scene from Jurassic Park, with a giant eye scanning the contents of your vehicle while you look straight ahead and try desperately to avoid eye contact so as not to draw its attention.

“But why are the pictures so crappy?” you ask. “Crappier than usual?” That would be because I was busy flinging bread through a crack in the window as hard as I could to draw them away from the car, and pictures became a lower priority than rolling the window back up before another fur-covered, ropey-drool monster could shove its head into the car, snot all over everything, and rip our arms off in the hunt for bread.

Toward the end, when we were completely out of bread, I saw the largest bison by far on the side of the road and tried to take his picture, which drew him over to the car and enticed him to try and snap off our sideview mirror, which was both exhilarating and terrifying. I guess I don’t understand this almost frenzied desire for whole wheat bread, because I find fiber boring. However, once I broke off a sideview mirror while backing out of the garage and thinking about pie, so while the objects of our desire may be different, our game is the same, bison friends. I bet if I really tried, I could eat a piece of pie in one bite, too. I’d high five you if I wasn’t scared that you’d eat my hand.

“The orcs patrol the eastern shore” or canoeing on Lake Washington

June 4, 2014 Comments Off read Pacific, The Great Outdoors, Travel, USA, Washington, West

^{All above photos by Jessica Anderson}

^{Photo by Kables}

^{Photo by Aquistbe}

Seattle is separated from the suburbs to the east by Lake Washington. As such, the area is also home to several floating bridges; in fact, four of the five longest floating bridges are found in Washington state. I still remember the first time, almost ten years ago, that I drove across the Evergreen Point floating bridge: the bright sun reflecting off water that was rough and choppy on one side, and smooth as glass on the other. Oftentimes, you’ll see canoers, kayakers, and rowboaters paddling around the shore, and recently, I became one of them. The University of Washington’s Waterfront Activities Center rents canoes and rowboats to the general public (and to students and alumni at a discount) by the hour, so a group of us packed a picnic lunch and went paddling. As we were signing the waiver and exchanging IDs for paddles, we were informed that if we knew how to swim, we wouldn’t have to wear lifejackets so long as we kept them in the canoe. I recently read about a study (that’s right, read about the study results instead of the study itself, because I live on the edge) that indicated that less than half of Americans can perform all five basic swimming skills to save themselves: floating or treading water for one minute, jumping into deep water and coming up for air, spinning around in the water and then finding your way out, being able to get out of a pool with no ladder, and swimming the entire length of one standard pool without stopping. Although I’ve never been the strongest swimmer, I’m definitely able to do all of those things, so I figured I was fine to go lifejacketless. Upon climbing into the canoe, feeling it rock wildly beneath me and being faced with the almost certainty of being dumped into the lake, I lost all confidence in my swimming ability and couldn’t strap on the life jacket quickly enough, mixing up a couple of the buckles and looking like a three year old who dressed herself. However, it made me glad I’d thought twice about bringing my camera as I would have been furious if I’d managed to drop it in the lake or otherwise get it wet and break it. The Evergreen Point bridge was closed to traffic during our trip, so paddling around and underneath it felt surreal and almost post-apocalyptic: just us and our canoes among these giant manmade structures that should be bustling with activity. Other portions of the trip felt like we were paddling down the river Anduin, with trees and brambles growing thickly on either side. At least until your husband, who should be steering, gets distracted by ducklings and drives your canoe straight up onto a log where your struggles to remove yourself almost flip the craft. In all fairness, I was distracted by the ducklings, too: they were at peak cuteness, being both fluffy and hand-sized. Our route eventually took us out into the open lake before making our way back to the dock, and aside from climbing in initially and the log incident, this was the scariest part: it’s there that it’s evident just how far you are away from shore, and much bigger craft come barreling through on their way to the Montlake Cut which connects the lake to Puget Sound. Even though we had a 100% success rate in getting out of their way, they still knocked us around a lot with their wake, which left me feeling small, vulnerable, and definitely a member of American Poor Swimmers United.

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Blasting across the alpine hills in a jet-powered, monkey-navigated tube

February 3, 2010 35 Comments read Attractions, Pacific, The Great Outdoors, Travel, USA, Washington, West

On Sunday, I went tubing with Tristan, because we both agree that skiing and snowboarding sound like a lot of work, but that sliding downhill at high speed on our stomachs should be completely doable.

Two out of the last three weekends, I have had to sign documents promising not to sue if I break my face. This is a good trend, I think. We ended up getting there with quite a lot of time to spare, and instead of standing around in the snow for an hour like schmucks, we hiked up to the ski lodge and hit up the bar at ten am.

Gin & tonic & mac & cheese: truly the breakfast of champions. The bartender was maybe a little heavy-handed for ten in the morning, but I can hardly fault him. By the time we hit the snow, I was already toasty warm inside.

We were maybe a little apprehensive about flinging ourselves downhill on a tube; after all, they wouldn’t have us sign a waiver unless there was actual danger involved, right? What if the abominable snowman doesn’t just go after skiers but instead enjoys snacking on the easier prey of adults on less-maneuverable tubes, swelled with dairy and starches and too drunk to run away? Worse, what if we enjoy it so much we end up concocting a special tubing uniform like this guy?

The only way I can describe this outfit is: A clown ate crayons until he exploded, and a passing unicorn was so amazed by the sight that HE exploded, too. We oughtn’t have worried–flinging ourselves downhill was insanely fun, even better as adults than we remembered as midwest tykes. We conducted a series of experiments as to which position led to the fastest and furthest ride and didn’t come to any official conclusions, but unofficially, flinging yourself onto the tube, superman-style (belly down, legs out or up, arms extended) was the most fun, knees into the hole of the tube was probably the most dangerous (Tristan flipped his tube, to the raucous laughter of us all), and on your back looking up at the sky FELT most dangerous but actually got a shorter overall distance owing to not being able to run and dive onto the tube with any great accuracy. About half the time, we trudged back up the hill on foot, and half the time we took the tow. We probably could have gotten more rides in during our two-hour block if we’d trudged up every time, but then I might have died.

This is my ‘I’m boozed up and overstimulated’ face. The two hours positively flew by, but at the end, I was surprised at just how worn out I was–it didn’t seem like we’d done anything worthy of the term ‘exercise’ but my body told me otherwise. Everyone else seemed to be running out of steam as well. Tubes were being abandoned at the bottom of the hill and I ricocheted off one and nearly flew off my tube. A kid who didn’t want to hike back up the hill threw snow at his dad’s camera and the dad lost his shit. The employees were perky as ever, cracking jokes, asking us if we had fun, saying they hoped we would come back…it was really nice. On the way home, we loudly sang along to the Rocky Horror soundtrack, maaaaybe drawing stares from passing cars. Maybe.

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