The Cheapskate's Guide to Leavenworth, Washington

When you're on vacation, expenses can easily get out of hand. Some people are lucky enough to travel exclusively by way of private jet, and spend weeks on end lounging in thousand-dollar a night luxury suites. The rest of us however, travel on a somewhat tighter budget. Here's a few great things to do in Leavenworth-- without breaking the bank.

10 Things to Do in Leavenworth for Less Than 20 Dollars:

Residential Bliss: Your Ten Step Guide to Backyard Garden Design

You're sitting in your backyard on a comfortable springtime evening. Maybe you've just finished mowing the lawn, or barbecuing, or you're simply relaxing and watching the kids play. Staring off into the grass, you come to the realization that there is a part to your lawn that is seldom used for anything. It serves no true purpose. Planting a garden has always been an entertaining notion, but you've never quite gotten around to actually doing it. Perhaps the task seems daunting? Or you just don't know where to start? Introducing: Ten easy steps to designing your very own back yard garden.

The Ditch in the Desert

Arizona: Beyond the Desert

“Life is a great adventure—accept it in such a spirit.” – Theodore Roosevelt

A century ago, America was well on her way to irreparably destroying the very earth on which she sat. In a matter of decades, the young nation had carved a triumphant swathe across the virgin continent, leaving a path of death and destruction in its wake. Displacement and mass-extinction—the results of “progress.” Whatever the sins of our past, there is no denying that without this period of wild expansionism—“manifest destiny” we call it, America may never have grown into the great nation she is today.

Hippie Pow with Friends

This winter, in correlation with some academic work, I learned how to edit video. Completing a variety of projects, I gained a level of proficiency with Adobe Premiere. This is my personal favorite:

If you enjoyed this edit, feel free to check out my other videos on YouTube: HERE

Seattle Baseball on the Road to Recovery; Are We There Yet?

In Seattle, fans are languishing through another long summer of baseball. It’s been a rough decade for the Seattle Mariners, having finished below .500 five times in the last eight years, twice with more than 100 losses. These are the numbers prior to the onset of the 2011 season, which itself fell apart rather abruptly for the Mariners as they entered a (team record) 17 game skid after the All-Star Break.

Now, things aren’t completely bleak in the Emerald City. The fruit of several years far from playoff contention has quite literally ripened in the form a thriving farm system. As the Mariners took a nosedive in the standings this July, management began to unload under producing and often overpaid talent. In several situations this summer, the powers-at-be within the Mariner Organization opted to trade for prospects and draft-picks; rather than the veteran bat or two the team may have sought had they not fallen from contention so abruptly. With the recent exodus of several Mariner starters many of these prospects are getting the chance to play regularly at the Major League level.

From their entry into the American League in 1977 through 1990, the Mariners did not complete a single season with a winning record. They shared a Seattle arena, dubbed The Kingdome, with the city’s equally abysmal NFL team, The Seahawks. However, in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s a series of decisions were made in the Mariner’s front office that would come to change the face of the team and ultimately the city of Seattle itself.

Throughout the late 1970’s and the early 1980’s the Mariners brought in “over-the-hill” free-agents, hero forty-something’s on their way out of the game in an effort to fill seats. This strategy resulted in smiles and beautiful memories, but rarely translated into wins. In the late 1980’s, the team gradually came to be under new, more aggressive ownership. The new owners, affiliated with Nintendo Corp. of Japan, saw young, homegrown talent as the pathway to success. One of the most promising young players was a kid by the name of Ken Griffey Jr.

The name Griffey is now synonymous with Seattle baseball. Yet the early 1990’s were tumultuous times for the Mariners, as there were those within the Organization who sought to move the team elsewhere. These desires, coupled with league restructuring and the season-ending Player’s Strike in 1994, almost put an end to Major League Baseball in Seattle.

However, a group of guys with names like Junior, Randy Johnson, Edgar Martinez and Alex Rodriguez put together a few pretty good years up in the Pacific Northwest. Not just good enough to keep baseball around, but good and exciting enough to get Washington taxpayers to sign on off on a shiny new Stadium for the twice A.L. West Champions (1995, 1997).

As the big names of the 1990’s exited the Seattle Baseball scene, new ones would arrive. A new right fielder arrived from Japan in 2001 with much fanfare and an armada of Japanese press. His name was Ichiro Suzuki.

Above: Safeco Field; The House that Griffey Built. The 516 Million Dollar stadium opened its doors in 1999 and boasts one of the only retractable roofs of its magnitude operating anywhere on the planet.

The Mariners, who fell just two wins short of an American League Championship in 2000, would go on to win 116 games in 2001, tying the record set by the 1906 Chicago Cubs. Yet it would be bittersweet, as the Seattle club again fell two games short; defeated by the New York Yankees in 6 games for the second year in a row. The 2002 and 2003 clubs were talented and played sound baseball, but fell short within the A.L. West itself.

From 2004 on, the teams have been exciting at times, but never quite fired on all six cylinders. With two finishes over .500, it hasn’t been all bad news, but the flavor of the last eight years of Seattle Baseball has definitely been disappointment. Disappointment as year after year, the team seems to bite and claw, kicking and screaming to within sight of contention; only to fall, often violently back into the wilderness from whence they came.

This year began with great promise, yet without the ideal mix of talent and team chemistry, playing 9 innings, 162 times in a summer can begin to drag. When a team begins to drag, they stop winning. When the Mariners stopped winning this year, they did so in dramatic fashion. The gravity of the fall resulted in management conducting a series of trades for young talent. These new acquisitions fall into an existing farm system already busting at the seams with talent and a Major League club full of recent vacancies.

This year wasn’t “the year” for the Mariners, but there is both promise, and change in the breeze blowing into Safeco Field off of Elliott Bay these days. This November, Seattle will be battening down the hatches for what promises to be another hard Pacific Northwest Winter. But, as has gone on for quite some years now, folks will be sitting at the bar on brisk Sunday mornings watching another Seattle team. When the topic of Baseball comes up, somebody inevitable says, “The Mariners? Well, there’s always next year.”

Wolves Making Strides in Central Washington

By the 1930’s, breeding wolf populations had been all but extinguished within Washington State. Throughout the following decades, intermittent reports and alleged sightings of wolves suggest that animals from neighboring states and British Columbia may have maintained at least a transitory presence in Washington. However, the successful documentation of a breeding population of wolves within the State’s borders would not again take place until 2008.

Reports of increasing wolf activity began as early as 2004, but the 2008 discovery of a successful pack in Okanogan County made it official. The reemergence of North America’s most successful predator in the woods of Washington comes on the heels of reintroduction efforts in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. Efforts resulting in thriving wolf populations, along with significant political rumbling between advocacy groups representing hunters, ranchers and environmentalists. By the time that the Okanogan Pack was identified, the debate over wolf management in Washington had already begun.

By the end of 2009, two more packs had been confirmed, totaling three distinct units in far northeastern Washington. January of 2010, an active pack was discovered in north-central Washington, near Omak. The mere existence of a pack in the Cascade Mountains’ eastern foothills, more than 120 miles from another breeding population, suggests that wolves may be moving in from Canada, or already exist within Washington in much greater numbers than we’ve yet been able to confirm.

By the summer of 2010, the new north-central Washington wolf population, dubbed “The Lookout Pack,” had been nearly eradicated by poaching. Bill and Tom White, ranchers out of the Twisp, WA area, were convicted of killing 9 wolves over the course of an 18 month span. In addition, Bill White—the elder of the father/son combo, was convicted along with his wife of attempting to smuggle wolf-pelts across the border to Canada. The three White’s were convicted to a combined 14 years in prison and ordered $600,000 in fines.

Despite the apparent slaughter of the Lookout Pack, reported wolf sightings continued to occur with increasing regularity. Inhabitants of the numerous towns dotting the eastern flank of the Cascades insisted on the presence of regional wolves; from Mazama-- near the Canadian border, to Naches in the south-- along highway 12 outside of Yakima. As reports began to stack up, many regional biologists came to agree that wolves must be more active within the state than they had been able to document.

In July of 2011 a breeding pack of Grey Wolves was confirmed along the upper reaches of the Teanaway River, not far from Cle-Elum. The sub-alpine valleys roamed by the Teanaway Pack are less than 20 miles north of Interstate 90 and only an hour and a half’s travel from Seattle.

Above: Image captured by a motion-sensing camera high in the Teanaway River drainage near Cle-Elum, WA; June 2011.

It is unlikely wolves will set up shop near the Seattle metro-area within the foreseeable future. However, it does appear that the animals are here to stay. Given that the Teanaway pack appears to be fairing quite well, experts agree that it is only a matter of time until wolves set up shop somewhere south of Interstate 90; in areas where farming has stretched into the periphery of the mountains and livestock are much more prevalent.

A panel of state officials, biologists and recreational hunting advocates are set to meet in Olympia this August in an attempt to mete out an effective wolf-management plan, to be put into action as soon as possible. Residents in neighboring Idaho voted to open up nearly 50% of their wolf population to public hunting this fall, a prospect that could have disastrous implications on the regional ecosystem. Proponents of wolf hunting in Idaho and Washington preach a concern of the potential effects that wild wolves could have on regional deer and elk herds. Most reputable biologists agree that wolves actually have a positive effect on wild bovine populations by culling weak or sick animals from the herd. The initial impact of wolves on these populations is notable, but given time research elsewhere shows that the herds ultimately recover; growing stronger as the healthy genes of animals able to evade wolves are passed down the genetic line.

After a 75 year hiatus, Canis-Lupus has returned to the woods of central Washington, bringing with them varying degrees of both excitement and controversy. The meetings to take place this August are a key point in the ongoing saga of Washington’s wolves. Whatever is agreed upon behind those doors will inevitably declare what, if any role wolves will be allowed to play within the state.