HANDS OFF! in Olympia (Oly 17)

Blog Note:  I just posted an article about my Volkswagen Squareback car. I will withdraw it and repost it in the future because I want to share some pictures from the April 5 Hands Off protest.

The Hands Off protest gathered in front of the Washington State Capitol on the afternoon of April 5, 2025. This mirrored hundreds of similar protest around the country and even internationally. People here and around the country were protesting the loss of medical research, funding for agencies, the gutting of scientific staff at federal research agencies, a chaotic tariff program, and potential threats to social security and medicaid enacted by President Elon Musk and the felon traitor in the White House. I cannot predict if the protests will have any effect at all, but real American patriots are angry and are speaking out.

View of the Capitol steps

The speakers were on the north steps of the Capitol. It was a bit hard to understand what they were saying. My wife and I walked around and admired the signs. The crowd was in a good mood - no Molotov cocktails or tear gas.

Here is a sampling of the signs, many quite clever.

A bit further north, sculpture and some handsome mature trees.

It was a sunny hot afternoon, almost a hint of summer. The crowd was peaceful and not too noisy. Several people commented to me that the current president made Richard Nixon and George Bush II look good. Hmmm.......

I took these photographs with my Fuji X-E1 digital camera with the compact 27mm ƒ/2.8 Fujinon lens. I set the jpeg output to be black and white, but I later realized that color was much more effective on this glarey sunny day. The pictures above are from the RAW files as opened with XNView MP software. 

On the Waterfront - Seattle, Washington (Summer 2024)

The Seattle waterfront has changed drastically since I lived in Seattle in the mid-1970s. At that time, the horrible 2-level Alaskan Viaduct snaked along the waterfront. Underneath was a sort of nether-land, similar to the underside of the Southeast Expressway in Boston. But at least there was parking under the concrete. Back then, waterfront Seattle was a working district, with warehouses, small factories, and industrial activities. 

Today, the viaduct is gone! Alaskan Way is sunny. Now there are bike lanes, gardens, and a clean new surface street, Elliott Way. Warehouses have been rebuilt into condominiums, and totally new buildings have been erected. And the traffic flows underneath through the SR99 tunnel. 

Alaskan Way

Pier 50 view north along Alaskan Way (Kodak Tri-X film, Rolleiflex 3.5E camera)

The grotesque viaduct once marred this view. Now this is a cheerful and popular bund or esplanade.

This monstrous cruise ship loomed over the waterfront. I have never been close to a vessel this large. It was like a floating office building. I can understand why more and more popular destinations in the Mediterranean, like Venice, Santorini, and Barcelona, object to these ships disgorging thousands of tourists in a short period. They overwhelm the local infrastructure, water supply, and plumbing. But the merchants like the shoppers.

Pier 70 view south along Alaskan Way from the Olympia Sculpture Park

Sounder commuter train

BNSF tracks near Pier 66

In the past, I wondered where the trains came from that ran on the tracks parallel Alaskan Way. I only recently learned that the Great Northern Tunnel extends for about a mile under the business district. This was a major engineering accomplishment in 1904. The southern entrance is just north of the King Street station. The northern entrance emerges from the mountain almost under the Pike Place Market. The opening is obscured by fencing along Elliott Way.  This is another example of the great engineering that made a nation. 

Great Northern Tunnel north entrance (Samsung phone digital file)

BNSF freight train near Pier 70

It feels like a train comes along about every 15 minutes. The amount of commerce is amazing.

Pike Place Market

Everyone takes pictures and selfies at the famous Pike Place Market. My Olympia photography friend comes here often and does excellent work. I took pictures in the Market in 1973 when I lived in Seattle. 

The famous Pioneer Building is a Richardsonian Romanesque edifice of stone, red brick, terra cotta, and cast iron. It faces Pioneer Square, now rather grungy because of the homeless and filth. 

I remember entering the Pioneer Building when it was being renovated in the early 1970s. There was an inner atrium with iron railings. Somewhere in the basement was the well-known French restaurant, the Brasserie Pittsbourg. I remember eating here with friends and, possibly, my dad. Do I have any photographs from those happy and innocent 1970s?

Entrance to the Brasserie Pittsbourg, March 3, 1970 (courtesy of the Seattle Public Library, photograph by Werner W. Lenggenhager, 1899-1988)

This ends our short walk in downtown Seattle and along the waterfront. I took these photographs on Kodak Tri-X 400 film with a Rolleiflex 3.5E camera with 75mm ƒ/3.5 Xenotar lens. This is a 1959 model still going strong. Most Rolleiflex twin lens cameras are superb picture machines. Praus Productions in Rochester, NY, developed the film.

2024 E. Washington Road Trip 07 - Manhattan Project National Historical Park

Hanford was the last destination of my 2024 eastern Washington road trip. I stayed in Richland for a night and took the tour the next morning.

The Manhattan Project National Historical Park operates tours of the remarkable first plutonium reactor that was built at Site B on the Hanford site. Hanford was one of the top secret sites operated in World War II to build the first atomic bombs. One of the critical materials for a bomb was plutonium, which occurs only in the most minute trace amounts on earth. Therefore, scientists had to devise a means of making plutonium from a reaction using Uranium-238. The Hanford area was well-suited for these pioneering experiments because it was far from major metropolitan areas, had access to cool water from the Columbia River, and had access to ample electrical supply, thanks to the hydroelectric projects on the Columbia River. I will not try to summarize the pioneering engineering and scientific achievements that went on during and after the war. You may or may not approve of the atomic weapons program, but it happened and is part of our scientific history.

The National Park Service offers (or offered) tours of the plutonium reactor in the summer months. A bus takes visitors across the broad scrublands of the Hanford site. Tour guides describe the setting and the background of the immense project. I was very impressed how well the entire tour operated. One of the guides was a nuclear engineer and was able to answer questions of every level. He told us that the first part of his career was creating radioactive materials. For the second part, he is cleaning up the waste.

  

105-B reactor containment building, Site B, Hanford, Washington

This severe and ominous concrete building houses the first plutonium reactor ever built. Workers began construction in October 1943, and the reactor was ready to load fuel in September 1944. This is remarkable productivity considering how long it takes to complete any major project today in the USA.  The tall chimney was for ventilation. The construction of the B Reactor and the Hanford complex was one of the largest engineering and construction projects in the United States during World War II.

Reactor charge (front) face with elevator gantry near the bottom

This is the front face of the reactor. About 2000 aluminum tubes penetrate through the graphite core. Each of the plugs in the photograph above is a cap and water valve over the end of an aluminum tube. To fuel the reactor, workers removed the end cap/plug and inserted aluminum slugs containing U-238. When the reactor was operating, cooling water came through each cap and flushed through the aluminum tubes and around the uranium slugs at a rate of 75,000 US gal. per minute. Highly skilled workers built the graphite pile, intricate piping, complex sensors, and the support equipment. 

Cooling water came from the Columbia River via large water pumps. Electricity was supplied via the grid from hydroelectric plants, but a coal-fired generating plant operated and was on-line in case an emergency disrupted of the electric supply. Our tour guide (a retired employee) told us that once in 1944 or 1945, the electric supply was partly disrupted. The electric grid operators were told to stop all power to the city of Portland immediately to ensure that the Hanford water pumps continued to have full power. 

After the water passed through the reactor, it was discharged into basins to allow short-lived radioactive materials to decay. Then, it was pumped back into the Columbia River downstream (yes, really!). 

Sump below the back face of the reactor

Safety signage

When the physicists on duty computed that a certain set of U-328 slugs had been partly transformed and contained suitable plutonium, reactor technicians stopped the reactor and pushed the spent slugs out the back. The slugs fell into a water-filled sump and rested while short-lived isotopes decayed. 

After some time, workers picked up the slugs by hand with long tongs and placed them into a water-filled cask. Later, a train took the cask to a plant that separated the P-239 from other materials in the spent slug. 

The separation plants are not on the tour, and most (or all?) have been demolished. These were complex and experimental facilities that generated vast amounts of toxic waste. Much of the cleanup that is ongoing, and will last well into the next century, relates to the decaying storage tanks that contain hazardous and radioactive sludge. This cleanup will cost between $300 and $600 billion (which realistically means a $ trillion) and take 70 years (translate: a century). 

The current plan is to mix low level waste into glass, to be buried elsewhere. The Hanford Vitrification Plant, also known as the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, has been in construction for 21 years. It has cost an estimated $17 billion, but the budget has grown over time and may exceed $30 billion. You can see where this is going......

The entire reactor was manual. Humans operated everything. I love the precise mechanical gauges, controls, and valves. Highly-skilled craftsmen built everything with meticulous precision. 

This was the train that carried the water casks to the processing/separation plant. I wonder if the locomotive engineer knew what he was carrying? 

After the War ended, B Reactor was initially shut down at the end of 1946. But with the paranoia of the Cold War and growing tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, B Reactor restarted in 1948 to produce more plutonium. It operated until 1967. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission shut down B Reactor permanently in 1968.

The other plutonium production reactors at Hanford have been closed and encapsulated with protective covers. I do not know if the remnants will sit for years or centuries. But because of its historic significance, B was preserved and became a tour site. 

The Park Service tour is a fascinating historical visit to another era. Do go. And no, plutonium will not jump out of the graphite and irradiate you. 

I took these photographs on Kodak Tri-X film with my Hasselblad 501CM camera and 80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar-CB lens.

2024 E. Washington Road Trip 06 - Central Washington

Heading west on US 2 out of Spokane, you enter farming country with gentle rolling hills. This is part of the Great Northern, the northernmost highway crossing the USA. A section go 2 in the Great Lakes region diverts into Ontario and Quebec and re-enters New England. 

Airway Heights

A 1957-1965 Jeep FC-150 “Forward Control” pickup truck and less unusual Chevrolet van, Airway Heights

It is a treat (if you like this type of arcana) to see one of these old Jeep FC-150 trucks. This one is ready for snow duty.  

Somewhat rough strip shopping building, West Sunset Highway (Rte 2), Airway Heights (50 ƒ/1.4 SMC Takumar lens)

Deep Creek

Traditional barn, Rte 2, Deep Creek, Washington (35mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Takumar lens)

Sherman

Barn, Sherman Road, Sherman

I like to look for old fashioned wood barns. Many new ones are steel sheds with less charm than these true wood classics. Sherman is the site of a ghost town, but other than a pretty and well-maintained church, I did not find much to record.

Wilbur

Flower Bar of Wilbur (35mm f/3.5 Super-Takumar lens)

Abandoned farm, Rte US 2, Wilbur (35mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Takumar lens)

It is sad to see these old homesteads left to decay. Are the families happier where they live now?

Govan

Govan schoolhouse (1905 or 1906)

Farmhouse, Govan

Govan is another so-called "ghost town." The town started as railway station on the Central Washington Railway in 1889. It expanded when large local deposits of sand became useful to the railroad. Several murders made the town somewhat interesting, but in 1927, a fire wiped out most of the business district. Today, there is not much to see. 

From Govan, I turned south on Kinder Road and drove lonely rural highways through gorgeous geologic terrain en route to Richland. This is the geological wonderland known as the Channeled Scablands. They were shaped by the greatest flood ever documented, when Glacial Lake Missoula burst through an ice dam and drained rapidly, scouring the land west and south of the former lake. 

Scablands of eastern Washington (From the US Geological Survey) 

I want to return to this fascinating topography and explore in more leisure. This sounds like another road trip!

Store, Marlin, Washington (35mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Takumar lens)

Marlin was tiny. I wonder how it got the name of a big game fish?

Former motel, Warden (135mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens, polarizer)

Finally, approaching Richland, I encountered more traffic, farm warehouses, and commercial activity. 

My next goal on this trip: the Manhattan Project National Historical Site at the Hanford Reach. Stand by.

2024 E. Washington Road Trip 05 - Spokane

I continued my September 2024 road trip through eastern Washington with a stopover in Spokane.

Spokane is the big city of eastern Washington. It has a beautiful setting on the Spokane River, with waterfalls and a riverfront park. It is a major rail and road junction serving eastern Washington and eastern Idaho. Decades ago, I drove past Spokane several times on Interstate-90 but do not recall pulling off and visiting the downtown. 

For my 2024 trip, an old college friend generously offered me a place to stay in his house. He lives in a turn of the century house near Gonzaga University. But where to eat breakfast? Why, at the Hillside Inn Cafe. 

Morning at the Hillside Inn Cafe (digital file)

The cafe is a cheerful place with friendly staff and patrons, and good eggs and bacon. The checked tablecloths reminded me of Durgin Park Restaurant in Boston, now sadly gone forever. 

My friend's house is only a block from the Spokane River Centennial Trail, which follows the river for over 30 miles. I did not have a bicycle, so I walked downtown along the river. 

Iron Bridge over the Spokane River

Nice VW bus, Gonzaga University

Upper Falls of the Spokane River, downtown Spokane

Monroe Street Bridge over the Spokane River (Samsung digital file)

The Falls downtown are spectacular, especially on a cheerful sunny day. I did not know that Spokane had such a scenic geologic setting. The Monroe Street concrete arch bridge is an impressive edifice.

Construction of Monroe Street bridge, August 3, 1911 (from the Library of Congress) (click to enlarge)

Rear of Monroe Street commercial buildings

Monroe Street commercial buildings

A few old-time commercial buildings remain. But the city looks prosperous and clean. I could not find grunge. 

Health lunch

By midday, I was hungry. Where to eat healthy food? Why, at the Method Juice Cafe. Mmmm, veggies and nuts. And a bottle of green health juice, that thick liquid made from squashed kale and anything else they can find to toss into the blender. By the time I was done, I felt like a goat, and walked back along the river past Gonzaga University (with a stopover at a coffee shop).

Next update: heading west into central Washington.