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Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Tanzania Tuesday #19

Recipe for Barazi (aka Mbaazi wa Nazi) and Mandazi (aka Mahambri)

I should come totally clean here. I don't really cook all that often. Wil cooks, I cobble. So this project of making some Tanzanian recipes has been both interesting and challenging. For this week's recipe, I wanted something different ... and perhaps a different type of meal. 

I found a recipe for Mandazi and Barazi on Sanjana's korasoi.com food blog (a great resource for vegetarian recipes from East Africa and India) that sounded delicious ... but I didn't want to faff with waiting for dough to rise before breakfast ... and because I couldn't find a key ingredient, well, I figured I should find perhaps a more complicated recipe that would have additional flavors. 

Barazi (also called Mbaazi wa Nazi) is a porridge made from pigeon peas, coconut milk, and spices that's commonly served for breakfast. One key problem: I had NO IDEA what pigeon peas were, and where to find them. 

T'internet told me that pigeon peas are also known as gungo peas in Caribbean cooking; gandul, guandu, or chicharo in Latin America; toor dal, towar, tovar, or tover ki dal in various Indian languages. I struck o ut at my local supermarkets (though I may just not have brought a complete translation list with me...), and even attempted to find them at East African Imports, but to no avail. 

I also read that black-eyed peas were a good substitute ... so went with it. I think it affected the color of my finished dish -- not green, but golden -- but don't know how it affected the taste. 

ingredients for barazi
The barazi was super easy to put together -- basically just chop up all the ingredients, sauté the onion in a bit of olive oil, add everything else but the coconut milk and the peas and sauté a little longer, and then add the peas and coconut milk and let simmer for a while, stirring more often as the porridge thickens.

While the barazi was simmering away, I made my first attempt at Mandazi. Commonly translated as "beignets" or "African donuts", these deep fried bits of delicious dough are seasoned with cardamom and coconut. Traditional recipes call for yeast and time for the dough to rise and prove ... but I didn't want to wait. Luckily AfricanBites.com had a simple recipe for "easy mandazi" that seemed more my speed.

It's your typical "dough" recipe ... combine dry ingredients, combine wet ingredients, then combine the two together, slowly. Roll out the dough, shape into triangles, and deep fry. The most complicated part was braving the deep fryer and managing not to burn myself while turning the little guys.

The result?

mandazi and barazi
A delicious breakfast of little not-quite-sweet-but-slightly-spicy dough triangles dipped in a rich, hearty porridge. I would make this again -- and I can't wait to try "proper" mandazi because they'll be light and fluffy.

Barazi / Mbaazi wa Nazi

Adapted from K.O Rasoi's "Barazi" recipe.
Serves 6-8

Ingredients: 
  • 1 T olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, finely diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2-inch "thumb" of fresh ginger, peeled and finely diced
  • 3 or 4 "fingers" of fresh turmeric, peeled and finely diced
  • 3 fresh jalapeños, finely diced
  • 15-ounce can black-eyed peas -- or, heck, use proper pigeon peas if you can find them!
  • 2 14-ounce cans of coconut milk **note: if making mandazi, save 1/4 cup of coconut milk to add to that recipe**
  • salt to taste


Instructions:
  1. Sauté the onion in olive oil until translucent, 3-5 minutes.
  2. Add remaining ingredients except for peas and coconut milk; sauté an additional 5 minutes.
  3. Add peas and coconut milk, simmer on medium heat for 30 minutes. Porridge will thicken as it cooks; stir more frequently the thicker it gets. 



Easy Mandazi

Adapted from Immaculate Bites "Easy Mandazi" recipe.
Makes 24 mandazi.

Ingredients:

  • 1¼ teaspoon baking powder
  • 2½ Tablespoons sugar
  • ¼ t salt
  • 1 cup all purpose flour plus more for rolling out
  • 2½ Tablespoons grated coconut or coconut flakes
  • ½ teaspoon cardamom
  • ½ teaspoon nutmeg
  • ¼ cup coconut milk
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 Tablespoons melted butter
  • Vegetable oil for deep frying.
  • If desired, powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar for dusting.


Instructions:

  1. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl until well blended.
  2. Combine wet ingredients in a bowl until well blended. 
  3. Slowly add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir until dough is smooth. If dough feels too sticky, add a little flour. If too dry, add a little water. 
  4. Roll out dough to 1" thick or less. Cut in bite-size triangles.
  5. Fry in vegetable oil at 350 degrees until golden brown; 3-5 minutes per side. Make sure the mandazi have room to move around -- in my little fryer, I fried this recipe in 4 small batches. 
  6. Remove from oil and drain on a paper napkin.
  7. If desired, dust with powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar. Serve warm, with barazi or a mug of chai.

barazi and mandazi for breakfast: the most important meal of the day

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Tanzania Tuesday #18

recipe for supu na karanga, viazi vitamu, na nazi - a tanzanian peanut, sweet potato, and coconut soup

Decided to attempt another Tanzanian recipe in honor of World Vegetarian Month ... but struggled to find something I really wanted to make. What I wanted was a rich, warm soup ... with peanuts and coconut and sweet potatoes and tomatoes and goodness. 

But I couldn't find any recipes with all of that. 

I could find a recipe for a bean and coconut soup, but that wasn't quite right. 

And this gorgeous "Supu Viazi" recipe from Sasha Martin's amazing Global Table Adventure blog was soooooo close, but not exactly what I wanted... (But, seriously, the Global Table Adventure blog is amazing ... I can't wait to make her Falafel Scotch Eggs recipe!)

Even closer was this "African Peanut Soup" recipe from Mark Reinfeld's The 30 Minute Vegan: Soup's On! featured on Oh My Veggies... but it wasn't quite right either.

I decided to blend the two recipes based on personal taste... and what I had in the house. Sweet potatoes (viazi vitamu), tomatoes (nyanya), peanuts (karanga), onions (vitunguu), carrots (karoti), cilantro (ummm, cilantro?)... and what's that in the upper left?


Canned coconut milk. Yeah, I wasn't about to milk a coconut today. It was a fun challenge with the mchicha recipe... but I honestly don't think it really added anything. So canned coconut milk it is. 

Also, if that seems like a whole lotta peanut butter... it is. Three quarters of a cup. I was a little nervous about this, but what the heck. It's just dinner. 

I started by dicing the onion, mincing the garlic, slicing the carrots, chopping the tomatoes, and cubing the sweet potatoes. It was a festival of knives for about 15 minutes. (Did I mention I am spectacularly slow at chopping? Well, I am... ) 

Then I sautéed the onion in a little olive oil until soft and translucent, and then added the garlic and carrot for another few minutes. Then I dumped in the rest of the ingredients, excluding the peanut butter, peanuts, and cilantro, and simmered for 10 minutes. 

I checked a sweet potato cube -- lovely and soft! -- and scooped a cup or so of the hot liquid into a bowl with the peanut butter and stirred them together until well blended. I then scooped about a third of the soup into the bowl and hit it with my immersion blender -- I really wanted a thick soup. I poured the pureed soup / peanut butter mix back into the big pot, stirred it all together, and let it warm back up for a few minutes. 

I scooped some of the soup over some leftover rice, topped it with some fresh cilantro and peanuts...

dinner is served

The result? So good. The blend of flavors, the chunks of sweet potatoes, and the rich creamy texture was exactly what I what I wanted on a stormy autumn night. Be ye warned: this makes a lot of soup. I ended up freezing about half of it in double-serving containers, and we'll still have it for two, possibly three dinners. It's filling and delicious!

Tanzanian Peanut, Sweet Potato, and Coconut Soup

Adapted from Sasha Martin's "Supu Viazi" and Mark Reinfeld's "African Peanut Soup" recipes.
Serves 6-8

Ingredients:
  • 3 cups vegetable broth
  • 2 15-ounce cans coconut milk -- you could lighten up the recipe by subbing one of the cans for an additional 2 cups of veggie broth
  • 1 medium yellow onion, diced
  • 1 carrots, sliced
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 pounds sweet potatoes, cubed into half-inch pieces
  • 3 medium tomatoes, chopped
  • 2 teaspoons sea salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 3/4 cup peanut butter
  • 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 1/2 cup roasted unsalted peanuts
Instructions:
  1. Sauté the onion in a bit of olive oil over medium-high heat for three minutes. 
  2. Add the carrots and garlic and sauté an additional three minutes. 
  3. Add all remaining ingredients except peanut butter, cilantro, and peanuts. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. 
  4. Check a cube of sweet potato -- is it soft? If so, scoop out a cup of the liquid and pour it into a medium bowl. Add the peanut butter to the bowl and stir until well blended. 
  5. Scoop about a third of the soup from the pot into the bowl with the peanut butter and puree with an immersion blender. Don't have an immersion blender? No worries! You could mash the mixture in the bowl with a potato masher or a fork... or you could skip this step altogether. 
  6. Return the peanut mixture to the pot, stir well, and cook for another five minutes, stirring occasionally. 
  7. Serve over ugali, rice, your grain of choice -- or on its own. Garnish with a small handful of peanuts and chopped cilantro. 


Sunday, October 16, 2016

Stairway 100K - stage 7

Mount Baker to Downtown

Last week's rain-shortened trek meant this week's walk was on the long side...


That said, a good chunk of the miles is just the long, straight stretch from Madison Valley up to First Hill... somehow the stairless stretches pass by quickly.

We drove to Mt. Baker, where we left off the last stretch. We *could* have taken the bus, but the 70-minute ride put us off a little.

We started with a visit to the Mt. Baker Ridge Viewpoint, a tiny parklet with a sundial structure and slots in basalt columns that align with the sunset at the Equinox and Solstice.

Mt. Baker Ridge Viewpoint

But we couldn't wait for the Solstice to roll around ... we had stairs to walk! 

starting point for this stretch
The Day Stairway starts with a grooved "runway" of sorts, before dropping off the edge of the ridge.

grooved pavement ... just to get you on your way
Then down the first set of stairs, between 31st and 30th ... and another grooved "runway" at the bottom.
Day Stairway West, 147 stairs
We crossed a street and continued down the second stretch of stairs; these ones felt "newer" because they were in flights broken up by landings...

Day Stairway West, lower section
And then down these amazing, "Metropolis"-feeling stairs to enter Sam Smith Park... the park that sits right on top of I-90.



At the foot of the stairs we were close to the I-90 pedestrian / bike path tunnel entrance. I still have a weird soft spot for brutal poured concrete... One almost expects flames to burst out of the tunnel. But it's mainly just spandex-clad cyclists and the occasional pedestrian.


We poked around the park a little bit, admiring the "Philosophical Promenade", a public artwork created in the late 1980s by Keith Beckley and Dennis Evans described as:

a visual poem that allegorically depicts everyone's journey from "dawn" to "twilight." The artwork is composed of two identical sets of 12 conceptual "gateways," or sections that are approximately 50 feet apart along a pathway. Each "gateway" is thematically titled in inlaid bronze with an adjacent bronze plaque depicting a symbolic representation of a different stage of the journey - a figure walking up a river with wind blowing on him, pushing a wheel up a mountain, crawling across a sword which spans a chasm, holding a walking stick and lantern and walking a path between two poles. Adjacent to each plaque is a rock set in a rectangle surrounded by inlaid bronze lettering with a philosophical statement, meant to give a clue or trigger for understanding and interpreting the plaque's image. As you move down the pathway, the story of the journey unfolds. - Seattle Office of Arts and Culture

Here's a closeup of one of the rocks:


We left the park and headed partway up the ridge to 30th ... up a steep "grooved pavement". Seriously, why not put stairs in??? Though I suppose if you lived on the ridge you could ride your bike down this bone-jolting stretch and then join the I-90 bike tunnel...

groovy!
Notice the sky in this picture? The weather was supposed to be pretty terrible, so both of us were wearing our Gore-Tex. But the rain held off, and by the end it was actually decent weather.


As we headed north on 30th, we popped out on a block with a great view toward Bellevue. Some of the residents of the lower side of the street have built little platforms at the edges of their property next to the street, complete with stairs leading up to them. Why? This view...


But, of course, a ridge means ... it's time to head downstairs. These are the Dearborn Stairs.

Dearborn Stairway, 154 stairs
At the bottom we dropped onto 32nd, and headed north toward Frink Park ... but after we turned up the hill to take us to the top edge of the park, we noticed some good looking stairs, so took a detour up the King Street Stairs.

See stairs? Climb stairs. 
Pretty irresistible...


We popped out on S. King Street and admired the view from the curved terrace.


And *then* it was time to go to Frink Park. That's F-R-I-N-K, not Frick. Take that, autocorrect.


Seattle's Olmsted Legacy -- it's kind of a big deal. Keeping in mind that Seattle was founded in 1851, it's pretty amazing that the city decided to develop a parks system... and hired the Olmsted Brothers to design a series of parks... 52 years later. The 1903 plan detailed a series of parks and boulevards to create an "emerald necklace" for the city. It wasn't all developed, but a remarkable number of parks were.

One of the best parts of the Olmsted plan was that each park was meant to be unique, and to reflect the area around it. In is 1903 report John Charles Olmsted wrote:

"The different parks of the city should not be made to look as much like each other as possible, but on the contrary every advantage should be taken of differing conditions to give each one a distinct individuality of its own."

Because Capitol Hill already featured a "highly finished style of city development", Volunteer Park featured a formal design with flower beds and an observation tower. But 17-acre Frink Park, which was still a wild forest, was left mostly pristine, with roads following the counter of the landscape.

Olmsted's initial plan for Frink Park, from OlmstedOnline
(Note that in the bottom left corner of the plan you can see the King Street Stairs ...)

The route we took doesn't seem to appear on the original plan, since we started between Jackson and King streets down a dirt path with some stairs inset into it. We did pop back out at the edge of the park on the corner of 32nd and King, and joined the stairs so visible on the plan above (even if they didn't really look like that...)


We wound our way through the park, down what I am reliably told are 187 stairs.


Some bits were more "stairway formal" than others ...


And on down to the lake ... almost. We headed a block north on Lakeside, then turned up the Jackson Stairway, which was handsomely rebuilt in 2011.

entering the Jackson Stairway, 135 steps
These stairs took us back up to Lake Washington Boulevard and the juncture of Frink Park and Leschi Park.

heading up the Jackson Stairway
Once in Leschi park, we followed a very quiet Lake Washington Boulevard under a handsome bridge and past this oddly cool house.


Looking back under the bridge ... what *is* that? Really don't know...


We finally found ourselves at the corner of E. Alder and Erie Avenue -- where our walk was supposed to end last week. Seeing how long it had taken us to get here, we made a very good call to cut it short then!

Some more wandering through a swanky neighborhood filled with a weird mix of architectural styles, and we arrived at the Randolph Stairway, connecting Wellington and Randolph. Yes it's a nice stairway... but does anyone actually use it other than runners?

Randolph Stairway, 125 steps
I do like that this stairway curves to follow the hill...

Randolph Stairway
The route then did a hairpin turn -- still going past houses that were for sale but so expensive that one needed to "contact agent for price". Mmmmkay. But we did find this little passageway at the end of 38th:

a pedestrian stretch of E. James Street
It's this kind of hidden path that I bet the neighbors would love to get closed down... Keep the rambling riffraff out. :)


We crossed Wellington Avenue, mentally toasted the Iron Duke, and kept going down the stairs.


James Stairway, lower stretch, 106 stairs
This popped us back onto Lake Washington Boulevard, where we followed the lake and took a little break, before diving into Madrona Park.


The path through the park was pretty -- lots of wooden stairs -- but we suddenly met quite a lot of people out walking their large dogs, so we pretty much just kept moving along.

Then on to the 38th Avenue Stairway, which runs from Newport Way up to E. Spring Street on 136 stairs. It's great that we have nice new, well maintained stairs ... but they're not very interesting, are they?

38th Ave Stairway, 136 steps
Except Mother Nature likes to keep things interesting ... like here where a tree crashed down and broke the handrail.

nature always wins, eventually...
More meandering through leafy neighborhoods, trying not to get run over by minivans ... hurrying for the safety of the 37th Avenue E. Stairway.

37th Avenue East Stairway, 101 stairs
I think both of us were at the "are we there yet?" phase of the walk... but we hadn't even gotten ourselves to Madison yet. And to think I once envisioned doing this walk in three 20-mile days!

Some more neighborhood meandering, and noticing how quickly areas can go from fancy to "just about to gentrify" in a block or two.

The Thomas Stairway took us up up up to Madison, with a little zigzag to complete the final stage on the other side. 
Thomas Street Stairway, 114 steps
It was something of a relief to get to Madison, since that marked what would just be a long, straight shot to downtown. See, my old phone is on its last life, and didn't charge while sitting on the charger all night. So we were using Wil's phone to navigate, but didn't have any backup. So at some point partway along the walk I took screenshots of the route map and turned off all the apps to save batteries. But getting to Madison made everything pretty easy. Just head toward downtown until we hit Boren.

A little shift over to University Street and then we arrived here:


I hadn't been in Freeway Park in.... well, probably two or three decades. (Other than the very edge of it, just outside the convention center.) The park was opened on July 4, 1976 and has been recognized by the Cultural Landscape Foundation as the first park built over a freeway. (Yes, there are others. Apparently.)

A set of intertwined stairways and wheelchair ramps lead down from 9th and University into the park.  I'm pretty sure I have never been in this part before.

Freeway Park stairways
The design of the park is a mixture of poured concrete and lush greenery, with fountains and water features thrown in. The Cultural Landscape Foundation describes the style as "aggressive", but most other sources call it "brutalist"...


All in all, as the park descends between 9th and 6th, there are 122 stairs.

I think I can remember being in the car with my beloved Montessori teacher Miss Barb, driving underneath the park as it was being built, and hearing the song "Wildfire" by Michael Martin Murphy, and all of us singing along. Though I have no idea why I would have been in a car with my Montessori teacher...

I can also remember either a school field drip or a Camp Fire Girls outing to visit the park, and playing in and around the fountain.

But I can't remember ever visiting the park after that. Pity -- because it's really lovely. Perhaps if I ever work downtown again (sigh) I will make a point of visiting it.

From Freeway Park we did a little loop up and around the edge of the park so that we could walk down the Convention Center stairway. The Convention Center was built to coordinate with the concrete-and-foliage feel of Freeway Park, so it's a pretty smooth transition.

Washington State Convention Center Stairway, 111 stairs
We were truly in the home stretch now .... just down the 71 steps next to Benaroya Hall ...

Benaroya Hall Stairway, 71 steps
down the 41 steps along the side of SAM past Hammering Man ... then down the Harbor Steps, which I simply couldn't photograph well...

Harbor Steps, 106 stairs
a block under the Viaduct on Alaskan Way, and then all the way up the 2-part Union Stairway ... first the stairs that feel super temporary... still ...


and then the bigger, nicer stairs up to 1st Avenue.

Union Stairway, upper half - 141 stairs in all

An at least 7.55-mile jaunt for this stretch ... but it sets us up for the remaining stages.

One wrinkle -- we didn't want to wait 23 minutes to catch a bus back to the car that would take another 25 minutes to get there. So we called an Uber.

Our driver was ... well, a little nutty. We gave her the address -- the same one I used to navigate to the start -- and set off. We got onto I-5, then I-90 ... and her GPS said not to take the Rainier Avenue South exit. I had mentioned that we'd need to get over asap, but she said, "No, the exit is still half a mile away."

I had one of those existential crises ... WAS there an exit from the tunnel? Had I just never known?

Well, no. Of course there isn't. And we went sailing through the tunnel and onto the bridge... Which means that what happened on the previous stretch -- where our Uber driver was 2 minutes away and then suddenly getting farther and farther ... well, it's that they were being sent the wrong way.

So our short ride became something of a long ride, and in the end I had to navigate the driver back to where our car was... and our $8 ride became a $23 ride. Oh, Uber.

But next time we just need to get ourselves to the waterfront downtown, and go from there ... and end up in the University District. Easy peasy! (Well, if the weather will cooperate, that is...)


Thursday, October 13, 2016

Seattle Stairway 100K - stage 6

Beacon Hill to Mount Baker

This stretch was cut short due to rain... But we also added some wanderings in the wild at the beginning. And, as always, it's cool for me to see the route laid out on a map like this:


We started by taking the bus and the light rail to Beacon Hill. There's a lot to admire about the public art in and around the station, but I especially love these textile patterns on the station plaza. This work, entitled "Common Threads - Community Patterns" is by local artist Carl Smool, and features textile patterns from the cultures and heritage of Beacon Hill residents. 


Then we were off ... I tweaked the route a little so that we could make a swing past Katie Black's Garden, which I first learned about in a series of Flickr photos from the Beacon Hill neighborhood. Assuming that Katie Black was perhaps a friend of the photographer, I assumed that I wouldn't be able to visit ... but, no, it's a little public park with a nice history. 


Katie Gilmore Black was an early Seattle settler. Her husband, Frank D. Black, offered to take her on a Grand Tour of Europe, but she asked, instead, for a Japanese garden. The garden is a small piece of the Black family estate, and was restored and purchased by the city of Seattle in 1992.

The garden features a brick path that winds around two small ponds -- sadly, now dry -- and an arched stone bridge. It's a "stroll garden" because visitors see changing views as they move around the park.

In addition to the ponds ... you guessed it, some handsome stairs!

stairs in Katie Black's Garden
The lovely stone detail is repeated around the estate -- including, charmingly, on a condo development built next to the park. A nice touch. 

stairs in Katie Black's Garden
Our route then was supposed to turn to the east ... but we decided to go poke around the Pacific Tower building.

Opened in 1933 as a Marine Hospital, the Pacific Tower served as the Amazon HQ for a decade, and now houses Pacific Medical Center and some additional businesses. It's a lovely Art Deco design by Carl Frelinghuysen Gould from the Bebb and Gould architectural firm. And, unsurprisingly, it's on the National Register of Historic Places, and it's an official Seattle landmark. And, pretty.

Pacific Tower
The terra cotta at the entrance is particularly pretty:

nice chevron treatment over the entrance ... reminiscent of evergreens and mountains
We poked our heads in the entryway... well, just inside the outside doors, which were unexpectedly cracked open. These loooooooong decorations sit just on either side of the entryway. 


Having gone off-route, we ... went farther off course and admired the Seattle skyline from Dr. Jose Rizal Park.


Nice views, some pretty art -- I'd like to come back on a nicer day.


FINALLY, we made our way back to the route and arrived at the top of our first set of stairs: the Atlantic Stairway.

Atlantic Stairway; 120 stairs
These stairs dropped us down the edge of Beacon Hill; a bluff so steep that the stairs had to run parallel to the hill for a long stretch.

down, down, down...
We went *slightly* off course to make our way back to Rainier Avenue South, shifting over to the I-90 trail, where we fretted that we might end up crossing the bridge. But of course we didn't...

After crossing Rainier Avenue (glimpsing the Oberto outlet, and remembering meeting Mr. Oberto years ago at the hydroplane races), we started heading uphill again, passing the Northwest African American Museum, and Jimi Hendrix Park.


(The purple concrete is a nice touch, don't you think?)

The hill got progressively steeper -- why didn't it occur to anyone to put stairs in??? Whatever.

We reached the top of the ridge at 31st, and then dropped into Colman Park.


We realized we had been on these stairs before -- while following one of the Stairway Walks book routes.

ARE these stairs???
The path ... okay, long, winding, dirt-and-wood-and-concrete stairway ... went down through Colman Park.


Under boulevards ...


... and down some more ...


... and down ... 197 stairs in all.

We came to another tunnel with a pretty arch:


and an especially pretty graffito:


Why, yes, it *is* nice. I am going to try and remember this more often.

Then we popped out of the part at the lake, getting its Autumn on.


And then it was time for the Olmsted brothers' famous stairway -- the Dose Stairway.


The base of these stairs is so pretty -- and the stairway just goes on and on.


The swirly finish to these stairs is so pretty!


And then we climbed, 138 stairs in all.


And a nice view looking back down the stairs:


After a minute to recover -- 138 stairs, man -- we turned down a narrow path back into Colman Park. And other set of "stairs" ... sorta ...

Colman Park path ... or stairs ... or whatever
We left the park and angled up 36th to reach the foot of these babies: the Day Stairway (East).
Day East Stairway, lower section
These stairs just seemed to go on and on and on, in a series of sections.


We took a tiny break on Lake Washington Boulevard to pop out at the overlook on top of I-90.


And then up the final stretch from 33rd to 32nd ...

someone is ready to be done...
And then it started raining...


We reached 31st just as a particularly blustery squall set in. We were supposed to go another mile or so... but just decided to call it a day. We called an Uber... and couldn't figure out why the wait time went from 2 minutes to 8 minutes ... and then 10 minutes. (Spoilers!)

Since we were standing next to a bus stop we looked up the next bus ... 15 minutes? Cool. That gave us time to stop at the cute little bakery before jumping on a bus to downtown, and then home.