Fish Lake Trail

Big Frank was on his bike again today, and Gina was riding along. They went on the newly almost completed Fish Lake Trail from Spokane to Fish Lake just outside of Cheney, WA. It was a blistering hot day but the trail was pretty empty. They talked to one cyclist from the Spokane Bicycle Club who was returning from a 70 mile ride and was pretty knackered. Gina and Big Frank were not knackered, but upon returning did go out for much appreciated ice cream. Big Frank had cherry rum, and Gina had some kind of chocolate yogurt. Great ride and great ice cream.

Maugham descriptions

Big Frank is reading the quintessential spy novel: Ashenden by W. Somerset Maugham. While Poe is often sited as the originator of the spy novel, Maugham certainly has to be credited as the modern originator. Aside from the fact that the details of spying in the novel are supposedly based on Maugham's personal experience as a spy during WWI, there is much to recommend the book. Maugham's descriptions of his characters are pricelessly spot on; you feel like you know these people. Here are a few examples - short exerpts from longer descriptive passages:

1. The Baroness von Higgens: "The baroness gave him a flashing, brilliant smile. She was a woman of more than forty, but in a hard and glittering manner extremely beautiful. She was a high-coloured blonde with golden hair of a metallic lustre, lovely no doubt but not attractive, and Ashenden had from the first reflected that it was not the sort of hair you would like to find in your soup."

2. Miss King: "She was a tiny old woman, just a few little bones in a bag of wrinkled skin, and her face was deeply furrowed. it was obvious that she wore a wig, it was of a mousy brown, very elaborate and not always set quite straight, and she was heavily made up, with great patches of scarlet on her withered cheeks and brillinatly red lips. She dressed fantastically in gay clothes that looked as though they had been bought higgledy-piddledy from an old-clothes shop and int the day-time she wore enoromous, extravagantly girlish hats."

3. "The Hairless Mexican was a tall man, and though thinnish gave you the impression of being very powerful: he was smartly dressed in a blue serge suit, with a silk handkerchief neatly tucked in the breast pocket of hi coat, and he wore a gold bracelet on his wrist. His features were good, but a little larger than life-size, and his eyes were brown and lustrous. He was quite hairless. His yellow skin had the smoothness of a woman's and he had no eyebrows nor eyelashes; he wore a pale brown wig, rather long, and the locks were arranged in artistic disorder. This and the unwrinkled sallow face, combined with his dandified dress, gave him an appearance that was at first glance a trifle horrigying. He was repulsive and ridiculous, but you could not take your eyes from him. There was a sisister fascination in his strangeness."

Musings

Big Frank has been a little lax lately on posting. Maybe that's because of the summer heat which dries up the mind and saps the vital fluids of the spirit. Or else not. In any case it is high time for a few random mind wandering thoughts in line with previous musings of the "I wonder" category. So here they are - in no particular order.

1. Are we all too connected or too unconnected? Connected via electronic gadgets, but unconnected personally?
2. Are all fields of study like the universe in its infinite expansion both from the macro and micro viewpoint?
3. Is there such a thing as a dream within a dream?
4. What would a totally asexual life be like? Could one say that it would be better or worse than a sexual one?
5. Why does highway hum travel such long distances and sound off at such unexpected places?
6. What is it like to live a life in which your truly personal thoughts and feelings are shared with nobody at all?
7. To not forgive is demonic or angelic?
8. Will televison as we know it disappear in the next 10 years?
9. What would life be like without taboos?
10. If there were no secrets - how would that change life at the macro societal level and at the intimate level?

Feel free to answer any or all of the above. Big Frank would like to hear what you all think? Or (as Duke always said) else not.

Mission Mountains

[Photos by Big Frank Dickinson: Mission Range and Flathead Lake, Montana]

Big Frank is a native Montanan. He loves going back to Montana and is close enough to get over there often. Most recently he was in the Flathead Valley for a cruise on Flathead Lake. Here are some photos of the lake and of the Mission Mountains, the western slopes of which are steep, unbelievably steep - beautifully steep.

Puget Sound Ferries

[Photos by Big Frank Dickinson; Puget Sound, Washington]

Big Frank was back on the ferries again. It is becoming a habit and one that will not soon be broken. This time it was on Puget Sound riding between Edmonds and Kingston on the MV Puyallup, a Jumbo Mark II Class ferry - the newest and most powerful ferry in the Washington state fleet. This is the largest ferry in the world! It can fit 202 vehicle on its double entry deck and can carry 2500 passengers. There were not anywhere near that number on board when Big Frank rode it. The sun was out, passengers were sunning on the deck, and the view of the sound, Mr Rainier, Mt. Baker, Seattle, and the blue blue sky was spectacular.

Ferries are wonderful

Big Frank thinks that ferries are wonderful. There are some things that one runs across in life that cheer you up - always cheer you up. For Big Frank it's ferries. It doesn't make any difference if the ferry is a Long Island, Singaporian, plies the San Juan Islands, crosses over from Staten Island, or crosses the English Channel - Big Frank loves them all. Today he rode a Canadian ferry across Lake Kootenay coming back from a short vaction in Nelson with his daughter, Gina. It took a little bit of a wait to get aboard, but once there it was a little piece of heaven. Big Frank and Gina got coffee, snapped pictures, looked at the beautiful scenery, and savored that coming/going feeling of being on a ferry.

[Photos: Big Frank Dickinson - Lake Kootenay, British Columbia]