Snow Holiday

Still giving my bicycle a holiday.  Here are some photos from the Thanksgiving snowstorm.  These were mostly taken along the Whatcom Creek Greenways trail.  This area was burned after a June 1999 gas pipeline leak and explosion.  The area has been cleaned up and replanted to create salmon habitat and a bike and foot path along the creek.

The snow came so early this year, the trees didn't have time to lose their leaves.

The totem below is a memorial to three boys who died in the fire, after gas flowing on the surface of the creek ignited. Below that, a restored section of the creek.  People are already trying to fish at the bend in the creek, but I doubt there are any salmon. The fish hatchery farther up the river at Whatcom Falls Park isn't operating yet.

Bellingham's Auto Row, on Iowa Street, backs up against the woods along Whatcom Creek.

In 1999 I worked at OfficeMax in Sunset Square, a shopping center a mile or two north of this area.  From the parking lot I could see a wall of black smoke moving west toward the freeway.  I thought it was a riot, that people - environmentalists or frustrated, underemployed retail workers like me - were torching cars in the lots along Iowa.

(That was before I tried bicycling.  I didn't have a car, so I rode the bus, and often walked four miles home at night because bus service to Sunset Square stopped at 7pm.)

A troll under the bridge along the trail