Friday in Seattle

We started the day somewhat slowly. A couple of us are having difficulty adjusting to the time shift; I'm having difficulty adjusting to a new bed. In any case, we were on the road by 8:30 AM and met up with tdjohnsn and rlegters at Senor Moose in Ballard, WA, for breakfast.

Following a wonderful meal, the boys headed out on various errands while cuyahogarvr, kent4str and I headed to the locks in Ballard to check out the ships, the waterway and the salmon run. There were some very large fish in the ladder system parallelling the locks; I'll post some photos later.

From there, we headed closer to the Seattle downtown for lunch at a thai restaurant, Rasha, with uber-hot ljtourist.



After eating far too much and having far too brief a time with ljtourist, we headed down to the market area in the downtown and spent the better part of the early afternoon taking in the sights and doing a little shopping.

Fighting our way through the afternoon early rush hour was a little frustrating but we landed chez tdjohnsn and rlegters to help them pack up materials for the evening square dance event, as well as pop out to the local Safeway to obtain some supplies. By 5:45 PM, we were all on the road in two separate vehicles for West Seattle.

Dancing tonight was much fun: Anne Uebelacker and Scott Zinser were calling Mainstream thru C1. I knew about half of the crowd but there were many locals who have never made it to a convention or to the fly-ins I regularly attend on the east coast or central US. Shortly after 10 PM, the dance wound down and we did what we could to assist in cleaning up the hall before heading for our hotel.

cuyahogarvr has already crashed and I'm about to join him. Sleep is good.

Friday in Seattle

We started the day somewhat slowly. A couple of us are having difficulty adjusting to the time shift; I'm having difficulty adjusting to a new bed. In any case, we were on the road by 8:30 AM and met up with tdjohnsn and rlegters at Senor Moose in Ballard, WA, for breakfast.

Following a wonderful meal, the boys headed out on various errands while cuyahogarvr, kent4str and I headed to the locks in Ballard to check out the ships, the waterway and the salmon run. There were some very large fish in the ladder system parallelling the locks; I'll post some photos later.

From there, we headed closer to the Seattle downtown for lunch at a thai restaurant, Rasha, with uber-hot ljtourist.



After eating far too much and having far too brief a time with ljtourist, we headed down to the market area in the downtown and spent the better part of the early afternoon taking in the sights and doing a little shopping.

Fighting our way through the afternoon early rush hour was a little frustrating but we landed chez tdjohnsn and rlegters to help them pack up materials for the evening square dance event, as well as pop out to the local Safeway to obtain some supplies. By 5:45 PM, we were all on the road in two separate vehicles for West Seattle.

Dancing tonight was much fun: Anne Uebelacker and Scott Zinser were calling Mainstream thru C1. I knew about half of the crowd but there were many locals who have never made it to a convention or to the fly-ins I regularly attend on the east coast or central US. Shortly after 10 PM, the dance wound down and we did what we could to assist in cleaning up the hall before heading for our hotel.

cuyahogarvr has already crashed and I'm about to join him. Sleep is good.

Go Me!

I just called two of my best hours of square dance calling ever, and I'm damn near ecstatic.

The first hour was A2; it started a little slow for lack of dancers but by the end of the hour, I had multiple couples tagging in & out of the square. With the exception of two dancers having difficulty with 'cross run' vs 'run' in the call 'mix,' they were a keen & enthusiastic floor. Of course, it helped that I intentionally used only my very best material, culled with a particular view to making a good impression, but the floor energy and abilities were such that they could have made even my less impressive choreo look good.

The second hour was Mainstream in the adjacent room. Again, we had only a single square but they were incredibly energetic and enthusiastic. I sight-called the entire MS hour as I normally would for MS and Plus dance levels; they danced ably, had good flow and I had the whole wind-in-your-face dancing building through the hour. Sure, we had a couple of snags but they were met with laughter & giggles. For the first time in memory, they made a thank-you line of dancers at the end of the hour for my work.

To say I'm walking on clouds right now is an understatement. Life is good.

Go Me!

I just called two of my best hours of square dance calling ever, and I'm damn near ecstatic.

The first hour was A2; it started a little slow for lack of dancers but by the end of the hour, I had multiple couples tagging in & out of the square. With the exception of two dancers having difficulty with 'cross run' vs 'run' in the call 'mix,' they were a keen & enthusiastic floor. Of course, it helped that I intentionally used only my very best material, culled with a particular view to making a good impression, but the floor energy and abilities were such that they could have made even my less impressive choreo look good.

The second hour was Mainstream in the adjacent room. Again, we had only a single square but they were incredibly energetic and enthusiastic. I sight-called the entire MS hour as I normally would for MS and Plus dance levels; they danced ably, had good flow and I had the whole wind-in-your-face dancing building through the hour. Sure, we had a couple of snags but they were met with laughter & giggles. For the first time in memory, they made a thank-you line of dancers at the end of the hour for my work.

To say I'm walking on clouds right now is an understatement. Life is good.