Jeff and I teamed up to write a story about our favorite food stops after a day in the outdoors.

No fine dining here. Just fine burgers, fries, shakes and cherry pie a la mode (Twede's famous pie pictured to the right).

Check it out and see if your favorite was included. If not let us know about your favorite. We'd love to check it out.

(Picture by Drew Perine)

Backpacker Magazine just announced its Best Cities to Raise an Outdoor Kid.

Seattle made the list - coming in at No. 6 - even though it's still easier to get to Mount Rainier and the Olympic Mountains from Tacoma.

We're not bitter.

Boulder, Colo., was No. 1 on the list. Hood River, Ore., is No. 13.

Sure, it’s pretty cool being the captain of a tall ship.

But for Josh Berger it’s not enough. He also wants to teach people about the environment.

“That’s what I like about the Adventuress,” Berger said. “I get to do both. It’s perfect.”

The Adventuress, a 133-foot, two-masted schooner, bills itself as “Puget Sound’s Environmental Tall Ship.”

The 96-year-old ship arrived in Tacoma on Wednesday afternoon and will stay in Commencement Bay until May 27 so its 15-member crew can teach youth about sailing, the history of the ship and Puget Sound.

On Sunday the ship will be open to the public for free tours from 9 a.m. to noon. At 1 p.m. the Adventuress will set sail for a 3-hour cruise. Tickets for the public sail are $40 for adults and $20 for those 18 and younger.

As Berger piloted the Adventuress out of Bainbridge Island’s Eagle Harbor for a public sail on May 17 he described the ship as a microcosm of Puget Sound.

“When we are all on board it’s easy to see how our actions impact each other and the ship,” Berger said. “… Living here our actions impact the sound.”

Berger, a graduate of The Evergreen State College, and his crew use the comparison to teach environmental responsibility to kids.

In a small compartment on the port side of the ship the crew keeps several living sea creatures including a sea star and a sea anemone. As the Adventuress sails the sound the crew give kids a hands-on lesson about what’s living in the waters below them.

The Adventuress isn’t just a classroom it’s one of 24 National Historic Monuments in Washington.

“It is sailing history,” said Wendy Sonnemann, a volunteer spokeswoman for Sound Experience.

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Sunday we are going to take a look at Movie's filmed in Washington's outdoors. While Washington's outdoor makes a glorious set for Hollywood flicks. We'll look at 12 places you can recreate where movies were filmed on Sunday.

Until then here are 15 other movies that are at least partially filmed in Washington.

From the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club:

Seeker, the pretorian 35 out of Mukilteo, is running first so far in the 2008 Vic Maui. This is now Day Six of the international ocean race and all the boats are far offshore.

Seeker is by far the smallest boat in the fleet. Yet, even with that huge disadvantage, skipper Kenneth Gref and his crew are maintaining amazing speeds and staying among the front-runners. That shows excellent boatmanship and strategic thinking.

Also, it looks like the long-standing record of 10 days, 2 hours set by Lahaina's Grand Illusion is about to be smashed by Strum, the brand-new, carbon composite Riptide 50, that goes twice as fast as the other boats.

From time to time I get to step out off my Adventure writer role to try something a little different. I’ll have three such stories in June. Here’s a sneak peek.

MINI GOLF
A few days before Christmas I teamed up with sportswriter Todd Milles for mini golf match against touring pros Michael Putnam and Ryan Moore. We played the Putting Zoo in Puyallup. You’ll have to read Sunday’s story to see who won. (Hint: Ryan Moore is hirer ranked putter than Tiger Woods this season. Luckily we didn’t have Tiger on our team.)

PGA golfer Ryan Moore, sportswriter Todd Milles and Adventure writer Craig Hill watch pro golfer Michael Putnam take a key putt.

POLO
The Tacoma Polo Club in Roy invited me out for hitting lesson last weekend. I couldn’t turn down that offer. Look for the story and how you can try polo on June 9.

A member of the Washington State University Polo club warming up in Roy.

TALL SHIPS
I recently took a trip to Ilwaco to spend a day on the Hawaiian Chieftain. As part of my tour I got to climb the mast for a furling lesson. Look for the story in late June as we kick off our coverage of the Tacoma Tall Ships festival.

The Chieftain from about 60 feet above the deck.

That's me hanging out on the course yard with nothing under my feet but a piece of rope.

Clearly Indiana Jones is the greatest adventure movie hero of all time. But what about movies about adventure sports.

Last year, we asked the Northwest's outdoor elite for their favorite adventure sports movie. The only requirement we gave them was that the movies have a strong adventure sport element. Whether the flick was a documentary or featured James Bond on skis, it didn't matter.

This, of course, left room for some serious creativity.

Jordan Hanssen, one of four University of Puget Sound grads who rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in 2006, had a list that included "The Princess Bride" ("Fencing, sailing, horseback riding and torture," he said), "Muppet Treasure Island" ("Sailing, swashbuckling and fuzzy critters") and "Casablanca" ("Drinking. Face it, adventure doesn't happen without it").

Surprisingly, none of the other 13 members of our academy recommended these movies.

Click below to see the top 10 PLUS their pick for the worst adventure sports movie of all time.

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From the Seattle Sperry Top-Sider National Offshore One Design Regatta:

It took three days, 230-plus boats and well over 200 races to see who would capture the first-ever Seattle Sperry Top-Sider National Offshore One Design (NOOD) Regatta title. But for Stephen D. Orsini (Anacortes, WA), accomplishment came sooner than expected.

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Hey there folks, have you dumped your Nalgene water bottle yet?

The company that makes the popular bottles and stores ares pulling them from shelves over concerns that bisphenol A used in the bottles poses a health risk.

If you've switched give me a call, I would like to talk to you. Call me at 253-597-8640 or e-mail me at jeff.mayor@thenewstribune.com.

From the Associated Press:

ANACORTES, Wash. (AP) — Work is going well on a new boat for BMW Oracle Racing, the U.S. challenger for the 33rd America’s Cup, team officials said.
The boat is the third yacht in the history of the sailing race to be built in this town about 100 miles north of Seattle.
The multihull yacht is being built for the team from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Yacht Club to race for the trophy this year. Janicki Industries in nearby Sedro-Woolley is providing high-technology precision tooling.
“We are proud to be in Anacortes, where we can draw on world-class expertise and where the team has enjoyed so much local support,” Mark Turner, the team’s construction manager, said in a news release Wednesday.
The yachts USA 87 and USA 98 were built in Anacortes for the 32nd America’s Cup competition in 2007 in Valencia, Spain.