Home Care In Bainbridge, IN

The ferry sailing between Bainbridge and Seattle will go down to just one boat for a week beginning at 1 a.m. Thursday. During that time, no cars, motorcycles, bicycles or scooters will be allowed to make the crossing until 3 a.m. Sept. 13, limiting the route to just walk-on passengers.

The severe restriction is so crews can make more progress on a new overhead walkway at the Bainbridge terminal. The $33 million project replaces the more than 50-year-old span currently there, which is held up by wood pilings that could be vulnerable in an earthquake. The new walkway will be supported by concrete and steel pilings. Its route from terminal to boat will be shorter as well, making for a more efficient loading path.

Last year, the Bainbridge/Seattle crossing carried 4.4 million riders, making it the busiest in the system.

The closure is likely to have spillover effects on other ferry routes to Bremerton, Southworth and Kingston. To ease the pressure, Washington State Ferries plans three-boat service between Edmonds and Kingston, as crews are available. Drivers may also choose to drive around over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. For people with bicycles or scooters trying to get to Kitsap County, Kitsap Transit runs fast ferry service between Seattle and Kingston, Bremerton and Southworth with schedules that vary from weekdays to the weekend.

Bikes and scooters will not be allowed in the passenger area of the Bainbridge boat, WSF calling it “not feasible or safe for us to mix pedestrians with bicycles and scooters both inside the ferry and in the terminal waiting areas.”

The work, which has been on the calendar since April, will be so disruptive because crews will take over the entire car loading area. The new walkway will be made up of four separate bridge spans, due to arrive by barge from Tacoma and staged in the load zone. The longest span, made up of two sections, will weigh 90 tons and measure 199 feet.

The concrete and steel pilings already have been poured. Over two to three days, crews will lift the bridge spans on top of the supports, using large cranes.

The new walkway is scheduled to open sometime this fall, followed shortly by the destruction of the old one. The entire project is expected to be completed by early 2024.

David Kroman: 206-464-3196 or [email protected]; Seattle Times staff reporter David Kroman covers Seattle City Hall.

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND – Now living on Bainbridge Island, Dan and Julia Myrick laugh about a tiny apartment in Orlando where they watched the box office numbers — life-changing figures — climb. A little over two decades ago, “The Blair Witch Project,” the iconic horror film they had helped to develop early on in their film careers, was on its way to becoming one of the most successful independent films ever made.

The 1999 movie tells the story of three students who set out into the woods in Maryland to film a documentary on the Blair Witch, a local legend. The flick’s opening screen is simple and ominous: “In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.”

Hand-held camera footage relays the story of the three getting lost in the woods, of their encounter with … something.

Dan and Julia were part of the team that brought the story to life. Dan had shared directing, writing and editing duties. Julia had helped to craft a just-believable-enough backstory and assisted on the production.

The shaky footage made the film feel real. Clever marketing helped to stoke a bit of hesitation. Was this really fiction?

“It’s the same thing as if we had done a ‘War of the Worlds,’ where you’re like, ‘Wow, what is this compulsion?’” Julia said. “It’s an interesting thing to see just the nature of people and that it’s global and to have been a part of that, and then to rewitness that same behavior in modern society.”

The film took off, and as the numbers rolled in, Julia did the math: “I think you can pay off your student loans. I think you can pay off your car. Ooh, I think you have a down payment for a house.”

“It was pretty surreal and certainly life-changing,” Dan said. “It just kept getting bigger and bigger.”

Created on a $60,000 budget, the film would go on to gross nearly $250 million worldwide when it was released, according to Box Office Mojo.

They were told they wouldn’t see the money for a year, Julia recalled. So they watched the numbers ascend, thrilled, while living in that small apartment where, “…if I backed up my chair, it would hit his chair,” she said.

Life has marched on. Two decades after the release of the film, Dan and Julia are now residents of Bainbridge Island, where they’re raising two children. Julia works at IslandWood and in her spare time works on scripts. Dan recently released “Skyman,” a new film.

Their box office hit has followed them through the years. Dan notes that he still loves talking about the piece, about what inspired its creators and chatting with fans. Some, he’s found, know more about it than he does. And now a new generation has picked up interest in the movie.

“It is different. It’s primal, it’s not all slick and Hollywood," Dan said. "It is sort of the punk rock of films that actually delivered on its promise of being scary. And that, oftentimes, isn’t the case. You go into a film with the pretext that it’s going to be funny or scary, and it’s not really. It’s not really ‘laugh out loud’ or it’s not really scary at its core like it was in a lot of films I grew up with. ("The Blair Witch Project") delivered the goods for a lot of people and that’s, I think, important if you’re going to say you’re a horror film. You better scare somebody in the process somewhere along the line, no matter how you market it.”

Back on the big screen

“The Blair Witch Project” will return to a big screen for a special Halloween showing on Saturday at the Historic Lynwood Theatre on Bainbridge Island, and afterward, Dan and Julia will host a question-and-answer session about the film and their work on it. The event is being put on by Arts & Humanities Bainbridge and the Bainbridge Island Chamber of Commerce to help fund some improvements for the 85-year-old theater.

Jeff Brein, managing partner for Far Away Entertainment, a collection of eight local theaters in Western Washington including the Lynwood Theatre, said planned improvements include new theater seats, new theatrical drapes, a new sound system, switching the marquee from neon to LED lighting and some changes to the lobby.

Plans had been building toward the suite of improvement projects in 2019, but the pandemic put off those efforts. Brein said there’s no concern about having to close down but said that reserves that had been stashed away for renovations had to be drawn down to pay for expenses over 11 months of lost revenue.

Now, he said, there’s consideration of doing a community campaign to help raise funds for the theater. An effort to host special community events, like “The Blair Witch Project” showing, and live entertainment could help to buoy the business as well.

“That theater has touched so many lives over its 85 years,” Brein said. “It’ll be fun to get in there and to spruce it up. I think the community will support us, I really do. It’s fun to talk to older folks that live on Bainbridge, ‘I had my first kiss in that seat,’ and they can point to it.’”

When: 7 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 30

Where: Historic Lynwood Theatre, Bainbridge Island

Cost: $15 for advance tickets

Tickets: To buy a seat, visit farawayentertainment.com/historic-lynwood

Nathan Pilling is a reporter covering Bainbridge Island, North Kitsap and Washington State Ferries for the Kitsap Sun. He can be reached at 360-792-5242, [email protected] or on Twitter at @KSNatePilling.

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We look at analytics after our Around The Brew Bend column publishes every other week at Tallahassee.com to see how it performed. Things like, how many times it was clicked; how many times it was shared; and we can even see how long someone spent reading it before they were like, "These Beer Society guys are clowns! I don't wanna read this!" and they move onto something else.

When we looked at which columns were the most-read of 2022, it's the very topic we're about to write about again today: The Bainbridge Jazz & Blues Festival, an event that centers around one of our local breweries, Southern Philosophy Brewing!

The 3rd Annual Bainbridge Jazz & Blues Festival will take place Saturday, Feb. 4, right in the heart of Downtown Bainbridge. And just like the previous two years, the musical lineup is out of this world!

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Just take a look at the acts performing across five different stages this year:

The best part? The entire event is FREE and open to the public. Or you can buy a VIP ticket to attend and have all your beer, wine and food from renowned local restaurant The American included in the experience. And that is where our friends at Southern Philosophy come in.

'Fantastic event' in historic district

Owner, founder and head brewer Gallagher Dempsey jumped at the chance to help launch and organize the inaugural event 3 years ago — and the buzz has only grown bigger with every year. Last year, the festival saw 2,000 people attend throughout the day — it kicks off at noon and stretches into the evening — and this year, it's only going to be bigger, Gallagher told us this week.

"I really think this is a fantastic event for the city of Bainbridge and for the entire region, really," he said. "First off, it is free to get in, the streets are blocked off so it will be safe for kids and anyone that wants to stroll around and check out the beautiful downtown Bainbridge," Gallagher said.

"Before we put on this festival we walked around downtown on this weekend and it was very quiet, very little going on. I looked around and thought, 'Geez, this is beautiful Southern weather in a beautiful historic downtown, we've got to do something to get people out and active this time of year.' There are no bugs, you won't sweat. It can be a little on the cold side this time of year but we have large tents and heaters and you can also check out the different shops, restaurants and of course our brewery," Gallagher said.

Special 'Blue Valentine' brew

And checking out the brewery should be at the top of your list — and not just because they make great beer year-round. But because they're tapping a special beer just for this event, "Blue Valentine" — a yummy sour made with local blueberries, peach and apricot.

It'll be perfectly timed too since Valentine's Day is just a couple of weeks away and the "Blue" in the name plays off the event itself. Southern will also be releasing at the festival a series of other popular beers, including Pizza Guy Pils, Chipotle Smoked Porter, Nicole's Wit and Native Light Lager.

They also have a beer that's near and dear to our hearts that we hope you'll try too: the official TLH Beer Society collab beer we brewed WITH Gallagher and Southern Philosophy - "Invisible Line."

Late last year, the TLHBS took the short, 35-minute ride up Highway 27 to South Georgia, where we whipped up a dry-hopped lager and named it Invisible Line in honor of the fact that when it comes to our award-winning Tallahassee-area beer scene, we feel there is no border! Just good beer for miles and miles and miles in any direction. We also did a treatment of Invisible Line, too, with passionfruit and cara-cara oranges that we named "SubTropical Line." So don't miss that one either!

Stroll to the Flint River

The downtown area is also only a short walk (about 4 blocks) down to the Flint River -- and we highly recommend grabbing a to-go beer from Southern and taking this strol. It's beautiful, and the art gallery downtown is also a collaborator on the festival with music and a pen-up art show going on at the same time while you're enjoying the plethora of good music all around you.

"I am excited about all of the acts that play at this festival because they are all really fantastic professional musicians," Gallagher said. "One that I am particularly excited about because I have never seen him play in person is Beautiful Bobby Blackmon. He toured with the late great B.B. King and also toured with Buddy Guy. The guy is really a showman and a true blues artist from everything I have seen and heard about him. Talking to him on the phone, you can tell he is a character and very passionate about the blues."

Gallagher added that no matter which artist you come to watch, you will always discover a new one that you love. Gallagher would know -- it has happened to him every year!

Don't miss great 12 performers

"The Leon Anderson Quintet will be opening on the mainstage at noon. He is world-class in every respect and always a treat to see live," Gallagher said.

"Another musician that will be new to the area and festival is RickoLus. He is from the Jacksonville area. He is playing solo but is a very versatile and fun musician to watch so excited to see him play. I actually found out about him when we poured at the St. Augustine Craft Brewer's Festival a few years ago. He was playing at the beer festival. Ben Flournoy of course is coming back and so it will be interesting to see him with his new band that is hot off of their debut record Nashville studio time," Gallagher said.

"Also, don't sleep on Avis Berry, Johnnie Marshall and all the other fantastic musicians that will be here. There will be a total of 12 performances throughout the day on 5 stages."

Where to park and more

For those who've never been to Bainbridge, we asked Gallagher to walk us through what folks can expect and where to park if they choose to drive up for the day.

"So, when you pull into the downtown, there are many public parking spaces you can park in. Park and walk the short walk to the square, only a block or two. Once you arrive to the square, you will have free access to roam the historic downtown brick streets and buildings from the main stage to the four other stages; one at the Hook & Ladder outside venue, one at Southern Philosophy Brewing, the American and the Firehouse Arts Center," he said.

"There will be outside tents, including a VIP tent with tickets for purchase on eventbrite if you want to have some added comforts including food, beer from Southern Philosophy & food from the American Restaurant. Kids can run and play in the park right next to the main stage. I'll mention again that the streets will be blocked off so there won't be traffic on or around the square. There will be many unique shops open. The downtown is really thriving and there are a lot of fun things to discover including many restaurants, boutiques, a candy and ice cream shop, a coffee shop and much more," said Gallagher.

So there ya have it! Craft beer, food, music and an all-around amazing-sounding day with our neighbors to the north. This is a festival we never miss, and this year will be no different.

Hope to see ya there, Tallahassee!

Danny Aller is the co-founder, along with Matthew Crumbaker, of the TLH Beer Society. Reach the Beer Society on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or email: [email protected].