VOA – CONNECT
EPISODE # 330
AIR DATE: 05 10 2024
FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT
SHOW OPEN
((Animation))
((VO/NAT/SOT))
((Title))
Open Water Swim Coach
((SOT))
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
Manager, Co-Owner, Astor Place Hairstylists))
With five kids there’s a lot going on. How do I keep my sanity? I definitely swim. Open water swimming is anything in the open water. So that can be the lake. It can be the ocean, it can be the sound.
((NATS))
((Animation))
((Title))
Women Scuba Divers
((SOT))
((Maira Thomas
Scuba Diving Instructor))
Scuba diving is our passion, that’s what gets us together, but the female communities, I think, are very important.
((Animation))
((Title))
Doomsday” Glacier
((SOT))
((Sridhar Anandakrishnan
Glaciologist, Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
When you're standing there and you look all around 360 degrees, you don't see anything. It’s… there's no trees, there's no houses, there's no roads, there’s no cities.
((Animation))
((TITLE)) OPEN WATER SWIMMING
((TRT: 09:40))
((Reporter/Camera/Editor: Gabrielle Weiss))
((Map: Mukilteo, Washington))
((Main characters: 1 female; 0 male))
((Sub characters: 4 female; 0 male))
((Blurb: Training in the pool to swim in open-water gives freedom and joy. Amy Heape, a homeschooling mom of five boys, trains people to improve their swimming technique and prepare for open-water swims.))
((NATS))
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
It is the easternmost country in Africa, situated on what is commonly called the Horn of Africa. What do you need?
((Benji
Son))
I need help with...
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
I’m Amy Heape and I have five boys. My husband and I have been married…how many years...14 years. We got married in 2010.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
Benji, did you hear any noticeable features? The color of their skin on their necks and thighs? What color are they?
((Benji
Son))
White?
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
While a common ostrich neck and legs are pink, the Somalian ostrich sports a greyish, blue neck. I homeschool pretty much Monday through Friday. So, we're at home in the mornings, doing history and Bible and whatever else. We take breaks. Right after Bible in the morning, we go on a walk because we all need a reset.
((NATS))
My turn.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
With five kids there’s a lot going on. How do I keep my sanity? I definitely swim. Open water swimming is anything in the open water. So that can be the lake. It can be the ocean, it can be the sound.
((NATS))
We're heading out. Shut the door. See you in the water.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
So, part of my life is homeschooling, being a mom, being a wife.
Yeah.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
The other part of me is I get to coach. I get to encourage other swimmers along their journeys, whether that's somebody who just started swimming, or it's somebody who's been swimming for years and all of a sudden, they're like, 'Hey, I want to do open water swimming. That seems fun.’
((NATS))
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
So, I run Amy Heape’s Open Water Coaching. I've been coaching on and off since I was 16 [years old]. But I started open water coaching about four years ago.
((Courtesy on video of Amy Heape swimming: MarySue Balazic))
There was a client who really wanted to swim Catalina channel and knew I had done it when I was younger and asked me. And I was like, ‘I just had a six-week-old.’ And I was like, ‘No, you're crazy. I can't do that right now.’ She just kept messaging me. And I think it was about at eight weeks. I had gone and swam in the pool by myself.
((Courtesy on phone video of Amy Heape swimming in pool: Julie Ann Cooke))
((NATS))
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
And I had come up with this whole business plan in my head that one day I was going to coach, and I was going to coach people in a community, to invest in their lives and be part of their lives, and then be able to see them do amazing things. I wanted to do that for open water. I didn't want it to just be, they see me once a week. I wanted to invest in their lives. I wanted it to be the whole person.
((NATS))
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
You’re coming out here still but you’re using these muscles.
((Client))
But I’m bending. No, I’m straightening.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
Nope. Bend a little bit, not...just like swimming.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
I have a group of clients that swims on Friday mornings, and that's kind of our small group workouts, and that is so fun. And we do a little bit of dryland training first, and then we hop in, and we swim for an hour, just so they can learn the moves and then they can transfer them outside.
((NATS))
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
We're going to work on some flip turns and they're going to get angry at me because...200. Yep. You did it? Good.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
The reason I do flip turns is because, say you're in open water, you get freaked out. Then you know how to bring that breath back down. And so, I really try and get all my open water swimmers to work on flip turns. So they know, ‘Hey, somebody kicked me in the face, but I can keep going.’ Or you see a giant jellyfish or a sea lion or something, and you can bring that breath back down and continue, which happens.
((NATS))
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
All right, we are going to work on some kick, and then we’re going to do some flip turns. Told you. Did I not tell you?
((Fleenor
Client))
How bent should your legs be when you, when your feet land against the wall? Should they be 90 or…?
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
Yeah, I like them about 90, a little bit tucked in, so you’re not like, open. Yeah, you're open a lot. But that's kind of, if you swim through any pregnancies at all, that's what happens. Yeah. So don't look at my flip turns right now. Tuck that chin. Have those hips follow your shoulders. Keep your core tight. Ready, go. Good. Good.
((Susan Fleenor
Client))
I love flip turns, but I’m not good at them, but I like doing them. Everything we practice here, I can practice out in the open water for sure. For sure. It helps a lot.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
That’s why we do that, because what if you’re in the open water and you can’t catch a breath. Ready, go.
It's super-duper fun. It's just these are all open water clients that want to improve, whether it's technique, whether it's speed, whether it's wanting the accountability of being in a group together.
((NATS))
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
Okay, Bi-50 breathing every 3,5,7,3. And, go Lynn.
((Lynn Valiquett
Client))
It's more than just swimming. I mean, the pool is one thing, but then when you get out in the open water, you have a newfound appreciation for it. You can get out your frustrations. You can get a good workout. The group that we have are so tight knit where we support each other. You know, we're there for each other for our big swims. And yeah, can't get much better than that.
((Dana Wiedenhoft
Client))
I find myself focusing on the repetition of what we're doing here in open water.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
It is so important to be in the pool. If you're just swimming open water, solid mile, two miles, that's great. But you're not going to get the cardiovascular workout. You're not going to get the efficiency of your stroke. You're not going to be able to work on your technique at all. So, you have to be in the pool.
((Susan Fleenor
Client))
Getting into the cold water in Puget Sound is different than the pool. And for me, I give myself a few minutes to acclimate, just putting my face in, my neck in, submerging, getting used to it, and then I start swimming. I don't jump right in and go swimming. I have to give my body…and I'm in a wetsuit where some of the others are not. I have to give myself time to acclimate a few minutes at least, and I watch my time, at least three minutes to get used to the cold water, so I can continue to swim.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
All right. I'm going to get my gear and I'll see you guys at the beach then.
((Susan Fleenor
Client))
On to the Sound.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
Open-water swimming is anything in the open water. So that can be the lake, it can be the ocean, it can be the Sound. We're in Washington state and we are near the Puget Sound. Our temperatures range in the water from 38 [degrees Fahrenheit] during like the coldest up to probably about 67 [degrees Fahrenheit]. That's like the highest we've ever seen.
((Dana Wiedenhoft
Client))
The cold water has been a ng love of mine. Well, the open water. I was open… playing, growing up in the Sound in the lakes in the summer until COVID came and all the pools shut down. And I heard about these crazy swimmers that did it all year long. So I decided to give it a go. And it's amazing. Whatever's going on in the background of life…the stresses, the fear, a lot of anxiety post medical, post COVID, the challenges, physical challenges, the body awareness…it's a full sensory experience that forces me to stay in the moment now. Let everything go for a while. And the endorphin rush. It's just…it's addictive. I'll say honestly, it is.
((NATS))
One, two, three. There we go.
((Mary Sue Balazic
Client))
Well, she helped me get ready for the Coronado Island marathon swim. She would work everything from nutrition to helping me focus on sleep and rest. Rest was something she really pushed me on because I don’t rest very well.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
We're going to get in. We're going to get in. We're going to swim down that way. Swim that way first, and then we'll come back and stop and check on people.
((Client))
Okay.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
And whatever you were working on in the pool today, go ahead and try and apply it out here.
((Client))
Sure. With the chop.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
Breathing, bilaterally.
((Susan Fleenor
Client))
You. She’s looking at me.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
Open-water swimming can be anything from swimming a thousand yards, 500 yards, or anything over 10K [10,000 kilometers] is a marathon swim.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Amy Heape))
Ready? I'll just stop. All right.
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
These people are like so talented. We have a microbiologist. We have engineers, like just all these people in their normal daily life. But when we're all in the water together, we're just swimmers. There's a few of us in the water at a time.
((Courtesy underwater shots of animals: Amy Heape))
We're swimming kind of close to shore out to a dock and back, checking in with each other for safety. It’s kind of what open water is, in the logical sense. And in the other sense, it's freedom, it's joy. There's no lane lines. It's swimming, and all of a sudden you look down, there's starfish and crabs and moon snails, and you get to be in the water in this like, amazing aquarium, swimming with all of that. And it's pretty awesome.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Amy Heape
Swim Coach))
I think it's one of the only places for myself that I'm not thinking of what I have to do next. I've seen grown women, older than me, revert back to childhood because you're just playing. Why would I ever not do this? How could I ever stop doing this? It's pretty magical.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Animation))
TEASE
((VO/NAT/SOT))
More after the break…
((Title))
Women Scuba Divers
((SOT))
((Maira Thomas
Scuba Diving Instructor))
Some people say that it’s very challenging for women to carry tanks, and that’s why we don’t get hired at dive shops a lot, but this is how you do it.
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((SOCIAL MEDIA PKG.))
((TITLE)) FREEDOM ON WHEELS
((TRT: 01:00))
((Original Reporter/Camera/Producer: Genia Dulot))
((Social Media Producer/Editor: Lisa Vohra))
((Blurb: Meet Tracie, a woman who embraces her wheelchair as a source of liberation.))
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Tracie Garacochea
Adaptive Skateboarder))
Because you have a wheelchair doesn’t mean you can’t do an extreme sport.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Tracie Garacochea
Adaptive Skateboarder))
I kept on having vertigo and things would happen, like my hands started not functioning well and I was doing sculpture and I couldn’t hold the tools and I was dropping them on my feet and those are really sharp.
((Tracie Garacochea
Adaptive Skateboarder))
Finally, I am diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. So the lady whose chair I tried said to me, “A wheelchair is just a tool.” And that made sense to me.
((Tracie Garacochea
Adaptive Skateboarder))
A wheelchair improved the quality of my life and it gave me a sport. It’s just, that moment was one of the best in my life.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Tracie Garacochea
Adaptive Skateboarder))
I just want people to see when I am out there, that this is possible. And it’s possible at 17. It’s possible at 20. It’s possible at 30. And darn it, it’s possible at 60.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Tracie Garacochea
Adaptive Skateboarder))
It feels like you are flying.
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((TITLE)) Women Scuba Divers
((TRT: 06:30))
((Reporter/Camera/Editor/Producer: Genia Dulot))
((Map: Coiba National Park, Panama))
((Main characters: 1 female; 0 male))
((Sub characters: 4 female; 0 male))
((Blurb: A scuba diving instructor Maira Thomas wanted to involve more women in the sport, so several years ago she started ScubaMAR Maids, an online community of women, who travel and dive together. We join them in their trip to Panama.))
((NATS))
((Maira Thomas
Scuba Diving Instructor))
Some people say that it’s very challenging for women to carry tanks, and that’s why we don’t get hired at dive shops a lot, but this is how you do it. You put one on your shoulder and you just bring the other one along with you. Let’s go diving.
Well, I started diving 2008, so I would say 2009 and [20]10 is when I was a divemaster. There were not a lot of female instructors or divemasters working.
((Maira Thomas
Scuba Diving Instructor))
We just need to start thinking a little bit more about how to teach women, you know, how to incorporate some of the knowledge and skills specifically to women.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Maira Thomas
Scuba Diving Instructor))
Raise your hand whoever thinks that navigation is a challenge. Okay, good. For us women, we have trouble [with] navigation in general. It’s harder to understand underwater navigation. And the navigation in the ocean requires a little more awareness and multitasking, which we're great at, you know. Women, naturally, we're great at multitasking and we're very aware of our surroundings.
((Maira Thomas
Scuba Diving Instructor))
Spend more time on the skills that may be more difficult to them, and also be a little bit more caring, because I feel like women need a little bit more care, and that is like an emotional connection that you make. And I feel like that’s a better learning experience.
((NATS))
((Maira Thomas
Scuba Diving Instructor))
This is it. We’re going to be diving Buffet. So Buffet is the name of the dive site because we have so many different types of fish, which makes it a lot of fun.
((Maira Thomas
Scuba Diving Instructor))
Ready?
((Women divers))
Ready.
((Maira Thomas
Scuba Diving Instructor))
Let’s do it.
((NATS))
((Maira Thomas
Scuba Diving Instructor))
I started the business. It's called Mar Hosted Trips. M-A-R Hosted trips. So, M-A-R is my initials, and it also means ocean in Spanish. It started because I was working in Dallas in a dive shop, and I realized there was a lot of females, solo females, that came to the shop asking for equipment, and they all had the same story. Everybody was like, "I don't have anybody to go diving with.", "I love scuba diving, but my friends don't dive.", "I'm scared to go by myself." I invited everyone that I knew, and I had 80, 80 people in the community, and I was pretty happy with that. Yeah. Now, we're at 4,500.
((NATS))
((Stephanie Benjamin
Scuba Diver))
I’ve been a police officer for about 12 years. My job is so stressful. After a while, you know, my stress level is here, and I have to manage that somehow. And when I come on these trips, scuba diving is so calming. Being in the ocean is so chill. You just go down there. You hang out with a turtle. You breathe. You don’t have to talk to anybody. You’re like, "Wow, look at all these fishes." It's like traveling to Mars. It's wild. It's wild. Like, I'm with a shark. There's nothing better than that.
((NATS))
((Lauren Green
Scuba Diver))
When people meet me in public. So, I was at a baby shower a couple weeks ago, and my cousin introduced me to a young lady, and she was surprised that I was a Black diver but also a woman diver as well. And she’s like, "This is rare. I’ve never met a Black woman scubadiver." So that’s always a good feeling. I’m a building substitute at a school, at an elementary school. And so the kids, it’s a really good conversation starter for them. My favorite thing is like, “Did you get eaten by a shark?” And I was like, "I’m standing right here. Obviously, I am still alive."
((NATS))
((Lauren Green
Scuba Diver))
I think for me, the opportunity to show other young Black women, like, "Hey, I'm diving. I'm a Black woman that dives. You could do this too." Like, "Don’t be afraid." It’s a very male dominated industry. And so I want them to know that you can do the same thing. All you have to do is to put in the work, put in the time, obtain the knowledge, but not to be afraid to do something that is not typical for your community.
((NATS))
((Gayle Cole
Scuba Diver))
I’m 61. I got certified in February of 2022, so not very long ago. I have to really work to stay in shape because you have to be fit to dive. You have to be able to climb back on a boat, sometimes in six-foot seas with 50 pounds on your back. And I’ve had to do that.
((NATS))
((Gayle Cole
Scuba Diver))
I believe, with my whole heart, that how old you are is chronological and you can’t change the year that you were born. “Old” is psychological. And in my head, I am about 35 [years old]. So, I could be diving for another 35 years.
((NATS))
((Maira Thomas
Scuba Diving Instructor))
I think it empowers them a lot. I feel when we’re together, I feel like we’re stronger together. We connect. We bond. And I feel like female communities, not only scuba diving, scuba diving is our passion, that’s what gets us together, but the female communities, I think, are very important.
((NATS))
((Maira Thomas
Scuba Diving Instructor))
That’s why my logo is pink, because it’s a color that tells you that it’s okay to be a woman, you know. You can wear pink proudly. You can be a woman and be a bad ass, basically.
((NATS))
((Animation))
((PKG)) ANTARCTICA’S THWAITES “DOOMSDAY” GLACIER
((TRT: 09:08))
((Reporter/Camera: Aaron Fedor))
((Producer: Kathleen McLaughlin))
((Editor: Kyle Dubiel))
((Map: State College, Pennsylvania, Antarctica))
((Main characters: 0 female; 2 male))
((Sub characters: 1 female; 3 male))
((Blurb: A glaciologist explains the danger of global warming’s effect on Thwaites Glacier, with the increased melting from the glacier causing sea level rise across the globe.))
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Sridhar Anandakrishnan
Glaciologist, Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
Antarctica is like no other place on the planet. It is unique. It’s just this vast expanse of snow and ice and mountains and glaciers and ocean. It's otherworldly. It's so separated from the rest of the world, and yet it's so important to the rest of the world. And I just love that combination of things, of that pristine isolation and remoteness attached to its importance in the global system. It's the landmass and ice mass that surrounds the South Pole. It's as large as basically as large as North America. And it is not the property or territory of any country. About 60 years ago, a lot of nations came together and said,
((Courtesy: Josh Rowe))
((Sridhar Anandakrishnan
Glaciologist, Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
“Hey, let's keep Antarctica as a place for scientific research, as a place without a military on it, without any disputes between nations.”
And that's worked remarkably well. It's something called the Antarctic Treaty. But I think it's really one of the most remarkable examples of international cooperation, where people are coming together to study the planet, to share their knowledge, and to be good neighbors. We all help each other down there.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Sridhar Anandakrishnan
Glaciologist, Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
What I do is I study the ice. So, it is at the South Pole. It's cold year-round, and so the continent is just covered by this huge layer of ice glaciers, what we call an ice sheet, something that just covers the entire continent. I'm a glaciologist. I study glaciers. That's my area of specialization.
((Courtesy: Josh Rowe))
((Sridhar Anandakrishnan
Glaciologist, Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
And so the reason I go to Antarctica is to find out how big the glacier is, the ice sheet, the thing that covers the entire continent, how thick it is, what its properties are, how fast the ice is flowing. What happens in Antarctica doesn't stay in Antarctica. It spreads all around the globe.
((NATS))
((Sridhar Anandakrishnan
Glaciologist, Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
Over the next 50 to a hundred years, Antarctica is going to raise sea level around the globe, which is going to affect a lot of people in coastal areas. The two places that water really lives on this globe is the oceans and Antarctica. The form of water in Antarctica is ice. So what happens is, every year, water is transferred from the ocean to Antarctica in the form of snowfall, evaporation from the ocean, and snowfall in Antarctica. And then, Antarctica returns water to the ocean when these glaciers break up and melt and icebergs form. If that cycle is such that Antarctica is dumping more and more and more ice and water into the oceans, then the oceans start to rise. And they don't just rise right around Antarctica, they rise around the globe.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Sridhar Anandakrishnan
Glaciologist, Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
So, the Thwaites Glacier is a large, one of the largest glaciers in Antarctica. When we fly out there, and the airplane lands in the middle of Thwaites Glacier, and then the airplane takes off, when you're standing there and you look all around 360 degrees, you don't see anything. It’s…there's no trees, there's no houses, there's no roads, there's no cities, and the land has some undulations to it. There's some mountains in the distance, but there's no human footprint, and all you see is just a big snow field that stretches out to infinity in all directions. And if the time of year is correct, there might not be a human being for 500 miles or a thousand miles in any direction. So you are quite isolated out there.
((Courtesy: Josh Rowe))
((Sridhar Anandakrishnan
Glaciologist, Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
We're very particularly interested in it because a lot of our models and some of our observations seem to show that it's melting faster and faster and it's returning water faster and faster.
And some of the models show that it has the possibility of adding something like two feet of about 60 centimeters, two feet of global sea level rise. And the question we have is, is that going to happen over 50 years or 500 years?
((Sridhar Anandakrishnan
Glaciologist and geophysicist, Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
And you have to remember when I say two feet of sea level rise, that's around the globe, and that's an enormous amount of water out of this one glacier in Antarctica, and there's hundreds of glaciers in Antarctica.
((Courtesy: Josh Rowe))
((Sridhar Anandakrishnan
Glaciologist and geophysicist, Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
So understanding Thwaites will give us a handle on how worried we should be about the potential for sea level rise in the next 50 years.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Byron Parizek
Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
Like most models, we can sit there and say, “Well, there are changes in the system and they might have slow, predictable changes in the ice.” On the flip side, you can also have very rapid changes.
((Byron Parizek
Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
The reason why we talk about Thwaites as a doomsday glacier is because of its geometry, right? So, it's sitting on a bed. It's thicker and thicker as you move inland. And so dynamically, what that implies is that the thicker you are at the grounding line where you go from grounded ice to floating ice, the faster the outflux is. And so, if you move that grounding line back, you're going to end up flushing ice out more readily to the ocean and changing sea level rapidly.
((NATS))
((Courtesy: Sridhar Anandakrishnan))
((Speaker 1))
You got it?
((Speaker 2))
Got it.
((Speaker 3))
Got it.
((Speaker 2))
Okay.
((Speaker 1))
That’s a load.
((Speaker 3))
Sweet.
((Speaker 2))
That's everything?
((Sridhar Anandakrishnan
Glaciologist and geophysicist, Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
The reason why the term ‘Doomsday Glacier’ is not one that I really like is that it implies there's nothing to be done. I think that is one of the most insidious and dangerous attitudes that we can have that we are doomed, that there is no turning back, that there's nothing to be done. There are an enormous number of things that we can do, both as a society, and to a lesser extent as individuals. I think the right way to do this is to approach this as a community, as a government, as a nation, and then the many nations around the globe.
The human cause of climate change is from CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. We burn gasoline in our cars. We burn diesel in our power plants, all of that. The waste product from that is carbon dioxide. We produce about a pound of carbon dioxide for every mile that we drive down the road.
((Sridhar Anandakrishnan
Glaciologist and geophysicist, Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
And I think that we are at a moment when the transition from carbon dioxide-based fossil fuel power systems to renewables like solar panels and wind, is not just doable. It's actually the right thing to do. It's cheaper to put up solar panels and wind to produce energy than it is to build a new power plant. It's cleaner. It's going to make more jobs for people. It's going to really transform our society. But we have to have the will and the energy and the vision to go down that road.
((Courtesy: Sridhar Anandakrishnan))
((Sridhar Anandakrishnan
Glaciologist and geophysicist, Professor, Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences))
We can and we must work together as a society to undo, to unwind the effects that we have had on this globe that is causing the warming. And I think we can do that. I think we have all the resources in place. The technology is there. The money is to be made. People can make money off of this transition. All we need is the will.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Animation))
((PKG)) NATURE: Washington Park Arboretum
((TRT: 2:01))
((Reporter: Gabrielle Weiss))
((Camera/Editor/Producer: Gabrielle Weiss))
((Location: Seattle, Washington))
((Description: The Washington Park Arboretum is an outdoor museum specializing in trees or woody plants. It's 230 acre park is in the heart of bustling Seattle, Washington and boasts over 40,000 plants from around the world.))
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