Our day was devoted roughly equally to nature, all of it great, and art, not all of it so good….
We had a lovely breakfast at Ellen and Mike’s. Ellen and I also took all the dogs out for a stroll through the neighborhood. John and I packed up, and we headed over the bridge towards Washington. Our first stop there was the Mount Saint Helens Visitor Center. The National Park Service runs the actual eruption site, and the Parks people are notoriously hostile to dogs, so we knew we could not actually get close to the mountain itself. But we still had a nice view of the peak from there.
There was also a nice half mile or so hike around Silver Lake near the Visitor Center. This is a nice marsh and the interpretive materials were interesting. Not that the dogs were all that fascinated, I am sorry to say.
We continue on from there to the Monarch Contemporary Art Center and Sculpture Garden near Olympia. This is a pretty bizarre place, definitely off the beaten track. It consists of several acres of gardens, much of it weedy and overgrown, with lots of various bits of modern art scattered throughout it. Some of this seems like it is done by serious artists, and other things seem like they were done as therapy in a divorced women’s support group. We did find some things we liked there like this car door with a half of a guy waiting there.
Other things were a bit whimsical such as this installation below. It’s a “flower bed” – get it?
We thought that this was actually just an old recliner which had been dumped in the back until were came close and realized it was actually made of cement. Edie was a good girl and for once did not sit on the furniture.
From there we went on to Tacoma where we went to the Museum of Glass. John had been there about 10 years ago when it first opened and he was interested in coming back. When he was there before the place was packed. We arrived fairly late in the afternoon and it was pretty deserted. The building itself is interesting. It has broad public plazas on its roof which look down toward the water. There are a couple shallow pools as well, and one of them is always the site of an installation by a visiting artist.
There is not a whole lot of art in the galleries, nor is that the main attraction. Most people come to see the “hot box” where the staff of the museum and visiting artists produce works of art. Even I had to admit this was pretty fun.
The Museum of Glass is separated from the rest of downtown Tacoma by railroad tracks and roadway. Part of the Museum is the “Bridge of Glass” which links the two areas. In the picture below you can see the old Union Station on the far side by the railroad tracks. It is now a U. S. District Courthouse. Near it is the Museum of Washington History and the Tacoma campus of U-W.
The Bridge of Glass features the colorful work of Dale Chihuly.
We cruised around Tacoma a little after this looking in a park and finding an very attractive older nieghborhood. But from there it was time to press on to our stop for the night in Gig Harbor.
When I lived in Long Beach, Gertie, the older lady who lived across the street, moved to Gig Harbor to be with her daughter. Before she left, she showed me a pretty post card of the town with sailboats in the harbor and snowcapped Mt. Rainier in the background. I must say the postcard was absolutely accurate: this is exactly what you see when you come to Gig Harbor.
We had an adequate meal at a small cafe. When you have dogs with you, it’s not always easy to get a seat at a restaurant, even if they have an outdoor area, so you take what you can.
