Big Trees Little Trees

Finally rain. Lots and lots of rain.  We opted out of the highway structure and ventured into the heart of Tacoma on secondary roads.  It was a lot quicker.


Our first stop was the Tacoma Museum of Art.  Small, but very friendly.  They featured local artists which is always interesting.  My personal fav was a moose head - life size - made out of beads and jewelry.  They have a cool fundraising idea going on too - a giant dog made out of corrugated cardboard, giant like 9 ft, and they ask for donations for feeding the dog.  (Expect ideas when I get back.)


There was also a show of prints / printmaking that was kind of neat too.  Lots of woodcuts.  It's that kind of place.  The original idea was then to walk to the Tacoma Glass Museum, but as it was POURING, that was out of the question.  As it turns out - Tacoma really isn't THAT big.  We drove the few blocks none the less.


The Glass Museum was also pretty cool.  They have a huge stadium viewing area where they explain what they're doing and crew works on glass projects.  I had been skeptical to walk in - in my mind, you've seen one glass blower you've seen them all, but it was pretty cool after all.  Their guest artist at the moment is a woman, that neat too.  And in the background above the pit where they work they run a video telling about one of the museums projects:  kid designs turned into blown glass pieces.  That was pretty cool too.  In another part of the museum they have them on display.


Of course, Chihuly is well represented and there is a glass bridge (a slight misnomer) here too.  The bridge in fact is a normal walking bridge, but C. has donated several dozen vases that are on display in a wall  and one of his exhibits where he puts all the glass shapes on the ceiling and you walk under it.


After a tea stop, we moved on to find the Bonsai Museum.  Ironic that last week we were looking at the biggest trees in the world and today we saw the smallest.  The down side was that it was an outdoor display and it was pouring.  The upside, the nice lade at the desk, lent us an umbrella and because of the rain the colors on the trees were vibrant.  The "park" was about an acre with about 200 trees on display.  Even in the rain, it was very, very cool.


We are retiring early tonight, as we are quite tired.  I heard Obama was in town (Seattle) yesterday, but he didn't call and we didn't meet him.  We had thought about calling a friend of M's sister (he's one of the guys who rights the library cartoon?)  But we are exhausted and not coherent.  Thus, I hope this makes sense, but am going to head to sleep sooner than not.  We also can't get the wifi to work, so I don't want to be on the public computers all that long.


Tomorrow the plan is to head north out on the peninsula.  Again we have a reservation, though it might be a "rainbow" hotel situation akin to camping.  I'm sufficiently nervous enough about it, that it should be okay.  We'll see...