The Amazing Mt

We are in Bellingham.  It's a small city, but I kind of like it, though it does have an end of the universe quality.  And it does also feel like it's in the woods.  The cool thing is all day we have been able to see Mt. Baker.  a 10k elevation Mt so, this is not surprising.  But to see a snow cap while we drive around in 80+ degree weather is wild.

We're like new parents taking pictures of the silly thing at every turn.  Oh look, the mt's above the clouds.  Hey look this is a different angle.  Is it closer now?  There is a less flat and big sky here though and the sound is just not ocean enough.

We started the day in La Connor, a sweet little town known for it's professional flower farm.  Apparently they do a lot of tulips, so April is stunning.  Even with out this, it's a very pretty farm area.  Downtown has many tourist galleries that we wandered while waiting for the two local museums to open.

The first one we visited was a quilt and textile museum located in an old Victorian house.  The local collection was old quilts made by the original home owner, but the town has some relationship with a community in Japan.  Part of this relationship involved them sending quilts after the tsunami.  And somehow - the story right now is a bit unclear to me, they have Japanese quilters who come here and curate Japanese quilts.  They were phenomenal.  They were both gorgeous and simplistic.  They also had a woman who took old traditional work clothes and made miniature jackets to commemorate the past.  They too were very, very cool.  Makes me have lots of ideas to start sewing.

From there we went to the Pacific NW Museum of Art.  This sounds more grand  than it was.  There was basically four rooms, 3 with visiting artists and one with local permanent collection. The visiting people weren't interesting to me.  Brown water color-y pictures, blown glass that was inspired by organs (ick) and mandalas made from straws (pretty) and well, trash -  plastic milk tops and tea bag labels etc.  Not my thing.  The local art was better, though also not inspiring, like the quilts.  It feels like a very brown corner of the world.

Still it was a nice morning plus - browsing junk and high end art (it's pretty similar everywhere, but still) and these two stops. We went past the Library in town too - they have a thrift store in which they support themselves.  I have ideas!

Eventually we waved to our Mt and headed further north - the Mt came with.  After the booking.com situation, we have been a little gun shy, so we found the motel.  It was right off the exit not far from the airport.  We didn't see it however, and turned left not right and so, we got a really good tour of the airport.  But eventually we figured it out and the hotel DID have the reservation.

All being well, we headed into the city.  It's a nice city.  There was a beer festival going on, but we passed and instead went to the Whatcom Art Museum.  The earlier one was better.  This one had some name prints (Haring, Lichtenstein, Close) interesting Warhols, but all in all not that exciting,.  Their special show was 1940-50 movie poster prints (The day the earth stood still, westerns, etc.).  I thought we'd like it a lot, but.. it did little for us.  We did find a really great Greek restaurant for dinner.  We are seriously considering going back tomorrow.

We're not sure what we're doing tomorrow or Tues, but I'm sure we'll find something.  Fairhaven is in the running (and thanks CK for the warning!!!)  I am ready to be home though.