Magnificence in the Lower 48: Seattle and Gig Harbor, WA

Phew! What an experience Alaska was. The dreams have finally stopped. I think because I caught up with all the posts about Alaska, my mind could rest. I sure miss the wildness of it all, and the constant alertness for wildlife. But to be fair, our experiences in Gig Harbor and Seattle were pretty darn stimulating as well.

Mt. Rainier from Gig Harbor

Our good friends Nick and Cindy were kind enough to pick us up at the airport and once again welcome us in their wonderful home for a few days in Gig Harbor before we moved on. We really appreciated the time to rest and catch up with them and ourselves, plus we had so much fun and felt so comfortable with them and in their home. Cindy cooked some incredible meals for us while we were there; it was a relief to have home cooking again after all that restaurant food. We are so grateful for their friendship and generosity, and look forward to hanging out with them again in Florida, or sooner!

At Nick and Cindy's suggestions we took the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle one day to hang out downtown and to see the Chihuly exhibit at the Seattle Center "under" the Space Needle. What a great recommendation.

Bremerton (above) is one of our favorite places to observe marine life.  Under the marina is home to multiple varieties of invertebrate sea creatures. Below you can see different kinds of sea anenomes and crustaceans clinging to the sides of the floating dock. 

We also saw sea stars, jelly fish, and this cute little guy swimming around. Maybe it was 5 inches long.  I'd call it a sea taco, but I think it's a nudibranch. Flabellina trephina would be my uneducated guess. (Who knew there was a Sea Slug Forum? You can find anything online.)

I'm usually more than camera shy, but Rick managed to get a shot of me enjoying the ferry ride and the beautiful weather we had for it.

As we docked in Seattle, another ferry just like ours was pulling out.

Although we've been to Seattle before, we haven't really given it enough of our time. We aren't so comfortable in cities, and tend to avoid them. But with directions and suggestions from Nick and Cindy, we felt more confident. Walking from the ferry to the Space Needle was a perfect way to see some of the highlights of the city.

Passing through Pikes Place Market is a sensory extravaganza - in good and bad ways.

In case you didn't know, or couldn't guess - this is the Space Needle

The Space Needle is just one of the most visible components of the Seattle Center, a campus of museums and other attractions, originally constructed for the 1962 World's Fair.  Chihuly Garden and Glass is one of the permanent exhibits on the campus. 

Most readers will have some familiarity with Dale Chihly's work, as he is one of the most prolific and well placed artists in the USA. His works are often featured in botanical gardens, arranged  dramatically among the plant life, mimicking and complementing their organic forms.

In this collection, much of Chihuly's work is displayed chronologically in more a traditional gallery setting, surrounded by black walls and strategically lighted to emphasize color and shape.  The first gallery is the Glass Forest, from the 1970s.

The next room also features Chihuly's personal collection of Native American baskets and trade blankets, the inspirations for his works called Cylinders (two photos below) placed strategically in the same space.

The next collection, the Sea Life Room was one of my favorites, and echoed our experience earlier in the day in Bremerton. Here were Chihuly's vessels topped with black and gold sea life forms such as these turtles and octopi. 

After being in the somewhat understated black and gold of the Sea Life Room, the colors and dynamics of the next room were almost mind blowing. There was a total traffic jam at the entry way, with people taking pictures or just being silently stunned by their first sight of the presentation.  I hope you can see why the Mille Fiori is the show stopper.

It kind of reminds me of Pikes Place Market, now that I look back on it. The next room had two wooden boats in it, one filled with glass spheres called Niijima Floats and the other with what Chihuly calls Ikebana Forms, inspired by Japanese flower arrangement. Like so many of his works, the wooden boats reflect images of Chihuly's childhood home in Puget Sound.

The next gallery displayed about five of Chihuly's Chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. This one is in my favorite color.

On to the room holding some of his Persian Forms. Elsewhere they were displayed in smaller, flatter forms en masse in a glass ceiling like this... 

...but sometimes the Persian Forms are these very large containers. 

The apogee of the exhibit was the Glasshouse, right below the Space Needle.

Chihully loved glass conservatories, and has exhibited his works in many. Here he designed his own to house one of his grand "exotic plants."

We exited the Glasshouse into the gardens, and strolled through a more dense and finely integrated version of the Chihuly garden displays we have seen elsewhere. Unlike others, this garden was designed and created to permanently compliment his work, rather than to simply display it temporarily, resulting in a more dense and integrated effect. 

A large sunburst centerpiece of the garden:

What a beautiful day. It seemed to be woven together with some kind of grand aesthetic intention, from the abundant sea life in Bremerton to the flowing organic forms of Chihuly; from the colorful and exuberant sensory experience of Pikes Place to the magnificent intensity of Mille Fiori.

Was it art reflecting life, or life reflecting art?

San Francisco

For one week we lived in Morgan Hill, a far southern suburb of San Francisco, or maybe more accurately, San Jose. It is still an agricultural valley, but slipping fast into suburban mall-sprawl. I like to look for RV parks in these far suburbs so we are close enough to visit the city but far enough to be surrounded by agricultural or natural areas. There often seems to be an outlet mall nearby, as there is nearby in Gilroy. I think outlet malls are now being built in these far suburbs (like Aurora, IL) with the anticipation that they will soon be surrounded by residential areas. There is one in Vacaville too, where we are living this week, northeast of San Francisco, almost to Sacramento. I don't need to post a picture of an outlet mall, you know what those look like.

I should share that over 30 years ago I lived in Berkeley for a couple of years, while being a dancer (and a produce clerk and housecleaner). During that time I had a boyfriend with a motorcycle and we traveled around the area a bit: Yosemite, Napa, Marin, Halfmoon Bay. The whole area has change dramatically in many ways. The dot.com era and the post-dot.com technology boom have transformed the area south of SF into the Silicon Valley of course. (Both the Apple and Google campuses are here.) And all the little towns around SF are now suburbs. So as I'm touring the area I can't help but compare it to "how it used to be." Enough said.

From Morgan Hill we traveled to the coast and to the Big Basin Redwoods (see previous post). We also took a day to visit San Francisco. I know, a day is too short to do San Francisco justice, but I'm just not wild about cities, even one as beautiful as SF. But our one day was so lovely; we even had sun for a good part of it.

We drove up Rt. 1 to get there, passing by lots of cliffy beaches and less agriculture than I expected.

Once in SF we drove through the city and across the Golden Gate Bridge, stopping on the north side to look back.

Spent a little time in Sausalito.

Back across the bridge to the Presidio and Crissy Beach so Kona could have a swim. Great view of the bridge.

Dinner at Scomas, right out on Fishermans' Wharf. If you are there for lunch you can watch the fishing boats come in and out. They have their own fish processing room right across these dock with big windows so you can also watch them take in and process the fish (which we didn't see either because we were there for supper). Rick had their famous clam chowder and scallops. I had fresh dungeness crab cakes and lamb. The meal was big enough to bring half home for lunch another day.

Fisherman's wharf is a noisy, touristy place with endless T-shirt stores and more italian seafood establishments than you can shake a fish at. We finished the long day with a loop on the Embarcadero and around the eastern side of the city and south, back home to Morgan Hill.

Finally Dancing!

One of our intentions, the one that inspired the name of this blog, was to find contra dances across the country as we traveled. (See the page in the right hand column of the blog if you're unfamiliar with contra dancing.) Well, in reality they have been few and far between. As hard as it is for us to believe, there are not contra dances everywhere!  Dancing was especially dry in Montana, South Dakota and Utah. Many dances also take the summer off.

So, down in Southern California we finally started to run into some dances again. We found one in Brentwood, near LA, and then another in San Diego. Now, up here in and around San Francisco there is a thriving contra dance community. On Saturday night we danced in Palo Alto, with caller Jean Corrindo and dynamic music by the Rosin Doctors.

Then on Sunday afternoon we attended a lively dance in Hayward with Susan Kendig (from Portland, OR) calling and Triangularity (from Seattle) providing the music. Great crowd, friendly people and quite a feast of snacks at the break. Thanks to Michael and Lenore (yes, the first one I've ever met at a contra dance) for your welcomes and wealth of information about local dances up the west coast.

As we head north through California and on to the coasts of Oregon and Washington we expect to run into more dances along the way, especially in Portland and Seattle. So we are really dancing across the country now. Or maybe up the county.

People People People

Our visit here in Los Angeles is so different from the comparative social isolation we've been living in for the last six months. Not only are we surrounded by people in this urban and suburban environment, but we are also having company or visiting friends almost every day. We are staying at Eastshore RV Park, part of the county park system, right next to Frank Bonelli Park, overlooking Puddingstone Reservoir and the San Gabriel Mountains (which have been snow covered for the past few days). It's a quiet natural oasis in the urban sprawl of LA.  We've seen many hawks, bald eagles, humming birds, hundreds of bunnies at night and even a road runner.

My son Mark is here with us for the holidays. It's so wonderful to spend time with him. We're managing just fine with three people in the RV. Here's a picture of Mark in the gardens of the Getty Museum in LA.

I took hundreds of photos at the Getty - it's a photographer's dream. Here's a selection of my favorites:

(Mr. & Mrs. Cactus visit the Getty)

The gardens around the Getty are hummingbird heaven.

Guess who?

Our very first night here we went to a contra dance in Santa Monica (see page link at the right for an explanation of contra dancing). Our first since we started our adventure six months ago! We hoped to be doing much more dancing, but this is the first we have found that is in the same place we are at the same time. Rick and I danced together a lot, and felt right at home.

I also had a great visit with Hal, a friend of mine from about 30 years ago. (Really hard to believe it was that long ago.) When I taught at a private school in Florida he was a student there. Now he's in LA working in the film industry. 

On Sunday we took a Melting Pot Tasting Tour of Old Pasadena, led by our friend Kendall Davis. What a wonderful way to learn about a city! We walked around for about 3.5 hours, stopping in at various restaurants, a soap shop, a tea shop, a chocolatier and an olive oil store, all the while getting historical and local interest information from our guide. The food was varied and delicious, and the frequent stops made the time fly by. It's something I'd recommend to everyone.

Last night we had dinner with old friends of Rick's from camp Elektor. The whole Davis family gathered for an delightful, aromatic and rich Moroccan meal prepared by Summer and her husband Youssef. We felt very privileged to be part of their close, loving community for an evening. 

Today Mark is going back to the Davis's to do a little computer work, and I'm driving to Malibu for lunch with my old friend Wendy, from Keene, NH, during my Antioch years.  It'll be my first time in Malibu. Mark's childhood friend, Lars, who also lives in LA, will be driving him back here and we'll have our second visit with Lars. 

Los Angeles has just been a whirlwind of visiting and driving, driving, driving, and I'm ready for a little down time. Tomorrow Ms. Subaru gets her windshield replaced and we prepare to travel again.  We'll be moving south to a park east of San Diego, called Santee Lakes, another county park. I hope the pace will be a little slower there.

Thanksgiving in Las Vegas

This was a very unconventional Thanksgiving. We are staying at the RV park at Lake Mead, and when the Big Holiday came along we headed for the Big City for something unusual. I used to hate Las Vegas, just on principle really, (the sickness of gambling, the excessive waste of money, the craziness of using all this water in the middle of the desert, etc, etc...) as I have had only minimal exposure.

The first time I was in Las Vegas was thirty some odd years ago, and there were just a few casinos - I remember the Flamingo, and Circus Circus had just been built. There was really nothing much more than the strip in the dessert.  Then Rick and I visited it again in 2010 in our Cruise America mini-RV. We had a lot of trouble finding parking, and we just went to see the fountain at Bellagio. Then I had the opportunity to spend a few hours there in October, waiting for a plane, and drove around, getting more familiar with it, and I began to get a different feeling.  I began to see it as a huge adult amusement park, like Disney World. If it weren't for the gambling, I think I'd be able to embrace it more easily. Gambling is just such a wasteful addictive thing.

So this time we went to see Cirque du Soliel's Ka at the MGM, and had a lovely dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Great show, no lines for dinner, and a perfect table. Got an eyeful of the shops at the Forum, which was enough.

THEN, I got my Christmas present! Rick surprised me by arranging with Mark, my son, to have him visit us right now!  He drove out to Arizona with a friend, and we just had to go pick him up. Couldn't ask for anything better. So now he's traveling with us for awhile until he moves on the the next thing.

We have visited with some old friends, and my cousin and her family here, as well as seeing some of the sights, like the Hoover Dam and Red Rock canyon. It has not really been a sight seeing visit, as we have also been dealing with some RV repairs, but here are a few shots of what we did see.

Lake Mead. The beaches we saw were dirt and rocks, rather than sand.
The water is nice and clear though. 

Another view of Lake Mead.

We've seen many Gambrel quail, a road runner, rabbits, one fox and lots of  grackles. We've heard and seen evidence of a couple of coyote packs very close by, but haven't seen any here yet.

A road runner roosting on my bike.

This is our second visit to Hoover Dam. It has lots of  beautiful aesthetic features that make it a really unique place to see.  

Intake towers and Lake Mead at Hoover Dam.

One of the grand sculptures at Hoover Dam.

The toes of this sculpture, that get rubbed for good luck, a lot.

The new bridge over the Colorado.

Sunrise from the RV.

Tomorrow we pack up and head for an overnight in Barstow. We hear it's the armpit of California. But the next day we'll be in San Dimas, just west of Los Angeles. Hope to see friends and family there during our two week stay.