Troll under the bridge

Under a bridge in Fremont, Washington
there lives a troll.







People come to climb on it.
Because "interaction with the troll is encouraged". 

This troll likes to crush cars.
That's a real volkswagen bug under there.

So people come.
To poke at his one hubcap eye.
Stick their arms in his nose.
Climb on his head.

He's a big troll, but not so scary.

Puget Sound

 Puget Sound was only ever just a...'sound'...to me.  It was something far away in a place I'd never been and didn't imagine to see.

Now its' a sight, and a memory.

I've ridden one of its ferries,
crossed some of its bridges,
and seen its sunsets.

It is a pretty part of the country.

Admiralty Head Light

The Admiralty Head lighthouse is one hundred and ten years old.  From 1903 it was lit for nineteen years before it was deactivated.

It's a pretty lighthouse on the Puget Sound where a friend took me to see some sights.

Climbing the stairs gives you a very nice sight indeed:  a view of the blue, blue sea.

Fort Casey

Looking over this grassy expanse toward the Puget Sound, you wouldn't think you were looking at massive military fortifications.

That's just what the enemy was supposed to think, too.
 Fort Casey was part of the plan to protect the western sea coast from invasion. It would have worked if airplanes weren't invented.

Today it's a huge park where people have picnics, fly kites and climb on the aging structures once meant to protect us.
I suppose an invasion by sea isn't so likely anyway.

Ferry to Whidbey Island

"Take a ferry to an island."
That was another piece of advice given to me when I asked about things to do in Washington.
And so I did.  I went to Whidbey Island on the Mukilteo ferry.

Parked with all the other cars...

...and on the 20 minute ride across the bay, there was just enough time to go out on deck to see the view.

Washington mountain vew

Wouldn't that be nice to see from your back patio every day? 

Pike Place

Whenever I asked someone what I should see or do while I was in Seattle, Pike Place was always on the list. 

Full of arts, history, produce and fish, it is a farmer's market unique to Seattle.

Seattle bamboo

Some Seattle public art...

Good color on a beautiful, sunny day in Seattle.

Seattle Space Needle

I went up in the Seattle Space Needle to see what I could see.

And the view was very pretty.

Washington showed me some nice weather--blue skies and no rain--so I'm sure I have a skewed impression of what it's like to live there.

From the tower, I could see far enough to spot Mount Rainier. 

I feel like I've seen everything, even a space ship...
but that's probably not accurate either.

Tacoma Narrows Bridge

While paying the toll to cross the bridge over the Tacoma Puget Sound, my friend asked the toll-taker about the history of the bridge. 

My realization:  I know so little about Washington or Tacoma in context. 

Back in school when we learned about structural vibration and resonance, we watched a short clip of Galloping Gertie, a bridge that collapsed in a 1940 windstorm.  It was a dramatic bridge failure.

"I haven't had a question about that before," said the toll-taker.  I don't know much about the history, except that the one to the north there was built to replace Galloping Gertie, and this one here's been open about six years and I've worked here since then."
I nodded at the reference to the replaced bridge, but still did not connect it to my actual location.  The Tacoma Narrows Bridge today is two bridges--the one built in the 1950s to replace the collapsed bridge, and a second added in 2007 to help with traffic flow.

Galloping Gertie bridge's structural collapse was sort of Titanic-like.  Awe-inspiring man-made construction, first of its kind is a gigantic failure laying at the bottom of a body of water. 
When I saw the video in high school, the state of Washington and its bridges were so far away, and the Mackinaw bridge was built structurally sound because of the engineering lessons learned--all was still right with the world (read:  me and any bridge I might cross over were safe).
I never expected to find myself actually on the Tacoma Narrows bridge that had replaced the most epic bridge failure ever captured on film. 
Even when I actually drove over it, I still did not realize where I was or connect it to it's historical context.

 A bridge in Washington collapsed only a few days before I arrived in the state.
And I drove over Galloping Gertie.

The things you never imagined you would connect to your own life outside of science class...wild.

Stonehenge...ish...

Some of the gigantic cement structures around the Chambers Bay park are sort of mysterious, making a person think of Stonehenge and what that ancient place was used for.

Since it's history is much shorter, the Chambers Bay mystery is much easier solved.  The golf course and park were, once upon a time, a sand and gravel quarry.
I even found evidence of it written on this partial wall.   

The area was used as a quarry as far back as when the Steilacoom Indian Tribe and the first European settlers lived there almost two hundred years ago. The ice flows and glaciers that moved through the Puget Sound have created gravel and multi-level soil deposits, making it an ideal place for quarrying.



The land has also been used as a lumber company and a railroad center.  A little bit of its history and some photos of what it used to look like can be found on the golf site's web page.

That it used to be a quarry was also ideal for the golf course when the land was transformed into a park, because they got to move the dirt and sand around to sculpt the golf course and lookout area.
What they chose to leave behind, though, is interesting.  Maybe in another thousand years these big pillars in the middle of a park will bring up as many questions as Stonehenge.

Chambers Bay

I was sitting in an Indian restaurant in Tacoma, Washington, with a new friend who asked the waitress where her favorite place to go to see a good view over the bay was.
"Chambers Bay," the waitress answered enthusiastically, giving us first a story about how much her boyfriend also loved the location then the directions to get there.

She was right, that waitress.  Chambers Bay has a lovely sunset view.

It sure is pretty, wouldn't you agree?

I think the waitress earned her tip...even if she didn't know as much about Indian food as I do.