Monthly Archives: April 2015

Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden

17269785011_14d7690b37_oThe lovely Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden is only about 30 minutes from my house, but I hadn’t heard about it until today. It is a lovely 10 acre botanical garden which primarily features northwest flora. There is also a small Japanese Garden, a water feature and benches.  Close to the SeaTac runway, there were many passenger planes overhead, but it just seemed like another interesting part of the garden. Though I was worried about rain, it turned into a lovely day. My favorite part, beside the hummingbird, was the amazing gate! More info can be found here.

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Olmstead Place State Park

IMG_3031On my way back from visiting dear daughter, I stopped at Olmstead Place State Park outside of Ellensburg (921 Ferguson Road, Ellensburg, WA 98926). I was pretty excited to be able to use my Discover Pass, but I didn’t spend too much time since I was worried (rightfully so) about snow on the Pass. The park has 217 acres and plenty of pioneer artifacts. Perhaps my favorite part was the red winged blackbirds. There was an entire flock of them on the overhead wires. More information can be found here.

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Leonard Barn, Pullman

Barn

While visiting dear daughter over Spring Break, I had a rare day to myself and decided to go find the historic Leonard barn. So I stopped at the WSU visitor center and they told me where it is (they were so nice). I drove a long ways on a kind of paved road and missed it, but ended up in Moscow, ID. While there I asked their visitor center where it was. They were really nice too. After spending some quality time in Moscow, I went back on the long, kind of paved road and this time I actually found the barn! I would have guess that it was in Pullman or unincorporated Whitman County, but documentation shows it in Colfax.

The Leonard Barn, is located on Old Moscow Road. It was built in 1917 and restored in 2001. Originally built to house cows, horses, hay and grain, and the owner was a farmer/educator.  The restoration included replacing the cupola that was blown off during a windstorm. The barn isn’t actually round, but instead it is a twelve sided polygon. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 and the nomination form is here.

 

Northwest Museum, Spokane

IMG_2918While visiting Dear Daughter over my Spring Break we took a day trip up to Spokane to visit the Northwest Museum. It was really a lovely museum with a very interesting exhibit – 100 Stories – A Centennial Exhibition. The whimsical art around the grounds made us smile. The photos include Spokane Falls which we visited afterwards and the evening sky around Pullman.

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Yellow Church Cafe in Ellensburg

16941136686_aed78ba66c_kDrive to visit dear daughter, I stopped for lunch in Ellensburg and used Yelp to discover the Yellow Church Cafe at 111 South Pearl. Prior to being a cafe, the building was actually the Good Hope Lutheran Church for 40 years (sold in 1967) and there were several other uses. The Yellow House Cafe began in 1997 and the current owner took over in 2014. Beside the welcoming setting, the main star of the meal was the homemade bread of my BLT sandwich.

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Daiso, Bellevue

16230445183_202898c7be_kI’ve been going to Crossroads Mall in Bellevue for years, decades even, but I hadn’t realized that they have a Daiso Store. My only defense is that it has an exterior entrance. It is like a dollar store with everything being the same price (a little more than a dollar). I sent about $20 and walked away with a bunch of fairly useful stuff. There is a nice mural on the exterior wall.

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Des Moines Creek and Marina

Man and fishA while back while we were having that string of lovely weekends, dear husband and I were exploring and came upon the Des Moines Marina and Creek. It is a lovely area with a marine (you might have guessed), a large parking lot, some public art (including a way cool mural) and to the north end trails and beach. The Fish/man in the mural is also a statue elsewhere in Des Moines.

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