Author Archives: admin

Trail of Shadows

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Today was too lovely to stay inside or even in town, so I grabbed dear daughter and we went to Mt. Rainier to take a stroll on Trail of Shadows in the Longmire area of Mt. Rainier.  It is a short trail (.7 miles), but really lovely with views of open areas, Mt. Rainier, wooded areas and a pioneer cabin.  James Longmire settled in the area in the late 1800s and when he saw the mineral springs he built a spa to capitalize on them. The one photo below with the reddish mud is the remains of one of the Longmire Medical Springs. There is a sign near the springs that says “Please don’t drink this water. It can make you very sick!” Never crossed my mind that somebody would actually drink it!

 

 

Coldstone Creamery

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ColdstoneOriginally uploaded by Gexydaf

Coldstone Creamery at 2601 N. Pearl Street is one of those rare treats, but we had a great coupon and off we went. It was about 9:30 at night and they still had a pretty good business. Mostly couples, young and old. Dear daughter and I each got a small (called a ‘like it’). Mine was cheesecake (320 calories) with white chocolate chips and hers was birthday cake with sprinkles.

Coldstone’s website states that with their ice creams and mix-ins, they can create over 11 million creations! The first Coldstone opened in 1988 in Tempe, Arizona.

http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/index.html

Old Town Starbucks

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Old Town Starbucks

Originally uploaded by Gexydaf

What can I say? This is my 5th Starbucks since I’ve started this project. Sometimes I just need a quick new place that doesn’t require much research or many photos. Since most of us know what a Starbucks looks like, there is only an inside and outside shot. This particular Starbucks is located at 2112 North 30th Street Tacoma, WA 98403 in the Old Town area of Tacoma. It is pretty much a typical Starbucks, clean, friendly, reliable. The space is larger than I expected with a large room in the back. There is outside seating.

DQ – Grill & Chill

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There was a mutiny in our household today! We were driving home from a friends house and I was trying to think of a convenient, interesting place to stop for my new place of the day.  Dairy Queen yells my daughter and just like that we’re off to Dairy Queen! Fine, just fine, Dairy Queen it is.  This particular Dairy Queen is located at 2110 Mildred Street West, Tacoma.  The small chocolate dipped vanilla cone I ended up with had 330 calories, which was less than I would have guessed.

Per Wikipedia, the state with the most Dairy Queens is Texas, which makes sense since it is a large, often hot state. As of last year, there were more than 5,700 Dairy Queen locations in 19 countries. The legal name has been DQ since 2001. The parent company that owns DQ also owns Orange Julius.

There website is here: http://www.dairyqueen.com/us-en/

 

The Flower House on Vassault

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The flower house at 3725 Vassault Street always makes me smile. Year after year (except for 2009 because of illness) the owners of this house go all out with flowers, lots and lots of flowers. Duc Pham has created this amazing garden after leaving his native Vietnam in the 1970s. To read more, go to an article on the Tacoma News Tribune website and also an excellent blog entry (thanks for the referral Lisa!).

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/06/11/1701655/at-races-end-flower-power.html

http://www.msmusings.com/archive/134/Real%20floral.htm

 

Heidelberg Brewery

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The Heidelberg Brewery has been at 2120 South C Street in Tacoma under various names since 1900.  There is a most excellent history of the brewery located here http://www.brewerygems.com/columbia.htm and a reader would learn much from reading it.  I was interested to learn that the brewery was actually constructed over an artesian well. Also of interest was that during prohibition, the brewery made soft drinks and a non-alcoholic near-beer called “Colo”. The brewery closed its doors in 1979 and was vacant for many years and was slated for demolition when it caught on fire on July 7, 2011.  As you can see from the photos, at least part of the site is currently being cleared.

 

 

The Giving Place

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The Giving Place has been in Freighthouse Square since 1997. Fifty percent of their net profits goes to local people in need. The store has gifts, snacks, cards, lottery tickets and much more.

January 2013 Update: I was sad to see that The Giving Place was gone. They had been there so long, it was a tad shocking to see the space occupied by a different tenant.

February 2013 Update: The Giving Place lives! It’s just down at the other end of Freighthouse Square. I’m so glad.

Big Lemon

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Wednesday’s new place is the City of Fife’s bright yellow ALCO C-415 Engine, which is housed adjacent to the Fife History Museum in the Dacca Park.  The engine is one of 26 sold and 4 still remaining.  Apparently they were considered “lemons” because of a design flaw. To read more, go to:

http://www.cityoffife.org/?p=online_guide&a=visitors&b=things_to_do&c=fife_engine_and_caboose


Monorail & EMP

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Monorail & EMP by Gexydaf

On Tuesday we did another Seattle day and visited the EMP Museum, which has two main components, the EMP (Electronic Music Project and the SFM (Science Fiction Museum). The museum is located in the Seattle Center near the Space Needle. Because of time restraints, we only did justice to the SFM. I loved the Battlestar Galactica exhibit. It reminded me how much I had enjoyed the series, And the Avatar exhibit was pretty cool too!

http://www.empmuseum.org/index.asp

 

Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour

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The joys of out of town company include visiting places usually reserved for tourist. On Monday we went on Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour in Downtown Seattle. The 90 minute tour began in Doc Maynard’s Public House (608 First Ave, in Seattle’s Pioneer Square, between Cherry Street and Yesler Way.)   After opening remarks, the rather large group follows the excellent tour guide underground to explore the long deserted original sidewalks of the city.  For those that don’t know, Seattle’s downtown burnt down in 1889.  When it was rebuilt, the city founders determined that it should be elevated to help with the sewerage problem (the toilets were geysering during high tide) .  Some of the property owners could not wait for the slow process of the government’s installation of fill, then roads and sidewalks. The property owners went ahead and built their stone and brick building and when the infrastructure was later installed, the main floor of the buildings became the basements. They were later condemned. The tour took us through a three block area and was very interesting and engaging.

 


  

http://www.undergroundtour.com/