The mission of the Fort Worth Zoo at 1989 Colonial Parkway, Fort Worth, TX 76110 is “to strengthen the bond between humans and the environment by promoting responsible stewardship of wildlife and ensuring diverse, high-quality educational and entertaining family experiences through effective and efficient management of its resources”.
We took a much needed respite at this lovely zoo with our dear friends.
I’ve been wanting to try the Art Bus for ages and Thursday was the day. Dear daughter and I were delighted to be able to hop on the sold out bus. The Art Bus runs every third Thursday and each time there are different venues.The website to get in on this exciting opportunity is http://www.theangelajossy.com/artbus.htm or here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tacoma-ART-BUS/151270941559625
For our September Art Bus we went to Job Carr Cabin Museum (the log cabin), 253 Collective (birds and turds),Tacoma Glass Blowing Studio (the glass pumpkin), Hotel Murano’s new gift shop (the glowing canoe), Brick House Gallery (the neon sign) , Rampart / Brownie Morrison (the manikin) and Catwalk (the showroom). At Catwalk dear daughter purchase a groovy retro tie that she was enthused about. And we were treated to pizza from Puget Sound Pizza (yum!).
The London Eye, on the banks of the River Thames in London, is 443′ tall and has 32 sealed compartments. What surprised me is that the Ferris wheel doesn’t stop for loading and unloading, it moves so gradually that visitors just step on or off. The exception being those that actually need more time. The black and white photo was taken with Hipstamatic from the Hungerford Bridge (which can be seen in the color photo).
I was delighted to accept an educational trip to the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Though I had good intentions of continuing my “New Place of the Day” Blog, it simply got away from me. So, I’m catching up now, with brief entries for each day 😀
We were walking back from a performance at Urban Grace Church when I noticed this good looking covered bike rack near City Hall. At first glance I thought it was a bus stop, but no. Apparently the city as installed 96 of these bike racks and in May was named a Bicycle Friendly Community. That’s cool. To read more about it, go to http://www.cityoftacoma.org/Page.aspx?hid=18226
The Asian Pacific Cultural Center had an Open House today to celebrate its new location at 4851 South Tacoma Way, Tacoma, WA 98409. The property had previously been the South Park Community Center and the APCC is leasing the property from Metro Parks while it pursues a permanent home. The place was packed with well wishers enjoying food and entertainment. Some of the classes that the APCC is offering look pretty interesting including martial arts, fitness, language classes and summer camps for the kids. Their website says “APCC serves the general public of Tacoma, Pierce County, Washington State, National and International, about 47 Asia Pacific countries of the world and their unique histories cultures, languages, arts, crafts, customs, honor and respect” What a great asset for Tacoma!
Dear Daughter’s Robotics Team was in a competition this Saturday, so we drove up to Centurylink Event Center in Seattle. The space contains 200,000 square feet and was hosting two simultaneous meets with about 50 teams each. The teams were made up of high school students, mostly from Washington State though there were teams from Mexico and Turkey. Each team is given six weeks to create a robot to perform in a match. This year the criteria was that each robot had to be able to shot baskets and balance on a teeter totter style bridge. The teams are given some basic supplies, but they have to add to those supplies and create the robots by themselves with the help of adult mentors.
I’m pleased to say that out of all those teams, my daughter’s team, the SOTA Bots won! It was pretty exciting 🙂
Info on the event center can be found here http://www.centurylinkfield.com/event-center-booking/
Info on the First Competition can be found here http://www.firstwa.org/
The Tahoma Indian Center at 1556 Market Street, Tacoma, is part of Catholic Community Services and their website is at http://www.ccsww.org/site/PageServer?pagename=families_emergencyservices_tahomaindiancenter
Their website states “Located in downtown Tacoma, the Tahoma Indian Center has met the basic needs of low-income and homeless Urban Native Peoples for more than 20 years in a safe, warm, peaceful and drug- and alcohol-free environment. The purpose of the Center is to restore and sustain the dignity and culture of Urban Native Americans in Pierce County.”
This is great old building and it has an interesting history.I’m not sure, but I think it use to be connected to a building on the now vacant lot next door. So, in full disclosure I’m not sure of the history of the property, the lot next door or both. Tacoma Public Library says the Lorenz Bldg. / Sisson House was constructed in 1890. The Astor House opened c.1899 as the first major Japanese hotel in Tacoma. It was also known as the Hiroshimaya Hotel. As of 1946, the property was known as the Columbus Hotel / Yunan Ling Herbal Medicine / Tacoma Jujitsu School. The same year, a petition was denied for the hotel and the headlines read “all colored hotel” closed for prostitution violations.
In 1947 it was Fukui’s Grocery Store (and was “surprised by the police!”). And by 1996 it became the Intertribal Cultural Arts Center. When looking at the spectacular doorway, I noticed that the Lion King is hanging from a coconut over the doorway. I bet there is a story there!
The Community Health Care Center is located at 1708 East 44th Street, Tacoma, WA 9840 in the Salishan Housing Development. Per their website “Community Health Care is a private, non-profit organization created in 1987 when the clinical system moved from the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department after several years of operation by that organization.” I toured the building and was very impressed with the building and the doctors and other staff that I meant. Community Health Care provides medical and dental services, as well as a pharmacy. The theme that I heard repeatedly was quality care with patient dignity.
Their website is here http://www.commhealth.org/
As we usually do, dear daughter and I celebrated New Year’s Eve at Tacoma’s First Night in Downtown Tacoma. We drove to the Dome Transit Center and caught the Link to the theater district and then we kicked up our heals! It is really a top notch event. The weather was cold, but not frigid and there was no rain (a small miracle). I ran into a bunch of folks that I knew, but dear daughter seemed to know almost everybody! She declared that her schoolmates owned the downtown domain!
The new place for the day is the Pythian Temple at 924-926 1/2 Broadway, Tacoma. The building was constructed in 1906 for the Commencement Lodge No. 7 of the Knights of the Pythias. On August 23, 1985, Pythian Temple was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The meeting room is upstairs and is amazing, with dark carved woods and lovely frescoes and a huge organ.
For more on the Temple, including some historic photos, go to here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythian_Temple_%28Tacoma,_Washington%29
This is my sixth building that was designed by Frederick Heath, architect and named after the 25th President of the United States, William McKinley. The others are:
http://blog.firsttries.com/?p=2012 Oakland School
http://blog.firsttries.com/?p=1961 Urban Grace
http://blog.firsttries.com/?p=1335 Titlow Lodge
http://blog.firsttries.com/?p=2370 Tacoma Public School’s CAB
http://blog.firsttries.com/?p=2374 McKinley School
When I heard that Zoolights at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium was featuring a scuba diving Santa on select days, I knew that we had to go! So, despite the fairly heavy rain, yesterday dear daughter, her dear friend and I went off to the zoo. It was really great! The rain mostly stopped and it was pretty temperate. I thought parking would be a snap, but the lot was almost full. Must be the pull of Scuba Santa! There was a short wait to see Santa, but when we got in we had a pretty good view and didn’t feel rushed. Everybody was having fun and the kids really got a kick out of it!
