As we often do, dear daughter and I attended First Night to usher in the new year. And her friend, Z, came with us as she so often does. It was extra cold, but not raining, so we were happy and did all of our normal First Night things. This year we were offered long wooden sticks and a S’More packet (two marshmallows, a chocolate square and two graham crackers). It was such gooey sticky fun to make our own.
I really admire those folks with passion and commitment to their art. This roadside attraction at 18212-18414 22nd Avenue, Tacoma (Spanaway) is an example of such personal drive. It is on a private residence with good visibility from the street. The property fronts on both 22nd Avenue (the rose) and 183rd Street Court East and my Roadside America App tells me the work is called Concrete Fantasia.
So I have this new app called Roadside America: Your Guide to Offbeat Tourism Attractions. While visiting Renton today, I turned on the app and found an Office Park Stonehenge. It is made up of five concrete block structures that are a nod to the original Stonehenge in England. This Renton Stonehenge is on a grassy knoll surrounded by a traffic circle at SW 21st St., Renton, WA. and there isn’t much information to be found on it. There was also a lovely art piece featuring a nun with bread by the entry door to the closest office building.
The gallery includes a couple of photos of the more famous Stonehenge which I visited in the Summer of 2014 with a People to People group. And there is a map of all the United States Stonehenges and there are a bunch of them!
I’m always on the lookout for quirky and today I found a Giant Pencil at 1020 West 1st Street in Centralia, Washington.
Per http://markhitstheroad.com/us/wa/centralia-giant-pencil.html “Steve Freeman created a sculpture of a 24-foot-tall pencil and installed it in front of this Centralia home which houses the Freeman Learning Center, his tutoring business.”
So I say to my dear husband, “let’s go up to Bell Square on what is probably the most hectic shopping weekend of the year” and oddly he agreed. Neither of us are big mall people, but he likes to see the upper end merchandise so he can later look for it at estate sales and I wanted to see Snow Flake Lane. At 7 each evening there is a show with singing and dancing. The night we were there, there was a Seahawk, #72, Michael Bennet. The Snow Queen was blowing bubbles with her wand, so I figured that was the promised snow. But then snow flakes appeared in blue and green on the walls of the shopping centers, so I figured that was the snow. But then it really did snow! Well, maybe they were fine bubbles, but it looked like snow and it was cold enough for snow, so snow it was. The children were delighted! The streets were so very crowded, but everyone was in high spirits. We spent sometime afterwards in the mall to give the parking lot a chance to clear out. Really it was a lovely evening.
Point Ruston has a new Cafe, the Jewel Box Cafe. It is obvious they put a great deal of thought into their darling decor and there are some lovely details. There is a old-fashioned case to display their pastries and a functioning fireplace that is both indoor and outdoor, opulent velvet seating and several enclose private booths. I had the berry crepe and my dear husband had the cinnamon bun and they were both delicious. 
So, the United States Post Service (#USPS) has an app that converts mailboxes into magical gingerbread houses (or gingerbread mailboxes or gingerbread fireplaces or something!). I downloaded the free app, found a mailbox and the app captured the mailbox and before my eyes made it into a work of holiday art. Things I learned include:
Our kitchen is not huge and we had three people cooking a Thanksgiving feast there, so I finished my part and took off for a Starbucks and some fresh air. I often drive over to the mall on Thanksgiving. It’s pretty close and I find the empty parking lots soothing. But this year the JC Penney’s lot was nearly full! And people were inside and others were rushing toward the entry doors.
So while I like many of the stances that Penney’s has taken over the years, I’m not to sure about this being open for at least part of Thanksgiving. I sincerely hope their employees are getting overtime. Judging by the crowded parking lot, it is probably worth Penney’s time to be open, at least financially. The rest of the mall appeared to be closed (and thus soothing!). And Best Buy across the street had folks lined up, many had tents. But also folks inside. Not sure what was happening there. It was about 3:30.
Dear Daughter, home for her last Thanksgiving Break, needed to visit Mt. Rainier as part of her geology class. OK, fine, I like Mt. Rainier. I pack up my emergency backpack, extra blankets, water in case we hit bad weather and dear husband and off we went. Luckily there are many pullouts from the street near the mountain and DD got her photos. Not the full glorious mountain, of course, because it was raining and even snowing, but some close ups of rocks that seemed to make her happy. We got as far as Longmire and had lunch and checked out the small museum (the Longmire Museum at Mt. Rainier). I was so busy staring at the vicious face on this little weasel that I didn’t notice his poor prey until I reexamined the photo!
So here are the photos. Beside the Longmire Museum there are two shots of the Mountain taken on clearer days, a photo of the road going through the National Park, the porch at the lodge and the graffiti rocks approaching the park.
BTW, you need to have chains in your vehicle to enter the park after November 1st. It gets dark at about 3 pm in the winter (its all those trees!). There is no cell service on the mountain (at least the part we were at). Here is a link to Longmire. And Happy Thanksgiving.
