The 43rd Street Bridge at 401 E 43rd St Tacoma Washington is very lovely. My family members actually found this bridge and pointed it out to me. I’ve been waiting for the trees to have some color before using it as my new place of the day. The bridge goes over a railroad track. The lead artists for lovely foliage mural are Chris Sharp and Kelda Martensen.
We go to Mt. Rainier a couple of times a year and always go past the Mt. Rainier Dining Co. Restaurant, which is situated in a train. Today we decided to give it a whirl for a late lunch. I love the idea of eating in a rail-car, but lunch itself was only alright. The bright notes were the desert (bread pudding) and the waitress.
It was a great day to be out and about and a real treat to see the Elbe steam train. On the way home we saw the most unusual peacock walking around in the middle of the street!
When we first moved to Tacoma over 20 years ago I remember visiting the Camp 6 Logging Exhibit in Point Defiance Park. Then, as in now, I love that this little slice of history had been preserved. Since that first time, I’ve gone back a couple of times a year, often seeing deer and once a fox. Once we took my young daughter on the Santa Train, which basically went into the forest a ways and then out again with, of course, Santa. It is an interesting, peaceful place. So it saddened me to learn that the exhibit might not reopen from its winter hiatus this year.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_logging_museum.html
The Camp 6 Logging Camp’s website states “Our mission is to preserve and present to the public a portion of Washington State’s history from the 1880’s through the 1940’s as it pertains to the “Steam Era of Logging”. With photographs, paintings, artifacts and equipment displays, Camp 6 takes the visitor back in time from when horse and ox teams hauled out the timber up through the last days that steam powered “Donkeys” and Railroads worked the woods. Visitors will see first hand what life in the logging camps and woods of Western Washington was like.”
Update 5/9/2011http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/05/09/1658977/point-defiance-parks-camp-6-closed.html Looks like they are closing for good. It’s a shame.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/05/09/1658977/point-defiance-parks-camp-6-closed.html
We got out of town for a day in Port Townsend. Of course, Port Townsend is a fully functional city with grocery stores, gas stations and medical offices, but it is their historic district that is exceptional. Per MyNorthwest.com (see below) “Port Townsend is cited as one of only three National Victorian Seaports on the National Register of Historic Places (along with Galveston and Cape May, NJ) and is the only one on the West Coast”. Considering its excellent harbor, Port Townsend was going to be the northwest terminus of the railroad lines. In anticipation of the rail coming, many lovely Victorian residences and commercial buildings were constructed. But then the depression arrived and the rail was not extended and the town languished. Now it is a destination spot, combining the natural beauty of the bay and nearby Olympic Mountains with the appeal of the historic buildings. There is an abundance of interesting stores and restaurant. I’m sure that later I will make individual places my new place of the day, but today it is the entire downtown historic district.
http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=464&sid=296529
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Townsend,_Washington
