Chihuly Glass in Seattle and Tacoma Washington

 The trip my husband and I took to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary began and ended with Chihuly glass.  Our first day began in Seattle at the Space Needle with Chihuly Garden and Glass right next door.  You can see just enough to know you do not want to miss that exhibit. The glass in the Exhibition Hall, the Glasshouse, and the garden well surpass even your high expectations.


 

 Pictures do not give justice to the experience of standing in the dark rooms full of lighted glass displays of wild imagination.

















 The gardens around the Glasshouse are full of a beautiful mixture of nature and glass.  I wish we could have returned for the after dark version of the garden.

After spending two days in Seattle we continued our trip by visiting Mount Rainier, Portland, Columbia River Gorge, Cannon Beach, Astoria and ending in Tacoma.

  

Number One on my list in Tacoma was the Museum of Glass.  I had heard about the Chihuly Bridge of Glass that is connected to the museum and knew it would be well worth our time.  The museum was very interesting with several artists' work on display and the Hot Shop where molten glass is shaped into beautiful works of art.  We got to sit in on a talk given by visiting artist Donald Lipski.

The Chihuly Bridge of Glass is a 500 foot long pedestrian overpass that links the Museum to downtown Tacoma. It is an unbelievable display of hometown boy Dale Chihuly's glass.  The ceiling part alone has 2,364 objects from his Seaform and Persian series.  

 In the center of the bridge are the 40 foot tall Crystal Towers that can be seen from many places in Tacoma.

Closest to the museum is an 80 foot wall that contains 109 of Chihuly's sculptures. 

Experiencing and enjoying Chihuly's glass in such different settings has opened my eyes to be on the look out for interesting art where ever we go.

The Oregon Coast

On our trip to Oregon and Washington we only had one day to visit the Oregon coast.  We left Portland early and headed to Cannon Beach.  We got there early and it was still cool enough to need to wear jackets as we walked down the beach toward Haystack Rock.  We found out that this was the day of the 50th Annual Sandcastle Contest and were there early enough to see the trucks drive down the beach loaded with buckets and shovels.
 

Knowing it would take several hours to build the huge sand sculptures we drove into town to shop at some really nice shops and galleries mixed in with cute cafes and beautiful bright flowers.


I can see how people could enjoy a stay of several days in the Cannon Beach area!

 
We continued north on the Oregon coast to the town of Seaside to visit the spot of the end of the trail for Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition.






We reached our destination of Astoria and had a busy afternoon seeing the sights of this interesting town at the mouth of the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean. 

The view was beautiful from the Astoria Column on the top hill in Astoria whose streets reminded me of a small version of San Fransisco.

The Columbia River Maritime Museum was a very informative and a well put together museum that explained the importance of this area and its dangerous waters 

After learning about the numerous shipwrecks that had happened around the Astoria area we went to visit the Peter Iredale's remains from its shipwreck in 1906 on the beach at Fort Stevens Park on the Oregon Coast.

 After a really busy day we treated ourselves to a very nice dinner at the Silver Salmon Grille in downtown Astoria.  Then we returned to our super nice Hampton Inn with its spectacular view from our balcony of ships going up and down the Columbia River.

It had a pretty awsome view of the sunset too!