The Boy Loves His Huckleberries

Chihuly Garden and Glass - Wandering Through Wonderland

I think people who are masters of their art are a whole other league of humans. Seriously. Witnessing someone's excellence can be an out-of-body experience. 

That's what it was like for The Muse and me at the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit in Seattle. It's a permanent installation of glass art by Dale Chihuly at the base of the Space Needle. (At least it better be permanent - I can't imagine what it took to transport and set up this stuff!) We had gotten a small peek of it through the wall of bushes that hides it from public view, and I'd heard from friends who'd been there that it was really cool.

"Really cool" is a bit of an understatement. It was flippin' mind-blowing.

First of all, the exhibit was much larger than I expected. I thought it was just going to be the outside garden, but there were actually more sculptures inside the building than out. And they were HUGE. All glass. Absolutely gorgeous. Jaw-dropping, truly.

I'm going to explain a bit about what you'll see here, and then let the photos speak for themselves. Most of the inside sculptures were displayed on shiny black surfaces, which created really cool reflections. Nothing you'll see here is small. The boats with the balls are full-sized boats. There were some smaller sculptures, too, which were also really cool, but I'm just showing you the big stuff here. 

The first sculpture below must have been at least fifteen feet tall. You can't tell very well from the photo, but the yellowish parts are different sea creatures. There were several of similar size, shape, and awesomeness in the exhibit. 

One room had all of the glasswork displayed above your head, behind sheets of clear glass, lit from behind (see the third through fifth photos below). There's one photo with The Muse to show some size reference for a medium-sized piece. And outside, many of the balls in the garden reflected the Space Needle, which was a really cool effect.

Basically, it was like spending an hour walking around Wonderland. Surreal and beautiful, and well worth the $19 admission ($12 for kids). If you have the choice between going up in the Space Needle and seeing this exhibit, go with this. Way better. 

I'll shut up now and let you look. Just multiply the "ooh, ahh" factor of looking at the photos by about ten, and you'll have a sense of our experience. And this was really just about half of what there was to see. I didn't include photos of everything.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Seattle So Far

We've been in Seattle a little over a week now, and I'd like to share some of the highlights of our time here so far. 

But first a very quick update on how we're doing.

Honestly, I'm feeling a little travel weary this week. Not enough to want to abort the trip or anything, I'm just tired. I've been daydreaming lately about how I would decorate a house if we had one. I'm sure that's to be expected two months in. I think it's going to feel really good to settle somewhere after our trip is done.

As for the rest of the family, everyone's doing pretty well. The Muse has been homesick off and on, but she's pouring herself into a novel she's writing, so that's cool. Dolittle had a bout of tonsillitis, but she's better now and happy as long as she has her stuffed animals. BoyWonder has been a little whinier than usual, but is really handling all of the constant change very well. Amongst the moppets, there has been a fair amount of bickering, as well as some sweet bonding. Havarti is pretty much just going with the flow. :)

So, other than a little travel weariness and small challenges (such as our condo having inadequate kitchen stuff, which just prompts more daydreams about having our own house), we're good. 

The weather in Seattle has been gorgeous, as it always is in July. Mid-70s and sunny. Perfect. Our condo is close to almost everything, which has been awesome. 

Here are a few of the things we've seen and done in Seattle:

Visiting the Fremont Troll. He lives under a bridge in an area of Seattle called Fremont. They're artsy-type folk over there. They're also apparently fond of nudity, but we'll get to that in a minute.

The kids and I went raspberry picking at Raising Cane Ranch. That was fabulous.

Some of the berries were HUGE. And so yummy. 

We may have gone a little overboard. 

6.5 pounds of raspberries. We actually would have picked way more, but there was no way we'd eat them all. They were only $4/lb, which is amazing for organic raspberries (or non-organic, for that matter). I do love me a good bargain.

Wow, you can really tell they're all biological siblings in this photo, can't you. 

We celebrated Dolittle's 9th birthday on the 12th. I have some photos from her little party we had with her great-grandmother (who lives five minutes from where we're staying), but they're on my phone and I'm too tired and lazy to upload them. (Just keepin' it real, folks.)

To make her day extra special, we decorated the dining area with animal decor I got on super sale at Michael's.

And she ate her breakfast cereal from her new doggie bowls, per her request. Don't judge. 

 After her admittedly somewhat abnormal breakfast, we went to the zoo.

Lion cubs!

Elephant!

More birds to feed! (We have fed a LOT of birds on this trip. Sheesh.)

My dear friend, Paula, hooked me up with her friend who works at Woodland Park Zoo, and he gave Dolittle a bunch of little stuffed animals, a birthday pin, and free carousel rides for the whole family. Sweet. :)

Yesterday, we went to the Seattle Center, where the Space Needle and a bunch of other attractions are. We took the Monorail, which was fun.

We took a peek at the Space Needle. We didn't go up it, because we're too cheap.

There's this amazing exhibit of a garden made entirely of glass right next to the Space Needle. Check this out.

All glass. There's a whole bunch more inside the exhibit, but we didn't go in because, as I said, we're cheap ($19 a piece!). So we agreed that I'll go back on my own and take lots of photos so the rest of the family can see what the other glass plants look like.

The kids were really excited to ride the rides. For as long as Havarti and I can remember, there have been amusement rides right by the monorail station at the Seattle Center. The kids caught wind of that, and kept begging us to go. The Muse even took a Dramamine before we left the house.

But alas, when we arrived we found out the rides are gone. In their place was this labyrinth, so at least the kids could meditate on how angry and disappointed they were that they didn't get to go on any rides.

 We did find some other things to do there, like this giant checkerboard.

 And some funhouse mirrors.

And there was a Polish festival going on, so there were some activities and performances and such for that. Oh, and a bouncy house, which made BoyWonder and Dolittle's day. (And ours, too, cuz it was FREE! Awesome.)

Also free and awesome was this fountain.

It's seriously the coolest fountain I have ever seen. It shoots water out of all these different holes, at different times, at different strengths, so it's like watching a fireworks show.

As you can see, BoyWonder found it very exciting.

I found it exciting, too. So exciting, in fact, that I slipped and bruised my tailbone. You can't tell from the photos very well, but the fountain is in a large concrete bowl, basically. So you have to walk down this steep slope to get down to it. I was walking down the slope taking some pictures when I slipped somehow. Landed right on my bum and my elbow. It hurts to fall down as a grown-up. Boo hoo.

Anyway, I was trying to get a shot of the coolest spurts. Every once in a while, the fountain shoots three or four shots of water WAY up in the air, like crazy high, and then immediately shoots air out underneath them. This creates an effect where the water hovers above the fountain in long cascades for a couple of seconds, and then it all comes crashing down on top of the dome. You'll just have to take my word for it - it is ridiculously cool. I could have watched that fountain all day. 

We also spent some time walking around downtown, in search of some gelato to rival our favorite place in Laguna Beach. We saw this amazing chalk artist on the way. Her name is Gabrielle Abbott. Very impressive work. The photo doesn't do it justice.

These blue trees made me happy, which is kind of weird, because the idea of someone painting trees blue kind of bugs me. But the effect is very cool.

We did end up finding gelato. And it was good, but no match for Gelato Paradiso in Laguna Beach. 

What we did find that was unique to this stretch of our trip was a group of naked bicyclists.

Yeah, you read that right.

We were just walking down the street, and out of the blue, dozens of nude cyclists went whizzing by. I've not yet determined whether they were part of the Fremont parade crashers (which is apparently an expected tradition) or the "less gas, more ass" folks, or a combo of the two, but they were right there cruising through downtown Seattle.

I'm sorry, but that cannot be very comfortable. Or sanitary. 

One thing we've enjoyed a lot in Seattle are the parks. Seattle has some lovely, lovely parks. And many of them have ziplines, which have become the kids' favorite things. 

You can tell by BoyWonder's air how exciting it is, even just watching his sisters.

So far, so good, Seattle.

Coming up this week:

- Mariners Game

- Apple iMovie Camp

- Camping at Mount Rainier 

- Trying not to swelter when it gets into the mid-80's with no air conditioning in the condo