Views of Sequim, the Olympic Peninsula. . .and beyond
This man from Sierra Leone was making and selling market baskets at the Arts and Crafts Fair last Saturday. The baskets were gorgeous and finely woven. We talked while I took his picture and his hands didn’t stop working for a moment. His smile was enough to brighten anyone’s day.
I have a leather handled African basket of this sort and love it. Beautiful, durable, and well made.
You know you’ve entered an, uhm, interesting stage in your life when cars you remember seeing as a child are called “vintage” or “collectors.” I think we had one of these parked in front of our house when I was very young. But it was never, ever this clean.
I don’t remember what the color of this Chevy was called, but it was oh so popular for what seemed like a long, long time. Or maybe it was just because there were a lot of them on the road.
The Sequim Irrigation Festival will continue this coming weekend with all manner of events. Click here to learn more about the festival and what is planned.
Here’s a Model T that was on display next to the Arts and Crafts Fair on Saturday. The cars represent the Sequim Valley Car Club which gives bragging rights to owners of vintage cars 25 years or older. Though they display their cars at events, they bill themselves as primarily a touring club and you can, from time to time, see groups of these gorgeous vehicles motoring around the Olympic Peninsula. By the looks of them I suspect the gents lined up on the other side of this car represent the club.
Here’s an Oldsmobile. It has a windshield unlike any I’ve seen before.
My guess is that cars of this sort aren’t parked and forgotten in the driveway.
The 117th annual Sequim Irrigation Festival has begun. It’s Washington State’s longest continual festival and celebrates the completion of the irrigation ditches that made agriculture possible in the Dungeness Valley. The very first festival drew picnicing revelers by horseback and wagon from near and far. They had such a good time they decided to keep having it. These days the event runs two weekends and started this weekend with an art walk, Arts and Crafts Fair, and a Kids Day and Family Picnic, among other things. The beautifully restored cars above were parked next to the Arts and Crafts Fair.
So in a setting like this guys will go, “Wow! A 19XX Ford!” and launch into car stories, talk about flathead V8s, cars they’ve owned, and stuff like that. But a guy wasn’t taking these pictures. I took pictures of the car jewelry.
I know. These are probably a big disappointment if you are of the boy persuasion. I’ll post a couple of car pictures tomorrow.
Sometimes breakfast out can feel like a real celebration. When it’s with good friends it’s even better. This one at the Oak Table Cafe was both. This is Dianne’s eggs benedict, served with potato pancakes.
I wasn’t very hungry and thought a couple of pancakes would do just fine. It didn’t occur to me that I’d get enough to feed me and my new friends at the next table. I don’t get pancakes often. Now I remember why.
I’m embarassed to admit that I’ve lived in Sequim two years before I finally darkened the doorstep of the Museum & Arts Center (MAC). Partly, I didn’t know what to expect. And, frankly, I’m accustomed to big museums where I can melt away, be anonymous, and take it in as I wish, mistakenly admiring a random fire alarm if it suits me.
The MAC is small, comfortable, and pleasant. The art above has just been changed out for a juried art show and sale, part of the annual Sequim Irrigation Festival.
There are also history exhibits – human history of the region and a small exhibit on the Manis Mastodon, a fascinating archaeological find near Sequim that recently established human habitation here fully 13,800 years ago. The Manis site was excavated in the late 1970s and one of the first rib bones of the mastodon found at the site revealed a spear point embedded in the bone. CT scans last year confirmed that the point had been finely worked by human hands; DNA tests established human habitation 800 years before the Clovis peoples who had previously been thought to be the earliest inhabitants of North America. Clare Manis Hatler, on whose property the dig took place, doesn’t exaggerate when she says, “I’ve got the oldest bones around.” Several are exhibited at MAC.
I’m embarassed to admit that I’ve lived in Sequim two years before I finally darkened the doorstep of the Museum & Arts Center (MAC). Partly, I didn’t know what to expect. And, frankly, I’m accustomed to big museums where I can melt away, be anonymous, and take it in as I wish, mistakenly admiring a random fire alarm if it suits me.
The MAC is small, comfortable, and pleasant. The art above has just been changed out for a juried art show and sale, part of the annual Sequim Irrigation Festival.
There are also history exhibits – human history of the region and a small exhibit on the Manis Mastodon, a fascinating archaeological find near Sequim that recently established human habitation here fully 13,800 years ago. The Manis site was excavated in the late 1970s and one of the first rib bones of the mastodon found at the site revealed a spear point embedded in the bone. CT scans last year confirmed that the point had been finely worked by human hands; DNA tests established human habitation 800 years before the Clovis peoples who had previously been thought to be the earliest inhabitants of North America. Clare Manis Hatler, on whose property the dig took place, doesn’t exaggerate when she says, “I’ve got the oldest bones around.” Several are exhibited at MAC.