This guy is displayed prominently in the front parking area of a small business in Shelton, Mason County, south of the Olympic Peninsula. It’s certainly a political statement. But can you also call it sculpture? Vendetta?
Category: Travels
The anti-Target, or K-Mart, or WalMart
This is a marine hardware store in Annacortes. It’s the part of the store that sells used items: hardware, fittings, floats, you name it. It has a creaky, worn wooden floor and smells like your crazy uncle’s basement, full of surprises, possibilities, and, well, old stuff.
Stores like this are disappearing. A kindred cousin in Port Townsend closed not long ago, victim of our passion for quicker or cheaper or ready-made. A place like this is visual amazement. Most of the things on the shelves don’t have perfect look-alikes next to them. Nothing’s lined up like miniature soldiers ready for service. It certainly doesn’t look like one of our predictable and clean big box stores. It’s adventure shopping at its finest for the inherent scavenger. And a nightmare for anyone craving tidy.
Barn and Baker
Views of Mount Baker, on the eastern side of Puget Sound, are elusive and ethereal from the Olympic Peninsula. It was a treat to see it beyond this barn when we visited the Skagit Valley for the Tulip Festival last month.
Restraint remourse
These teacups at an Anthropologie store in Portland caught my eye. I have a cupboard full of mugs – mine and many inherited from my mother. There’s no room for more. But I still wish a couple of these had come home with me.
Springtime road trip
We went to Portland, OR recently and while there visited the Portland Japanese Garden. I can’t resist posting a shot of one of the endless beautiful views.
Take mine. They’re free.
Okay. You say “escargo,” I say, “escargot.” Maybe the free range kind, you know, the native-born U.S. sort used to the wide open spaces, maybe their species has a different name spelling.
This was in front of a restaurant in Annacortes. They can have all the free range escargot they can find in my garden. They’re hearty. And well fed.
Deli art
This sculpture greets the hungry at the door of the Gere-A-Deli in Annacortes. It’s very cute and the details make me smile. There’s a potato masher hanging at his waist if you study it carefully.