SkyWatch Friday: May we have a pause, please?

Please pardon my absence and failure to keep the vacation posts coming lately. I spent several days last week in Havre, MT visiting my mom, and we had a nice time and got quite a bit accomplished, but those visits are never easy for a variety of reasons. I was zonked when I got home Tuesday evening and had a lot to catch up on. Good thing I got a lot of it done on Wednesday, because I spent the next two days down for the count with a monster headache. My body always lets me know when I need to take a break, but I wish its clues would be more subtle! (Of course then I'd just ignore them...)

I'd hoped to finish Part 2 of our Seattle visit early this week but there's a lot left to do on it, and even when I've had some time I haven't felt like blogging or even being online. My in-laws arrive Monday for a 5-day visit so we've been busy trying to get projects done before they arrive and August is history, plus this month has been filled with appointments. All the distractions prevent my feeling focused and creative, especially when it comes to the vacation posts, which take so much time and effort to put together. When blogging feels too much like work and not enough like a fun creative outlet, it's time for a break. The first time BW and I visited our English friends Iain and Sophie, they took us out to dinner at a very fancy restaurant in a historic country house hotel. Iain told us during dinner about the last time they'd eaten there, when he'd felt that the waitstaff was being a tad too eager about whisking away their plates and cutlery between courses. So as one swooped in to abscond with his latest barely-finished dish, Iain put his hand over it and quietly said, "May we have a pause, please?" BW and I just loved that and love to repeat it (usually just to the Universe, there being no waitstaff to say it to - which is probably part of the problem, lol) - whenever things are pressing in on us and we're feeling overwhelmed. Anyway, just thought I'd explain my post's title. Just make sure you read it in an English accent, or it won't sound right. :-)

I still have so many photos from our PNW trip to sort, cull, edit and upload that I've been taking very few new ones. But a handful has accumulated, both local and from my Havre trip, so I'll use this opportunity to share them. I took most of these with the iPad, which sure takes some impressive photos! Hope you enjoy, and I promise to return in September to wrap up our Seattle visit and get us at least started on our visit to eye-candy intensive Victoria, BC! 

Sunrise, July 30

Thunderstorm, Aug 3

Another thunderstorm that same day, illuminated by the sunset
(the white dot in the upper right is a plane)

We had several of these pass by in early August, but got nary a raindrop from any of them. Noooo, that waited till early yesterday morning, since I'd just finished washing the last of our many windows the night before! Grrr...

Muley Schooly :-)

School starts this Tuesday and kids have been showing up at the elementary school across the street since late July to register. But these three mule deer bucks who showed up one morning look more like teenage high schoolers to me! :-)

Soldier Ridge Trail

A new 4-mile walking/biking trail opened near our house a few months ago, and we finally got a chance to check out about 1.5 miles of it with our dogs a couple of weeks ago. Except for a lone jogger we saw near the end of our hike, we had it all to ourselves. It passes through private land and no motorized vehicles or hunting is allowed, which will make it a real treat for us this fall when the weather cools off and we plan to take a day to explore the entire trail.

And now to Havre...

Montana Used Car Lot :-)

Spied this collection of used cars for sale off Highway 87 about 11 miles south of Roundup, MT. Not quite the middle of nowhere, but you can see it from there! ;-)

Hubcap of Doom 

While in downtown Havre to check out their farmer's market, I happened to park next to the vehicle sporting these intimidating hubcaps, so of course had to snap a pic!

Hill County Courthouse

Havre is the county seat for Hill County, and while I think their stately courthouse is quite photogenic, I also took this for sentimental reasons as my late grandmother worked here as the Hill County Auditor. Which was ironic, since she had quit high school over an unbearable math class and its equally unbearable teacher, and wouldn't earn her high school diploma till she was in her mid-80s ~ the oldest person in Montana (at that time, anyway) to do so! She was an excellent auditor, however, re-elected every time she ran until she retired in the early 1970s. Wonder what her high school math teacher would have thought of that? 

As a child in the late '60s, I loved to visit her at work because I'd get to type merrily away on one of the state-of-the-art IBM electric typewriters, writing letters back home to my dad (mom and I would spend a month in Havre every summer). And I'd get to gape at the giant murals painted in the impressive main stairwell.  Mom and I had to go to the courthouse on this visit to register her vehicles, so I went looking for the murals to photograph them. But alas, turns out the building was extensively remodeled in the late 1970s, and the murals were covered up! Sheesh.

Sunrise over Havre

I was up by 6, about three hours before Mom, every morning during my visit so I could let Willow out and feed her. Then Willow and I would drive to the library, where I could access their free WiFi from the parking lot. Sometimes we'd also go for a walk and I'd take photos of some of Havre's old homes and email them to BW, since the library is right near the historic residential district. (Click here and here for two views of my favorite Havre cottage!) On our way to the library on the last morning of our visit, I'd only made it part way down Mom's block when I had to stop to take this sunrise photo. Mom's neighborhood sits atop a hill with wonderful views in every direction, and in this one you can see into Saskatchewan. 

Enjoy more incredible skies from around the world!

Wishing you all a safe and happy end to August and, to those of you in the US, a wonderful Labor Day weekend! See you in Seattle when I'm ready to move my finger on Life's DVD Player from "Pause" to "Play!" :-)

PNW Road Trip: Day 3, Pt 1: Seattle's Chihuly Garden & Glass

Welcome to Part 1 of Day #3 of our Road Trip from Sheridan, WY to the Pacific Northwest!

We awoke to another beautiful day and also another busy one, this time getting together with our Seattle friends Ken and Andrea. We drove to their adorable house in their lovely neighborhood so we could park our car in their garage for the day. After getting acquainted with sweet Callie and enjoying a fun tour of their place, we got in their car and headed for the first place on our itinerary...

I'd wanted to see a Chihuly exhibit since first seeing Dale Chihuly's work in an online article about the ceiling in Las Vegas' Bellagio Hotel and Casino. So when I learned about the new permanent exhibit of his glass creations that opened just last year in Seattle, it got the #1 spot on our Seattle Sight-Seeing Wish List!

I hadn't realized the Chihuly exhibition was located right by the base of my beloved Space Needle, so you can probably imagine how excited I was at the fun photo ops that provided...

The Space Needle reflected in the Experience Music Project Building at Seattle Center

(take a quick look at the entire building - it's really quite something!)

From out of the bright, hot sunshine we walked into the Chihuly Glass Exhibit Hall - and into another world, one that was magical, vibrant with color, and reverently hushed despite the crowds. I've linked to the Chihuly Garden and Glass web site and virtual tour at the end of this post, but since their professional photos taken under ideal conditions put mine to shame, I wanted you to see mine first to avoid beginning with unfavorable comparisons. ;-) (I'll also link to Andrea's post about our day together when I publish Part 2). 

I'll leave most of the informative stuff to the official Chihuly web sites and mainly just let you enjoy all the eye candy (as always, click on any photo for a larger version), starting with the first room on the tour...

Glass Forest:

Created by taking a large blob of white glass from the furnace and dropping globbets of it from the top of a ladder, the shapes were then illuminated with neon. 

Northwest Room:

Glass "Indian Baskets" and a wall of woven trade blankets

Sealife Room:

20-foot high "Sealife Tower"

"Sealife Tower" detail

The Persian Ceiling:

Similar to the Bellagio ceiling that inspired our visit, this was my favorite room in the Exhibit Hall. The walls are bare and white so you can focus on the gorgeous, illuminated ceiling with its sea creatures both real and fanciful,  and also enjoy its colorful reflections on the walls. (The upper photo was taken without the flash, while this one that shows a bit of the walls was taken with the flash)...

Mille Fiori:

BW (lugging my camera bag, bless him) poses at one end of "Mille Fiori"

Inspired in large part by Dale's mother's flower garden he played in as a child

Ikebana & Float Boat:

These glass pieces were inspired by Ikebana, the minimalist, disciplined Japanese art of flower arrangement, and Dale's childhood spent beach-combing for Japanese floats in Tacoma, WA.

Float Boat

The installation itself was inspired by Dale's time in the '90's at the glass factory in Finland (where many of his glass creations are made), when he took to tossing finished glass pieces from a bridge by the factory into the river where local kids would retrieve them using wooden row boats. Dale liked how his glass pieces looked in the wooden boats, and so designed this display! 

Ikebana Boat detail

Described in the audio tour as the "wildly Baroque chandeliers," I love their whimsical playfulness (though I can't picture one suspended over our dining room table!):-)

Want a Chihuly chandelier installed in your home? No problem! (Just $$$. Lots of it)...

Witness a Fantastic Chihuly Glass Sculpture Installation

Macchia Forest:

The idea for these pieces sprang from the sudden availability of hundreds of new colors of German glass and Dale's desire to incorporate them all! ("Macchia" is Italian for "spotted.")

After touring the exhibit hall we headed outside into the glass gardens, once again finding ourselves at the base of the photogenic Space Needle...

The Space Needle and "Yellow Sun" sculpture

I just couldn't be this close to the Space Needle and not take several photos. :-)

"Yellow Sun"
with the Glasshouse on the left and Space Needle on the right

The 100-foot long, 25-foot high suspended sculpture in the 40-foot tall Glasshouse

That's Andrea on the right (and the back of Ken in the purple shirt)

And here's a closeup of the tall "Green Icicle Tower" you can see up ahead...

See the crescent moon to the lower left of the Icicle Tower? :-)

Since I'm often accused of being too camera-shy (guilty as charged), in my vacation posts I'm trying to make up for always being behind the camera by sharing a few photos that caught me in front of it for a change. (But that doesn't mean I won't resort to camouflage to try to hide myself, like in this one where my shirt blended with the blue and purple reeds, floats and fiori of this section of the glass garden!)...

And it seems to only be on vacation trips that BW and I appear together in photos. This one comes to you courtesy of Andrea (and won't be the last one of us together in a garden of purple on this vacation!)...

A little moment of PDA in the PNW among the purple neodymium reeds :-)

We'll explore more of Seattle in my next post before heading to Port Angeles for the ferry to Victoria, but for now I must make another road trip - this time up to Havre, Montana to visit my Mom for a few days. 

Till then, please enjoy exploring more of Chihuly Garden & Glass on their web site and on their virtual tour, and of course, enjoy exploring the world's amazing skies at...

Other PNW Road Trip Posts:

Day #1, Part 1: Butte

Day #1, Part 2: Missoula-Idaho-Spokane

Day #2: Wanapum-Lymans-Seattle

PNW Road Trip: Day 1 - Butte, MT

Welcome to Part #1 of Day #1 of our summer road trip to the Pacific Northwest, a vacation we took in part to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary this June. In two weeks we drove about 2400 miles, visited some beautiful country in four states and two countries, did and saw lots of interesting stuff, and between our Rebel, Kodak EasyShare and new iPad we took over 2000 photos. So needless to say, this is the first of many photo-intensive vacation posts! I hope to post the last one by Christmas. :-)

We left Sheridan at 6:45am on Saturday, June 29th, stopping briefly in Billings, MT for a quick breakfast from The Good Earth Co-Op. Our next stop was in Butte, MT for lunch, a town we'd never visited before, but one we found quite intriguing!

We begin with a view of part of downtown Butte (rhymes with "cute") as seen from the Visitors Center...

The M on the hillside, created in 1910, is for "Miners" (Butte's an old mining town as you'll soon see, and home to a college formerly known as Montana State School of Mines), while the red brick clock tower, built in 1916, was originally the railroad station and is now a TV station (KXLF TV). Apparently it's destined to always be a station of some sort! :-)

I also took this next photo from the Visitors Center. Butte sits very near the Continental Divide (I'd have photographed the sign if we hadn't flown by it at 75mph!), is the hometown and burial site of motorcycle daredevil Evel Kneivel, is known for its mining history (and resulting EPA Superfund Site) and Victorian architecture - and is, as you can see, surrounded by some beautiful scenery...

But the town's landscape also bears the ugly scars of its mining history, a history which gave it the nickname "The Richest Hill on Earth" and made it wealthy during its boom years, but left it toxic after more than a century of mining and smelting...

If the sight of the scarred hillside didn't clue you in to Butte's emphasis on mining, some of its street names - Gold, Silver, Copper, Iron, Quartz, Granite, Agate, Platinum, Mercury, Aluminum, Diamond, Ruby and Pearl - might. Starting with gold in 1864, Butte has also mined (and often smelted) silver, copper, lead, manganese, zinc, and molybdenum from over 500 underground mines and four open pit mines, including the infamous Berkley Pit. This 100+ years of mining activity has left groundwater, surface water and soils in the area contaminated with arsenic, sulphuric acid, and heavy metals including copper, zinc, cadmium and lead, caused fish kills in the rivers and created potential health threats from contact with and ingestion of contaminated soil, surface water, groundwater or inhaling contaminated air. This is why it's one of the largest EPA Superfund sites in the world, with Berkley Pit being the largest and most expensive portion.

My photos that show the mine area (which is now owned by Atlantic Richfield and is still active, though on a much smaller scale) are not nearly as dramatic as the Google Maps satellite image. Appalling what we do to Mother Earth, our fellow creatures, and ourselves and future generations in the name of profits.

Some of the money made during Butte's mining heydays was spent on the construction of some impressive buildings, built mostly from the 1880s to the roaring '20s, which today are currently in various states of grandeur, disrepair, neglect, and/or restoration - and which will be (with the exception of our lunch) the focus of the remainder of our visit to Butte...

Mother Lode Theater

Built in 1923 as a Masonic Temple and converted to a movie theater during the Depression,

after a $3 million renovation in 1996 it was renamed the Mother Lode Theater.

Chim Chim Cher-ee

I have no idea what the history or function of this building is, I just thought its tall chimney and old brick had character, especially against that backdrop!

The Arts Chateau

We had no clue what this place was when we first drove by it, but thought it must be the Copper King Mansion (more on that shortly). We were close, but didn't learn till we got home and I was putting this post together that it was indeed built (in 1898) by the Copper King, William Andrews Clark, but it was for his son Charles. The 26-room house - modeled after a French Chateau that Charles had stayed in on his honeymoon and built in part by French craftsmen brought to Butte for the purpose - now serves as a community arts center, museum and gallery called The Arts Chateau.

An example of one of Butte's beautiful old buildings that's seen better days. The apartment on the left is occupied, the one on the right is vacant. We hope this building is slated for repair rather than terminal composting, but found it hard to tell with some of Butte's buildings if they were on their way up or on their way out.

We passed the above building on our way to The Hummingbird Café for lunch...

A vegan-friendly oasis that we were pleasantly surprised to find through Happy Cow, we were equally surprised to find it quite busy when we arrived, given how quiet the town seemed, though once we got our food we understood its popularity! It has a fun artsy/hippie/bohemian vibe that we enjoyed, and was much bigger than it looked... you can see one back room through the door to the left, but they continued on beyond that and ended in a cozy little outdoor courtyard with a couple of tables (which is where we'll take our food to eat next time we visit!) :-)

Service was friendly but slow, so while BW mapped out our next meal destination on the iPad I took my camera on a quick walkabout to photograph more of Butte's architecture. So we'll return to The Hummingbird for our sandwiches in a bit, after we've feasted our eyes on a couple more historic dwellings...

Another apartment building, this time in better shape

An example of the architectural diversity on which Butte has long prided itself

There's nothing like a window full of skeletons in June to catch the eye, and being a great lover of Halloween (though one who monotonously takes down her decorations on Nov 1!), I had to snap this photo. :-)

I took this shot with my telephoto just before re-entering restaurant, thinking these were more miner-baron mansions. And maybe they were once, but now they're buildings on the campus of Montana Tech of the University of Montana, originally the Montana School of Mines when it was founded in 1900.

And now it's time to dig up some minerals of a different sort, for lunch is served. :-)

I ordered the portobello (or as they spell it, "portabella") sandwich with a side of organic red roasted potatoes...

...while BW ordered the T.L.T. (made with their own homemade tempeh bacon) and the same side o' spuds... 

And then we swapped sandwich halves. We both agreed that both sandwiches were very tasty, but the T.L.T. was far and away our favorite! 

After eating our sandwiches and sharing a lemonade, it was time to do a little more exploring on foot and by car before leaving, especially since we were still trying to find the Copper King Mansion, and no one seemed to be able to tell us where it was! 

Love that second-story sunporch!

As you can see, a big thunderstorm was rolling in (it hit just as we left Butte). Which got us wondering - with all that metal - especially highly conductive copper - in the ground there, how many lightning strikes do you reckon they get? Don't know, but we left town in the nick of time that day!

Neighbors

Another second-story sunporch on the jauntily colored house on the left, and an intriguing third-story recessed porch and the first all-glass turret I've ever seen on the house on the right, which also appears to be getting a new porch railing soon!

This house, loaded with beautiful stained glass windows, was right across a side street from the Copper King Mansion (yep, finally found it, so it's coming up shortly!) 

Greek Revival

This home was probably the stateliest private residence we came upon (and it was for sale, though now I can't find a listing for it on the realtor's web site). The columns, portico and upper railings are all lovely and impressive, as is that handsome chimney! But now check out what was right across the street...

Needs Revival!

A contrast that pretty much sums up our impression of Butte! It's a city of antipodes - wealth and poverty, preservation and dilapidation, pristine beauty and monstrous devastation, cowboys and miners and artists and hippies - all living cheek to jowl. As I said, it's an intriguing town, and one we plan to spend more time in one day... maybe even springing for a night in this place (if they'll serve us a vegan breakfast!) - the hard-to-find-but-worth-the-search Copper King Mansion...

William Andrews Clark was one of the three principal developers of copper mining in Butte known as "the Copper Kings." The original cost of his 34-room Copper King Mansion, built from 1884-1888, is estimated at about a half-million dollars - or about a half day's income for Clark. By 1900, Clark had amassed a personal fortune estimated at $50,000,000 and was considered one of the wealthiest men in the world. In 1917 he added an addition to the mansion, but the cost of it is unknown.

The mansion has been privately owned by the Cote family for four generations, but is publicly accessible via tours or overnight stays in their five B&B guest rooms.

I imagine there are rather commanding views from this window! 

Speaking of which...

We bid farewell to Butte with this last look at the town, the mine-scape, and the mountains from the grounds of the Montana Tech campus (which you may recall seeing from outside the Hummingbird Café in an earlier photo). Now it's time to outrun the thunderstorms and head for Missoula, Idaho and Spokane! See you there in my next post! :-)

Meanwhile, see more of the world (and its skies, stormy and otherwise) with a visit to...

Other PNW Road Trip Posts:

Day #1, Part 2: Missoula-Idaho-Spokane

Day #2: Wanapum-Lymans-Seattle

Day #3, Part 1: Seattle's Chihuly Garden and Glass