This is Glass!

Dale Chihuly is an American glass sculptor and entrepreneur. His works are considered unique to the field of blown glass, "moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture," according to Wikipedia.  Those words do not begin to explain the brilliance of his glass sculptures! To see even one is astounding.  To see a large number gathered together is life-changing.  There is a new museum in town, in Seattle.  So new that it is not in many of the guidebooks.  It is called "Chihuly - Garden and Glass" and it is stunning.  These are three random pieces I photographed, and there are so many more, and each of them are radically different.  You really need to come here and see genius at work!

Flying the Seaplane

So today was the day to get some dual instruction in the seaplane!  I have been really looking forward to this all week.  I haven't flown a seaplane in probably 30 years so it was interesting to feel my way through the process again.  It is hard to explain how cool it is to push the throttle forward and feel the plane begin to gain speed as it pushes through the water, and then gets up on "the step" like a speedboat, and then finally lifts off and climbs away!  Beyond cool!  By the way, before you fly a floatplane, you need to pump out the floats to remove any water that might have leaked in.  I volunteered to do that today, just to feel like I was really the pilot. We flew around and did takeoffs and landings in three different bodies of water.  We flew over Bill Gates' home on the lake, and the Microsoft campus, and flew by the Space Needle again on final approach for the last landing.  A very cool flight.  Oh, and the good thing is that my instructor said I didn't do anything to scare her!

I Fly The SR-71!

I got to fly the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane today!  Well, I mean, it wasn't really the WHOLE plane - just the front end and cockpit that was saved after an accident.  It is on display in the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field, in Seattle.  Well I didn't actually FLY it, either. It was on the floor of the museum the whole time.  I just kind of SAT in it.  But it was EXACTLY like flying the real thing, if you are a 12-year old, who is nuts about aviation, like I am.  The SR-71 is a legendary airplane and was the world's fastest and highest-flying operational manned aircraft throughout its career.  How about 85,000 feet and Mach 3.2+  How about Los Angeles to Washington, DC in 64 minutes and 20 seconds!  Yikes!  Can you understand my excitement to be sitting in the cockpit of such an amazing aircraft?

Seaplanes!

Seattle is probably one of the seaplane capitals of the United States - well, at least in the lower 48.  I was excited about coming out here, because I hoped I could ride in one, on a tour of Seattle from the Air, AND that I could fly one myself, which I am scheduled to do on Saturday.  This aircraft is a DeHavilland Beaver, on floats, designed in 1946 (when I was 4 years old!)  They were manufactured up until 1967.  One of the really cool things is that they are powered by big radial engines, and have a wonderful deep throated sound when they are running.  This is a classic aircraft, and it was a thrill to finally get to ride in one.  I couldn't pick just one shot, so here is a view of the dock at Kenmore Air at Lake Union, and then a shot from inside of the pilot just before we took off, AND...  A shot out the front window as we flew by the Spece needle.  That must have been impressive for the people looking out to see the aircraft headed in their direction!

Lavender!

Yesterday morning early, we took a ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, and then drove for two hours from there to the Olympic Peninsula.  We were headed to a town called Sequim.  Over the last 15 or 20 years, a number of people have all decided to start Lavender farms in the area, and there is a giant festival there each year.  Fortunately we went to the farms when the festival wasn't.  Apparently they get 35,000 visitors in this small town.  Yikes!  It was an amazing day - we visited three farms and I did photographs at each.  I am not sure I did a good job in showing how incredible it is to see so much Lavender growing in one place. There are a number of different varieties that are obvious even to the untrained eye. Some of these plants can live as long as 18 years.  And the beautiful curves on the tops of all the plants are not an accident - the plants are trimmed each year, after harvesting, so that the next year's growth will be so even and beautiful.

Disappearing in the Morning Mist

This is the big car ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, Washington.  We left fairly early in the morning on this trip, and there were areas of fog on the water, and the city was backlit by the sun.  The further we got from the city, the more it receded into the haze.  There is something absolutely wonderful about riding ferries - the smell of the ocean air, the breeze in your face, and the sense of being in a kind of limbo during passage.  In a way it feels like time stands still during the voyage.  From Bainbridge Island we drove on up to the Olympic Peninsula, to the town of Sequim, Washington, one of the premier growing areas for Lavender in the United States.  Wait until you see THOSE photographs!

Snow! In July!

We flew to Seattle, Washington today.  It was cloudy over most of the United States, and I missed the chance to see a new part of the country from the air.  But as we approached Seattle, the clouds turned from overcast to scattered and broken, and first I noticed that there were snow-capped mountains which I could see through the clouds.  Then suddenly I realized that there was peak that was above the clouds!  Wow!  I waited until we landed, and I asked the pilot about it.  He said that it was Mount Rainier, which is about 60 miles southeast of Seattle, and the elevation of the summit was 14,411 feet.  What a stunning sight!