Blake Island and Tacoma

A good time was had by all at what may well become the annual Blake Island Clambake, or maybe more appropriately the Blake Island Seafood Boil. A half-dozen boats and crew showed up, bringing clams, mussels, shrimp, potatoes, and corn. My turkey deep-fryer performed admirably well as a seafood boiler.

Here's Rita showing off a small sample of the food we had.

The weather was perfect. Even Mt. Rainier showed up at our party! Here's some of the crowd on a walk on the beach just after a lovely sunset.

Then it was on to Tacoma, a city often derided by long-time Washington residents as the ugly step-sister of the Puget Sound. Tacoma has a reputation as a grimy run-down industrial port city with high crime and high aroma (from the pulp mill). But there is hope. Over the last few years, the city fathers have been upgrading the image by cleaning up the Foss Waterway and rejuvenating the downtown area. We stayed in a brand-new marina a short walk from the UW Tacoma campus, the Museum of Glass, and downtown. Tacoma has some built-in obstacles to a truly major overhaul, like the freeway that runs between the water and the downtown, and a very busy main rail line a half mile away. I think the planners have done a great job with what they have to work with.

This is affectionately known to the locals as "The Volcano." It is part of the Museum of Glass. It's not exactly the Sydney Opera House, but I think it is pretty cool.

Even cooler is the pedestrian bridge across the freeway. This is part of the view a pedestrian sees if he looks up while crossing the bridge.

Another thing that Tacoma has going for it is that real estate prices aren't as outrageous as Seattle's. I have read articles about how Tacoma's artistic community is flourishing and growing because Seattle area artists are moving there to escape the high prices of Seattle.

I finished To Live's to Fly on this trip. It's an alright book, but I think you have to be a dedicated Townes Van Zandt fan (and I'm only semi-dedicated) to really get into the true story of a tortured genius who created some fabulous music while living an outrageously self-destructive lifestyle. I read it all .... out of kindness, I suppose.