Observations, tips and other information about places I've been.
Seattle, pt. 2 Chihuly Garden and Glass and the Space Needle
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I spent my Sunday in Seattle going to the Chihuly Garden and Glass and the Space Needle. I booked a joint ticket; it was timed for entrance into the Space Needle, but open-ended for Chihuly. I didn't have any idea what to expect at Chihuly, I thought, meh, glass, okay I'll check it out. Well, shut the front door, I was blown away, jaw-dropping. The colors, the shapes and complexity and variety, it was all just crazy. The hushed silences were not required, but I think everyone was overwhelmed with the scope of what we were seeing. You kind of flow from room to room, taking in the colors, and then you move out of the dark rooms into a greenhouse type of structure and then into gardens.
The Chihuly is very near the Space Needle and a park with treats and vendors, which is a good place to hang out and people watch and wait for your turn to join the queue to go up to the top. There are some reviews that are dismissive of going to the top of the Space Needle, it's cheesy, tacky, boring, a tourist trap. I think you have to make up your own mind. If you like going to the tops of buildings, and I do, I wanted to do it. I like the perspective you get when you are high above the city, looking out, and from up in the Space Needle, which was erected for the 1962 World's Fair, you can see into the port, and if the skies cooperate, you can glimpse Mt. Rainier. You can go outside, which I did, and get annoyed with people taking selfies, which I did. I went in early evening, and if I planned it differently, I might have gone later in the evening to see the city at night. There is a bar on the rotating floor, which might be cool, but I'm too cheap and I don't really drink, so, I gave that a miss. I am glad I went up, and I think I would have regretted not checking out one of America's most iconic sites with its spacecrafty capsule.
I had a wonderful Sunday out last weekend with my pal and we attended the "Keith Haring: Art is for Everybody" exhibit at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The exhibit runs through September 8, 2024, and I really recommend it to anyone interested in pop art. I was familiar with Haring's work, as in I knew the name and recognized some of his art, but I was not an expert or very well-versed in his career, but there was something about what I did know, that made me want to know more. The exhibit covers Haring's career, which was a lot more than painting, or even just painting on canvas. He created and performed in performance art with dancers; he collaborated with rappers; he made sculptures and videos; worked with kids at a residency at the Walker; and he made protest paintings and other artwork to raise attention to growing AIS/HIV crisis in the 1980s. In addition to paintings, there are various three dimensional art works, music videos featuring Madonna and Gra...
I’ve been planning my trip to Easter Island and Punta Arenas for about a year. I hadn’t given much thought to my time in Santiago. I really thought I would be too tired to do much, but I guess the benefit of only a two hour time difference is I wasn’t too exhausted. I couldn’t check into the hotel until three so I had about four hours to wander around. Lucky for me Sky Costanera was a five minute walk. Sky Costanera is the tallest building in South America and has some amazing views of the Andes, Cerra San Cristóbal and all over Santiago. I just walked to Cenco Costanera which is a massive shopping center, went to the lower level, bought my ticket and ten minutes later was heading up to the 61st floor and then the 62nd floor which was open on the top. I love my tall buildings, and I loved it that it was not crowded at all. There is a restaurant and a little gift shop, but not a lot else. A view of San Cristobal On day two I took the hop on hop off bus which was an easy way to navi...
I had this trip to Nebraska planned for several months, and I was really looking forward to it after being cooped up all winter. I think cranes first entered my consciousness after I spent a couple hours at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin on a road trip to Cleveland . And then a friend mentioned the Sandhill crane migration that goes through the Platte River region in Nebraska in March/April. It sounded amazing. I just needed to start planning; the weather in this region in March can be horribly unpredictable, would I run into a snowstorm or would it be dry and blue skies? Turns out it was a little of both. Just a few days before I started out, there was a major snowstorm in Nebraska, which made me nervous, but I had great weather. There are a few different ways to see the cranes and probably the best way is to connect with one of the conservancy groups that does educational work on the cranes and the diverse wildlife on the Platte River. They offer ...
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