what about the plastic animals?

Twilight Town

Forks, Washington used to be the logging capital of the world but the timber industry has been on the wane for years and now the primary source of industry has been a love triangle between a human, a vampire and an werewolf.  The Twilight series of books and movies are based in Forks and the locals have not wasted any effort trying to cash in on their good luck.  I didn't see anyone looking for Edward, Bella or Jacob, but the above is but a small sample of the many downtown businesses offering souvenirs or tours.  The light switch is in the men's room at the visitor's center.

The Hall of Mosses

The Hoh Rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula was amazing.  It is at the end of a long, long road off the highway.  I visited in the middle of the week when the visitor's center was closed.  No entrance fee for me!  I put on my raincoat and went for an easy hike along the Hall of Mosses Trail, which is about the eeriest place ever.  I believe those trees in the second photo are maples.

Heart Like A Hole

I don't feel like writing anything tonight so here's an optical illusion to keep everyone busy.  If you stare at the lighter portion of the heart it looks like it is coming out of the rock instead being a pothole at the bottom of the very dry Pedernales River.

Once More Onto The Beach

Let me tell you about my dream.

First, let me tell you that I almost never remember my dreams.  I remember having them but almost never know what they were.  One thing I remember about them is that I'm often slightly awake. Or I think I'm awake because in addition to the dream itself I'll also be offering third person commentary on the dream from outside the dream.  Or maybe the commentary is just part of the dream as well.

I've been getting rid of some of my excess stuff lately and last night dreamt that I was cleaning my storage unit.  I had moved a few boxes when I noticed a large, satiny purple laundry bag on the back of the shelf.  This is where the 3rd person me would say to the dreaming me that the shelf is only 18 inches deep and there is no "way back" to the shelf.

I didn't recognize the enormous bag. I pulled it off the shelf and loosened the white drawstring.  On top was a duffle bag that I removed and ignored.  Beneath were blankets and towels that looked familiar but were not mine.  Both blankets were crocheted.  One had straight red, white and blue stripes and the other had straight yellow, orange and white stripes.  They looked familiar because my mother crocheted me a blanket with yellow, orange and white zigzags and my grandfather one (which is now mine) with red, white and blue zigzags.  The towel had an image of a green panther on a black background.  As a kid we had a set of promotional towels from Sprite, which featured a green-hued pink panther and surfboard imprinted on it.  Then it hit me!  This laundry bag was given to me by a friend for "safekeeping".  I was amazed in the dream at how eerily similar her blankets and towels were to mine.

That was the extent of my dream as far as I can remember.  So, if your initials are SAD and you're from one of the lesser-known Heights towns east of Cleveland, and you're missing an imaginary laundry bag filled with blankets and towels that look a lot like my blankets and towels and a duffle bag that I did not open, rest assured that they are still being kept safe in my dreams.

Back to the subject at hand.  On the two-hour drive from Aberdeen to Forks you're pretty much driving through a wall of trees.  Well, it's a wall where the trees haven't been clear cut.  For about 10 miles US-101 runs near the coast so I stopped for a while at Ruby Beach where there was plenty of driftwood and sea stacks.

A Few More From Aberdeen

This post makes me sad, but I'll get to that in a minute.  These are just a few sights in downtown Aberdeen.  The World War I memorial shares a large grassy area next to the river with a couple of totem pole-like carvings made from giant trees.  Bo Jackson had his best baseball season in 1989 and the Simpsons debuted as a regular series in December 1989 so that graffiti probably dates to 1990.

I've not done a quantitative study but I think it is a universal law that struggling towns and cities have a greater proportion of angry signs, most often directed toward teenagers, Spanish speakers, or parking scofflaws, than towns that are faring better economically.  A correspondent pointed me toward this LA Times article about Aberdeens meth problem and at least one person who is fed up with it.  I've been in downtown Aberdeen during regular business hours and parking scarcity is far from a problem. 

A giant hot dog overrules an angry sign and I really wanted to eat at the Dog House.  Despite the angry sign I wanted to eat at the Dog House.  Too bad it was closed in the early evening.

One lively spot downtown was the Popcorn Factory.  I lost my beloved Bicycle Museum of America baseball cap when I was in Seattle.  Since I don't go anywhere without covering my head I bought a dorky, touristy, but cheap (six bucks!), Seattle cap (It says "Seattle" beneath a little pine tree) at the convention center.  When I walked into the popcorn place the two women working there proceeded to razz me about the cap.  

"Trees?  Seattle doesn't have trees.  Seattle only thinks they have trees.  We have real trees out here!"

It was wonderful.  They had local art for sale on the walls and were heavily into promoting activities in Aberdeen.  They obviously cared about the community.  Looking at their Yelp page tonight I was saddened to see a comment that the place had gone out of business.

I awoke that morning eager to get an early start on the day because there was lots to do.  Sorry for the TMI but my digestive system had other plans.  As I was about to spend time driving through the woods, but being neither a bear nor the pope, I decided to wait at the Olympic Inn until the Pepto-Bismol kicked in and calmed my stomach down.  Once that happened I was off to the most magical part of the Olympic Peninsula.

Back From Texas

It was a good week in Texas.  I spent most of the time at a conference in San Antonio.  Once that ended I had two days to explore.  In San Antonio I stayed at the Hotel Indigo, which is in the Gibbs Building, which sits on land once owned by Samuel Augustus Maverick who, by not branding his cattle, gave birth to a new word.

I didn't get a chance to wander too far while in San Antonio.  The Alamo was practically across the street from the hotel, but visiting it didn't take too long.  The Riverwalk was really nice even if the restaurants we ate at there were all mediocre.  I did enjoy eating at Schilo's, the German deli.  I'll get around to more about my visit but I am determined to first finish writing about my trip to the Northwest.

Teenager Time

One of my favorite people is starting her first trip around the sun as a teenager today.  Happy Birthday, Emma!

As for me I'm off to the Alamo.  I'll be back next weekend.

The Grays Harbor Bull Snout

The little city of Aberdeen, Washington has been much kinder to the world than the world has been to Aberdeen.  Aberdeen was long a mill town but now there's not many mills remaining.  According to Wikipedia workers heard of mill closings in 2005 and 2009 not from Weyerhauser management but by listening to the radio.  And people wonder what motivates the Occupy Wall Street protestors.

In addition to the Melvins and Nirvana, Aberdeen has given the world photographer Lee Friedlander, painter Robert Motherwell, programmer and philanthropist Peter Norton, MacArthur Fellow and physics Nobel laureate Douglas Osheroff and George Scott, not the actor but the inventor of the self-cleaning oven (and who is not easy to find on the internet).  Alexander Calder spent a year working in Aberdeen and quarterback John Elway lived there as a small child.

Downtown Aberdeen had a rough charm but was clearly struggling to hang on to some vitality.  There were lots of empty lots and shuttered shops.  Among them, though, were these quirky sculptures like the Bull Snout, said to be a "rare and endangered species found only in Grays Harbor".  It is "thought to have originated when a bull stumbled into a swamp, making mad passionate love to a fish before expiring".  There was also a walk of fame, where I found out about the famous Aberdeenians.

I walked around downtown, took a few pictures before the sun got too low, and unsuccessfully looked for a good place to eat, settling instead for a popular, but not all that great, Mexican restaurant.

Speaking of bulls, or maybe a cow, check out the optical illusion on this holstein's face.  Is it real?

The Hidden Elephant

I've walked by the corner of 116th and Manhattan Ave. a few thousand times in the past ten years but it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I noticed this elephant on the building's facade.  There's a mirror image elephant looking to the left as well.

Bonus:  Turtle fight in the Morningside Park pond.

Lost Our Lease

I was in the West Village yesterday afternoon when I saw this writing going on in the sky.  It was  part of a work of art called "The Sky Is The Limit/NYC" by Kim Beck.  The air was so dry and the subsidence so great that I suspect the skywriting disappeared a lot quicker than the artist wanted it to.

I took a bunch of photos so I could make an animated gif.  That image is after the jump so readers don't have a seizure here.