This weekend we visited the Washington State Capitol - Olympia. We stopped by the Capitol museum first, an older home in the middle of town.

 

  

 

From there we stopped at the "New" Capitol building complex - which is gorgeous. We got to tour the building, which was completed in 1928. In fact, this was the last set of buildings designed in the Neo-Classical style in America.

 

   

 

The lighting inside and out was designed by Tiffany, the stone in the main parts of the building were quarried from Alaska, and the brick and sandstone work were completed by 500 craftsmen from around the world. It is truly impressive.

 

          

 

 

This morning we had a quick breakfast and headed out to the Snoqualmie area just east and a little north of here up into the mountains, along highway 90 about an hour. We then left the highway and took a side road, and then a dirt road for about 12 miles or so. Poor Marjorie's car looked like it had been 4-wheeling! Normally it's a glossy black, but when we got to the trailhead it was a quiet shade of...mud.

 

 

We started down the very rocky trail, and with the temperatures in the low 40's, I made a mental note: "Gloves after September!" The weather cleared into a gorgeous sunshine, even though it was still a little chilly in the shade. It's a beautiful hike, even if it is a little rocky, with a nice gradual slope up to the falls. There are several falls there, and we were headed to the first one.

 

 

Christina tracked a few animals, and we stopped along the way and set up a picnic lunch on a large flat boulder. We hiked the rest of the way to the falls and then headed the rough path back home.

 

 

Now we're off to wash the car. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fall season has started here in the Northwest, and the trees even on the city streets are a riot of color. I used to live in North Carolina, and they certainly have some beautiful fall colors there, but these are even more vibrant, at least for a little while.

 

The National Geographic Society had a "Museum Weekend" this week and if you registered on their site you could get tickets to lots of museums. We've been to most of the major museums around here, but we had not been to the Tacoma Art Museum just south of us. We drove down but arrived a bit early, so we asked a local where the "best" donuts were in Tacoma. We were told "Le Donut" was a good place, so we trekked the 3/4 mile hike up to the shop, to find someplace that had a lot of character. For one thing, it's a donut shop with a French name run by an Asian family. It also serves as a check cashing shop, has money orders and more. The donuts weren't half bad.

 

We hiked back down to the Art Museum and found some really neat exhibits. I liked the photography and glass displays, Christina liked the paintings, and Marjorie hit the mother-load of quilts. There are a series of quilts on display there from the GeeHee area in Alabama, made from lots of old work clothes. The amount of work that went into them was amazing.

 

When we were all done, we stopped by the Spaghetti Factory for lunch, then a quick latte at the college coffee shop. Can't beat stong coffee on a cold, rainy day!