What we heard at the county Fair: I thought about trying to make an audiopost but I wasn’t as successful as Janelle who picked a cool place to do it…

Highlights included sitting in at least two covered wagons, including one drawn by a pair of oxen (no flash allowed for photos though!).

I also enjoyed learning about the different explorers, beginning with Lewis and Clark. Although I had heard of John Charles Fremont while growing up (I think he was featured on a drinking-glass series we picked up through frequenting a fast-food chain?!) I wasn’t aware that his wife Jessie was the one who had written his books for him. She made history as a woman writer.

Upstairs, we discovered, was a section of museum prepared for children. There was a large railroad and a place where kids could assemble jigsaw map puzzles. Abigail and Michaela each had fun playing a computer game that helped the girls learn to determine the age of an artifact or photo. Kids could also push buttons and play video clips from the past including the fall of the Tacoma Narrows bridge, the destruction of the Kingdome and statistics from Bill Gates on PCs in 1985 (only 5% of homes had a PC).

But it was in the children’s exhibit where I became upset with the museum. At a small kiosk that was trying to explain the meaning of ephemera, I read a number of pieces from the era of the late-nineteenth century when the Chinese were forced out of the area. These flyers and articles had been mounted and slid into slots; their content was hidden and a reader pulling them out would be surprised. I was surprised by what I read.

I think that it is fine to teach children what ephemera are. But to use a powerful issue such as the expulsion of an ethnic group from the community for an illustration seems irresponsible to me. I may have missed something in the museum, but I did not see any explanation of how the region worked through this tension. What happened to the Chinese? How were they expelled? And how did they return? What kinds of issues did the Chinese and others have to overcome?

I was apalled that there did not seem to be any sensitivity or consideration for children reading this material. This exhibit was in the kids section, and on a small kiosk between two video screens. This was one of the first times my girls were exposed to something expressing a strong negative opinion about a particular ethnic group. Yes, racism happens and it’s a part of life. But I wished the museum had either treated the topic of the Chinese expulsion with more depth or that they had used another subject to illustrate “ephemera”. “The Chinese Must Go!” is too serious and intense a topic for a tiny kiosk.

Abigail saw the sign and had questions. She is old enough to start to understand it. Yet outside my own knowledge, the kiosk did not provide any answers.

The museum seemed to devote a large amount of space to Native Americans, and this is appropriate, especially considering that Washington State has only been settled by Europeans for the past 150 years or so. But I wish that they had been as sensitive toward other issues of race and culture in our state’s history.

I’m not about to attempt an essay as eloquent and passionate as hers. But after Reading Seattle and living here now four years as an adult, I’ve come to appreciate more this state where I was born. It’s a strange two-headed creature. Cross the Cascades and you’ll find yourself in another land, with weather, economy and politics opposite of the West. How the two sides marry into the state called Washington and keep their relationship functional is a sensitive matter.

But I love this strange state. We have not one but two mountain ranges that can be viewed over a myriad number of bodies of water, lakes, rivers, sea. Got desert? Got farmland? Got volcanoes? Got rainforest? Got lakes? Got rain? Got sun? We’ve got them all in Washington, in contrast and in abundance.

Many of the people who call this place home, at least the area where I live, are not natives. We born-and-raised-Washingtonians can be a bit rare these days. I know I almost renounced my citizenship of this state. Come to think of it, I did. I escaped to college in exotic New England. I lived out East. I lived in California, an unimaginable fate when I was a Seattle girl.

When I married Ted, I felt I was giving up the Northwest. I figured I’d never get Ted to move to Seattle. He was an East Coast boy, used to snow and cold, a lover of ice-skating. And somehow I loved him, even though I thought it meant we’d never move back to the land I loved.

Somehow God worked out the details and I was only too happy to move up here a few years ago. I miss the sun. I miss the diversity of Silicon Valley. I miss my friends. But it’s hard to match what I have in my heart for this circle of land that surrounds Puget Sound.

It’s a land of abundance. The natives here were fat from the bounty. They only needed to reach into a river to grab a salmon. Food was plentiful. It is a blessed place.

Some might say that Seattle – Redmond in particular – has ruined the world. I disagree, even at the risk of offending my Open Source spouse. Seattle has been a base of creativity and invention and I think that has only increased as the area grew.

It was a land built by pioneers, seeking gold or a place of their own. It’s younger than East Coast culture, more malleable, flexible and casual. It changes fast. It seems to have changed a lot in my absence. But I still find what I love here.

I like walking on the beach. Seeing the sun set late on summer nights. Hydroplanes and Blue Angels in August. Sourdough bread and clam chowder. Salmon. Riding the ferry into Seattle. Skyscrapers reflected against the ocean. Sea anemones in the sand. The history. The hills. Washington State Apples. Seeing the forest for the trees, the tall cedars, hemlock and fir. The people who have lived here and who live here now, who have written down their dreams and hopes for this place, who have labored and made it home.

Now again it is my home. My childrens’ home. This place that Manifest Destiny made manifest has become my destiny, at least for now.

I can’t pretend this is Disneyland. It’s no Garden of Eden or perfect paradise. I have my complaints about this place. Sometimes I think I’d like to move back to Silicon Valley. Or I think I might like to live in Boston. The things that brought us to Bainbridge Island are gone. But we don’t sense this is the right time for us to move.

The more I think about where I would want to move, the more I realize:
I wouldn’t want to live anywhere but here.

I’m not sure whether the NOAA alerts mentioned the thunderstorms last night – I did receive a message about the West Cascades, but it has since expired. I must have missed the lightning but I’ve seeing enjoyed the pictures posted by Tom Harpel and Michael Hanscom.

Take the quiz: “Which American City Are You?”

San Francisco
Liberal and proud, you’ll live your lifestyle however you choose in the face of all that would supress you.

I’m a bit surprised by this one – not a selection or description I’d choose for myself! – so I tried taking this again. I was hoping to get Seattle of course – but somehow ended up with S.F. multiple times. Is it because out of the drink options (all alcohol except one double espresso) I chose wine? Or because I like to sit in a coffee shop (given the options – what happened to parks, hiking, beach etc.?) or that I prefer to walk rather than drive? Even when I switched to a car, I got this same city…it seemed no matter what I changed, San Francisco was my fate…

Photos below.

I have been to the park on San Juan Island. I think I remember reading signs or plaques about the war but I’d never understood it as well as I have now, after reading Michael Hanscom’s post. I did remember the bit about a pig, and I think I saw a garden with a white-picket fence in the park.

We went to the San Juans often in the summer when I was a child, our family walking onto the ferry for a day of adventures. Once we went to the marine biology labs. One time we discovered a deer skull, we curious young scientists carrying it home in a plastic sack.

The last time I was on San Juan Island was probably eleven years ago with Ted. We had been married one year, taking our first big vacation since our honeymoon, coming out West to visit my family. A friend in the area loaned us his car, an original Acura, and we took it up to the San Juans, for some time for the two of us alone.

I remember driving around the island, how the car took the curves, swift and sweet. I remember taking my husband home, introducing my love to the land I loved, sharing with him the secrets of my childhood, the memories that made me. I remember the island roads beside the beaches, the black of asphalt, the green of grass, the blue of the sea.

Welcome to Poulsbo, with its Viking and Norwegian themes spread across the city. Front Street downtown and along Liberty Bay is a true tourist mecca come summer season. In the winter it is quieter although still busy with local traffic. Lutefisk for sale advertised on a sandwich board, also shops selling antiques, rows of green glass bottles in the windows, shops selling chocolates and ice cream, shops selling clogs, and plenty of red and blue flags….

Scandanavian-themed details decorate the town. I did see one building that reminded me more of Bavaria, complete with lions beside the doors: the location of the Hula Grill!
Even the windows offer art:

The Sluys Poulsbo Bakery window displays an array of goodies both traditional and tempting…

Abigail and I spent a Saturday morning at The Dancing Brush

(I played PhotoShop here – can you tell?)

Where we had fun being creative together
making messes and memories