Tag: walks

Morning Walk to Mail Announcements

Though I felt like I was tempting fate to mail announcements before the ceremony, my want to get those envelopes out the door ASAP outweighed my worry about tempting fate. So I set off for the post office. Here’s what I saw along the way.

This gorgeous building, currently not occupied.

I love all the brickwork and detail.

These lovely lights.

This mural.

The actual mailing of the announcements. You can see I was nearly 14 minutes into my walk when I took this picture.

This was my favorite find.

Look at these great stairs. And landscaping!

More great muralage.

A gorgeous old Woolworth’s building. (A thing I just learned from Wikipedia while looking up the possessive situation with the Woolworth name: On October 20, 2001, the company changed names again; taking the name of its top retail performer and became Foot Locker, Inc., which Woolworth started in 1974. The corporate history of Woolworth is legally included in the history of Foot Locker, Inc., which is the legal continuation of Woolworth. Who knew? Not me!)

I thought it was interesting that Idaho ranch land was offered for sale in Tacoma.

This gorgeous quartet of ghost murals. I think a building must have come down fairly recently for that outfitting company’s to be so vibrant. That, or it is a recreation. But see that line above it? I’m leaning toward the first theory.

And more ghost murals.

Who knew that Rossell G. O’Brien started this particular tradition? Not me! (It’s slightly less interesting than the Woolworth/Footlocker connection.)

Even more muralage, this time with the building at the beginning of the post.

This gorgeous mosaic.

And finally, back at the Elks Temple, the joy that is the fifth floor.

Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge

Stop number two on our journey to Tacoma was this National Wildlife Refuge.

A very fun way to encourage distance.

For a time, this was a kind of corporate farm. A businessman built a huge dike and ran his farm using all the most modern techniques. That included building these two gorgeous barns.

Eventually, the farm was not profitable, and the dike was breached to restore the tidal flats. Now, visitors can take a long walk through the tidal flats. We did this, it was fun.

Us at the end of the boardwalk. There was a woman having a very intense phone conversation, one that would have better been had in private, so we didn’t stay long.

Tidal flats.

There were a lot of birdwatchers. They had a lot of gear. I had a small camera. This was the bird I too a picture of.

Mima Mounds

Given that it doesn’t take much time to drive to Tacoma, I planned two side jaunts on the way up. The Mima Mounds Natural Area Preserve was the first.

The interesting thing about the Mima Mounds is that there is no clear answer about why the mounds are there. We hiked through the site and also came back with no clear answers. But it’s fun to see them undulate across the landscape.

As you can see, the mounds are not very high. But when seeing them rise across the landscape (see this picture) they make an impression.

We also saw some scat. It is apparently a very seedy time for this animal.