Tacoma – Page 6 – Retreading for Retirement

Three Things Thursday

Once again it’s time for the blog challenge Three Things Thursday, the purpose of which is to “share three things from the previous week that made you smile or laugh or appreciate the awesome of your life.”

I usually find a theme for these Thursday posts, but nothing presented itself this week. So here are three random but awesome things about my life.

1. My Book Club

Back in St. Louis I participated in two book clubs for several years. When we moved to Tacoma, one of the first things I looked for (after the library, of course) was a book club. I asked at my local branch of the Tacoma Public Library and was shocked to find that the entire system had only one, which met at the downtown headquarters on a weekday night. Shortly thereafter I also applied for a Pierce County Library card and made the same inquiry. I attended one afternoon meeting at one of the branches and found that it wasn’t for me.

Finally, I found in the local newspaper an announcement about book clubs at King’s Books, a local independent store that sells new and used books. King’s offers a wide range of book clubs (as well as other book- and author-related events). I chose the Classics Book Club because I’ve reached a point in my life when I think I need to start filling in the gaps of my life-time reading.

Cover: Winesburg, Ohio — Winesburg, Ohio (1947 Modern Library edition)

I’ve been with this book club about a year now. I’ve enjoyed it and learned a lot. We’re small but strong. Last night six of us had an entertaining and informative discussion about Winesburg, Ohio (1919) by Sherwood Anderson.

We also got the list of upcoming books put together by our leader. Our definition of classic is something published 50 or more years ago. Over the next 12 months we’ll be reading these 13 works:

The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley (1919)
Cover Her Face by P.D. James (1962)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847)
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1961)
The Mountains of California by John Muir (1894)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney (1955)
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin (1969)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote (1958)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams (1955)
The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman (1934)
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905)
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1963)
The Group by Mary McCarthy (1963)

2. Spring

The unseasonably warm weather we had a few weeks back has hurried spring along. The pink earliest blooming trees are beginning to lose their blooms, yellow daffodils are prolific (although they, too, are past their peak), and now these trees are in bloom:

Don’t you wish you were here on the street where I live?

3. Eagles Soaring

On a walk around the neighborhood this morning we saw two bald eagles soaring overhead. It’s hard to miss their white heads.

Tacoma Nature Center

Today was such a beautiful day in the neighborhood that we went for a walk with our daughter this afternoon at the Tacoma Nature Center. The Nature Center is a 71-acre nature preserve that includes Snake Lake and the surrounding wetlands and forest.

Snake Lake is a 17-acre lake and wetland area that is home to wood ducks, mallard ducks, and Canada geese. The entire Nature Center is home to more than 20 species of mammals and about 100 species of birds.

The Nature Center offers more than two miles of walking trails, which we took advantage of this afternoon. According to Run Keeper, we walked a little more than 1.6 miles today.

When we first arrived, we heard frogs croaking (probably Pacific tree frogs), but we never saw them. We also saw a pair of Canada geese swimming on the lake. We also saw the colorful male wood duck and several turtles on logs, but they were too far away to be photographed with a camera phone. But I did get a picture of this pair of mallard ducks:

As we were crossing one of the bridges over the lake, a couple of teenaged nature guides were showing a group of young children a clump of salamander eggs (the roundish blob in the center of the photo) just beneath the surface of the water:

Magnificent Mount Rainier was visible on this clear, sunny day:

My husband and daughter took me to an anthill that they discovered last summer:

There were some ants moving about, but on the walk back we saw several smaller but busier anthills. In this photo, the part that looks like dark mud is actually swarming ants:

And here’s a close-up of them:

Here are a couple of other forest sights:

When we got back to the parking lot, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to photograph this lovely purple hyacinth:

Lunch at Pomodoro Italian Restaurant

This month’s Lunch Bunch trip took us to Pomodoro Italian Restaurant, located in Tacoma’s historic Proctor District:

3819 N. 26th, Tacoma, WA 98407
(253) 752–1111

Since we try to eat a low-carb diet, I wondered if I would find anything that allowed me to stick to my diet amongst all the pasta and pizza. I was glad to find several appealing salads on the lunch menu. I settled for this one, without the rice noodles:

Pomodoro Signature Salad

Spring mix greens tossed with baked chicken, Mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, gorgonzola, raspberry vinaigrette and topped with rice noodles

Several of my companions had the day’s luncheon special, prawns sauteed in garlic butter served over linguine, and praised it highly.

I also passed on dessert (humble brag), but the three other people with whom I shared a table had the spumoni. This received six thumbs up, plus a few more at adjoining tables. People said it was much richer and creamier than your usual spumoni.

The service was good. My only complaint about this restaurant is that, although small, it’s loud. The four of us at our table had trouble conversing across the table.

I’m looking forward to going back to Pomodoro. They have salted caramel cheesecake on the dessert menu. Since I was so good this time, I intend to splurge next time.

Some Artwork of Tacoma, WA

Here’s some of the artwork around our new hometown of Tacoma, WA, USA.

Thanks again to my husband for providing the photos. And this week he also did most of the research as well. What a guy!

1. Sarah Bernhardt Statue

The famed Sarah Bernhardt performed in Camille at The Savoy Theater on May 10, 1906. The building that housed the former Savoy Theater is now known as the historic Passages Building, located at 708 Broadway, Tacoma.

2. Salmon Sculpture at Puget Gardens

This 7-foot fiberglass sculpture of a spawning coho salmon resides in Puget Gulch, just below Tacoma’s Puget Park. The sculpture was made by students from the Tacoma School of the Arts (SOTA) as part of a public art effort called Soul Salmon 2001.

The sculpture, worth about $10,000, gained some notoriety in 2005 when it was stolen and then found a few days later in the laundry room of a house. The owner of the house said he had gotten the sculpture in exchange for some old bicycle wheels.

3. Goddess of Commerce

This statue, a modern interpretation of one from the 1880s that stood on top of Tacoma’s Chamber of Commerce Building, was dedicated on August 31, 2011. The creation of sculptor Marilyn Mahoney, this statue stands in the city’s theater district, at the intersection of 6th and St. Helens avenues. It was facilitated by the non-profit Tacoma Historical Society. The original Goddess of Commerce statue was hauled to a scrap yard and melted down when the Chamber of Commerce Building was demolished in 1950.

Here’s the dedication plaque affixed to the new statue (click on image to see a larger view):

Historic Browns Point Lighthouse

After our Friday lunch at the Cliff House, it was just a short way down the road to Browns Point Lighthouse Park:

201 Tulalip St. N.E.
Tacoma, WA 98422
(253) 927–2536

And yes, that is the correct spelling, without an apostrophe. At some point the apostrophe was dropped, although I couldn’t find out exactly when or why.

Browns Point Lighthouse Park comprises 4.03 acres and offers waterfront access. The U. S. Coast Guard owns and maintains the lighthouse itself, but the surrounding land and buildings are under the joint care of Metro Parks Tacoma and the Points Northeast Historical Society.

A light was first erected on a post at the location now known as Browns Point on December 12, 1887, two years before Washington became a state. The first White residents of Browns Point were the lighthouse keeper, Oscar Brown, and his wife, Annie, who arrived in 1903. The original lighthouse was a wooden structure built in 1903 that featured both a lamp and a bell used for fog warnings. Oscar and Annie Brown tended the lighthouse until 1939. More on the history of Browns Point Lighthouse is available here.

Browns Point Lighthouse Plaque — Click on photo to enlarge

The original wooden lighthouse was replaced by the current structure in 1933. The keeper’s cottage, originally built for the Browns in 1903, has been fully renovated. The three-bedroom cottage of 2,000 square feet sleeps up to six people, has a full kitchen, and offers cable television, internet, and wi-fi service. It is available for rental. Furnished with antique furniture, the cottage is a living museum, and renters become honorary lightkeepers responsible for duties such as raising and lowering the flag daily, watering flower boxes, and welcoming visitors to an open house on Saturday afternoons between April and November.

lightkeeper's cottage — Browns Point Lightkeeper’s Cottage

Cliff House Restaurant

My husband F. and I often try to celebrate Valentine’s Day a day early to avoid the restaurant rush. This year F. made a lunch reservation at the Cliff House in Northeast Tacoma:

6300 Marine View Dr, Tacoma, WA 98422
(253) 927–0400

According to the restaurant’s web site, “Since 1925 the Cliff House has been a landmark in the Pacific Northwest.” The Cliff House sits high on a bluff overlooking Commencement Bay and offers lovely views of Mount Rainier, Puget Sound, and the skyline of downtown Tacoma.

One of our neighbors, a native Tacoman, told us that a few years ago the restaurant got quite run down, then was closed for a while before finally reopening with its current decor. This article of March 23, 2012, from our local Tacoma paper, The News Tribune, explains the problems and hails the current decor and food. In another article dated March 31, 2012, the same reviewer goes into more detail about the menu: “The food is precisely what you’d expect from a restaurant with a legacy as the go-to restaurant for celebrations for every generation.”

Like The News Tribune reviewer, we enjoyed the “this-is-why-we-live-here views” from the Cliff House’s upstairs dining room. Here’s the view of Mount Rainier we saw from our table, with Tacoma’s industrial waterfront in the foreground:

F. and I shared an appetizer of steamed clams, always one of our favorites. We both ordered the grilled salmon, which came with a cucumber-dill yogurt topping that contained small half-slices of cucumber. The salmon was grilled just right: cooked through but not dried out. The whole meal was delicious.

I didn’t discover the historic photos depicting Tacoma’s past until I went to the restroom after lunch. As a newcomer to Tacoma, I always love seeing such old photos to learn about the city’s history. F. and I were both particularly interested in a photo showing people boarding the ferry in Point Defiance Park, since we live very close to the park and often walk past the ferry landing.

An added benefit of this Valentine lunch trip is that it took me closer to the Port of Tacoma than I had ever been. It’s an impressive sight, but I wasn’t able to get any photos because there isn’t any good place to pull over along the road. We were, however, able to get this shot of logs being floated to one of the local lumber yards:

Logs are ubiquitous here in the Pacific Northwest. Another fact I noticed on the drive to the Cliff House that I wasn’t able to document photographically is how logs get stacked. I guess I just noticed this because driving by a stack of logs allowed me to see the stack from the end rather than from the side, looking at the length of the log. The end of the stack clearly reveals that a few rows of the larger end alternate with a few rows of the smaller end. The result is that the stack lies relatively flat. It had never occurred to me to wonder about that before.

In addition to logs, boats are also all over the place around Puget Sound, such as in this marina visible from the Cliff House parking lot:

My wonderful husband earns 5 Valentine hearts out of a possible 5 for arranging this Valentine luncheon trip.

3 Things Thursday

There’s some awesome art work on public display in our neighborhood. Here are three examples.

1. Antique Sandwich Co.

One of the most interesting places nearby is the Antique Sandwich Co., founded as a family business in 1973.

5102 N Pearl St, Tacoma, WA 98407
(253) 752–4069

The restaurant serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and offers a varied menu that includes granola, cinnamon rolls, sandwiches, soups, lasagna, quiche, pies, cakes, and a big selection of teas and coffees. They also host frequent musical performances.

The mural pictured here graces the N. 51st Street side of the shop’s antique building.

2. Don’s Ruston Market

Just a few blocks down N. 51st Street from the Antique Sandwich Co. is Don’s Ruston Market and Deli.

5102 N Winnifred St, Ruston, WA 98407
(253) 759–8151

Don’s has graced its corner in the little city of Ruston for more than 30 years. It offers seasonal kayak rentals, but its main attraction is the antique soda fountain that features a lengthy list of milkshakes and sodas. For more information, check out this article from our local Tacoma newspaper, The News Tribune.

This photo shows the decorative mural on the N. 51st Street side of the store. The mural is actually much bigger (it extends further off the left side of the photo), but I couldn’t get the whole thing because a van was parked on the street.

3. Octopus on The Waterwalk at Point Ruston

About three steep blocks down N. 51st Street from Don’s Ruston Market is the new development of Point Ruston, currently under construction. When finished, the development will include apartments, condos, restaurants, retail shops, and a movie theater.

5005 Ruston Way, Tacoma, WA 98407
(253) 759–6400

The Waterwalk is a park that stretches along the edge of Commencement Bay at Point Ruston and eventually connects to a walkway into nearby Point Defiance Park. This octopus graces an entrance into the park off Ruston Way. There are other art spots along the walkway featuring fish, jellyfish, and squids. I photographed the octopus because the Giant Pacific Octopus, prolific in this area, is one of my favorite animals.

Lunch Bunch: Adriatic Grill

Today’s Lunch Bunch destination was:

Adriatic Grill
Italian Cuisine & Wine Bar

4201 South Steele Street
Tacoma, WA 98409
253–475–6000

Awards

KING 5 Best of Western Washington

Winner: Best Mediterranean Restaurant (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013)
Winner: Best Italian Restaurant (2013)

Best of the South Sound

Winner: Best Chef Bill Trudnowski (2011, 2012, 2013)
Winner, Best Italian Restaurant (2012, 2013, 2014)

Ratings

The restaurant has a 4+-star rating on the following sites:

The cream of mushroom soup at this restaurant is the best I’ve ever had. (For more on the mushroom soup, see this article from our local Tacoma newspaper, The News Tribune.) I started with a cup of the soup, then followed with their clam linguine. The white clam sauce I’m used to contains cream. I could tell from the menu description that this one did not use cream, but I went for it anyway. And I’m glad I did! It was a garlic broth that was absolutely delicious.

There were 14 people in our group. A couple of people said they were a bit disappointed because the food they got wasn’t what they expected. But everyone else seemed pleased. M. said, “I like what I had so much that I can’t wait to come back and order the same thing again.”

And what was the menu item that got such a high endorsement? The prawns over spaghetti squash. Kudos to the chef for offering a non-carb alternative to pasta. (I thought about asking for the clam sauce over spaghetti squash instead of the traditional pasta but in the end decided to go traditional.)

We had good service at this local, family-owned restaurant. I highly recommend it. And don’t forget to try the cream of mushroom soup.

3 Things Thursday

Today is birds’ day Thursday in Tacoma, WA

Here are a few birds we’ve seen on recent walks around the neighborhood. Thanks to my husband for supplying these photos. (He’s the one with the huge telephoto lens.)

Information below comes from the following sources:

Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife
Peterson Birds of North America, electronic edition

We are very amateur bird watchers, so if you find anything here that needs correcting, please post to the comments. (Of course, you’re also welcome to post even if everything is correct.)

1. Pileated Woodpecker

These guys are big: 16.5–17 inches (42–44 cm) long.

If you’ve ever been walking in a wooded area and heard a sound like loud hammering, you may have been around these magnificent woodpeckers. Another indication of their presence is large holes in dead trees. Woodpeckers feed by pulling the bark off of dead trees to get at insects underneath. They also use large dead tree trunks as a way to announce their presence during courtship by hammering their bills against the tree’s resonating surface.

Woodpeckers are called “primary cavity nesters” because they excavate their own holes in dead trees for nesting. They do not reuse nesting holes but rather create a new hole each year. The physical motions of creating a new nesting hole stimulate reproduction. Their older holes then become homes for other birds, such as bluebirds, chickadees, nuthatches, and house wrens, which are known as “secondary cavity nesters.”

2. Hummingbird

Hummingbirds are tiny: 3–4 inches (10 cm) long. In Washington, both Rufous and Anna’s hummingbirds live west of the Cascade Mountains. This is probably an Anna’s hummingbird, since that’s the only species that stays here year round; other hummingbirds arrive in western Washington in May and depart in October.

3. Bald Eagle

These magnificent birds are 31–37 inches (79–94 cm) long, with a wingspan of 7–8 feet (213–244 cm). This one was soaring over the water, looking for fish.

Bonus. Western Grebe

At least we think this is a western grebe. In Washington western grebes occupy near-shore marine waters during the winter. We saw this one on the rocks next to the water of Commencement Bay. Fish, which grebes pursue under water, make up 80% of their diet

According to the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, “Wintering western grebes have declined by almost 95% in Washington’s inner marine waters since the late 1970s (Puget Sound Action Team 2007). Recent data suggest that numbers may have stabilized since 1998 … Up to 20–25% of the world’s population of western grebes overwinters in Washington.”

If you find anything here that’s incorrect, please let me know in the comments.

Three Things Thursday

Since we’ve recently moved to Tacoma,WA, USA, after living in St. Louis, MO, for more than 40 years, I’m still discovering awesome aspects of my new life. Today’s offering is a 3-in–1: 3 things that we saw around the neighborhood on a walk last Sunday, January 25. It was a beautiful, sunny day that we felt we had to take advantage of, because we don’t get many days like that during a Pacific Northwest winter.

1. I used to think that moss growing in trees was a strictly Southern thing, but I discovered it isn’t. Here’s what one of the trees outside our house looks like when it has no leaves:

Here’s a close-up of some of this green growth on a twig:

Maybe this isn’t really moss at all. Some time I’ll have to look it up.

2. I hope you won’t get tired of seeing photos of Mount Rainier. I won’t keep posting them during the summer, when we can see the mountain on most days. But in the winter views of the mountain are much rarer, and therefore photoworthy.

3. There’s a cargo slowdown at ports all up and down the Pacific coast, including here in Tacoma. I don’t understand the politics of this situation, nor do I have an opinion on it. But it does mean that we get to see lots of big cargo ships lined up in Commencement Bay awaiting their turn at the port.

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Awards

Ratings

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