Two days in Tacoma, Washington.

We flew from Las Vegas to SEATAC, which is the main airport 1/2 way between Seattle and Tacoma. Tacoma is a wonderful place, loved being here.

When we arrived at SEATAC and walked outside there was an express bus heading to Tacoma. We jumped on and it was only $US3 each … bargain! On the bus we met Herb, who works at Le Mays and he was super impressed that we were from NZ, and we promised we would say hi the next day, as we were planning to visit.

I love that there are all these sculptures everywhere.

We caught an Uber [from the transit centre] to our AirBnB in Proctor. It was in a fabulous location, on a great bus route, although the first night we walked down to the old town and went to music in the parks, and then had dinner at RAM on the waterfront. Great food and beer!

We talked to a couple who are planning a trip to NZ next July, and might want to book into our AirBnB!!!!! They also thought they might like to visit Fiji, but we think we may have convinced them Rarotonga is better!

The next morning we caught the #11 bus into town [having purchased a $US5 day pass] and headed to the LeMay – America’s Car Museum. How lucky were we to discover that once a month during the summer, they take some of the cars outside for a spin and you can ride for free … such fun.

The building is purpose built holds, classic cars, race cars and other motoring stuff [think petrol pumps!, garage …]. There are over 500 cars from a private collection and they are all beautifully restored. Colin may have oooooohed and aaaaahed more than I did! but I did enjoy our visit and I so loved my ride in the ‘dicky’ seat, and other classic cars.

We found Herb again, and he very kindly took us as his guest on the racing simulators. Having recently done this with the D1NZ crew, I did a pretty good job – actually I did a great job and much better than Colin. We chatted to Herb and his colleagues who told us about a car show on at the Washington State Fair grounds on Fri, Sat, Sun. So we decided that we would head on out to Puyallup to the Fair Ground the next day.

After LeMay we headed to the Chihuly museum of glass. It was very cool to see this place, although I don’t know that I would recommend it!! The glass art on the bridge and outside the museum is all free and if you go to the Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) there is more there as well ….. so you can see plenty for free.

Chihuly ‘exhaust’!

On the day we visited Chihuly, the ‘hot-box’ was working with all the furnaces on and a team of people making one piece of art. It was soooooooooo hot …… I felt like I was back in Vegas! So many people, do one small thing each to make one very cool piece of art.

We caught the bus out to Point Defiance a couple of times and wandered around the rose gardens, the park, along the waterfront and had dinner on the balcony at Anthony’s by the sea. Deer roam free, and despite having seen quite a few now, it is always a surprise when they appear out of nowhere.

We walked into Proctor on day two and had breakfast at Safeways supermarket. (The supermarkets are great here) We took the urban-hike to get to Proctor and a deer with two ‘bambi’s’ just popped out on the path in front of us. Not bothered by us at all.

Then we caught the bus into town and visited the TAM which is only a small museum but it had some very cool art … and some history on the Northwest including the native Indians.

I made some ‘art’ for the installation with the only piece of disposable trash I had on me!!!

This giant dog is made out of cardboard!

These two sculptures were also made out of cardboard, and had been bronzed.

With our bus card we were able to travel to Puyallup, to the Washington State Fair ground, to one on the largest car meets in North America. They were expecting up to 3,000 cars on the Saturday, but on Friday when we went there was only half as many and we didn’t even see them all. I will share just a few here …. the rest are saved to Facebook, as there is so many. I decided that I would only take photos of red cars – thought that might be a way to narrow it down …. that sorta worked, but then there was a really cool black car, oh and a green one … a then a yellow ……………

Our AirBnB host Jason, was friendly and welcoming and was impressed that we had taken the time to visit Tacoma. It is often over-looked but it was just beautiful, and if you are in Seattle, you should take the time to visit / stay here to. Jason was a great host (but he had a terrible bed! – I told him) and we enjoyed talking with him. He was even so kind to drop us back to the transit centre to catch the bus up to Seattle … a posh ride in his convertible SAAB.

We now have two nights at the Hyatt House, Downtown Seattle and then we will be transferring to the ‘burbs’ for our next assignment.

Our next post will be from Seattle.