A WINTER WEEKEND ON WHIDBEY ISLAND

Tired, oh so tired by our semi-lockdown due to Covid, we decided to take a quick getaway to an island we can see from our living room. An island with almost no virus cases. Feeling secure, we joined the line at the ferry dock in the nearby town of Mukilteo for the twenty-minute cruise to the tiny town of Clinton on the south end of Whidbey Island.

Named for Joseph Whidbey, Master of HMS Discovery, who along with expedition leader Captain George Vancouver, explored the island in 1792.… Read more

Bog Boots & Oysters – An Autumn getaway to the Long Beach Peninsula

I’ve always wanted to see the cranberry harvest on the Washington Coast. So, when it looked like the weather gods would smile for a few days on the usually rainy Long Beach Peninsula in the far southwest corner of the state, we decided to drive four hours from our home. In no hurry, we took secondary roads, more scenic than the freeway. They wind through logging country where we dodged the loaded trucks whipping down the road toward mills to add to the piles of logs (called cold decks around here) waiting to be turned into lumber.… Read more

OSLO – WAR AND REMBRANCE

After experiencing the wild exuberance of the Vigeland Sculpture complex, the Oslo City Hall is a model of sobriety with its red-brick exterior and rational layout, entrance courtyard with fountain and carvings from Norse myths, and long central hall flanked by two towers. Instead of naked writhing people, the artwork is reflective of the Norwegian character based on foundation myths and history.

While there are oil paintings and ceramic plaques, such as these honoring women,

much of the artwork in the interior of the grand building is in the form of fresco, a medium I particularly like.… Read more

OSLO – VIGELAND SCULPTURE PARK

While I would never count the number of statues on display in any other museum I’ve visited, it’s hard not to count when describing the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland’s work on display in the 80-acre sculpture garden set in the lovely Frogner Park in Oslo. To sum up: the individual works total 220 bronze and granite human forms plus some strangely compelling wrought iron work. The entrance gates were the first to capture my eye.

Vigeland, was a well-known sculptor in Norway by 1924 when he began his monumental effort to depict the naked human form from childhood to old age in all its beauty and ugliness.… Read more

BEACH TOWNS