Experience Music Project and the science fiction museum

Earth date: 2014, July 14th

Location: Seattle, Washington

Amanda invites us into the fantasy exhibit at the EMP museum

This was Amanda and Zach's first visit to the EMP museum. We moseyed around the music exhibits for a while and learned a fair amount about Nirvana and the grunge movement (most of the second floor is devoted to it).

For Bob Adams: a tower of guitars

The real reason we visited the EMP was to look at the science fiction and fantasy exhibits:

Amanda and Zach entering the sci-fi exhibit (and Amanda contemplating world domination)

Amanda got to see the costumes of many of her sci-fi heroes

John Sheridan's captain's uniform (Babylon 5)

An original Dalek

Data's uniform from TNG.
(Since Data is only one person, shouldn't it be Datum?)

The original and terrifying Alien

One of Amanda's favorite graphic novels: The Watchmen

Yoda's cane and necklace (while he was a physical entity, not a CGI phantasm)

In addition to the science fiction exhibit, there was also a fantasy exhibit. Original costumes from classic 80's movies were there, with the more modern additions of Game of  Thrones and Harry Potter.

Me as Tyrion Lannister

Posing with the cast of Tyler Perry's "The princess bride"

And what collection would be complete without the king of the goblins?

Lions, and Tigers, and Bears ...... Oh my!

EarthDate: 2014 July 7th
Locations: various (California/Oregon border)

Today was a traveling day as we went from Crescent City to Ashland. On the way we stopped at

• The battery point lighthouse (Crescent City, California)
• Great cats world park (Cave Junction, Oregon)
• Oregon Caves National Park
• Grant's Pass, Oregon (Dinner)

Overall, about 165 miles of traveling

Today's route: 165 miles

The first stop was the lighthouse. One of the things that makes this lighthouse interesting is that it is reachable only at low tide; during high tide the short land bridge is completely submerged. Unfortunately, the fog was not cooperating and lingered around (enough to remove contrast, not enough to be think and interesting). 

Amanda and Zach in front of Battery Point lighthouse

Just the lighthouse looking over the ocean:

Our next stop was unplanned at the Great Cats World Park. We were skeptical at first, as we were out by Caves Junction (a small town with a population of 1900, and a few miles from anywhere else) -- how good could it be? We quickly changed our minds on the tour; the tour guides were informative and made us almost forget that we were standing out in the 102 F sun!

Geoffroy's cats - house cat sized, but look like leopards

African wildcat (looks like a house cat, but with much longer claws and a much better climber)

The leopard brothers

Here are the lion and tiger  -- not great pictures because of the thick wires, but required for the title of the post to make sense.

We encountered the bears when we stopped for dinner in Grant's Pass. The city has a lot of public art, a lot of which has to do with bears.

Sightings of ceramic bears in suits are not uncommon in Grant's Pass

Barber bear

Not all of the public art is bear related, however. Amanda made a short contribution to the next great collaborative American novel

Coming soon at a bookstore near you....

Paul Bunyan and the trees of mystery

EarthDate: 2014 July 6th,
Location: Redwoods national forest

Ruh-roh gang! A mystery is afoot!

The plan for today was to visit the <scary voice>trees of mystery</scary voice>. What precisely the mystery is ...... well I have been, and I am still not sure. Maybe therein lies the mystery.

We broke out the camping kitchen set for breakfast this morning, and had spam and eggs for breakfast. Then we were off:

Trees of mystery: home to Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe

Today was the day I failed my American folklore quiz. From my time in the states, I had heard of Paul Bunyan before but I had thought of his home as being set in Minnesota. I had not thought he was a west coast (and even a California) character. I actually learned very little about Bunyan from the trip, but from pursuing his wikipedia page [which naturally makes me an expert on the subject ....] it seems that his actual location is just "North American" logging. He appears in as a character in children's books, and dates back to 1916.

The real appeal of the trees of mystery was not the touristy statues, or the gift shop, but the redwoods. Although the giftshop was rather special, as it had a cup that would be quite the talk of the faculty retreat and a pinecone that a certain young Master Berthel would quite enjoy

For young master Berthel ... the largest pinecone I have ever seen!

For the faculty retreat..... keeping it classy

The redwoods were quite spectacular. We went on a short self-guided hike around some very strange looking trees (I think my favorite was the "Family tree" which had other trees growing on its branches).

Part of the attraction was a gondola that went up about half a mile called Sky Tram. This was reminiscent of the ride I took last year through in Palm Springs for my birthday. Here are a couple of shots from Sky Tram:

The passing gondola

View from the top

After this, we made our way back down, and headed out to an internet cafe (where I am typing this blog note). Tomorrow we are off to the lighthouse at Battery point, and then off to Ashland, Oregon.

A couple of other pictures from Trees of Mystery

Taking advantage of light breaking through the trees

Pack rats -- they helped us back our car before leaving!