Smoke form British Columbia and the Burke Museum at University of Washington

August blew in with high temperatures and smoke form all the wild fires in British Columbia.  This was taken from our morning walk.  It's a view of the Des Moines marina and Mt. Rainier.  Our region had the worst air quality for 10 days.  It was great when it finally blew out and we could see the blue of the sky again.

This way (west ) is the Sound and the Olympic mountain range......

On one of these smokey days, Mom and I drove to the University of Washington to visit the Burke Museum,   They have the best dinosaur collection in Western Washington.  As you can see, I am not even as tall as this leg bone.

This coastal native american carved seal was stolen from an Alaskan village.  Fortunately, the tribe is allowing the seal to be on display at the Burke, it will go back some day.

After our time at the Burke we meet up with Andrea, got a coffee and walked around campus.  My Dad did his undergraduate degree here in Computer Science.  Below is their gothic library built in the 1920"s.

Inside the library..

 Outside the reference room there was one of the world's largest books.  That's Andrea.

Mom and I at the fountain.  Mt. Rainier is supposed to be in the background......

I enjoyed walking around Dad's University.  I look forward to going myself someday in the future.

University of Washington Arboretum Field Trip

My class (The Coho Room) at the Bridge School had it's first field trip last Tuesday.  My parents came along too as chaperons.  My friend Andy rode with us in the car.  We were one of the first to get to the Graham Center, so my Dad took us off to the side so that Andy & I could run around.

    

When everyone else arrived, our Guide found us.  She had us drop all of our backpacks in the greenhouse.  We moved on to look at the bees.

I was glad that the bees were at a distance.

I had a hard time focusing on what the group was doing.  Then it started to rain.  The grown ups all made sure that we had our coats on.

We looked at steaming compost.  I wasn't overly excited.  We moved further into the park, where the guide had a game for us.  We found a partner.  We blindfolded that partner and we lead them around to a tree.  Our partners were supposed to smell, feel the tree.  They were then lead back to the picnic table, where the blindfold was removed, and then our partner's had to find their tree.  

Andy was my partner, he took me on a long walk!  I did eventually find my tree.

Andy's turn!

Andy found his tree too.  The rain seemed to be falling harder.  The guide has us follow her further into the arboretum.

It was a very lovely place.  Then we heard thunder!  The guide wanted to take us back to the buildings.  Chris a Dad, looked on his smart phone.  Thunderstorm cells were close.  As we walked back to the buildings.  Lightning flashed across our heads!  It was all very exciting, and disappointing that we had to go back indoors.

We came to a small office where we talked about trees.  Eventually we sifted through dirt.  I found Mom and told her that I was bored.  It was too bad that we happened to be under a thunderstorm.  Eventually we ate our lunches and took one last picture of the class.

We all went back to school.