Convergence Zone
The Frank Gehry-designed building that Dan Savage recently predicted would someday become Seattle's biggest, most lavish Taco Time franchise isn't quite ready to install the deep fryers. The crew that runs Paul Allen's two pop culture museums, the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum, is doing something it should have done years ago: It is cutting admission prices by nearly half.
By Geoff Carter | March 14, 2007
Convergence Zone
Remember the first time your parents put you on a plane by yourself? It was just about the coolest thing ever, wasn’t it? And yet, a few hundred thousand frequent flyer miles later, the thrill is gone and you accept the experience of air travel for what it is: red-eyes, center seats, rotgut Chardonnay, and Ben Affleck movies. It only takes one instance of being stuck on a snowed-in runway in Omaha to have all the wonder of the skies sucked out of you.
By Sheri Quirt | July 18, 2006
Short Trips
YAKIMA -- As I approached Fort Simcoe on the Yakama Indian Reservation a couple of weeks ago, part of the historical significance of the mid-19th-century Army fortress I had read about became clearer.
I drove south through Yakima on Interstate 82, then west off state Route 97 past countless hop farms and apple orchards as well as barren, almost desertlike conditions until I came to a large stand of oak trees at the base of the Toppenish Ridge.
From a distance, the stand -- which I soon learned surrounds Fort Simcoe -- looks like a giant oasis.
By Jeff Larsen | August 18, 2005
Museum location: 703 S. Second St., La Conner, Skagit County
By Cathy McDonald | August 18, 2005
Short Trips
When William Clark was camped up the Columbia River from what's now The Dalles, his first indication that a difficult stretch of water lay ahead was the sound.
"I heard a great roreing (sic)," he noted in his journal. On Oct. 24, 1805, he and a few local Native Americans climbed a nearby bluff on what's now the Washington side of the river to get a better view of where the roar was coming from.
By Jeff Larsen | March 4, 2004
Step into a world of small wonders at the Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art, home to one of the world's foremost doll collections, and a good destination for a half-day outing.
The museum's permanent collection includes a culturally diverse collection of more than 1,200 dolls, from antique bisque to modern Barbies, plus dollhouses, toy tea sets and other vintage toys.
By Madeline McKenzie | December 15, 2001
Yes, that's right: it's a Klingon.
As soon as word leaked through via the Internet that the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum in Tacoma is showing design drawings for "Star Trek," some Klingons (that is, costumed "Star Trek" fans) from an outpost in Vancouver, B.C., went into warp drive on the freeway and barreled down to check it out.
To be honest, most of the museum's visitors are more like you and me.
By Sheila Farr | June 21, 2001
LONG BEACH, Pacific County - If only Kay Buesing could go fly a kite.
As keeper of the World Kite Museum & Hall of Fame in Long Beach, Buesing, 65, has too little time these days to indulge her passion for catching the sea breezes.
When she's not leading school groups and visitors through the miniature museum, she's busy figuring out how to use 1,000 precious square feet of space to display a collection of huge kites shaped like bats, elephants, dragons and mysterious, mythical creatures.
By Carol Pucci | April 19, 2000
WENATCHEE - Just when did museums become all blinding laser
shows and annoying computer exhibits that beep and buzz? The best
thing about the North Central Washington Museum is that few of its
exhibits actually move.
Moving is good, though, when it comes to the vintage 1925 apple
sizer, a remarkable gizmo that sorts apples, flinging them across
the room in the process. And the scale model of the Great Northern
Railway, which runs through a display of the Stevens Pass tunnel
system.
But the overall sense of calm here is increasingly rare among
By Kimberly B. Marlowe | August 4, 1999
