My daughter wanted to get out of the house, and proposed going to Volunteer Park, which is named for the Volunteers in the Spanish-American War.
This is Dahlia season, so first stop was the Dahlia garden:
Sorry it's out of focus. My camera is starting to go out of focus even when the subject is dead-center, and there isn't anything difficult about it. Apparently it usually fails to focus when zoomed. I have a lot more, but I have pix of other things too, so we'll leave it at this one and move on. Next stop was the Conservatory. I probably should have shot a picture of it, but didn't think to.
We'll start with an Anthurium:
Next, the dry room where the cacti and other xerophytes (plants adapted to dry climates) live:
I have heard so many people on the East Coast say, "Oh, no Rhododendrons, those are SO common here!" The funny thing is they are a lot more common in my part of the world (almost every yard has at least one, and possibly many), and they come in a lot more shapes, sizes, and colors than they do on the East Coast. This is one unlikely to be spotted on the East Coast, as it would not only need a greenhouse in the winter--but air conditioning in the summer! It's probably a hybrid, but its ancestors are from tropical mountains. Oddly enough, despite the warmth and high humidity of their native lands, they are totally intolerant of the disease Phytophthora (which thrives in warm, humid weather). They like warm to mildly chilly temperatures, but are mostly intolerant of freezing. They can burst into bloom just about any month of the year, peaking in winter usually, and can bloom multiple times per year.
When they were introduced into cultivation, some people assumed that because they are tropical, they will grow in the tropics. Well, in the cool tropics like Hawaii (especially at some elevation), they can grow, but not generally in most tropical climates, that are a little too hot for them. They are generally comfortable at about the same temperature range as humans. So, if I do move to the tropics as I am anticipating, there will be no Rhodies for me anymore. Nothing to remind me of home!
In addition to being able to rebloom several times a year, their other claims to fame are very clear colors (including some rare in hardy Rhododendrons), generally trending to the warmer end of the spectrum (yellows, oranges, salmons, hot pinks, reds, all common), and many of them are scented. Their variety of scents is much wider than that of their more boreale cousins, including Narcissus, Lily, Jasmine, Clove, Gardenia, etc.
Unfortunately, we missed "Waldo":
He bloomed early August for a few days. I never even heard about it. Waldo is an Amorphophallus titanum, a native of Sumatra. That spadix (use your imagination) is the size of an adult man (I mean the whole man...).
We saw a lot of interesting and beautiful plants, but this one stuck out for it's "cool factor":
Which grew in the same section as these:
I probably should have been born a rich man's son. I am not at all gluttonous or hedonistic, and in fact I am rather "stoic", but I do appreciate aesthetics. I could have fresh orchids on the table every day.
I think they're Vandas. Not sure, since I never actually owned a greenhouse, and if I did, it would have to be devoted to growing food for my family, and not for luxuries like Orchids. I'm NOT a rich man's son, so it's back down to earth for me.
We passed by, but did not go into, the Seattle Art Museum:
This is its original location, but after moving to a site downtown, their old building was assigned to their Asian art collection, a lot of which to my eyes are Buddhist religious artifacts, and not really intended to be "decorative" or "artsy". I would guess that this would be lost on the art crowd.
Next, the water tower.
You can go in for the view at the top! There is a gap between the tank itself, and its brick exterior wall, in which twin staircases helix up to the top:
Here is the view of St. Joe's:
Saint Joseph's was build--heh heh--right at the start of the Great Depression, which dried up all its funds. It was intended to be some sort of Romanesque monstrosity, but to save money they changed the design and it ended up some sort of interesting Middle Eastern design (through 1930s American/recent European immigrant eyes...) that greatly improved it's "cool" factor. I'm not Catholic, but I've been to a few weddings there. I also used to live about a block from it.
Speaking of "rich men's sons", here is what the surrounding neighborhood looks like:
In its prime, it was known as "millionaire's row" (you'd need many millions now, just to buy the house itself, nowadays). This was where the very wealthy lived when the city was young. There are still a few wealthy heirs and heiresses in the area, and a few nouveau riche, but not so many. There are far greater concentrations of wealth elsewhere. Most of the McCaw boys live along the lake further east (next to each other--fraternally chummy...), as does Martin Selig I think and a few of the Microsoft rich, Bill Gates lives on the other side of the lake in Medina along with some other very wealthy people, and most of the rest live on the waterfront on Mercer Island (generally, they live along the lake, which is an enormous concentration of wealth and influence...probably comparable to the toney areas of Chesapeake Bay where a lot of holders of closely-held private companies contracting to federal gov't live.
Here's another one:
What happened to these genteel old neighborhoods? Well, more than anything else, the wars. WW1 and especially WW2. During WW2, government social, demographic, and economic planning on a massive scale pretty much wiped them out. Crime rates soared as a significant ratio of the male population was shipped out, and outsiders were shipped in quite literally to take their place. Taxes soared to pay for the "New Deal" and WW2, which were both consequences of the First World War (the Great Depression was caused by interest rates that were set too low for political rather than economic reasons, causing the bubbles of the "Roaring 20s" that preceded and caused the bust).
There are examples of fine old neighborhoods all over the city that were trashed the same way by the same events. The coup de grace came in the 1960s, when the 2nd generation owners started dying off and their heirs, almost all suburbanized by then to flee crime and urban blight, turned them into rooming houses for hippies.
(I think it's time for Mike to chime in...heh heh heh...I think he has a connection to this neighborhood and just a little bit thereafter...)
Here is another interesting phenomenon...
Down the street are apartment buildings, that are roughly the same vintage as Millionaires' Row. Rich and not so rich lived quite close together, just like in much older cities I have seen in the world (in Asia, the mansions might have high walls around them, and might be surrounded by hovels of poor people).
In those days, law and order were taken more seriously than they are now. At this point, property crimes are pretty rampant in that neighborhood, and there is some rough stuff in places. I wouldn't linger in that park at night, as certain subcultures come out and "play", often rather roughly.
The impetus for the walk through the neighborhood was to go have lunch, at a Thai restaurant my wife sometimes visits after work. It might be open that late...some of the businesses along Broadway (ours, not NYC's) are probably open as late as 2 am, so the evening-shift staff sometimes socialize either there, or in Chinatown, after work.
Seattle's restaurants are not doing well. Between tight budgets and 9.3% restaurant tax, a lot of them are fighting to stay open. The one we went to I remember from about 18 years ago, when we would sometimes go there after I got off work. I remember bringing my oldest boy when he was a wee lad. He could tolerate fairly spicy-hot food even then.
I seem to recall the food was better then. For one thing, more authentic. Before the Thai food craze, local Thai restaurants used to be more authentic, but then a lot of Chinese restauranteurs took over the business, and the pseudo-Thai-food that is all over the country now, showed up. For another thing, they were a lot more generous with expensive ingredients. Now the food is sort of a mock-up using as cheap of ingredients as they dare get away with. A lot of starch relative to everything else. Not just this restaurant, it is everywhere. And portions are shrinking noticeably.
We don't go out to eat often anymore, and it's just as well to me as it is more important for me to eat well, than not to have to do the dishes. We still eat fairly well, for which I give due thanks, but luxuries are dropping off our menus fast. Tonight's menu is leftover lentils fashioned into soup, and both leftover and freshly-made pita bread, along with some grilled zucchini from the garden, and fresh tomatoes from the garden.
Speaking of which, some things we saw on our way back. Here is "the world's smallest farm":
I don't think they're going to get much corn...or for that matter, hops (the climbing plant is hops, whose flowers are used to flavor beer).
We passed by a "p-patch", mostly alas devoted to cut flowers for the tables of apartment-dwellers, but here are some sensible tomatoes:
We used to do a lot of family outings like this one. Now, unfortunately, institutionalized activities for my kids are taking up too much of their time, and dividing them up.
It was fun, but like the fading glory of that genteel old neighborhood, it belongs to another time and place, and a new reality will take its place.
