Roger’s travelogue

Seattle Cloud Cover, by Teresita Fernández uploaded on 24 March 2008

When viewed from afar, the photo-like images create interesting cloud patterns in the laminated glass. On a sunny day, as shown here, these patterns make an interesting reflection on the bridge deck below. This work was created in 2004-2006 specifically for this bridge which spans train tracks near Elliott Avenue and helps connect two different parcels of land in the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle.

uploaded on 24 March 2008

Wake, by Richard Serra uploaded on 24 March 2008

Wake is a massive sculpture, with each "wave" of curved steel measuring over 14 feet tall and 45 feet long. The entire sculpture is over 125 feet. Light, form and perspective all shift dramatically as you approach and wander through this work created in 2004 and located in the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, Washington.

Typewriter Eraser, Scale X by Oldenburg and van Bruggen uploaded on 24 March 2008

This amusing 19 foot sculpture by the team of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen is stainless steel and resin painted with acrylic urethane. Children guess that it is a pizza cutter, a guitar, or a hairy unicycle, since familiarity with these erasers has diminished with the waning popularity of typewriters in the computer age.

Fishing the Hood Canal uploaded on 23 March 2008

Fishing and crabbing are major activities along the Hood Canal. In some places there is a beach or a wide shelf that extends into the fjord. In most places boats are required because of the steep dropoff and the deep floor, often hundreds of feet deep. Even if the catch is slim, the grandeur of the Olympic Mountains framed by the waters of this salt water strip is breathtaking.

Oyster Beds in the Intertidal Zone uploaded on 23 March 2008

These oyster beds are on university-owned lands just north of Scenic Beach State Park. They are used for research and are carefully managed and tested to ensure quality harvests in other public beach areas. This scene is viewed from the road to the state park.

View Across the Fjord in Summer uploaded on 23 March 2008

Olympic Mountains and Hood Canal from Scenic Beach State Par uploaded on 23 March 2008

Hood Canal and Olympic Mountains uploaded on 23 March 2008

The Hood Canal is a narrow body of water, shaped like a boomerang with a sharp curve near the middle of its 60-mile length. This part of the canal, just south of Scenic Beach is the start of that sharp curve where the fjord juts into the steep rise of the Olympic Mountains in Olympic National Park, just across the waterway.

The View from Scenic Beach State Park uploaded on 23 March 2008

Scenic Beach State Park in Washington State along the Hood Canal offers views of a glacier-formed fjord and dramatic vistas of the Olympic Mountains inside Olympic National Park. Hood Canal was first called "Hood's Channel" by Captain Vancouver, its European discoverer, in 1792 after Lord Hood, a famous English Admiral of the day.

There are several long narrow valleys sculpted by the last ice age, or, in geological terms, "fjords," in North America, mainly in British Columbia and Alaska, but they are most associated with the Scandinavian coastlines.