Grand Teton National Park

Posted on October 6, 2024 by admin

Time for a fall break, though it hasn’t been much like fall lately. Cool nights, but warm and almost hot days. This weekend, the nights weren’t even that cool. On Saturday evening we sat on the deck and ate our pizza dinner. The wind was a bit brisk, and willing to carry away unanchored napkins, but other than that it was a wonderful time for dining al fresco. Here in October.

Back to posting on October 13 or so. Or maybe October 15, to honor Italian Food Day, as Ann calls it. Still technically a holiday in most states.

For a North American mountain range, the Tetons are pups, with current scientific assessment putting their age at 6 million to 9 million years. The likes of the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades come in between 40 million and 45 million years old; the Sierra Madre at 60 million years; the Great Smoky Mountains from 200 million to 300 million, just to cite North American examples.

The Tetons’ ongoing formation has something to do with one plate subducting under another and vast crack in the Earth. I don’t have a deep understanding of geology, but I can get a sense of a slow motion crash – really slow motion, from a human perspective – and enormous volumes of rock being pushed upward.

The wider geology of this part of the West is just as strange and interesting. Deep down under the crust is a hot spot, an imponderable heat bulge that brought volcanism to the surface in Idaho and later Wyoming, as the big North American plate passed over the spot over the last few million years. An eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera is due. Could be tomorrow, could be 1,000 or 10,000 years from now, I understand.

Then there’s the matter, very recent on a geological scale, of the freezing and thawing of ice ages, creator and destroyer of ancient lakes in the area, as illustrated by the unstable ice dams on the Columbia and the cubic miles of water unleased on the gorge not only once, but many times.

Geologically speaking, this part of North America’s having a rumble. What’s really remarkable is that we humans, with our firefly lifespans, have figured all that out. Mostly in my lifetime. You can’t tell that just looking at the grandeur. But knowing all that adds to the view.

Day one. Our first day at the park was driving and some hiking.

Jenny Lake. A scenic drive skirts its shore.

A roadside view of the mountains, but also a river.

The trees line the Snake River. I had little appreciation for the Snake before taking this trip and looking at fine maps like this, which not only details the mighty Columbia but the serpentine Snake, though both of them wind around. We saw the Snake at Grand Teton NP near its origin, but also crossed it where it forms the Oregon-Idaho border, and at Idaho Falls.

Our second day was hiking and some driving.

The trail to Taggert Lake.

When we passed these boulders, the thought popped into my head: What’s the difference, really, between these chunks of rock in the foreground and the peaks in the background? Just mass.

The lake. Wow.

Not a solitary experience.

Father and daughter, I assume. They spent quite a while looking at the many tadpole-like fish in the shallows.

More solitary away from the lake, on the long looping trail back to the parking lot.

We did make the nodding acquaintance of a family. Probably grandparents and their two university-aged grandsons (or maybe one with a friend), probably from a metro in the Northeast. The grandmother, maybe 10 years my senior, looked particularly exhausted by the trail, grayish hair frazzled, face a little pink.

We passed them, though they passed us later as we relaxed in a shady spot. Later, we passed them again as they rested, the grandsons clearly worried about grandma, though I don’t think she was in any real danger, unless she had a health problem I didn’t know about. Still, she was making the effort at however many thousands of feet we were in elevation, with its thinner air.

Again I ask – and always wonder – what is it about mountains? I don’t have the urge to climb, but I do want to get close enough to see their majesty.

Once the hiking is over —

Waiting are the comforts of a rented room. Ahh.

Chapel of the Transfiguration

Posted on October 4, 2024 by admin

The place to contemplate the great outdoors is usually outdoors. But not quite always.

About a month ago, we entered Grand Teton National Park at the Moose Entrance. Not far inside the park is the Chapel of the Transfiguration.

Rustic, the style is called. A picture window behind the altar, looking toward the Cathedral Group of mountains, was clearly no accident. Liturgical east in this case points to the grandeur of Creation.

The chapel has stood in this spot in Wyoming for nearly 100 years, built to serve guests at the various dude ranches that existed in the area before it was a national park. Grand Teton became a national park in 1929, with President Coolidge inking the bill at the tail end of his administration, but even then the chapel wasn’t in the park, which didn’t expand down to Moose until 1950.

Transfiguration is an Episcopal chapel, associated with St. John’s Episcopal Church in Jackson, Wyoming. St John’s, a large log structure over 100 years old, is just off the busy main street in that town, a little apart from the many shops and restaurants and attractions. We spent a while in Jackson before entering the Grand Teton NP, including a visit to St. John’s.

The church was open, but no one else was there. If any place qualifies as the beaten path, Jackson, Wyoming is it. And as usual, it took about a minute to get off the beaten path.

Craters of the Moon National Monument

Posted on October 3, 2024 by admin

Among the western states, Idaho’s got one of the more interesting shapes, the result of decades of negotiations, schemes and the arcane doings of Congress in the 19th century, which are summarized nicely in an article in Idaho magazine, though it could use a few more maps. Not every is happy with the current Oregon-Idaho border, though I’m not holding my breath waiting for a change.

Idaho’s flag is less interesting; another state seal.

At least the seal has some Latin: Esto perpetua, let it be forever; it is forever. I assume that’s a wish for the existence of Idaho, or Idaho’s status as a state, not the seal or flag itself. New state flag designs for Idaho are kicking around on the likes of Reddit, but nothing official seems to be in the works yet. Pocatello has had a new flag since 2017, however, and it did need one.

We headed east from Boise on September 3. The easy way is on I-84. We drove to Mountain Home and then turned off on US 20, as previously mentioned. Go that way and you’ll eventually come to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. It’s a big blob on the map (753,000 acres) that has long intrigued me.

The monument was originally created in 1924 by President Coolidge partly due to the publicizing efforts of an interesting Idahoan, Bob Limbert, who explored the area, previously ignored as a wasteland, and wrote about it. President Clinton expanded Craters of the Moon greatly in 2000 and I’ve read that the Idaho legislature has asked Congress to make it a national park.

I’d be against it. Not that anyone has asked me, but it’s time to stop national park bloat. Sixty-three is more than enough. Sixty is fine, for that matter, a nice round number with ancient resonance. There’s nothing wrong with a place being a national monument. It’s an honorable old designation, the brainchild that most conservation-minded president, TR. I need to visit more of them myself: only 21 out of 134 so far, counting Craters of the Moon and Devils Tower.

The part of Craters of the Moon accessible to casual tourists is only a sliver, but quite a sliver. One trail leads over the aftermath of ancient lava flows, and a road leads to cones.

The terrain just cries out for a monochromatic treatment.

The day was warm enough to wear a hat and carry water, but not blazing hot. A scattering of other tourists were around, but nothing like the more popular trails of the national parks.

The place looks barren, but it isn’t so, since life adapts.

Except where it doesn’t. Yet.

We decided not to climb the enormous black cone, but if you look carefully, you can see a fellow who did. Note the trail on one of the smaller cones. That we did climb, reaching a view of the maw of the cone, though it has a grate blocking the way, to limit the erosive effect of a constant trickle of people clambering down.

More monochrome.

“The craters of Craters of the Moon… are definitely of volcanic origin,” explains the NPS paper guide, noting also that the name dates from long before anyone knew what the actual craters of the Moon looked like, at least up close. I don’t think any of the Apollo astronauts were reminded of Idaho. No matter, the name’s got some panache.

“But where is the volcano? These vast volumes of lava issued not from one volcano but from a series of deep fissures – known collectively as the Great Rift – that crosses the Snake River Plain. Beginning 15,000 years ago, lava welled up from the Great Rift to produce this vast ocean of rock. The most recent eruption occurred a mere 2,000 years ago, and geologists believe that future events are likely.”

Not to be confused with the Great Rift Valley, over in East Africa. The Digital Atlas of Idaho calls it the Great Rift system, “a series of north-northwest trending fractures… The total rift system is 62 miles long and may be the longest known rift zone in the conterminous United States.”

In other places, life has returned more robustly. There’s an easy trail through that as well.

A difficult place for trees, looks like.

We spent longer than planned at Craters of the Moon, which meant that we didn’t get to Victor, Idaho, our next destination, until well after dark. No big deal, it was worth it, and the nighttime winding road was a smaller version of the twisty drive near Sheridan, Wyo., so not bad either.

The Idaho State Capitol & Bits of Boise

Posted on October 2, 2024 by admin

Boise is a growth town. I know that because the Census Bureau reported a population of about 235,600 in 2020, compared with 205,600 in 2010. Not only that, driving in downtown Boise was a pain in the ass last month, considering how many streets were closed for construction. That’s usually a growth indicator.

Adding to the irritation is the fact that many of downtown’s one-way streets (that are still open) go opposite of the way you want to go. But when you’ve found a place to park, and arrive at a restaurant like Bacon in downtown Boise, you forget all that. Nice tip before we left Seattle from Dan, who has spent some time in the area.

Maybe not good to eat in the long run, but in the short run, it makes you glad you spent the night in Boise and headed out for breakfast the next day. Also, downtown Boise looked interesting, especially on foot.

The former Idanha Hotel, which opened exactly at the turn of the 20th century – January 1, 1901 – and is now a multifamily residential property. Its architect, a Scotsman named W.S. Campbell, founded a firm in the late 19th century in Boise that’s still around: CSHQA.

Everywhere has one of these murals, though usually they say, Welcome to…

Eventually, by way of Boise’s unpredictable streets, we made our way to the Idaho State Capitol. I saw it briefly in ’89, but only from the outside. A grand edifice.

Grand inside as well.

John E. Tourtellotte & Co. designed the capitol, completing much of it in 1912, though the House and Senate wings came a few years later. Tourtellotte is another one of those architects of yore who did a lot of work.

The Idaho State Capitol has a gilded Washington on a gilded horse.

“Austrian immigrant [Charles Ostner] carved George Washington from a single pine tree,” the capitol web site says. “With a postage stamp to guide him, Ostner took four years to create his masterpiece. His young son was said to have frequently held a candle to light his workroom after darkness fell.

“Once completed, Ostner gave his rendition of our first president to the Territory in 1869. In return, Idaho’s leadership paid him $2,500.” Later, it was gilded and much later, restored.

Any capitol can have an image of George Washington. But how many have a Benjamin Harrison?

Idaho is, of course, another of the six Benjamin Harrison states, entering the union with his signature in 1890 as number 43, just days ahead of Wyoming. A nearby sign says the Harrison bust was carved in 2009 by one Steve Ussing using wood from a red oak planted by the president himself.

The Columbia River Gorge

Posted on October 1, 2024 by admin

A happy birthday to Jimmy Carter, president of my adolescence, who some years ago outlasted every other holder of that high office, now reaching 100. I can’t presume to know the secret of his longevity, but can speculate that lasting long enough to vote against you-know-who might have been an inspiration to hang on.

While reading about President Carter today, I came across the conclusion of a speech at the dedication of the Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta on October 1, 1986.

I must tell you, Mr. President, that your countrymen have vivid memories of your time in the White House still. They see you working in the Oval Office at your desk with an air of intense concentration, repairing to a quiet place to receive the latest word on the hostages you did so much to free, or studying in your hideaway office for the meeting at Camp David that would mark such a breakthrough for peace in the Middle East. Others will speak today, Mr. President, of all phases of your political career and your policies. For myself, I can pay you no higher honor than to say simply this: You gave of yourself to this country, gracing the White House with your passion and intellect and commitment. And now you have become a permanent part of that grand old house, so rich in tradition, that belongs to us all. For that, Mr. President, I thank you, and your country thanks you.

Who said that? Ronald Reagan.

A month ago today we headed east from Portland on US 30, which soon becomes the Historic Columbia River Highway, beginning at the sizable town of Troutdale, an intriguing place that seems to count as exurban Portland. As highways go, the road is antediluvian, first surveyed in the 1910s, partly following a 19th-century wagon route. Old, but well maintained, it’s a smooth drive in our time, though fairly busy.

The highway’s engineer, Samuel C. Lancaster, got himself a plaque along the way, which calls the road a highway of “poetry and drama.” He collaborated with business tycoon and good roads promoter Sam Hill to get the road built.

That is, he left a legacy of vistas. One could do a lot worse.

At Chanticleer Point.

Further east is Crown Point, a promontory more than 700 feet high, with an even more sweeping view of the mighty Columbia. The builders of the highway knew this too, and included an observation tower: Vista House.

Designed by Edgar M. Lazarus and completed in 1918. Elegant stonework, and an expensive development, I’ve read. I’d say worth it, for providing more than a century of vistas.

Inside Vista House is a small museum, gift shop, and an information kiosk where we got helpful information from the person at the desk. She said that the highway (US 30) was closed for construction a few miles to the east, and that if we wanted to visit Multnomah Falls, we’d need to backtrack a few miles and then take I-84, the modern road that also passes through the Columbia River Gorge.

That we did.

To see the falls, at least on September 1, you needed to book a slot, and we did that as well. Tall falls near a highway draws a crowd, though that isn’t apparent at a distance.

If you edit just so, that isn’t apparent closer up either.

But on a visit to the falls, which drop 635 feet in two plunges, you won’t be alone.

A stone footbridge 100 feet above the lower pool is the place to climb to and point your camera.

“Formed by the cataclysmic Missoula Floods beginning 15,000 years ago and fed mainly by underground springs, Multnomah Falls drops… in two major tiers down basalt cliffs,” says the office of the Oregon Secretary of State. “It ranks as the tallest waterfall in Oregon and is one of the most visited tourism sites in the state.”

Two million visits a year, to quantify that statement. As I’ve noticed in a fair number of other places, that’s not much of an issue, since the crowd is in a pretty good mood.

Missoula Floods?

“After millennia of relative calm, the colossal Missoula Floods crashed through the [Columbia River] gorge several times between 12,000 and 18,000 years ago,” wrote science writer Richard Hill in the Oregonian. “The source of the floods was the 2,000-foot-deep, 200-mile-wide Glacial Lake Missoula. Until the last ice age started to thaw, an ice sheet at the mouth of the Clark Fork River in northern Idaho and Montana blocked it.

“But slowly, melted water cut a channel into or under the ice, collapsing the dam and unleashing the lake’s 500 cubic miles of water. It sped into the narrower confines of the gorge at 75 mph and submerged Crown Point. The ice dam repeatedly would reform, and the flood process would start again.

“Recent studies… found evidence of at least 25 massive floods. They calculated the largest flood discharged roughly 2.6 billion gallons a second — about 2,000 times larger than the Columbia’s 1996 flood.”

1996 flood?

Another one of those things I’m sure I heard about, but memory of it has evaporated as surely as the flood waters. Epic, the Oregonian calls it.

The International Test Rose Garden

Posted on September 30, 2024 by admin

I was expecting to see roses at the International Test Rose Garden in Washington Park in Portland. I wasn’t expecting a bronze Royal Rosarian.

Mainly because I’d never heard of the Royal Rosarians. Reading a bit about them – including on a plaque near the statue – I found that they’re one of those local civic organizations composed of prominent businessmen who dress up for events. Something like the Texas Cavaliers in San Antonio, whose head cheese King Antonio passed out aluminum tokens each year to schoolchildren once upon a time, including me.

“The Royal Rosarians are the official greeters and goodwill Ambassadors for the City of Portland promoting the best interests of the City of Portland and the Portland Rose Festival,” the org’s web site says.

“Royal Rosarians welcome visiting dignitaries from around the world, host hundreds of out-of-town visitors, march in parades throughout the region, and perform ceremonial rose plantings in honor of worthy individuals both in Portland and during Rosarian ambassadorial trips to distant cities throughout the world. Organized in 1912, the Royal Rosarians are a non-profit, civic organization.”

In hilly Washington Park, which occupies more than 450 acres, the seven-acre International Test Rose Garden is directly downhill from the Portland Japanese Garden and, unlike that garden, free to visit. Some 10,000+ rose bushes grow there, representing 650+ varieties. If I hadn’t visited the Tyler Rose Garden earlier this year, I would have been flabbergasted by the profusion. Still, the garden is impressive.

The fact that it is a test garden means that rose growers far and wide send their cultivars for evaluation.

“Test beds are planted with new varieties evaluated on several characteristics, including disease resistance, bloom form, color and fragrance,” says the Spokesman-Review. “ A Gold Medal Garden features previous years’ best selections, and the Shakespeare Garden features roses named after characters in the bard’s works.”

The idea of a test garden in Portland goes back to World War I, when it was seen as a way to preserve cultivars that might otherwise be lost because of the fighting. Portland was already known for its roses by the early 20th century, as illustrated in this article in Oregon Live.

The thing to do at the International Test Garden is wander around, taking in the varieties.

Or –

Create rose-themed art.

Portland Japanese Garden

Posted on September 29, 2024 by admin

The other day I found a web site that promised to provide captions for photos. A very specific set of photos. It said:

Looking for the perfect captions for your photos of Japanese gardens? A well-crafted caption can help increase engagement on your Instagram posts and capture the serene beauty of these stunning landscapes.

We understand that coming up with the right words can be challenging, but don’t worry! We’ve got you covered with a wide variety of caption templates for Japanese garden photos.

Looks like what they’re selling is an AI service that will spit out captions for your pictures. Any kind of pictures. Japanese gardens is just one example. The site had a few captions for Instagram posted images on hand, pre-written, you might say. Such as:

Serenity in every step.

Restoring my inner balance amidst the lush greens.

In awe of the perfect blend of nature and art.

Awfully high-minded sentiments there. I enjoyed our visit to Portland Japanese Garden a lot, Yuriko even more, praising its authentic details and feeling.

But serenity in every step overstates things, and not just because I’d been warned about the possibility of wanker criminals smashing one of my car windows on the Washington Park road where we parked it, a problem we did not need 2,000 miles from home.

In the end, nothing happened, and I managed to keep the idea at the back of my mind most of the time during the visit, so I had serenity in a few steps. Every step is to expect too much, even in a perfectly carefree mood. Curiosity was in other steps, and also admiration, wonder, and oops, don’t want to trip. An entirely normal mix of feelings during a visit to a place with a such special resonance.

Water features.

Paths to follow. Or not. But we did.

Walled in are kare-sansui, and I won’t pretend I didn’t have to look that up. A Zen garden, in other words. Two of them, actually. One called the Sand and Stone Garden.

The other, larger, is adjacent to the Pavilion Gallery. The Flat Garden, it’s called.

I don’t know about restoring my “inner” balance. As I get older, I’m glad to still have the regular old sense of balance. As for the “perfect balance of nature and art,” that’s an advertising-quality meaningless statement. Bravo, AI.

Willie Keil’s Journey

Posted on September 27, 2024 by admin

On the last day of August 2024, we found a set of unusually informative point-of-interest display signs on the side of highway Washington 6, near the town of Raymond. Tucked in the southwest corner of Washington state, that is, out in sparsely populated Pacific County, which encompasses Willapa Bay. Reportedly about a quarter of the oysters eaten by Americans in any given year are from Willapa Bay. And how did I miss this?

The mound is inland some miles, and up top is the grave of Wille Keil.

Officially it’s Willie Keil’s Grave State Park Heritage Site. Willie Keil was an Oregon pioneer settler in the 1850s, but a most unusual one, considering that he arrived in Oregon after he died. The three signs, installed only in 2020, tell the tale, if a little sappily on the third sign.

The Story of Willie Keil

On November 26, 1855, Willie Keil, aged 19, was buried atop the hill in front of you after crossing the Oregon Trail inside a barrel of whiskey. Willie had fallen ill and died 6 months earlier and more than 2,000 miles away in Bethel, Missouri, just days before his family was set to depart. Willie’s father, Dr. Wilhelm Keil, ordered a metal coffin for Willie. It was placed inside a tightly banded wooden vat filled with Golden Rule Whiskey, produced by members of the Bethel Colony. Willie’s casket was placed at the head of the leading wagon and the colonists followed him across the entire trail.

Willie Keil’s Journey

Worth looking at in detail. Nice work. A map to evoke time and place, and detail a curious set of circumstances.

Willie Keil Lives Among Us

In this untimely death, Willie Keil gained eternal life. Over time, he has grown up into a folk hero. As Willie’s story has been told and retold, distilling truth from fiction has become ever more difficult. The strange tale has come to symbolize the sanctity of a promise. Willie’s dying wish, the story goes, was to lead the wagon trail and his father assured him that he would – no matter what. Today, Willie lives among legends. And here, at the heart of the Willapa Hills, the spirit of the Pickled Pioneer” endures.

The Washington State Capitol

Posted on September 26, 2024 by admin

My travels in ’85 took me through Olympia, Washington, for a visit to the Washington state capitol. Thinking back on that, the visit is mostly a blank.

Nearly 40 years will do that. But I remember a lot of other things about that trip. Driving on small rural roads through unfamiliar kinds of woods, dodging log trucks, I admired the brilliant gold Scotch broom in bloom in profusion on the roadside without knowing it is an invasive species in North America. Along a not-difficult hike under the tallest trees I’d ever seen, the trail passed by a van-sized fallen tree trunk marked by graffiti reporting itself to be from the 1930s. Butchart Gardens, gem of parks and light show in Victoria, BC, wowed me completely; so did Victoria and the drive to Duncan, BC where I bought lunch in a diner that immediately reminded me of a favorite diner in Nashville, and acquired a dictionary in a nearby bookshop that promised to be authoritative in Canadian English. Know what else British Columbia had? Really good Hungarian food. I remember visiting the Space Needle on my 24th birthday, watching David Letterman destroy watermelons on late-night TV while staying with my Seattle friends, listening to Laurie Anderson talk-sing on the radio (from United States Live) as we took a ferry to Bainbridge Island, our car the last one shoed into that particular vessel. While on the island we discussed the uses of Slug Death – a product that I’d never heard of, and was glad of it. I heard about geoducks for the first time as my companions tried to dig one up on the beach, fruitlessly.

It so happened that the first two nights on the return from Seattle would be in Portland. It also happens that Olympia, Washington, is pretty much on the way to Portland, just a stop on I-5. Stop we did, arriving late in the morning of the last day of August.

The crowning dome is the tallest self-supporting masonry dome in the United States, and among the tallest in the world, up there with the likes of the famed high points of St. Peter’s Basilica and St. Paul’s Cathedral.

A protest was going on in front, an assemblage waving Cambodian flags and signs in Khmer script. The speech must have been in Khmer. Of course that’s unintelligible to the likes of me, but no language skills were necessary to hear the stridency in his voice. Protesting the current authoritarian government in their country would be my guess.

Forty-two steps to the entrance, Washington being the 42nd state to join the union, in 1889. One of the Benjamin Harrison states. He signed bills for six, more than any other president.

The capitol took a while to build, delayed by the Panic of 1893, a fit of austerity on the part of the executive branch, and other disputes about this and that for a few decades. The domed structure wasn’t finished until 1927, a little late for that style. If the delay had been longer, Washington might have gotten something like Nebraska’s capitol.

Inside.

The chandelier under the dome is by Tiffany & Co. The largest thing that studio ever made, I’ve read, and the last job Louis Tiffany oversaw himself. With 200+ bulbs, it’s a massive thing, dangling up there, full of potential energy at a weight of five tons.

Tiffany also did the Roman fire pots, something I don’t believe I’ve seen in any other capitol, despite how well they evoke republican government. There are four all together, one each at the four corners of the room, and each surrounded by flags from Washington counties. Never actually used to hold fire these safety-conscious (-paranoid?) days.

On the floor, straight below the dome. Roped off from feet that would casually tread on President Washington.

The House chamber.

Him again. Who do they think he was, the Father of Our Country?

The 2001 Nisqually earthquake moved the Washington state capitol dome by three inches or so. Since then anchors besides gravity have been retro-engineering into the dome. The quake also left cracks on the floor stone. A capitol might convey permanence to the human mind, but impermanence has already gained a foothold.

A capitol isn’t built of stone and bronze alone. The Olmsted brothers, sons of Frederick Law Olmsted, did the landscaping of the capitol grounds, with earth and vegetation as their raw materials. Anything by father or sons is usually worth a stroll through, especially on a warm summer day with blooms all around.

I knew at once it was a monument to those from Washington who died in the Great War

Sure enough. “Winged Victory,” by Alonzo Victor Lewis (d. 1946), known in the Pacific Northwest for his works.

One more feature of the capitol grounds: a view. Capitol Lake, created by the damming of the Deschutes River in 1951.

One of these days – as a larger movement to de-dam U.S. waterways is under way – the dam might be removed, returning to the estuary it once was. Naturally, there are arguments against taking the dam down. As much as I admired the behemoth likes of Bonneville and Grand Coulee, I could also be persuaded that a lot of the smaller dams were built simply because that’s what you did, and whatever economic justification they once had is long gone.

Archie McPhee

Posted on September 25, 2024 by admin

Words to live by: No home is complete without a rubber chicken. I’m sure Archie McPhee would agree.

Except that he’s a commercial fiction, invented to sell rubber chickens and many other novelty items at a store named Archie McPhee. The place happens to be within walking distance of Lilly and Dan’s apartment in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle, so I walked over and took a look the last full day we were in town.

Archie McPhee is in a basic building, whimsically adorned, on N. 45th St., which is the commercial spine of Wallingford, at least part of its way.

As a novelty store, it’s chock-a-block with novelties.

A lot of Bigfoot items. This is the Pacific Northwest, after all.

The store web site lists the following categories to make your shopping easier: Rubber Chickens, Bigfoot, Unicorns, Cats, Hands, Birds, Squirrels, Bacon & Meat, Zombies & Monsters, Pickles, Underpants, J.P. Patches, Creepy Horse Head, Religion.

Hands? Yes. An oddity I had no idea existed.

J.P. Patches? “The J.P. Patches Show aired on KIRO-TV in Seattle from 1958-1981 and broadcast over 10,000 episodes in its 23-year run,” Archie McPhee tells those of us who grew up in other parts of the country.

“Just about every kid who grew up in the Northwest during that time tuned in as Julius Pierpont Patches, Mayor of the City Dump, entertained them with cartoons, sketches and special guests.”

Besides some postcards, I bought a Meditating Bigfoot. Only $4. A store like this needs support from the public.

I didn’t buy a rubber chicken. We have one already, and Lilly specifically asked me not to buy one to leave at her apartment, because she knows how I think.

The star of the shop is naturally rubber chickens, including (I think) what’s called the world’s largest.

Maybe so. But there might be bigger ones in Guangdong Province, what with its centuries of history as a rubber chicken hub. But never mind, Archie McPhee has a Rubber Chicken Museum.

A gimmick, for sure. But it does have rubber chickens of historic interest on display behind protective glass.

With explanatory notes.

So it is a museum of sorts. More than House on the Rock, I think.

“Our owner, Mark Pahlow, started the business selling rubber lizards and other crazy things out of his house in L.A.,” the store says. “He found that people couldn’t get enough of his collectible junk, but he needed space for his company to grow. Risking it all, he packed his entire inventory into a U-Haul truck and headed for Seattle. In 1983 he set up shop with two employees in Seattle’s Fremont district using the name ‘Archie McPhee.’ ”

Eventually, Pahlow needed more novelties than whoever makes them in (say) Guangdong Province could provide, so he started designing his own. Now the company produces as many as 200 new products a year, or at least he did about eight years ago, according to Atlas Obscura, an article worth reading for its tales of the weirdness involved in making and selling weird things.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling