Autumn and Architecture in the Atomic City

This past week the Hounds and I took one of our usual strolls along the Columbia River:

We decided to look for some autumn foliage.

And we found some!

Then we tootled on down the road to the vast research area in the north end of town, where places like Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have big campuses.

And we found some lovely autumn foliage there, too:

On another day, we decided to explore Richland's architectural wonders more fully.  Here is a building that as a youth, I always referred to as the Broken Eggshell Church:

Much of the housing was government-issue, put up in the 1940s:

Then in the 1960s people got creative with non-government homes:

I call this one the "Fire Lookout House":

Some people went a little overboard -- this home is in the middle of a more modest 1960s/70s ranch home neighborhood:

There is a whole block of homes from the early 1970s that sport arches -- here is one example:

Then there's the Mushroom House -- it sits on a hill, and there are windows on the back side.

Non-residential architecture can also be quite spiffy.  Here is the Federal Building in its mid-century modern glory:

There used to be a local history museum in the federal building, which we visited on grade-school outings.  Because the local history consisted mostly of the Manhattan Project, we got to play with some unusual displays.  There was a plexiglass box full of radioactive items -- you put your hand in a thick rubber glove to reach inside to touch them.  There was a giant robotic arm that you could manipulate to stack alphabet blocks.  My favorite was the nuclear reactor diorama -- it was interactive, and after learning all about its various functions, it would simulate an accident and you had to push the right buttons in the right order to avert disaster.  Naturally, being children, our goal was to push the wrong buttons and watch the lights go all flashy red and the alarms go off -- core meltdown!  Whee!

What can I say -- there was little in the way of entertainment back then.

Well, except for the movies, of course.  Our local theater showed double features for fifty cents, a favorite Saturday adventure.   It was called the Uptown Theater, anchoring a corner of the Uptown shopping center, which opened in 1949:

Today it is still used for special events such as film festivals and musical theater.  They're putting on Edwin Drood: The Musical next month.

And Richland also has a community theater, the Richland Playhouse, which was built in 1944.  It was a movie theater until the drama company (the Richland Players, also established in 1944) took it over in 1971.  I remember going to movies there -- they once showed The Longest Day, an appropriately titled WWII epic that was so long the theater showed it over two nights. 

That rounds up my brief survey of exciting Richland architecture.  The Hounds were not impressed by our tour -- back at the house, Pippin just wanted to know why his food bowl was empty:

While Truman just wanted to know why I wasn't sitting next to him on the bed:

Well, I'm sitting there now, so he is happy.  And there is food in the bowls.  All is well in the Atomic City.

Not Much To See Here

Last week I was rather focused on the home purchase closing, so there is not much to report here.  (Yes, everything went smoothly and I am now a homeowner again -- yay!).  Pictures will come in another two weeks or so -- there are new floors and counter tops and other things happening there first.

I did get out with the Urban Sketchers to a nursery (more pumpkins!):

And I also did my volunteer shift at the Friends of the Richland Library used book sale room:

Having hung out at libraries a lot over the decades, and chatted with librarians and volunteers a lot, I had visions of meeting fun, interesting people who would love to have fun, interesting conversations that would make the time fly.

My shift partner turned out to be a very quiet woman who mostly enjoyed shelving new donations and straightening shelves.  It was not the most exciting two hours -- only four customers bought books, and three people made donations. 

So I helped shelve books and straightened stuff and rang up the four sales.  For the second  hour, I sat at the front desk and read.  My co-volunteer said this was fine.  She did it too.

The place is nicely decorated, as you can see, with colorful mobiles.

One perk is that we can borrow (within reason) any books we want.  I looked over a few shelves, and found such fascinating, page-turning options as these:

This book contains the thrilling memoirs of a family of cattle ranchers, published in the 1970s.  It was self-published.  Need I say more?

My next option was this collection of "poems to amuse and bemuse" by a local author.  It seemed to be mostly about oddball characters from Scotland who get up to lots of hijinks, in rhyming verse with plenty of Scottish lingo thrown in. 

I declined to borrow it.  I did find a humor collection to take home. 

Next weekend is the annual book sale at the library, which includes not only the book room but thousands of other donated books, plus stuff pulled from the library shelves that are deemed of no value.  I expect there will be tables full of novels by Tom Clancy, John Grisham, James Patterson, and Danielle Steele.  Of course, I'm going anyway -- as a volunteer, I get first crack at the special preview sale the night before the hoi polloi is allowed in. 

And then I get to work the Saturday afternoon of the sale, the very end shift, which is $5-a-bag time.  That should be interesting.

So that's my report from the Atomic City.  It is sunny and 65 out today.  Hope you are having a grand time wherever you are!

Mini-road trip (without dogs!)

On Friday my friend Beckie and I headed off on a little local road trip of just a few hours, on a lovely sunny day (high of 70!).  The Hounds had to stay home (but never fear, they got to go out for a walk later on).

We started off in Kennewick, where Beckie resides.  She directed us to a demonstration garden run by the local Master Gardeners:

It was quite large, with many different kinds of garden plots.

I was especially excited by the rose beds, as every rose was carefully labeled, and I need to know which ones to purchase for my new garden.

There were California Quail hanging out in the garden:

This was good, since I didn't get any decent photos of any other birds, despite the fact that we went to a national wildlife refuge next.  This is the McNary NWR just outside beautiful downtown Burbank.  Beckie is interested in birding, and it was a good introductory spot, as the walk is not too long and there were lots of waterfowl, which are easy for beginners to see.

And we did see lots of birds out on the water -- coots, mallards, shovelers, cormorants, even a few American White Pelicans (my favorite bird).  We also had a lot of LBJs* flitting in and out of the trees (*Little Brown Jobs, mostly sparrows).  Overhead, we were treated to both an Osprey hunting over the water, and a kestrel hunting over land. 

Beckie seemed intrigued by the whole birding concept, but she needs to invest in a better pair of binoculars if she's going to take it seriously.  We shall see.

Next we tootled on down the road to Charbonneau Park, which is just above Ice Harbor Dam.  There we found a picnic spot for lunch.

Then we went to the Ice Harbor Dam site itself.  There we found this Native American memorial, which commemorates the tribes which lived here before the dam flooded their lands.

Petroglyphs:

Back in the Golden Days of My Youth, we went on family drives/picnics to Ice Harbor Dam.  You used to be able to go inside the dam and watch the massive turbines spinning round.  No more.  Everything is secured, and you can't even go into the little picnic area anymore.  Sniff.  And you can't take photos from below -- this is the only one I could get, from up above:

All in all, though, it was a lovely mini-road trip adventure on a stunningly beautiful Autumn day.

Now for those of you missing the Hounds, here they are from later than very same afternoon, enjoying yet another stroll by the Columbia River:

Happy Monday, everyone!

An Unhappy Pup, a Lot of Pumpkins, and an Unhappy Owl

Well, it's been an exciting week here in the Atomic City (AKA Richland, WA).  On October 1st, I took little Pippin, who turned one year old that day, to the vet for his neutering surgery.  Happy Birthday, Pip!

He came through just fine, and bounced back so quickly that we got rid of that nasty cone within two days.  In the meantime, though, he refused to let it hamper his efforts to have a fun time.

Also on October 1st, I signed the purchase-and-sale documents for my next home, and now everything sits in escrow until at some point later this month, when I'll get to sign closing documents and hand over a large wad of cash.  Thought not actual cash, of course.  And then I'll get to buy furniture, having gotten rid of all of the old, shabby stuff I had in Seattle.  Yay!

On Wednesday I went out with the urban sketchers, and this time we did not go to a winery -- we went to a nursery which features a huge pumpkin patch.  Very autumnal!

There were white pumpkins, black pumpkins, gray pumpkins, green pumpkins...even some orange ones.

Most of the sketchers spread out in the fields:

While I was attracted to this display near the entrance:

Here is a sampling of the sketches -- lots of pumpkins in the field:

And here is my sketch -- lots of pumpkins by the old truck:

The most exciting thing that happened this past week occurred on Thursday, when I was sitting in my mother's living room thinking about lunch.  While thus engaged, the sound of raucous crows came to my ears -- many, many crows.  I looked out the window into the back yard, where the many, many raucous crows were busy dive-bombing something in the big sycamore tree there.  Mobbing action!  Predator alert!

I grabbed my camera and dashed out, expecting to see a Cooper's Hawk or maybe a Red-tailed Hawk...and instead, I got this:

GREAT HORNED OWL!!!!!!

It was not a happy owl.  The crows were relentless, and the poor owl was very annoyed, and after about five minutes it gave up and flew away.  But wow -- best yard bird ever!

It was certainly a full and formative week.  Oh, plus I also signed up for the Friends of the Richland Public Library volunteer staff, and I get to try out a weekly shift at their used book sale room starting this coming Saturday.  What larks!

May all your weeks be full and formative, too!