Thursday 12/26/2024
I had planned an outing for this day, to Vashon Island. Dennis, Toni and Denise were not interested; Vashon is too long a trek south from Everett. Laurel was game, so we started at 10am for the Washington State Ferry terminal at Fauntleroy in West Seattle. We got lucky and were just in time, the last car onto the boat for the 20 minute run to Vashon.
While riding, Laurel was handling her texts which are numerous, and got one from Ed Lewis, a friend who is a professor at UC Davis but visits Seattle often. As they conversed by text, Laurel mentioned Vashon and Ed told her about the Thomas Dambo giant Trolls. There are six of these monumental sculptures around the area, including one on Vashon.
Because of ferry luck we were early so drove across the island to the park where the Troll “Oscar” is found, a short walk from the car park.
Having greeted a giant troll we drove back to the village at the center of the island and had a good lunch at The Hardware Store Restaurant. Now it was 1pm and time for the Vashon Historical Museum to open. This was the point of the trip.
For several years, like 2013 to 2020, I spent most Thursdays at CHM doing volunteer work under the direction of a lovely woman, Gretta Stimson. Gretta was a terrific manager, unflappable and always ready with an answer for any difficulty we volunteers raised. Then she announced that her husband had a new job on Vashon Island and she was leaving. She’d grown up the Seattle anyway. We all sadly bid goodby to Gretta. Later we heard that Gretta had put her Museum Science degree and experience to good use and landed a job at the local history museum. So here we were and there was Gretta.
That’s the pic Laurel took with my phone, and I uploaded it to the laptop and sent to all the volunteers who had worked with Gretta back in the day.
From there we headed back to the ferry terminal. We had to wait in a long long line of cars for about half an hour, then loaded onto the Issequa and returned to Laurel’s home. A very nice day.
Codgerville 