This past weekend was really fun because Troy had gotten back from Texas and it was nice to be together again. We didn't do much Friday night, but Saturday was pretty cool. We woke up fairly late and walked to Noah's Bagels on Capitol Hill for breakfast. Then we got a few groceries from the nearby QFC and walked back to our apartment. We had been wanting to go to Tacoma for a little while and so we decided to go Saturday afternoon. We went to the Museum of Glass and saw several pieces of really cool looking glass art. It's amazing that the artists can make so many different shapes and use so many colors and patterns. It made us wish we had a piece to display in our apartment. The Museum of Glass also has a glass making facility fully equipped with furnaces that get as hot as 2,400 degrees. The facility itself is in the shape of a lop-sided cone for ventilation purposes. We were able to watch an artist make a piece of glass artwork that took more than an hour. There was also a small theater in the museum that was showing a film about the artist whose work is on display and how he made some of the pieces. There is also a bridge over the freeway that has glass art in it. Anyway, the Museum of Glass was really cool, we're definitely glad we went.

After the museum we drove around looking for food in Tacoma. We couldn't find much at all in downtown, maybe we were just in the wrong area, but we ended up eating at a sports bar pizza place and it was pretty good. The bread sticks were really good and the pizza was filling. After that we drove to Point Defiance Park and drove on 5-mile road, which winds around through the heavily forested area. It was really pretty going through the shaded forest. We'll have to go back and walk through the park.

Tacoma is about the same distance from Seattle as Fort Worth is from Dallas, but it seems farther away now than Fort Worth did when we were living in Dallas. I guess that's because we don't drive long distances much any more. Tacoma seems a lot less crowded and more suburban than Seattle. We hardly saw any people in downtown and it was a Saturday night, which seems odd. It reminded me of how downtown Dallas was on the weekends - deserted. I also noticed a lot of really old buildings that seemed like they had been there since the 1800's. So, it was an interesting old city, but not that exciting and not nearly as big as Seattle. After seeing the Museum of Glass, I don't see much of a reason to go back except to walk through Point Defiance park sometime.

Click here for pictures from Tacoma: