We didn't really have any major plans this weekend, but we did decide to go to Tacoma for a day on Saturday. We went to Noah's bagels for breakfast on Mercer Island. The three bagels we had were really fresh and tasty and the weather was great, so we ate them outside. Then we headed to Tacoma and had a clear view of Mount Rainier.

We had bought some Groupons for the Museum of Glass that we weren't able to use when we had visitors this summer, so we decided to use two of the four tickets we had bought. In the hot shop at the museum, they're usually making something. This time they were blowing glass elephants, which we watched for a little while before looking at the rest of the exhibits. There was an exhibit on glass objects that were made based on children's drawings, which was cute. There was also a piece made up of hundreds of pieces of glass all arranged together to depict a forest scene with a river and waterfall. It was really impressive. Unfortunately they say you can't take pictures in the gallery, so we didn't. Even though we've seen blown glass a few times the last couple years, the Museum of Glass was still pretty interesting and impressive.

After that we headed to eat some lunch at Tatanka Take-Out, which has bison meat burgers and vegetarian food too, believe it or not. It wasn't that great actually, so we probably won't be going back. At least it was on the way to Point Defiance Park. The weather was beautiful, completely clear and highs in the mid-70s. We parked inside the park and hiked a solid 3-5 miles around the perimeter of the park, stopping at a couple of scenic viewpoints. We could see the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Gig Harbor, and Vashon Island.

I saw they had a rose garden on the park map, so we decided to check it out. We were very pleasantly surprised when we arrived and saw several dozen rose bushes all blooming! They must be blooming late since we had a cold spring. They were very beautiful, all the pinks, reds, yellows, and oranges. We spent almost an hour at the rose garden and then headed to dinner.

We stopped at a place called The Rock: Wood Fired Pizza and Spirits, where we got a 12" pepperoni and pineapple pizza. We also got the beer sampler and the apple crisp with ice cream dessert to share. I don't like beer much at all usually, but a couple were actually not too bad. The pizza was really good and the atmosphere was neat, with all kinds of rock and roll memorabilia around. After dinner we took the streetcar through downtown, which was pretty dead, so we went back to the car and drove home. Overall it was a good day.