Keep on Trekking

TREK REFLECTIONS: Today we were still mentally at the Northwest Trek park. I had a lot of leftover photos to look at, a report about our experience to write, and, of course, I asked CJ and Annabelle to file their own reports with me.

Here's what CJ had to say: 

First of all, I want to tell you, It is great to go to the Northwest Trek Nature Park. It was fun going there, and you got to see the AMAZING animals they had there. It was beautiful at the Northwest Trek Nature Park, especially when it was sunny.

The gift shop in there was great. It had many cool gifts, like the fly eyes, the toys, the candy (I got the chocolate rocks), and much more. It was nicely decorated, too, an example being the toys on the display shelf. It was worth it getting the chocolate rocks.

When we went on the tram, we saw many animals in their natural habitats, like the deer, the sheep, the bison, and much more. In the tram, we had an annoyance behind us, and an annoyance in front of us. the annoyance behind us was a infant girl, at the beginning of the ride, she started crying out loud. The annoyance in front of us was a 6-year old girl. The thing she did that was annoying was her taking pictures (and video) of us for the whole ride. Halfway through the ride, we saw the trees burnt down from the great fire of 1924. The trees were STILL recovering.

I had to LOL that so much of his account was about the gift shop and chocolate. How very normal kid like of him. ;)

Annabelle's account:

One day I went to Northwest Trek. It was a beautiful wildlife park. They had lots of trees, shrubs and lush fields.

The animals were all acting like they would in the wild. They were playing like they would, eating like they would, and just minding their own business. They seemed happy. The porcupine agreed even agreed to come out for us!

It was all fun, but my favorite part was riding on the tram. We got to go through forests, grasslands, wetlands, and meadows. There were lots of animals. We got to see all 3 moose! It was super fun. We got to see rams, raccoons, elk, trumpeting swans, etc. etc. I loved my experience at Northwest Trek, and hope to go there again sometime.

Here's a yesterday leftover - a photo of the skull of a Canada goose. Note its lil teeth, used to chew grass, or so the volunteer next to the cart told us. She also initially told us it was a duck, so we're a tad skeptical about all her "facts."

One neat part of the Trek grounds is the Baker Research Center. It's a cool little cabin out by the gray wolves. The super nice volunteer there took a lot of time showing the kids all sorts of animal pelts, like this long dead wolf.

She also shared a number of fox pelts. CJ peppered her with questions about them.

This bison didn't seem to give a rip that he was being shot repeatedly ...

This one was slightly more energetic, but still moved super slowly. It would be wild to see these things running. Oh give me a home, where the buffalo, er, bison, roam ...

And here's a bonus shot of some baby bison. They look more like baby elk or cows to me. Interesting.  

In the shade of the tree you can see a big horned ram rubbing up against the bark, hoping to get some relief from what itches him.

Here, Annabelle and CJ see how they size up compared to a brown bear paw. 

JOY RIDE: On the way back home, the kids got more than their share of fresh air by hanging out the car window.

HOLY COW, THAT'S POINTY: On the way home we stopped in Tacoma for an early dinner. On the way to the restaurant, we found ourselves next to a building that has been intriguing me my entire life. It's a church with a super duper pointy spire that is just west of Interstate 5.

I asked Christian to pull into its lot so we could take a look. After all these years, I finally learned that it's Holy Rosary Catholic Church.

Here, CJ and Annabelle attempt to match its pointy-ness.

Now that I knew its name, I was able to go online and learn a little bit more about it.

The church doesn't have a whole lot of history listed on its Web site, but they do say that the Parish was founded by a group of German-speaking Catholics and that Holy Rosary's first pastor was Father William Eversmann, who arrived in Tacoma in July of 1891.