After another tasty breakfast with Zanny and Skip, I headed to Snoqualmie in the hills east of Seattle to see a collection of trains parked by the side of the road there. They are maintained by the Northwest Railway Museum. The town is quaint, and the trains were fun to see. Some are preserved and others -- perhaps more captivatingly – rusting away. 
After viewing the trains, I was able to stop in a charming little coffee shop across from the train to do some blogging and to email with my family, spread around on two coasts of the U.S. and in Dubai for Thanksgiving.
I then drove to Tacoma to join my brother Rich and his girlfriend, Meg, in Tacoma. The trip from Snoqualmie, which should have taken an hour, took closer to three because of the pre-Thanksgiving traffic.
We met at the Tacoma Museum of Glass, a stunning facility (at right) where I got to see an amazing demonstration of glass blowing. It is captivating to watch, and extremely tense: the team that worked hand blowing and shaping a tall, stemmed beer glass for twenty minutes broke it at the very end of the process. The blowing takes place in a small amphitheater, and the teams’ work is captured up-close on large video screens so you have several real-time views of what’s going on. In addition, when we were there, a woman with a microphone talked about what the craftsmen were doing as they blew the glass, and also answered any questions.
My visit to the museum was way too short, and I’d love to get back for an in-depth visit.
In the evening, we had a big, delicious family dinner at Meg’s mom’s place. It included (pictured above) Meg's mom; Meg’s brother Matt; his girlfriend, Katie; Meg; Rich; and (not in the pic) Meg's grandma and me. A fun time!
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