This time around instead of biking all day and then working on updating this blog / driving around, I decided to make time to visit as many attractions and museums as I could. Turns out there are way too many and they’re all open at terrible hours, but here’s a few I had time for!

Port Townsend Aero Museum

Model of the museum. You can see it's not very large.

There is a large focus on artwork for this museum.

Every wall is adorned with various aircraft themed works

They have a program to get kids involved so they can earn a pilot's license for free!

Also an endless amount of these models.

Half of the collection. Most of these are flown from time to time.

Almost all of these are from 1930-1950. Only super rich people can have planes now.

Various stunt, glider and experimental planes.

Not a bad little museum. Takes about an hour to visit.

Suquamism Museum

A quite small museum dedicated to the Suquamish tribe history.

I didn't know Seattle was named after a Native American guy

The museum has this one main room with artifacts and exhibits

Lot of Native American artifacts you can examine up close

The baskets are quite something actually, some are even watertight.

These could take days to make.

They have a few stuffed black bears as well. Do not touch the bears.

U.S. Naval Undersea Museum

Had cut the ride short because of another lame rainy day. This is a somewhat unique museum dedicated to the history of undersea warfare, even starting in the medieval period! Did you know they had submarines in the 19th century?

Outdoor they have two large submarines on display.

I assume they are submarines, I didn't read anything. Too much rain.

A lot of the museum is dedicated to explaining service in the submarine corps

Just a badass flag

There's a section talking about underwater-related natural sciences

I thought this was very cool to showcase the effect of saltwater on different metals

Lot of interactive things for kids in here as well

The center of the museum has dozens of mines and torpedoes on display

It goes through the history of undersea warfare in chronological order

A really cool steampunk torpedo

More torpedoes. Some with transparent casings to show you the inner workings.

Dolphins against Saddam. Who knew

They have a section for all sorts of undersea suits / gear

Oh yeah the Navy trained sea lions to find mines

Harbor History Museum

Another pretty small museum in the lovely seaside town of Gig Harbor, right across from Vashon Island. It’s a pretty posh and touristy area. If you need to buy a 100$ hand-crafted basket, this is for sure the place.

Main room talking about the geography of the area and the civilian vessels

The best thing I discovered: The round rock contest

Some of the first winners. Started by a guy who ran chicken races before the government outlawed gambling (fun).

The contest continues to this day! 70+ years

Also has a section for Native American artifacts. Everyone has a ton of this stuff apparently.

They're restoring this boat in an adjacent hangar

This is cool: A huge tar cauldron used to soak fishing nets. See? I learned something.

After soaking them, they’d put the nets through a wringer to get the excess tar off. This was a really difficult job they reserved for newbies, hence the expression “putting through the wringer”. See? I paid attention. I read some of the signs.
There’s also a little section dedicated to the collapse of the 1940 Tacoma bridge:

Point Defiance Zoo

A mid-sized zoo in the same area as the Vashon Island ferry / Gig Harbor. It seemed pretty popular as both times I went around there the parking was absolutely overflowing. Guess Seattle isn’t that cool after all.

I parked near the crow

Entrance. Has that "planting the flag at Iwo Jima" vibe to my great picture

Pacific aquarium section with a few little sharks

The fish are really just chilling in these aquariums. Very relaxing

Bengal tiger.

Zoo employee was showcasing this little armadillo that was running around frantically

Reptile section of course with a few large lizards.

Penguins. They also had walruses which is rare!

They have a daily show about animals. Look at this aardvark! It's so beige

They just get the animals to do little tricks for food basically

Show finale: This big paper mache dragon floating around. I dunno it's for kids okay

Another large aquarium section with sharks and rays

Parrot fish ( the one inside the tank, the other is a human I think )

Hammerhead sharks. Don't see those too often!

Polar bears were shy today unfortunately. Those things are massive

Polar bear skull. Imagine that chomping down on you.

Arctic fox in the tundra theme section.

Muskox. They essentially only live in Alaska, Nunavut and Greenland

lol

LeMay American Car Museum

Located in the heart or Tacoma, this is the largest and most expensive museum I visited on the trip. It has 5 floors and hundreds of mostly vintage mass produced cars. The early ones ( 1890s-1930s ) are really the coolest!

Entrance/main floor. Dedicated to Japanese cars mostly.

There's 4 lower floors such as this with cars tightly packed on each side

All cars are in pristine condition ( restored ). These early carriage type cars were gigantic.

What the hell is this

An early truck. This thing is like 9 feet high it's insanely huge

More of the early 1900s horse carriage type cars. Not built for speed let's say. But damn they were finely crafted!

These have so many odd antiquated engineering features. What's going on with the front wheels?

Basically a throne you drive around on. Awesome.

I mean look at this style. Even has the "A-hoogah" horn. Gold and white. Get my monocle, please.

It of course has a large section for the more forgettable garbage cars of the 80s and 90s.

It has every car and type of production car you can think of until the early 1990s

That's a superhero car

So many of these 50s-70s muscle cars are ludicrously wide

1969 Camaro, the peek

Strong runner-up for coolest car

Small sampling of these Mr.Bean cars for poor hipsters

Snuck in a few fancy motorcycles in here too

A Citicar / Comuta-Car. One of the strangest abominations of the museum

A dolorean

The enormous 83 Mercury car from the Vacation movies. Thing is larger than I remember

Best part of the museum: The actual Flintstone's car from the 90s movie.

Northwest Trek

Located 90 minutes south of Seattle is this nature preserve/zoo with a ( kind of expensive ) option for a driving tour with free -roaming animals. While I thought you could just go and feed Bison some carrots you actually keep moving the entire time, have to keep the windows closed and obviously can’t feed any animals. Kind of pointless.

The rest of the park is quite a decent size and worth a visit. It features essentially every cool North American animal.

One of the mountain goats in the free roaming area

Trumpeter swan. The tour guide assured us he was very large and mean

Great I paid to see god damned deer. I can get those for free any time. We're swimming in deer.

Golden eagle! Very fancy

Bald eagle: Not fancy

Snowy owl.

Barn owl

They have bobcats and lynxes which for some reason I thought was the same animal

White wolf. They aren't that large

The best part of the day: This little beaver was swimming back and forth looking at tourists

He was there the entire time being merry

Yes that's good for him

River otters

Badger ( trying to hide mostly )

Thanks for reading. It’s fun to make it a point to visit a new thing any time I go out. If I did one a day that’d be 365 museums / zoos / attractions in a year. That sounds like way more than 99.9% of people visit in their lifetime.

I like these. Even the most expensive one ( car museum ) was “just” 33$ USD which at this point is one meal at the Cheesecake factory. The value per dollar is off the charts for museums/zoos/parks. But eventually you’ve seen every animal, hand woven basket and tall ship replica. EVENTUALLY. Not yet.

All the links to Salish Sea Adventure:

More Travel

U.S.A. Attractions Part 1