<![CDATA[The Gardens Gazette​ - Travel Adventures]]>Sat, 04 Jul 2026 03:27:42 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Posh Public Bathroom]]>Wed, 03 May 2017 03:59:24 GMThttps://www.thegardensgazette.org/travel-adventures/posh-public-bathroom
By Any Name It Means Relief
by Ms. Nom de Plume

The recently opened $300,000 beaux-arts building in Manhattan is patterned after luxury hotels like The Waldorf Astoria and Trump Tower. The walls and floors of the staid-looking building are covered in tiles imported from Spain and Italy. Attendants keep the place sparkling. Classical musical plays and gallery artist-in-residence works line the walls.

The thing is, with a line of people waiting to enter, men to one side, women to the other side, no one has time to study the paintings.

Oh well, enjoy the air conditioning, the hands-free faucets and the self-flushing toilets and then return another time.

Yes, this building is a restroom. Years ago, it might have been called a comfort station. True, you could rest in the building and you’d feel more comfortable after visiting, especially if the queue had been long, but you couldn’t take a bath. Although I have seen people take sponge baths and brush their teeth using the sink in restrooms.

I’d much rather use facilities adorned with vases of flowers than one of those portable broom closets with the misnomer Jam Pail or some such. Maybe Portable Head. You take a deep breath before entering and swear, with that breath held, that you’ll never leave home again if you lose your glasses, or a hearing aid, down in that stinking abyss. And how, confound it, do they manage to put the tissue out of reach in a space three-foot square! At least there aren’t sheets of an old catalog or corn husks.

Years ago, as a volunteer trying to get grade-school students to understand and appreciate art (remember, You Gotta Have Art?) we talked about how buildings like libraries, post offices and museums often are big and strong-looking. The decision of the students was that, if you respect the building, then you might respect what is inside.

Now take this supposition and apply it to the building in question, erected next to the New York Library near Fifth Avenue, of On the Avenue, Fifth Avenue fame. Electronic seat covers that rotate with each use aside, do we need to respect what we’ll find in a bathroom/restroom/comfort station?

Or is there something else going on here, possibly unintentional. Could this be an impetus toward a return to grandeur: travel suits and corsages on airplanes, floor-length gowns seen beyond the red carpet of Hollywood, sleepwear relegated to the bedroom and not even allowed in any store with a name ending in, mart. Let’s not forget pants with a rise extending to the waist. Cracks once again left to the sidewalks.
Probably it was just that the facilities needed updating and the non-profit that runs the adjacent park strives for excellence and thought the new interior would help improve business in the neighborhood.

Something that the remodel did was remind me of a trip to New York with hours spent in the magnificent, both inside and out, Metropolitan Museum of Art. It also reminded me of the hours I spent in Central Park looking for strawberry fields. Thank you, John Lennon.

The elegant restroom also reminded me of Vista House. Built in 1918, this building is round and sits on a protruding bank of the Columbia River. From afar, it looks like an observatory. One might guess it was built to be someone’s home. But like the posh New York City building, it houses restrooms. Vista Houses was a stop for travelers along Oregon’s Columbia River Highway.

I like a lot of American customs dating back decades. I also like classical revival architecture; although, I wouldn’t want to see money, particularly government money, spent today on recreating marble and cement behemoths. Leave that to Disney and Las Vegas.

Still, the question remains: Does show of wealth encourage lofty thinking and high goals. Perhaps even national protectionism through mighty fortresses. Or is it a goading over the less fortunate and an increase in the chasm between the haves and have nots. Isn’t it amazing what an article on a receptacle of human waste can inspire in the imagination?
]]><![CDATA[Invitation to Share Travel Adventures]]>Sat, 14 Jan 2017 20:25:00 GMThttps://www.thegardensgazette.org/travel-adventures/invitation-to-share-travel-adventuresby Joan Gilbert
Jan 11, 2017
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This is a blog about travel. As we age we find ourselves spending more time at home due to health or monetary reasons. Especially on a dreary day we enjoy sitting and reading about the adventures of others. On The Gardens Gazette we can share the adventures of as many residents as would agree to jot down a few sentences.

Maybe you visited Hawaii and would like others to feel the sand beaches and warm breezes. Or maybe during your enlistment you were stationed in the Orient or Europe. Been on a cruise? Not one to venture far? We’d love to hear about the east coast, the sunny southwest or a cold Minnesota morning.

Even closer to Seattle, what can you tell us about the river basin Lewis and Clark traveled to the Pacific? What are Victoria Island and Butchart Gardens like? Has a trip you’ve taken with Arrowhead reminded you of another place you visited?

My first article was about exploring a bomber, on our Arrowhead trip to Joint Base Lewis McCord, that reminded me of a bomber I’d been on in my teen years in Civil Air Patrol.

As an aside, on an Arrowhead trip to Fort Nisqually I met a woman, from Civil Air Patrol, who was volunteering for the candlelight tour at the fort. It turns out the woman’s mother and I were CAP cadets in Michigan at about the same time! It’s a small world and one full of tales of fascination and wondrous places to read about.
This little article is about a place called Leavenworth and one called Frankenmuth.

In the heyday of the Detroit automobile industry, when workers could afford a bit of luxury, they headed north to cabins, motels and cottages stopping in Frankenmuth for a chicken dinner. Huge hanging baskets and planters of bright flowers have always graced the main street of the town surrounded by farms. Most of the buildings have trim to resemble Bavarian architecture.

One of the chicken restaurants, Zhender's, sports an over-sized chicken out front that would give eggs the size of a baseball, if it could. The chicken is a topiary of seed begonia plants.

The second of the two big restaurants, the Bavarian Inn, has a 50-ft. glockenspiel tower housing a 35-bell carillon. The glockenspiel sounds a 5-bell Westminster chime before striking each quarter-hour.
Remember the story of the boy who played his pipe to rid the town of rats and when the adults didn’t pay him he played his pipe again? This time the town’s children followed the piper into the woods and were lost forever. Some kind parents over the years have reassured their little ones that the town’s children did follow the piper back to town.

Eagerly anticipated by watching children, outside, beneath the bells is a stage where the legend of the Pied Piper is depicted with wooded figures moving on mechanized tracks. Behind the restaurant, next to the Cass River is a beer garten.

A wooden covered bridge crosses the Cass River and interesting gift shops grace the town’s main street. But one need not look up past shops and water toward aspiring peaks, as Michigan is an ancient ocean bed and pretty much as flat as the flapjacks made by lumberjacks, when the state was still covered in woods.
Long after the forests were leveled and after cars began to be imported to our country, not as many auto workers could vacation in Michigan’s north country. Frankenmuth tried festivals and waterslides and a myriad of other gimmicks to lure tourists. Bill and I got to hear one of my favorite singing groups there, The Inkspots. Today the accordionist still serenades diners at the Bavarian Inn, but the town is probably best known for the largest Christmas store in the world. By the way, Bronner’s is open almost every day of the year and if you can’t find the ornament of your desire there, well…

Now I said this article is about Frankenmuth, MI and Leavenworth, WA. Well, I forgot something. I’m leaving the part about Leavenworth up to someone else. Many Arrowhead residents have taken a trip to the European-like city tucked into the Cascades and I know many of our trippers would love to tell us about it. If you only write a paragraph about one facet of the town we can compile them: What’s the ride there like in the rain? Did you wander down to the river? Try a new food? Watch the Morris dancers?

Here are a few suggestions to start one of your articles/stories:
  • A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… I know: it’s been taken. If you don’t sell your story or article, George Lucas shouldn’t mind.
  • I always puked on trips ‘cept this one time… Humor is the best medicine. Now who said that?
  • Once upon a time…
  • If we’d only had GPS…

Don’t fret over grammar and punctuation. Our most capable and efficient editor, Laura Ramsey, will keep our stories readable.
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Here’s to arm chair travel to a new or favorite place, may it be in a far-off galaxy or a fishing spot on Lake Washington. Thanks for reading.
Editor: You can use the Submission form to submit your text and photos. Request blog location "Travel Adventures." If you have questions about the submission process send them in the @Contact form.
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