Pat Bean's blog

Baskets of pink pansies add color to a small town's Main Street ... Photo by Pat Bean

“It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end.” — Ursula K. LeGuin 

 Travels With Maggie

I was too early for the annual Loggers Jubilee that will be held for the 68th time later this month in the small town of Morton Washington. Between Aug. 12th and the 15th, the town’s expected to be booming with parades, logging shows, flea markets, lawn mower races and of course crowning of the Jubilee Queen. 

  This southwestern logging town once claimed itself the “Railroad Mill Tie Capitol of the World.” Ties are those things railroad tracks sit on. Each mile of railroad track requires about 3,000 ties. More and more of the ties these days, however, are being made of concrete instead of wood. Morton’s claim to fame was the huge tie dock – Wikipedia says the “world’s largest” — that was located along the railroad tracks east of the town. 

One of two murals on a fire rescue station in Morton, Washington, that captured my attention. ... Photo by Pat Bean

 After an excellent butterhorn, warm and drenched in butter as it should me, but served by a gray-haired waitress who never smiled – I suspected her feet hurt – I took a quick walk down the city’s downtown.  It was a short walk whose main attractions were sidewalk pots of blooming pink pansies and a couple of murals that colored the walls of the town’s fire rescue station. 

 While not exactly what one could call great art, the murals were interesting and brightened up an otherwise dull building. They were painted by a man named Kangas, according to a signature at the bottom of  one of the murals. I later Binged the name on the Internet and came up with the artist Larry Kangas, who according to his Web site has painted thousands of murals over the past 35 plus years. 

 I suspected these weren’t the first piece of Kangas art I had seen in my travels. They looked too familiar. I also hoped they

Artist signature ... Photo by Pat Bean

 wouldn’t be by last. There was a feel about Kangas’ murals that said the artist enjoyed painting them. That suspicion heightened my enjoyment in viewing them. 

My travels take me to well-know and spectacular places , but its the unexpected sights and experiences,  such as pink pansies, a melt-in-the-mouth butterhorn, surpising railroad trivia and art along the way that give the journey meaning.