Invaluable Instinct: Double Feature: The Mystery of The Malevolent Oil Leak and the Big Rock Garden

Todays adventures are quite exciting! We are going to start with taking the necessary steps to solve The Mystery of the Malevolent Oil Leak. This starts with a trip to Fred Myer

(side note)

I believe that one of the only, effective, ways to vote in this country is with your money. Where you spend your money will dictate a lot about the direction this country will take, today and in the future. This is why I try to spend my money locally, more often than not. However to help me solve, The Mystery of the Malevolent Oil Leak, I require SimpleGreen. I do not know, off the top of my head, which local store would carry this product and am, quite honestly, much too lazy to find out. So I am casting my vote in a direction I would not normally like to.

Here’s a photo of me looking ashamed in the parking lot of Fred Myer.

So we take our simple green and we liberally apply to the engine and let soak.

Then we go to the local Do It Yourself (DIY) car wash and pressure wash this hot hunk of steel

(I don’t actually know how much of my engine is made of steel so don’t take that too literally)

Now that we’re looking all dapper we’ll be able to see the specific location of the oil leak as it spills out onto the engine. So now we wait......

What better place to wait than Big Rock Garden?! This is a place I was told about by my friend Sean. It’s a pleasant little park that connects to a whole system of trails which weave behind the Alabama Street neighborhood of Bellingham WA. When I was told about this place for the first time, I was a little worried. It was said that it’s a “great little park with all sorts of sculptures.” This sounds great......unless you have a concept of what Bellingham Washington’s criteria for “great sculptures” are.

This is an actual "sculpture" in downtown Bellingham. Someone PAID MONEY to have this erected.

Anyway, I’m at the front gate of Big Rock Garden. There’s a very “zen” kind of feeling with the design of the fence and the landscaping of the area. As I approach the entry way my ears are greeted with the sound of screaming children. I can already tell that this is going to be an interesting adventure. The space occupied by the Big Rock garden is wonderful. Subtle gravel paths weave around the three hundred year old trees. There are fruitless strawberry plants and ferns littering the ground. Tasteful gazeboes have been built in locations which work with the swells and dips of the earth. The dappled light of the sun is muted by the almost over bearing thickness of the canopy overhead.

As I wander through this garden I start to understand. The reason downtown Bellingham is littered with confusingly tasteless sculptures is because they decided to put all the good ones here!

This was the first one I found interesting. It was created by David Marshall and is called “Variation on a Sphere”

I thought that the title of this piece was funny because if there is any “variation” of a sphere then the object is no longer a sphere. I think Mr. Marshall is our next Confucius. He obviously has a knack for those “sound of one hand clapping” kind of questions.

The next piece of interest I found was an iron boat simply called “Sweetwater”. This was a piece by CA Scott.

There was no crew and CA Scott was nowhere to be found, so I claimed myself captain of this “Sweetwater”. Now I need to find myself some tiny canons for this sweet little machine.

My ears were suddenly taken hostage by an enchanting sound. I followed with great interest to find “The Three Musicians” (another piece by CA Scott)

I noticed that the flute player’s hands were so small that his fingers could not reach the holes of his flute. (I guess this makes sense considering that the man who created this also made a boat with no crew.)

The flute player was very grateful when I stepped in to add some tonal range to his solo. (I played the recorder for 6 years while in grade school. So it wasn’t like I didn’t know what I was doing)

I finally ran into the owner of the child who had been screaming upon my entry. He was a pleasant man with a kind face. He pointed out a particular plant within the park.

“These plant’s with the small red berries, you can eat them. They’re huckleberry, I’ve been eating them for thirty years now. These ones are a little sour though.”

While I highly doubted his claim to have been surviving solely on huckleberries for the last thirty years I still trusted him. I tried the berries. The largest, slightly transparent, red ones were sweet and the rest pleasantly sour. Previously I’ve never had a huckleberry but have always wanted to.

Today can be marked as one of great accomplishment!

This stoic piece was my favorite, aesthetically speaking. There was no name or artist for it which only made it “extra zen”.

Here is where I got to be Hong Kong’s King Kong

This yellow gentleman taught me a thing or two about disco dancing.

Then I went for a horseback ride.

After contemplating spheres, taking over a ship, playing in a band, filling in for King Kong, disco dancing and horse back riding I found myself to be incredibly hungry. Literally starving. I found a pleasant little clearing and sat down to eat.