Day #58 - 5/9/2011 - Portland, Oregon to Washington, OR - 253 miles

Be sure to click on the photos from Recycled Spirits of Iron...as well as any others.


We turned a brief 110 mile trip to Olympia, WA to a 253 mile trek as we circled around Mt. Rainier.

I-5, which starts as far south as it gets in San Diego, continues past northern California, into Oregon and Washington, all the way to Canada.  We turned off of I-5 and headed towards Mt. Rainier.

Mossyrock Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam on the Cowlitz River near Mossyrock, WA.
The reservoir created by the dam is called Riffe Lake and the primary purpose of the dam is
hydroelectric production while flood control is secondary.

 The weather was gloomy, though even if it was sunny, I don't think the the scenery would have matched that around the Shasta Lake Dam.

The dam is the tallest in Washington State and its hydroelectric power station supplies 40% of Tacoma Power's electricity.  For some the dam provides some damned fine fishing including silver trout, Chinook salmon, brown trout, rainbow trout, smallmouth bass, a few largemouth bass, bluegill, crappie, and perch.

 We continued passed the Mossyrock Dam into some pretty rural areas

At least they had the decency to place pedestrians and cyclists before the elk.

 The weather was pretty foggy and we were growing increasingly pessimistic about our chances of seeing Mt. Rainier or, for that matter, seeing pretty much of anything.   And then, we came across an almost surrealistic landscape of metal sculptures.  Circling around, we pulled in.

I don't know much about art...but I know what I like and I've always been fascinated by people who can take scrap and raw metal, shaping it to sculptures such as these.

 Lani and I feared that we might be trespassing, but once we got close, it was clear that visitors were welcome.

And, even better, these creative sculptures were laced with a light sense of humor.

 We parked and set about exploring, wondering what was the story behind this amazing place.

So, this was the work of Dan Klennert and his Recycled Spirits of Iron.

You can read Dan's bio here, but he was gathering junk by the age of 8.  Working as a mechanic, he learned to weld when he was 22 and starting combining the old gears, worn out sprockets and various other bent metals he had fallen in love with.

Dan has a 4-acre sculpture park, "a place where my metal offspring can run free and my creative spirit can hang out long after I'm gone."

 We took our time, studying each piece as if it was an oil painting in an art gallery.

I could see this motorcycle coming to life in someone's nightmare.

Dan's amazing creations are located in Elbe, population 21, which covers about 0.02 square miles, about ¼ of which is Dan's sculpture park.  Not officially a town, but a census-designated place,   the area takes its name when settlers decided to honor the pioneer settler Henry C. Lutkens who had come from the valley of the Elbe in Germany and German immigrants who settled there.

Like many of the animal sculptures, this elk looks like it could be alive.

 "The Angel from Hell" is a skeleton of a human riding a chopper motorcycle all made from junk. This piece was a big hit when displayed during the motorcycle convention in Sturgis, South Dakota.

By this point, I was thinking about how I could get one of these back home.

 Mr. Klennert calls his park Ex-Nihilo, Latin for something created from out of nothing.

The mechanic in Dan was pretty clear.

 From the sign at the entrance to Ex-Nihilo and throughout the 4 acres, Dan's sense of humor was everywhere.

Just one more picture...that's all.

We spent about an hour walking around Dan's Recycled Spirits of Iron.  It was an unexpected treat on the rural road to Mt. Rainier.

This creation reminded me of the Spiderdemon  in Doom II.   That's what you're thinking, isn't ?  Yeah...I know.

Satiated with Dan's creations, we moved on down the road to Mt. Rainier.  According to the map, the mountain was right next to us but, because of the low cloud cover, it remained invisible.  It was actually pretty ridiculous.  We pulled into the park and confirmed with the park ranger that we wouldn't be seeing anything mountainous today...and left.

Mr. Rainier tops out at just over 14000' and is volcanic in origin.  It is volcanic in origin and still active.  If it did explode, the 26 permanent glaciers around the summit would make a mess more massive than Mount St. Helens.

Denied a view of Mt. Rainier, we turned towards Olympia, Oregon.  The net effect of the day was to detour East off of I-5 and encircle Mt. Rainier.  Thank goodness for Dan's Recycled Spirits of Iron.  Lani had a friend waiting in Olympia.

Erin and Lani had been friends for several years, meeting in Gainesville as friends of friends.  Lani will be attending Erin's wedding in Brevard, NC in mid-June.

Being so close to Mt. Rainier and not seeing it was disappointing...the weather was so bleak.  Maybe that was to discourage people from moving to this gorgeous landscape in the Northwest.  No matter...tomorrow we'd be in rarely sunny Seattle.