Bainbridge Island

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
Bloedel Reserve
March 14, 2015
Bainbridge Island, Washington

Yes, we do know Bainbridge Island is in Washington State, not in Southern California. We spent a getaway weekend with our oldest daughter and our daughter-in-law, who live in the Seattle area, and we thought it would be fun to add a couple of short posts about what we saw up there. Hope you don’t mind this detour off topic, but if you do, just scroll down to the next post, which covers our latest trip to the Getty Center.

Bainbridge Island is just west of Seattle. We took a short car ferry ride over to Winslow, on the south end of the island. Right near the ferry landing we stopped at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. The staff were very friendly. We had fun exploring Cut and Bent, a special exhibition on the ground floor, of art made by various contemporary artists from tin and other found objects.

Then we went upstairs, where there were some beautiful wooden furniture pieces on display and also a large collection of paintings by noted regional artist Rosalyn Gale Powell called the Garden Path, featuring (but not limited to) her floral pieces.

Admission to the Museum of Art is free. There is a donation box by the front desk, and we made a contribution. Garden Path runs through June 7, 2015, as does the Cut and Bent exhibition.

After our museum visit we ate a great lunch at Bainbridge Bakers next door. Paninis for Bob and our daughter; quiche for Meredith. Other dining options on site include a small café inside the museum, and the Alehouse next to the bakery café (patrons must be at least 21 to get in). Parking is free but somewhat limited, both in quantity and time (3 hour maximum). Handicap access to and inside the museum is good. The art museum and eateries share parking with a children’s museum.

After lunch we drove to the north end of the island and walked through the Bloedel Reserve, a public garden founded by the Bloedel family on the site where they resided from 1951 to 1986. It first opened to the public in 1988. The walk around the grounds is about a mile and a half long, mostly flat with some gentle slopes in the second half of the walk. The main trail is bark covered and not suitable for wheelchairs; there is an alternate and shorter paved route that wheelchair patrons can use.

Halfway around the circuit is the Bloedel residence, a beautiful home on the bluff overlooking Port Madison Bay. The ground floor is open to visitors and staffed by a docent whom we found quite helpful. We enjoyed the walk and the variety of plants and environments we saw – meadow, woodlands, marshy areas, moss garden, camellia walk, and Japanese garden, along with a couple other areas.

Admission to the Bloedel Reserve is $15. There are no eating facilities on the grounds.

From Bloedel we drove north to catch another ferry, from Kingston to Edmonds.