Well, Seattle, I have some good news and some bad news. First the bad. I did everything I could to grease the skids with Kim, telling her how great you were and what a great place you would be to live. When your big moment came, and I introduced you to Kim, you crapped the bed. I understand that you had record rainfall (by 20%!) for September, and it was unseasonably wet, but you had 4 days to get your act together, and you didn’t do it. Too bad for you that she met you on the tail end of about 20 days of rain starting in Seward.
Now the good news. We still had a great time visiting! So at least you made the “great place to visit, but I don’t want to live there” category. That’s something to hang your hat on.
I’m ashamed to say, that I’m starting to take some of this stuff for granted. I’m a week overdue to write this post, and as I chose the pics and wrote the captions, I perhaps for the first time truly appreciated the breadth of the Seattle experience. It was in and of itself, wonderful, and unfortunately for it, sandwiched between Vancouver and the Northern Oregon coast (that’s stiff competition!).
On to the details… the Seattle visit was a great blend of touristy stuff, and “real living”. As per usual, I think we agree that the “real living” experiences are a tad more precious and almost always sneak up on us because their not planned (could they be?).
We camped in Bellevue, which is a sizable town in it’s own right, east of Seattle on the opposite side of the massive and beautiful lake Washington. The campground was sufficient, basically a parking lot with hookups, but the location was good, they had (modest) wifi, and much to the kids joy, an indoor pool! We rolled in mid afternoon, and decided to walk to Pizza Hut for dinner. Actually, we debated between Pizza Hut and Outback Steakhouse as we have (had) gift cards for both. We’re a pizza family, and you know what to expect from Pizza Hut. Lots of talk about Chickens and Octopus’s over dinner. The kids are obsessed, and I have to admit I’m intrigued by the idea of fresh eggs. How often does a female Octopus lay? 🙂
Our first full day was Saturday, and we decided to do the Space Needle and the Dale Chihuly museum (gallery) combo ticket. Our friends the Marings had visited recently and strongly recommended the Chihuly place. I’m glad they did, because I would have leaned to skipping as we visited the Botanical gardens several times when Chihuly was there, and I felt like I’d seen it all. I had not. It was a bonus that Chihuly was right next door to the Space Needle.
I get the feeling that the Space Needle is a different gig when the weather is nice and visibility is good. As it was, I’d put it in the STL Arch and Statue of Liberty bucket… enjoy it for the history/context and enjoy it from outside, but don’t bother going in/up. The view from the Needle far exceeds the Arch etc, but it was so wet, foggy, and WINDY outside there was no desire to linger. We got up, took our requisite pictures, ate our packed PB&J lunch, thoroughly inspected the junk food offered in the snack bar, read some exhibits, got frustrated by the touch screen kiosk, and left. If you have the budget, I suspect the rotating restaurant would be great… the menu looked good, but pricy. The gift shop is magnificent, and of course, the elevator down drops you there. I think we survived relatively unscathed as the kids have learned a keen ability to judge “good/bad deals” on this trip. Actually we’ve all sharpened those skills!
From the Needle, we sauntered over to the Dale Chihuly museum. This place is amazing. We jumped into the theatre which was showing short documentaries chronociling some of his “epic” installments (Venice, Isreal, Rio, etc). We stayed put and watched them all (the kids were into the first 2/3, and Kim and I were enthralled throughout and didn’t want them to end). Then we proceeded though the exhibits inside, bounced out for the gardens, and ended in the “glass house”. It’s all great! A wedding reception in the glass house would be amazing. You gotta checkout these pics.
Well after Chihuly, we had no plans, and though it was raining we felt compelled to wander around a bit searching out our next victim (or was it the prey searching for the next predator?). The Sience center looked pretty cool, but the budget was shot for the day, so we just saw what we could through the windows. I agreed to walk more in the rain for a promise of food (I was silently hoping for a samosa). We headed south toward the sculpture park. The rain let up to a drizzle, and it was a nice walk “downhill” through a nice downtown hood, though the only potential snack was a Subway. The sculpture park was a nice place to hang out, right on the edge of the Puget Sound. As far as the art goes, it’s probably a notch below Lauramier? Opinions vary I’m sure. The only “interactive” installation that we found was basically the roof of a house built directly on the hillside. After reading the sign of warnings, it dawned on me that we “might” be allowed to walk on the roof. As I’m thinking out-loud about the goodness of the idea, Kane scampered to the top. Kat quickly followed suit (albeit slower), so I went with her. I guess it was OK, nobody chewed us out. I did have a hard time getting Kane off that roof for some reason, but it had started to rain hard now and we were a mile from the jeep. We made a bee-line for our parking spot, and didn’t get that snack after all. Solid day none-the-less, and once again Kim was vindicated in her insistence that we all buy “decent rain gear” for the trip.
The following day was Sunday, and I had one thing on my mind… my Chiefs were still undefeated and playing at 12 central (10 am Seattle time). Kim again took pity on me, and we scheduled the day around this 25+ year affliction of mine.
We got up reasonably early, and headed downtown for Pike Place Market. I’d been here a few times to buy souvenirs for the kids and to watch the “fish throwing” at the seafood shop. Neither Kim nor the kids had ever been, and Kim got word from her friend Allison that there were fresh doughnuts to be had as well. This was to be our breakfast!
We got close, but parking was a challenge. On Sunday it’s free to park on the street, and we knew this, but it was also busy. We were giving up on free parking, and pulling into a paid lot, and we were approached by the self-proclaimed “parking guru”, who told us (for a suggested tip) that we could park in any zone but handicapped on Sunday (including police etc which we’d been avoiding). So we headed back out to find any opening possible on the street. We did find one, and unfortunately for the guru, we didn’t have to walk past him to get to the market.
We wandered around the market, amazed both by the offerings and the offerers. 10 bucks can go a long way at the market, surprisingly! Just as we were ready to fire up the MiFi and look up the doughnut shop, we found it. It was busy, and we had fun watching their doughnut making robot work while we waited. Everybody placed their order with Mom, and she brokered the deal. After that, we wandered around a bit more, watching the fish market workers, looking for souvenirs, and being impressed the the “worlds largest shoe museum” (worlds smallest, coin operated museum?). But, it was close to gametime, so we headed for the jeep.
Kim dropped me at a previously researched location (“Fuel Sports Bar on Washington st”). Kane was given the option to go with me, but bars scare him at this point (since he got bounced from the place in Anchorage), which is probably OK for now. So Kim, Kat, and Kane headed to the childrens theatre to catch Pippi Longstocking, and I settled in for some great football, and the worst biscuits and gravy I’ve ever had. The Chiefs handled the Giants, and Seattle made a 14 point 4th quarter comeback, which created an excellent atmosphere at Fuel.
After the game and Pippi, the family picked me up, and we went back home for lunch and MATH! We really just hung out at home and didn’t do much the rest of the day. I think Kim did laundry maybe, while I did Math with the kids.
The next day (Monday), I had made an appointment to get the Jeep fixed. Our clutch had been squealing since the day before we drove it to McCarthy and back. It had done nothing but get worse since then, but I wanted to get back to the lower 48 for such a major repair. Sam at “The Shop” in Ballard had told me that they were about 1 mile north of the “locks”, which we wanted to see anyway. We decided to drop the car off with Sam, and spend the day in Ballard, on foot. It turned out to be our best day in Seattle, oddly enough.
Here’s the day, and I’ll let the pictures do the talking:
1) Stopped at the coffee shop for Kim to get a Latte. I got the best brewed coffee I’d had for awhile (Ethiopian beans?), and the kids split a hot chocolate.
2) Stopped at a small, independent bookstore for an hour. We all love books, this was a no-brainer. Kids both got new books (Ive & Bean for Kat, and Ender’s Game for Kane). I spent my time reading a book on Zen written by Jeff Bridges, which I want to read, but won’t pay 27 bucks for hardcopy Bridges. Kim talked with the owner, and looked at baby books.
3) Stopped at the petstore to coo over the “tuxedo” kittens in the front window.
4) Made it to the “Locks-n-dam”. Hit the visitor center/gift shop first for the lay-of-the-land. Put simply, the Locks rock. First of all, what a gutsy idea to connect the ocean to lakes miles away, and 12 feet above sea level. Second, I can only imagine the feeling of accomplishment of the engineers, when this thing went from paper to concrete/steel, and they saw it work for the first time. It’s incredible. I may be the last person on earth to see a lock in action and to figure out how it works, but WOW!
5) From the locks, we walked across the dam to the “fish ladder”. This is a stair-stepped series of mini-locks, that allow fish to swim from the ocean up the ladder to the fresh water to spawn. They had the forthought to install windows and a viewing area underground where you can watch the fish move up 3/4 of these locks. The sliver salmon happened to be moving up to spawn, and so we got to watch a dozen or so work their way through the ladder. Really cool to see, especially since Kane caught silvers in Alaska, and we’ve been eating them.
6) Lunch! Thai food across from the coffee shop. It was really good. The “free lunch soup” was the tastiest I’ve ever had. The pad kee mao was great, as well as the cashew nut chicken (all with jasmine rice). So happy to have decent Thai food. We miss Addies so much!
7) Dessert! We had passed a gourmet popcorn place on the way to lunch, so we went back. We sampled almost everything (we are expert samplers at this point), and bought a bag of “Hawaiian Salted Carmel” (sea salt and carmel corn). So good, and they keep it under a heat lamp, so it was warm!
8) Still had time to kill, so we jumped across the street the movies. Cloudy with Meatballs 2 was the only option. It was marginal, but still fun to see a movie.
9) Quick call to Sam to see if the jeep is ready… not yet, so we look up the public library. It’s just around the corner! Really nice library. Funny thing happened to me. The kids and Kim headed over to the kids section, and I went looking for a book. I found a cool encyclopedia of world religions, and took it over to read near the family. After 15 minutes or so, a librarian came over and said “excuse me sir, do you have a child with you?”. I said “not yet, but prospects are good”. I wish I had said that, in reality I just pointed at Kat. It’s difficult to describe the depth of humility experienced the moment you realize somebody suspects you are a predator (in an actionable way no less), but I also gained some respect for their policy and for this lady specifically. It’s nice to know that some effort is made to keep kids safe at the library! (even from me)
10) Sam called and the jeep is ready. So we walked back north to “The Shop” and get our, newly silent, jeep. He showed me the bearing (throwout bearing) from the clutch, and I should have taken a picture. The bearings were gone, it was just two mangled rights of metal remaining. I guess bearings are optional if you don’t mind some obnoxious noise!
11) We drove home in rush hour traffic, got to see Seattle from the north (it was clear), and all felt great bout a day of “doing normal stuff” in a new/exciting place. For once, it felt less like we were traveling, and more like we were living somewhere. Ballard is excellent, and we never would have known that if not for the jeep repair.
One last note on Seattle, one night before Kat went to bed, she made this sign. She used masking tape and taped this to a plate. She put the plate on the stove. Kim was in the back and didn’t see this until the kids were in bed. We had a great giggle, and put a couple of bucks on the plate. Kat was so incredibly happy, and immediately made her self a “chicken fund” box to save her money for her pet chicken when we get back to St. Louis. She’s been researching this, and Kane has likewise researched keeping Octopuses as well. We’ll see… Clearly, Kat was impressed by one of the many homeless in downtown Seattle, and leveraged some of their strategy for this sign.
One last, last note. One evening, I was able to sneak out for a drink. A friend of mine from work, who had helped edit one of our 48 hour film projects, now lives in Seattle. He lives in the “Capitol Hill” neighborhood, which I was liken most closely to U-City, really cool eclectic area. Anyway, I met Alec at a brewpub down there, and we were able to catch up. I’m glad Alec is doing well, and it was fun to have a bit of normal social interaction in amongst 24×7 family time.
We left Seattle, feeling great about getting our jeep fixed. Originally, we planned to spend some time in Victoria and Olympic Nation Park. We elected not to ferry the RV over to Victoria due to cost, and the government decided to shutdown the NPs due to ACA. We’re doing the next best thing… State Parks! On our way to Astoria, we stopped in Olympia to visit the Washington State Capitol, which was interesting and fun. I have pics for that, but it will need to be another post sometime!
