Seattle

We arrived 50 minutes early for our Day #1 second TSD (Time-Speed-Distance) section on

Day 1 of our rally, so I have some time to write about Seattle. (I finished this entry the next day, as there is really little time to write.)

Josh and his dad drove 2600+ miles from Cobb County, Georgia to Seattle, WA.  I flew up from San Francisco, where I have been working and staying/hanging with my parents, to meet them. We got a 2-bedroom AirBnb in Queen Anne, which is hilly and a little less trafficky. We could park The Yankee on the street easily. They filled me in on their cross-country shenanigans, which included visiting Mt Vernon at night when no one else was in the park, including rangers—sounds eerie. They also both experienced seeing serious snow when they got to Washington State, with the road markers measuring 9-feet deep. Their excitement was infectious and I love that they got to experience that together.

Seattle is an incredible clean, modern city, that has been infected with tech company culture. Matt told me Amazon currently owns around 40 buildings. Bikes culture flourishes and these red-orange city bikes shout out from every nook and cranny downtown. If I had had more time, I would have insisted on riding one waterfront.

Monday morning, Josh woke up early and knocked out a paper for grad school, while I caught up emails. Once it was sent in, we moseyed down the hills to the park, to wander around the Space Needle and its associates. If you’re in the area, the armory right there has a slew of yummy-looking options for a quick bite, that are likely much less expensive than the surrounding museum cafes.

Matt met us there, and it was so great to see him. There is something so fun to see a loved one in a different city, especially Matt, and Josh and I got to introduce him to Josh’s dad, Scottie. Since it was Monday, the lines were absent and Matt was pretty amused by this, having done many Seattle tours and wading through the tourists.

We took some pictures of the Space Needle from below but decided to forgo the expensive trip up. Because really, when you want a picture of the Seattle skyline, what do you want in the picture the most? The Space Needle, duh. A guard at the front gate told us to go to the Carolyn(?) building downtown. It’s taller, they charge half the price and you get a view/picture with Seattle’s lead star.

Next, we headed to the Chihuly Gardens next door. First you get to enter into rooms, showing his barnacle-shaped bowls of technicolored glasswork. You walk through an atrium-like room, sunlight pouring through the red and orange poppy-like flowers tangled overhead. There are rooms of glass alien plants, with bright tentacles reflecting on their black mirrored base, so it looks as if they are floating on a dark pond. The garden itself is other-worldly, the greenery broken with cobalt and orange spikes. Thorny yellow and green trees shout their presence at various corners. Chihuly definitely transports you to another world.

Across the way, is MoPo or the Museum of Pop (Culture), and Matt sold us on the horror exhibit. Josh having grown up watching the classic monster movies, this was a must-see. There was a documentary playing inside mentioning Wicker Man, and commentary from Martin Scorsece (?) stated that is was the Citizen Cane of horror. Other highlights were the control panel from the original Frankenstein movies. We saw the mask from Creature of the Black Lagoon, a movie of which we have a poster of on the wall at home. The fantasy exhibit was fantastic, with the original swords and six-fingered glove from The Princess Bride. We also saw Dorothy’s blue checkered dress. Down below, we saw the guitar Jimi Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner with at Woodstock. And, of course, we visited the Mindcraft exhibit to take pictures for the kids.

Finally, we headed to Pike Place for piroshkys and…

Timeout: I am writing this in the car on Day #2 in British Columbia and we just skidded across the slush towards oncoming traffic and Josh pulled us out of it.

So, piroshskys. (Whew!) That is the second time in my life I’ve had them at Pike Place and they are a must. Out of our selections, the beef and cheese was the best. We wandered around the market with full warm tummies. Matt got us eat some chocolate-covered cherries, because, “You have to eat cherries in Washington, it’s a thing.” Then we headed down below the market to see the most revolting thing I’ve seen in quite a while. There is a wall of gum—yes, GUM, people stick their chewed up gum all over a stone hallway and even form it to created little designs and letters. I was thinking how many pathogens were swarming around us from the fresher samples and, at the same time, admiring the mosaic-appeal the wall had. And you bet I’m going to post of picture of that—HA.

Then, it was time to say good-bye to Matt, who is seriously an incredible tour guide and one of my favorite people on this planet. (LOVE YOU!) We still had our 1000^th and last trip to Home Depot and REI to make to pick up some extra supplies that evening, so we settled in early.

Scottie had an early flight to catch and on the way back we caught some great views of the city.