Olympic Sculpture Park

After the Museum of Flight we headed over to the Olympic Sculpture Park, which is right on the water. The day had cleared up and the sun was shining. We didn't have much time, just enough to take a leisurely walk on the waterfront.

And take some artsy-fartsy photos of the city. This is an actual view, not photoshopped at all.

I even got some time to sit and sketch the waterfront, which isn't as easily transferred online. Oh, and as a sketch, it pretty much sucks, but I'm trying.

There's currently an exhibit of giant orange cones in the park. No, that isn't a weird angle, it's actually about two stories tall. These will only be there until October.


Then we went off for dinner and drinks with Alex and Beth. It was a long day on our feet, and even more walking around the city at night. We had another really great meal.

Tomorrow we set off for the Olympic Peninsula.

The Museum of Flight

Elizabeth is very sneaky.

I've officially got one day to plan as my own on this trip. That's Monday, and we're going to see a Mariners game that night. These first two days were doing mutual touristy stuff in and around the city. Today she suggested we go to the Museum of flight.

I was in hog heaven.

They have a space exhibit currently. It starts with Goddard (who went to WPI) and ends with the international space station.

They have a Gemini capsule.



They have simulators where you can practice landing the the LEM on the moon, or landing the Space Shuttle, or even using an EVA suit to get yourself over to the Hubble telescope for repairs and adjustments (I got the quickest time today on that one. Just sayin'.) They have stuff you can actually do.

They give a pretty good history of spaceflight too. I learned some stuff about the Soviet space program that I never knew. They really showed that much of both of our programs was due to the fact that we hustled those German rocket scientists out of Nazi Germany at the end of WWII.

And you have to love this:


No, that's not a Star Trek uniform. That is Carl Sagan's turtleneck!!!!!! Yes, the great man's moth-eaten turtleneck (you can see the holes) is in a glass case at the Museum of Flight. Now an old turtleneck isn't such a big deal, but the thought that some museum curator thought that Carl Sagan was such a boon to the space program (and he was) that his turtleneck should be enshrined just brought a smile to my face. They also have his dictaphone, and the card read that he had dictated millions and millions of words into it.

That's a museum with a sense of humor.

We lunched on a patio where we could watch planes and jets take off and land at the Boeing field. That really gave us a sense that the history of aviation was ongoing. Really a great place.

Then onto the World War II exhibit.

They have a Spitfire.


And a bunch of other planes that were not built by Boeing, which is again, really cool. I expected it to be a Boeing propaganda film, but just about every major fighter plane of the war was represented. I only put the Spitfire here because that is the damn coolest looking plane ever. I never realized the guns protruded as far as they do.

By the way, I'm only posting and commenting on a few pictures that I take every day. If you want to see all the pictures I take, though without any labels or context, you can head on over to my photo albums.

Outside the building they have a Concorde, the discontinued supersonic jet, and the original Air Force One (that saw service from Kennedy to Nixon). It's not the first presidential plane, just the first one that was called AFO.

Did you know that Jackie O. originally designed the color scheme on the outside? It was later changed by Jimmy Carter, and that's the design that's on this one.


We went through it and as we were coming down the exit stairs Elizabeth took my picture (I meant to do my Gerald Ford imitation and trip, but it was actually pretty steep and I could've hurt myself). The curator guy saw her, and came running down the steps to take our picture together.

I'd post that picture, but it's on Elizabeth's camera and she hasn't bothered to upload any pictures or contribute to this thing in any way.

This guy didn't just take the picture, he started fiddling with the settings on Elizabeth's camera. I thought he was dead for sure, because if Elizabeth tells me to take a picture, I point it at the thing I'm supposed to take a picture of and press the button. If I screw up her settings I'm a dead man.

He was not a dead man. He pointed out that she had the wrong settings for the lighting conditions and she agreed. Then he asked her about shooting RAW, and she answered. Then he ran up and got the Photoshop book he was reading while on duty, and together they started speaking a language of their own.


So she made a friend.

Why is she sneaky? Because she front-loaded my fun. She let me go nuts in a place I wanted to see, so during the next two days when we're trapped in icky nature, I'll keep my trap shut.

Very sneaky.

In Spaaaaace!!

In Spaaaaace!!

Pike Place Market

We arrived.

So the plan was to do touristy things today, since we got here around 11am. This left the afternoon open for whatever we wanted. What I wanted was a nap. In order to catch our 6:20am flight we had to get up at 3:30am. I catnapped for a total of about 30 minutes on the flight.

I could go on a rant about how the TSA isn't really keeping us safe by making us take our shoes off and denying us liquids when we go through security. All they're really doing is instilling fear and reminding everyone that the government is in charge of our lives. I could probably write three paragraphs about all that, but I'm too tired.

So it's the afternoon, and I'm pretty much wrecked. Elizabeth is bouncing off the walls with the excitement of being on vacation in Seattle. Hey, isn't Seattle famous for coffee? As we leave the hotel I fortify myself with a nice cuppa joe and at least I'm not falling asleep while waiting for the walk signal.

Off to Pike Place Market, a tourist destination and fish throwing extravaganza.



It's an odd place. Yes, you can sit and watch the water, but there's a highway in between the market and the waterfront. In fact, it seems to me that the entire waterfront is denied any real kind of existence because of this highway. I'm sure Dick will have something to say about why Seattle developed that way, and it's only from listening to him that I even noticed this.

But really, the sights of the market are not looking away from it. This place is full of sound, and smell, and incredible visuals.


Yes, those are crabs. I have a movie of the guys throwing the fish around. When you buy a fish, the guy in front picks it up and throws it to the guys behind the counter, who then clean and filet it however you want. There's a whole bunch of theater involved too.

And all this did for me was wish that I had a kitchen nearby so I could buy some of this fabulous food and go home and cook it. It's not just seafood in evidence, either.


Gorgeous produce was everywhere. There are people standing nearby cutting up a peach or a nectarine and just handing out exquisite slices of fruit. We finally broke down and bought a giant peach, a nectarine, and some cherries. That's breakfast tomorrow.

There was also pasta, all sorts of meat, and even fresh made doughnuts. Mmmm, doughnuts.

It was really an exercise in frustration. We could look, but didn't have the means to keep or cook any of it.

I started fading again, so we went downstairs to perhaps find a scenic lookout on the bay. Instead we found this:


Total geek out. This was like every other magic shop I've ever been in. You've got your joy buzzers, and your disappearing ink on racks and all sorts of tricks for sale at the counter. One guy manned the cash register while the other guy did tricks for anyone who walked in. And guess what? If you wanted to know how the trick was done, you could buy it.

I ended up with a Svengali deck and a DVD on the many tricks I can do with it. I've read about this kind of deck before, during my magician years. Every boy goes through the magic years starting at the age of 11, and usually ending by the age 14 or 15, otherwise he becomes a magician, juggler, or just carny trash. I have probably more detailed instructions on its use in my Amateur Magician's Handbook back home on my bookshelf.

I will amaze my friends with fabulous card tricks. Or, more likely, it will go in a drawer and be forgotten.

First pics in Seattle

First pics in Seattle