Sunshine and Seafeasts!

It was a slow morning....mostly my fault since I was working on this thing.

We took the monorail back downtown and went back to Pike's Place for a little shopping, and the Saturday crowds were there in full force.  We bought some delicious pastries (mine, a cardamom and cinnamon braid, Hans', a pastry-wrapped baked apple with cream cheese icing).  After buying a few gifts and expanding our art collection we drove to the neighborhood of Fremont for lunch with Molly, one of our friends from UAF.

It was really great seeing her, and I'm always appreciative that even though "the gang" has been spread all over the country we can still get together like no time has passed.  Molly showed us the Troll Under the Bridge, and we hung out for another couple of hours.

After parting ways I picked up a cup of coffee and we...erm...mostly got lost and confused by the one-way streets and no-left-turn intersections in Fremont and ended up back at the hotel for a short bit.  I changed clothes since the wind had picked up during the afternoon.  When we went back outside, the clouds had cleared over the city and there was brilliant sunshine on Lake Union.

We drove to Gas Works Park, which was formerly, just that.  The main gas works have been fenced off and the water isn't suitable for swimming or fishing, but the giant green hill made for excellent views of downtown Seattle and some of the charming waterfront neighborhoods.  There were also some smaller pipes that were brightly painted for children to run around.

The sun set over Queen Anne Hill, so we hopped back in the car and Hans took me to the Locks and Botanical Garden, where the spring flowers were blooming and we saw some beautiful examples of Alaskan yellow weeping cedar.  There was a large heron sitting on one of the lock gates but it flew away before I could get a very good picture in the low light.

We ended our evening at Waterfront Park, downtown, where we waited a full hour to enter The Crab Pot, a major crowd draw probably because it's been featured on Food Network.  But let me tell ya, it's worth the wait!

We started our meal with a plate of jalapeno cheddar hush puppies and a liter of beer apiece (why not?).  Then, our Sea Feast arrived.  A gigantic bowl of steamed clams, mussels, oysters, red potatoes, corn on the cob, spears of salmon, snow crab, and dungeness crab was dumped into the middle of our table.  Then, we began to demolish the pile of fresh and sweet sea critters before us.

As we were eating, I was reflecting on the fact that I was actually glad that we had to wait so long for a table: When we arrived the hallway outside the restaurant was packed and noisy.  By the time we were seated at 9 pm, the crowds had gone (and I think many had given up because we were originally told it was going to be a 90 minute wait).  Of course, we were slowing way down by the time we were cracking our way through the rich crab legs, but by then the staff were no longer seating people and it was much quieter.  In fact, even when we were first seated Hans and I never had to shout to hear one another.  The last bits of crab and beer were pretty difficult to get through, and I laughed loudly when our server asked if we wanted dessert.  Upon arriving back at the hotel, I barely had the energy to look at the day's pictures before passing out.

Said pictures:

 The Troll!

 Downtown from Lake Union, Gas Works

 

The Locks

Hans is feeling watched, Sea Feast!

 Waterfront Park

Our First Day in Seattle

This morning we were up early, and saw a few bits of blue sky poking through the clouds.  After being so cooped-up in planes, trains, and automobiles yesterday it felt good to stretch our legs.  We walked through Millennium Park and down to Olympic Sculpture park before meandering along the waterfront.

After making our way to Pike's Landing, we enjoyed a breakfast in one of the cafes that had a lovely view of Puget Sound, now sparkling under a few patches of sunshine.  We enjoyed the beautiful flower displays and wished we could take home some of the delicious-smelling sea fare on display (including some of the biggest lobster tails I've ever seen).

We continued our walk south through downtown, then made a loop back to our hotel for a small break and some lunch at the hotel's restaurant, where Hans experienced burger nirvana (grilled onions and cherry peppers!).

Since we were staying just a block from Millennium park and its museums, we decided to visit the EMP Museum and Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum.

At the EMP, a multi-interface music experience, there was a special exhibit about the band Nirvana, which featured rare demo songs that Kurt Cobain recorded as a young teenager.  I smiled as I listened to a track that was recorded when Cobain was 15, about "Spanking Thru" a bad romantic breakup.

In the basement of the museum was an exhibit about horror films and why they have so much cultural appeal.  There were creepy props like the face sucker from Alien, the axe from The Shining, and a mask from The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  There were little booths were you could watch commentaries about significant horror movies through the history of cinema, by the curators of the exhibit, Eli Roth, Roger Corman, and John Landis.

There was also an exhibit about cultural science fiction icons, and quite possibly the coolest interactive exhibit I've ever seen, the EMP's Sound Lab.  Inside, there were multiple drums, guitar, and keyboard instruments where people of all ages and ability could play music, sound rooms for mixing and recording, and a virtual percussion device where you pound your fists onto pictures of various objects to make sounds.  You could practically feel the excitement and eagerness oozing from the kids that were darting from instrument to instrument.

There was also a nostalgic exhibit about the art of video games.

The Chihuly museum was extremely impressive.  I was already familiar with some of Chihuly's work since he has many installments and the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.  His organic glass sculptures are meant to be in natural settings, so gardens are the perfect place to find them.  I had no idea, however, about his fondness for glass houses, or green houses.  After seeing his large glass house sculpture today, it became obvious that such open and airy spaces are the perfect blank canvas for his art.  His glass baskets were interesting.  Chihuly emulated them in slightly fallen and misshapen bowls (as he noticed that Navajo grass baskets collapse over time) and painted (with molten glass, of course) beautiful patterns inspired by Navajo blankets onto their surface.

We were fairly exhausted at the end of the day, so we went to bed early.

Pictures!

 Millennium Park

 EMP Museum, and art installation by the Space Needle

 Downtown

 A train probably bound for Boeing Field, the Sound

 Olympic Park

 Typewriter Eraser (with sister sculptures in Washington DC and Las Vegas

 Pike's Place Market

 Guitar tower at EMP, Hendrix's guitar that he played at woodstock

 Zelda memories, conceptual art for Fallout III

 Hans' inner monster!

Sound Lab

 Chihuly Forest, baskets

The Persian Room

 Chihuly loves sealife

Teddy R. Island

It was unseasonably warm a few weeks ago so we drove to the Virginia parking lot for Theodore Roosevelt Island so we could finally see the often-forgotten monument to its namesake.  There were nice views of Georgetown University from the footbridge that takes you across the river to the island.