Welcome to Seattle folks! It feels good to be in a city again. I can actually dial up and use my cell phone. I stayed with my friend Mark who I haven't seen in several years. I was actually able to catch up with his parents also who just happen to be visiting the same time. Mark took Monday off and we spent the afternoon wind surfing. Well he was wind surfing. I was standing on a board fighting with waves and gravity, pulling up a sail, and falling in the water.
We then joined one if his friends and went to a little swimming hole and swam across it and back for 40min. Geez, is everyone in Seattle in wicked shape?  On Tuesday Mark actually had to go to work (can you believe that?). I spent the morning going through mail as my ex-roommate fedexed me a more aggressive hiking back pack and about 10 pounds of mail. I then dove into the city to be the total tourist
First stop was the famous Farmers Market. This place was incredible. The most significcant highlight was watching the fish thowers. There were tons of people just standing around watching them. I tried to snap a shot of the flying crabs, unfortunately it didn't come out that well. However, you can see that they would throw stuff right past people standing at the counter. Notice the sign warning of low flying fish. I then did the ultimate tourist thing by going on the tour of the Space Needle. Now Mark is proud to say that after 10 years in Seattle he's never gone to the Space Needle. So I took advantage of my solo day to sneak it in without him knowing. Hey I'm a tourist!!!  I then went to the new Experience Music Project exhibit. Basically this is like the west coast version of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I've got to say that I liked the R&R Hall of Fame in Cleveland better. However, this was still very cool. Super high-tech stuff (maybe because Microsoft's Paul Allen had something to do with it). Upon arrival they hand you a hand held computer and headphones to walk around with. Just point the computer at designated exhibits and you are given a whole menu of options. You can listen to music from that artist, hear commentary, history, or stories from the band. Really incredible stuff. Even more impressive than the handhelds were the hands on exhibits. You could learn to play almost any rock band instrument. Best part is that you are taught by a computer that is hooked up to the instrument. I sat in a sound proof room with a full self playing drum set and was able to learn then jam to some great songs. The computer actually has you play only one part of the drum like the top hat and it plays the rest. Slowly it works you into playing more and more pieces until you are playing everyting. Amazing!!!  Just as I was about finished Mark called and said that one of his Microsoft friends (John) gave him some awesome tickets to the Mariners game. Mark and I drove to the game where we had VIP parking then proceeded to the second row on the first base line. You know they are good tickets when the usher says, "wow those are great seats!". However, it's not the place to just chat and not pay attention as you could easily get your clocked cleaned by a stray line drive. We were the only people in our section that didn't have baseball gloves on. The weather was perfect and the game was fantastic with several highlight plays. The Mariners even won. I'm not sure if John arranged that also. Either way, thanks for an awesome night John. Under Mark's advisement I made some modifications to the itinerary. I substitued Bend, OR, for Salem. This was a cool, young, trendy little town. Got a place right in town and spent the night out meeting more great locals. From Bend Crater Lake National park would be only two hours away. |
