The Seattle Day

We loaded everyone up in our van early this morning and headed to Seattle to do as many touristy things as we could in one fell swoop. The fog was still pretty heavy as we walked along the waterfront. We all dressed for a warm day so we popped in and out of shops just to take the chill out of our bones. There was plenty of body heat in Ye Ole Curiosity Shop as it was nearly impossible to move around in there, let alone see all the merchandise and weird display items. A few docks down, we found an arcade that put a smile on the twins’ face as they rode around and around on the carousel. The hill climb up all the steps to Pike’s Place Market was a bit easier in the cool of the morning, however.




Pike’s Place Market was jammed packed with tourists and once caught up in the stream of moving bodies, I questioned the purpose in even being there. The flow of people kept anyone from stopping to look or buy a thing. It was crazy busy. We passed by some t-shirts that were pretty cute though – one for adults said, “You can’t scare me, I have twins.” The t-shirt for kids said, “I can’t remember… am I the good twin or the evil twin?” We did catch a glimpse of a fish being thrown back and forth over the famous fish counter, however. I don’t think anyone actually bought any fish, but there were so many tourists standing around waiting to take a picture of the “flying fish” that is so heavily advertised, the employees just tossed a few to get the crowd to move on, thank goodness.



Billed as Seattle’s “grossest” tourist attraction, the “gum wall” down in Post Alley, lies underneath The Market and is a “must see” in my book. Kaleb won a package of gum at the arcade so he was quite anxious to chew it and stick his hunk of used gum on the now famous wall. Bjørn couldn’t have been more grossed out. He kept his distance while others walked by and tossed their wads as high as they could, as every conceivable spot within reach was taken. Too funny. The only souvenirs we bought all day were prints of the Space Needle (Inger and I liked the same one) from Kim Drew, a now fairly famous artist I went to high school with, who has a booth outside The Market. Kory and I own eight of his original paintings and the guy at the booth told us Kim’s original paintings start at about two thousand dollars now and go up from there, so I guess our investment in his art work early in his career was a good one. Of course, we won’t be selling them, so it’s a moot point, but still, it’s kind of cool to know he’s nearly famous now.



After lunch, I took the boys shopping at Pacific Place, a building Kory worked on for over two years, while Inger and Bjørn shopped a little at Nordstrom. Kory spent a good part of the day at our apartment building in North Seattle, meeting with a roofer to get a bid, so he didn’t join us until later in the afternoon. Once we were all together again, Kory drove us over to REI so they could see if there was anything there they wanted to buy, but we all just ended up watching Kaleb scale the 65 foot rock wall in record time. He climbed that thing (with safety gear of course) like he was Spiderman, but then got scared on the descent and didn’t want to lean back and just let the rope take him down. Letting go was hard for him. I understood perfectly.



We had dinner reservations at the Space Needle and it took us over a half an hour to get from REI to the Seattle Center (less than a mile) because the Bite of Seattle was going on at the Center and the traffic was as jammed as The Market had been earlier. We made it on time, though, and had a wonderful meal watching the world spin around us a few times before we were done (see photo of Inger and Bjørn). It’s a “must do” when in Seattle, I’m certain. It was Kaleb’s first time in the restaurant so he was bummed he didn’t get the window seat, but I assured him we would be back and he could have that seat next time.



The Fun Forest was open at the base of the Needle so the twins went on bumper cars and Kaleb took a spin on the “Tornado” before we walked through the booths set up for the Bite of Seattle. I haven’t been downtown for that event in several years. To say it has changed would be an understatement. It could also just have been the time of day, since it was near sunset, but it was totally overrun with young people, most of them looking like trouble. There were groups of two to four police officers about every hundred feet. I’ve never seen so many cops in all my life at one event. They were on bikes, horses and on foot. I didn’t even know the Seattle Police Department HAD so many cops. I guess I wouldn’t have wanted to be there if they weren’t standing around, as the crowd was pretty unruly and not a place to be walking with children in tow, so we got out of there as soon as we could. We drove up to Kerry Park on Queen Anne to take some family photos with the gorgeous Seattle skyline at sunset as a background (see other photo).



Except for the fact we were gone for over 14 hours (so it was a bit too long of a day), it was a day well spent, enjoying the most beautiful city that America has to offer (in my opinion anyway, and everyone is entitled to THAT.)