Gallivanting Grandma

Saturday, June 23, 2012

A gray cloudy morning –  62 degrees. We walked to the Hertz office early and were on the road by 10:00 AM. It had stopped raining during the night but was still cloudy and cool. There was very little traffic because many streets were closed due to the Seattle Marathon which was going on nearby. We easily followed the signs to Route 5 Northbound and we were driving out of Seattle.

Espresso Bar Along Route 525

There were coffee bars and mini drive-in coffee shops everywhere along the road. After a while, we stopped at the Budapest Bistro in Lynnwood for coffee and Hungarian pastries. The proprietors knew the owners of the little Hungarian restaurant we go to in Manhattan on Second Ave. She said they were invited to go to New York to cook, but she was afraid of big cities.

Light House Near the Ferry

Our destination was the town of Mukilteo, where we planned to take one of the Washington State Ferries across Puget Sound to Whidby Island. We arrived at the Mukilteo ferry at 11:15 and parked in line and waited for the next ferry which was scheduled to depart at noon.

Entering the Ferry

View of the Light House From the Ferry

Approaching Land

The car thermometer read 58 degrees. It was a short 15 minute ferry ride to the town of Clinton on Whidby Island. As we drove off the ferry, it was gray and dreary and drizzling.

Whidbey Island

A Farm On Whidbey Island

We continued along Rt. 525 north. The road was named Bush Point Road but somewhere along the way changed its name to Smuggler’s Cove. Without a history guide, one could only wonder about the historical references to the names.

Pine Trees Along Route 525

Coupeville, Washington

Eventually, it stopped raining and we stopped in Coupeville, Washington at about 2:00 o’clock for a late lunch. We found the Knead & Feed Restaurant on Front Street. We had a fabulous home-cooked healthy lunch right by the waterside. The chef/owner told us she was from Buffalo, New York and didn’t miss cold winters. She said that a movie named Practical Magic had been filmed in Coupeville and they used the interior of her restaurant as an apothecary shop in the film.

Low Tide

Flowers

Shop Window in Coupville

Changing Tide in the Rain

It was raining hard when we finished eating so we had a soggy walk back to the car. The temperature cooled to 53 degrees outside.

We were back on the road and continued toward Anacortes. The road became Route 20 and as we approached the end of Whidby Island we saw two huge paper mills spewing smoke into the gray sky. We also passed a sign for a  Native American Reservation and their casino alongside the road.

View of the Anacortes Ferry

We took tripadvisor.com’s recommendation and were able to get a lovely, large, clean room at the Anacortes Ship Harbor Inn near the ferry dock. The Inn had been renovated recently and was a delightful place to stay. Our room was warm and cozy and had a great view of Puget Sound and the islands beyond.

Friday – June 22, 2012

This morning was overcast and raining lightly. My body-clock is slowly readjusting to Pacific time, but I woke up early anyway. Jeff had read about a wonderful patisserie two blocks from our hotel so we walked over there for morning coffee. The Belle Epicurean is located on the ground floor of the Fairmont Olympian Hotel. As we walked into the elegant lobby of the hotel, the friendly doorman engaged us in conversation about Seattle weather.

La Belle Epicurean

It was cool and wet outside but warm and cozy in the Olympian lobby. Soft classical music played as we looked for the patisserie. We found it downstairs on the Fourth Avenue side of the building. Diplomas from the Cordon Bleu in Paris hung on the wall which were earned by the chef/owner of this famous eatery. We ordered wonderful croissants and good cappuccinos and enjoyed them in a European atmosphere.

Exterior of the Best Patisserie in Seattle

Our next goal was the main branch of the Seattle Public Library. We had read about the building when it was built in 2004 and have wanted to see it ever since. The unusually designed building looks like randomly stacked diamond-shaped pieces of glass and steel which defy gravity. This building replaced the 1960s “modern” rectangular-box-style library which had replaced the original 1906 Carnegie library.

Seattle Public Library

Fifth Avenue Entrance

The architect was the innovative designer Rem Koolhaas from Holland. The library has 10 floors of public spaces which include seven floors of stacks of nonfiction books and about 400 computers for public use. There is a large children’s area on the ground floor and a “teen” area upstairs on the third level.

Interior

“The Living Room”

Follow the Chartreuse Escalators

The best way to tour the library is to obtain one of the large preprinted guides at one of the entrances and then take the chartreuse escalators and work your way up to the 10^th floor. The Seattle Public Library is an amazing building which should set a high benchmark for libraries across the country.

Searching for Books in the Stacks

The Tenth Floor

Computers & Maps

After we toured the library and wished we had a library like this one near our home, we left to walk to the famous Pike Place Market. It was still raining. On our way, we stopped off at Gelatiamo on the corner of 3^rd & Union Streets to sit and take a break. This is another of Jeff’s finds. We had a little snack of tasty gelato and then continued walking in the rain.

Gelatiamo

The Pike Place Market is probably the most famous tourist destination in Seattle and is a lot of fun. On a rainy Friday afternoon, it was packed with tourists. Since our last visit to Seattle, it seems that the market has grown larger with more stalls and sellers.

The Pike Place Market

Typical Vendor

Doughnuts For Sale

To their credit, the market has kept out the national chains. By law, only single owner-operators are allowed to rent space in the market. Starbuck’s is the only exception because the one here is the original shop.

Tourists Waiting to See the Flying Fish

Flower Seller

Beautiful Bouquet

We stopped at Mee Sum Pastry to sample their chicken “hom bow”. We shared one and although it received rave reviews on some food blog, we were a little disappointed. After walking around for a while, we stopped at The Crumpet Shop on First Avenue for some crumpets and tea.

Hum Bows For Sale

Tea and Crumpets

Our next destination was SAM – the Seattle Art Museum, but we were getting tired and we needed a break. We stopped off at the Four Seasons Hotel across the street and sat in the comfortable lobby near the fireplace to rest for a little while.

Still Raining

Rain Rolling in from the West

It was still raining when we went outside so we decided to skip the museum and return to our hotel. It’s supposed to rain for the next five days. At least it’s not cold. We walked up the steep hill to 6^th Avenue and called it a day.

Tee-Shirt Shop

Thursday – June 21, 2012

Our journey began yesterday, June 20th, with a long flight from JFK to SeaTac Airport near Seattle, Washington. After waiting on the TSA security line for an hour and 45 minutes, we ran to catch our 4:10 flight on Delta only to learn that the plane was late. We finally left New York at 5:15 PM. Again we were reminded of how much we hate Delta Airlines. We had to pay $50. extra for our checked luggage, although they ran out of overhead storage and made people check their bags anyway. There was no meal service on this flight of 5 ½ hours airtime with no prior warning. We had to purchase snacks of fruit and cheese on-board. I was reminded of one of Tom Paxton’s folk songs. We sat on small hard uncomfortable seats for over six hours, in the next to the last row near the only two toilets in the plane of 130 other passengers. We pledged again never to fly on Delta in the future!

View of Downtown Seattle

We arrived in Seattle about 8:00 PM Pacific time, which was 11:00 PM eastern time. Knowing that we would arrive late and be tired, we planned to stay near the airport for one night and go into the city in the morning. We had stayed at the Doubletree on a previous trip and like it. Recently, it received good reviews on  tripadvisor.com, so we reserved a room for one night. We easily took the shuttle bus from the airport to the huge 800-room hotel. It is a very clean and attractive hotel with a nice garden and a lovely pool. It’s located just outside the SeaTac Airport. By the time we checked into the hotel, it was after midnight body-time and we were very tired.

Seattle Monorail

Of course this morning we were up and about early. We had cappuccino at the coffee bar in the lobby of the hotel and afterwards caught the airport shuttle-bus back to the airport. Sea-Tac is an amazing transportation hub. In one location there are buses, taxis, trains, cars, and planes ready to go wherever people want to go. We walked to the light-rail station and had an easy 35 minute ride to the center of Seattle for the senior rate of seventy-five cents each. The cars of the train were very clean and modern and even had a place for people to hang up their bicycles.

Inside the Monorail

We rode the train to the University Avenue stop and walked up hill (of course!) to the Seattle Hilton where we had reservations. We checked in, dropped off our luggage, and went out to explore the city. There were high clouds, but the sun was shining and it was a pleasant 68 degrees.

First Car of the Seattle Monorail

We walked a couple of blocks to the Monorail station and bought our tickets. It had been built in 1962 for the Seattle World’s Fair to transport people from downtown to the fair grounds. It looks like the futuristic vehicles we used to see in magazines when I was a kid. Every city was supposed to have monorails and other wonderful high-tech transportation “people movers” in the future.

The Monorail at the Station

Unfortunately, the future is today and Mono-ails didn’t proliferate due to the increased development of highways and the lack of municipal spending on public transportation. This Monorail ride was fun, but too short!!

Dale Chihuly’s Glass Forest

In a few minutes we were at the former fairgrounds, now called the Seattle Center. The Monorail leaves tourists off just under the Seattle Needle. Our first stop was Chihuly Garden and Glass which is an exhibition space built to show Dale Chihuly’s glass works and collections.

Chihuly’s Sea Life

He was born in nearby Tacoma, Washington in 1941 and is an internationally known artist. The glass pieces are bright-colored and whimsical and glow in the light. They’re fun to look at!

Part of the Persian Ceiling

The exhibit follows the development of Chihuly’s concepts and shows some of his most famous works. The amazing and large pieces have interesting names like: Sealife , Persian Ceiling, Ikebana, and Mille Fiori. Dale Chihuly was influenced by the Northwestern Native American crafts of baskets and blankets.

Glass Baskets

In one of the rooms there was a display his glass pieces next to the soft woven baskets which inspired the glass. Clearly, Chihuly drew inspiration from nature and the natural world.

Mille Fiori

We decided to have lunch at the Chihuly Collections Cafe. We immediately noticed the accordions hanging from the ceiling in the restaurant. The hostess told us that there were 82 accordions which were part of the 500 accordions from Chihuly’s collection.

The Seattle Needle in the Background

Then she pointed out the wall shelves packed with more items from some of Chihuly’s other collections. Each table in the Cafe was built with a storage box recessed in the center to show other different collections.

Glass Reflection in the Garden

Our table had antique bristle shaving brushes. Other tables had tin toys, lead soldiers, colorful fish decoys, 1950s plastic cameras, alarm clocks, ink wells, and small ceramic dogs. The walls were full of metal bottle openers, vintage plastic radios, and chalkware figures given as prizes at traveling carnivals. I decided that Chihuly must be a hoarder.

Glass Flora

The other museum that we had planned to visit was the EMP Museum also on the the Seattle Center grounds. The full name of this place is the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. The sign on the front of the unusual Frank Gehry designed building states the purpose of the museum as: Music + Sci-Fi + Pop Culture.

Silver/Purple/Blue EMP Museum From the Monorail Station

The sheet-metal exterior is a mixture of metallic textures and colors: blue, red, silver, black, gold, silver, and shades of purple. When it was built in 2000, Forbes magazine described it “as one of the world’s 10 ugliest buildings.”

Part of the EMP Museum

Also, an architecture critic for the NY Times said that the building looked like “something that crawled out of the sea, rolled over, and died.” The colorful eye-catching building has also been compared to a “smashed electric guitar.” I think it is an interesting looking building that defies the concept of a standard rectangular “building.”

The Sky Church Inside the EMP Museum

The unusual structure seems to be an appropriate place for the world’s largest collection of Jimmy Hendrix memorabilia and science fiction artifacts. Several current exhibits exemplify the range of music and pop culture in America.

Entering the Sci-Fi Room

There was a display of AC/DC heavy metal memorabilia in one room and in another area there was a sizable exhibit describing the rise and popularity of the Seattle “grunge luminaries,” Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses. Another Seattle-born musician was Jimmy Hendrix. His exhibit showed early influences of rhythm & blues and the development of the Hendrix rock sound.

Cyclone of Guitars

Another interesting exhibit was entitled Sound and Vision: Artists Tell their Stories. This is a collection of videotaped oral histories of some of the most influential artists in popular culture. Jeff’s favorite exhibit called Icons of Science Fiction had memorabilia from many of the most popular Sci-Fi movies and television programs.

Darth Vader’s Light Sabre From Star Wars Five

Another exhibit, Can’t Look Away: The Lure of Horror Film, displayed horror movie props and director’s video tapes and film clips of popular films. On the top floor there was the “Sound Lab” which encouraged hands-on multimedia participation by visitors to try playing guitars, pianos or sing in mini-sound studios.

Alien Weapon from Men In Black

After all this exploration of “pop culture”, we were exhausted so we decided to return to our hotel to rest a while.

Captain Kirk’s Enterprise Command Chair from Star Trek

We rode the Monorail back to the city center and walked to the hotel. After a few hours, we went out and walked a few blocks to an Asian restaurant called Wild Ginger. We sat and relaxed and had a tasty meal of satay, prawns, and Mongolian noodles. This had been a full first day in Seattle, Washington. We’re looking forward to tomorrow.

Detail of the Guitar Cyclone