Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

Ok, ok, ok. I'm sorry it's been so long. I'm going back now and putting in pictures for the days that I missed, starting with Seattle.

So, day one in Seattle...we had spend the night with Nate and Melissa on Vashon Island in the Puget Sound, and here's a picture of them at the Pike Street Market.



The Pike Street Market is a cute, but overpriced indoor market whose merchants are famous for throwing fish around during busy times. We did not get to see any airborne fish, but we did think it was interesting that most (4 floors) of the market are underground. Thankfully, all the fish were above ground...(whew)...

That afternoon we went to lunch at the Owl and Thistle, which is a very nice little Irish Pub in downtown Seattle. Karen found this in the ladies' room:



You see, Kurt didn't actually blow his brains out with a shotgun. He's alive and well, and plays poker at high stakes Texas Holdem games with Elvis and Jim Morrison on Vashon Island, and in his spare time, he scrawls graffiti in women's restrooms. Elvis and Jim are gettin' kinda old and saggy by now, but they can kick the crap outta ol' Kurt at poker. The good news for Kurt is that Vashon Island is the west coast's premier supplier of ganja, so he can get a pretty serious bake on when he loses.

And you thought I was gonna supply a picture to prove it. Heh.

Well, you may recall that Karen and I spent some time with her uncle Bill out in Thorp (http://3rp.blogspot.com/2005/01/thorp.html). Well, on the way back to Seattle from Thorp, we stopped off in a little town called Snoqualmie. There are two cool things about Snoqualmie: they have a really cool waterfall and one of the more sad things I've seen on this trip: a steam locomotive graveyard.

So, here are some pics of the falls:



Now, that may not look like much, but let me give you a little flavor for the scale of this thing. Here's the bottom of the falls:



And, here, check it out - a coupla guys fishin' off to the right there:



Ok, so it's not Niagara, but it's still pretty cool.

Now, on to the boneyard. I know it probably makes me a sentimental fool, but I found this to be profoundly sad. Maybe it's just that we're in the age of fast food, corporate whores and other prostitutes, I don't know. I guess I kind of mourn for the days of slow food and enjoying life...and somehow steam trains are evocative of that for me. Well, here's the scene:



It's like the engineers just drove 'em up here, stepped off and walked away. Just kinda weird.



I thought this was interesting:



Hooray for Michigan. Or something like that... :-)

I like this picture of Bill and Andrew walking down the tracks:



Right after this, we went to a local fast food (*sigh*) place called Taco Time to meet an old college buddy of mine who works at Microsoft in Redmond. We had a nice chat - turns out he's on his way to a vacation in New Zealand, and yes, he's going to do the Lord of the Rings tour - and he takes me for a ride in his Porsche 911 Carrera. Nice. White. (I gave him crap for driving around a large kitchen appliance...) Fast. And sticky.

Later that afternoon, Uncle Bill and Cousins Andrew and Melissa went with us on a tour of "underground Seattle", or what's left of it. Apparently, Seattle was originally built on tidal flats, and what's now street level was originally floor two of the older buildings. It was pretty interesting, actually.

Here's a shot of one of the skylights they built in the current sidewalk so that you could still see underground:



And here's a look at it from above ground:



That night, Karen and I spent the night with Nate and Melissa on Vashon again, and the next morning we went off to collect our rental car for the next leg of our journey. First thing we did was come back into Seattle from the airport and check out the Seattle Space Needle, and the Experience Music Project.

The Space Needle affords beautiful vistas of the city and surroundings:





And the EMP (Experience Music Project) was like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, but with studios that allowed you to play various instruments along with tracks. It was kinda cool. They also had Bob Dylan and Jimmy Hendrix exhibits, but didn't allow any pics. :-(

Well, children, I think that may be all for tonight. Stay tuned...