We made a point of finding a few caches on the way. This one was a virtual, at a historic gas station made to look like a teapot:
But the most fun was in Seattle, where I spent a lot of time at the Seattle Center, site of the World's Fair in 1962. Here is the Peace Garden:
This is situated almost directly under the Space Needle, and I suppose if it weren't for the glass windows preventing it, people could have spit on me down below. They might have hit me, or they might have hit the numerous homeless people. These homeless people are, as the name of the park implies, very peaceful. They peacefully ask for money because they just got their duffel bag stolen, or they need money for their father's spleen operation, or for a bus ticket home so they can escape their life of drugs/prostitution/whatnot.
Something you have to do in Seattle is go to the Pike street market, where they throw fish around and yell at each other. It was a little crowded the day we went - not because of the homeless people, which are actually entertaining at the market, but because we managed to coincide our visit with that of a cruise ship, but we still enjoyed the time we spent. We ate at a nice little Greek restaurant several levels below and off the obvious trails to avoid the crowds - very good lamb, plus some things I can't pronounce much less spell. Here are the fish being thrown:
Then, back to the Science center to pay admission to the Experimental Music Project and Science Fiction Museum, which is also under the shadow of the Space Needle. Paying admission is a good thing because it gets you clear of the homeless people plying their trade. Here's the Space Needle, in all its glory:
...and once inside, you can see things like the original costumes worn in Blade Runner, and the original Captain's station in the Starship Enterprise - not the Captain Picard one, but the one that William Shatner parked his butt in. I saw a First Edition of Have Space Suit Will Travel, which is the first Science Fiction novel I ever read. Use the provided link to see a picture of the cover of that first edition.
One fun thing to do is the Seattle Underground Tour. It takes about 90 minutes and 15 bucks, and the first half hour is a very cheesy history lesson given by (in our case) a relatively attractive young lady, before they turn you over to a somewhat less skilled and personable tour guide. It's worthwhile mostly because you finally understand why Seattle is built so funny. Apparently, it has to do with the fact that the sewage system was unworkable with the way the hills dumped the crap on the low lying areas next to the ocean, where the brothels and opium dens were.
But probably the biggest thrill was seeing the very guitar that Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock - the white Fender Stratocaster used to produce the gentle, melodious sounds of the Star Spangled Banner on Yasger's farm, where only 30,000 or so of the former half million concert goers were left to see it, the rest having gone home to their jobs after taxing "the system" with their emergency disaster needs (while reveling in the idea that their lifestyle was sustainable in the real world because they had done it for three days). Here is that guitar, a bit blurry because the lights were reverently dim and I was using my cell phone:
By the way, they don't ask for "spare change" anymore. Now it's 14 bucks for something they need. Inflation has taken its toll.
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