Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Delinquent as Charged

So, it seems that promising daily updates when I'm hard pressed to do monthly updates was a little bit too ambitious.

I have had a chance to work with the pictures from my trip to Seattle. The trip was wonderful. I took the train up on a Thursday and home on Monday, which gave me 3 whole days of exploration. I bought the Seattle CityPass and used them all. I stayed at the LaQuinta in the downtown area. It was nice, clean, and they fed me breakfast every morning.

On Friday I started out by taking the bus out to the Woodland Park Zoo. It didn't rain, but about 1/2 way through the zoo my camera battery died (and I left the charger at home, noooo!!!) so I had to rely on my iPhone for the rest of the day. I didn't get to see the actual snow leopards  as they were feeling lazy and sleeping in, but the statue was very pretty. I did get to see the cavorting lion cubs.
Woodland Park Zoo


 Luckily there was a camera supply store a few blocks from my hotel, and now I have a dedicated luggage camera charger.

I had lunch at the zoo, then caught the bus back downtown and navigated my way through the market down to the waterfront and to the Seattle Aquarium. Amazingly, it still wasn't raining.

Seattle Aquarium

After the aquarium I walked through Pike's Place Market. The top level was interesting, and if I'd had cooking capabilities it would have been fantastic. As it was I picked out a lovely spring bouquet and saw the famous fish guys through some fish around.

Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny! I spent the morning downtown doing some shopping and taking pictures of the  neat things I encountered. The collage below is a mixture of pictures I took throughout the trip that weren't museum specific.

Seattle Montage

The cityscape in the lower right was the view from my hotel living room (I had a suite).

Sometime during my shopping it began to pour in more usual Seattle style. It made the Argosy Harbor Cruise I took just that much more authentic. Despite being stuck on the indoor deck of the boat, the tour was interesting and enjoyable, and I did manage a few pictures.

Argosy Harbor Cruise

See that bright jacket I'm wearing? It's my new rain jacket that I had just purchased that very morning on my shopping trip.

After the cruise I decided to head back to the hotel, as I was soaked from the knees down, my feet were sore from all the walking, and the engine noise on the boat had given me a mild headache. When I was nearly back at my hotel, the rain stopped and the sun came back out.

Sunday was my last day, so I started early. I began by walking to the Seattle Space Needle. I got there right after they opened and had no lines to wait through :-). I was raining, but not as hard as the day before.

Space Needle

The middle picture was taken on Saturday morning when the weather was gorgeous. I'm tickled that I managed to get the elevator in the picture, and I have plans to print this one for framing. The view was magnificent, I only wish it hadn't been rainy and cloudy as I'd have liked to see the mountains.

After I came back down to Earth I headed over to the Pacific Science Center. It too had only just opened (and yes, I planned that) so for a while it was uncrowded and quite pleasant. I managed to luck out and visit during the annual science weekend hosted  by University of Washington. Lots of scientists had tables set out and many hands on activities, from earthquake simulation to pharmacology and health sciences. Of course, that meant that the museum got crowded quickly, but it was small enough that I got through before it got really bad.

Pacific Science Center

After a quick (disappointing) lunch at Starbucks, I headed to my final museum, the EMP/Sci-Fi Museum. EMP stands for "Experimental Music Project" and the museum had a heavy emphasis on music. I walked through the Nirvana exhibit (so many smashed guitars). I went into the Jimi Hendrix exhibit and saw the guitar that he played "the Star Spangled Banner" on at Woodstock. I got nostalgic in the "Art of Video Games" exhibit. But what I was really there to see, and why I saved it till last, was the "Icons of Science Fiction" exhibit.

EMP Museum

Kirk's chair, tribbles, Data's uniform, Jack O'Neil's sunglasses, Vader's lightsaber...and the real treat of an Imperial Dalek from the original Doctor Who. Yes, that is my sonic screwdriver. I had to make sure the Dalek was really dead. I also wore on of my Doctor Who shirts. And bought a bunch of stuff at the gift store. 

And that's it. There wasn't going to be anything that topped the Dalek anyways. Monday I rode the train home and Westley was very happy to see me.