West Coast Whirlwind

Our big trip first took us to Seattle, Washington, with a 5-hour flight, non-stop from Pittsburgh.  To guard against flight delays, we built in an extra two days in Seattle before our main trip.  But the whole thing went off without a hitch. 

Seattle as seen from West Seattle

Our gracious friends welcomed us at the huge SeaTac airport (five times the passenger volume of PIT) and then took us on a driving tour of their hometown, combined with a delicious lunch at a seafood restaurant overlooking a marina.  

Fishermen's Memorial monument

sea creatures depicted at the base of the monument

Water and hills are ever present in Seattle.  The houses on the hills reminded me of some sections of Pittsburgh, looking all stacked on top of one another.  Pittsburgh has rivers, but Seattle has PUGET SOUND.  And also a waterway called Shilshole Bay, which I didn’t learn how to pronounce, but my eye wants me to say “Shithole Bay”.  It is not that.  It is lovely.  

houses stacked on hills 

vertical lines at the marina

boats and sky

We felt right at home with all the bridges, although Pittsburgh has three times the number of bridges as Seattle.  What Seattle has, and Pittsburgh does not,  though, is a troll under the bridge.  

The troll under the bridge
(photo snapped as we passed by in the car)

The Port of Seattle is a hopping place, with container shipping, a grain terminal, and two cruise ship ports.    But the big influx of wealth in the past few decades is from high tech.  With the arrival of AI, the economic future is uncertain.  

Pier 91, cruise ship terminal

LDC grain terminal.
I used to work for that company.

The price of gas was a shocking ~$5.20/gallon, compared to about $4.20 here.  Their tax on gasoline must be even heftier than ours.  But our friends drove us hither and yon, over to West Seattle, and also to the top of hills overlooking Puget Sound.  They pointed out the Pacific madrone tree, with a unique reddish bark.  

Madrone tree trunk

Then, oh!  We went to the Olympic Sculpture Park, where most of the art is outdoors.  It was marvelous!  I hope to devote another post to the sculpture park, but first I have to convince my husband to give me his photos. Here's a tiny sample.

As we walked around the park, we saw scads of young folk in fancy dress.  This was most likely preparation for the Seafair Torchlight Parade later on; it just added to the festive feel.

young ladies in gowns ride scooters near railroad tracks

The next day, our first stop, at my request, was the “Gay Plant Store on Capitol Hill in Seattle.”  Officially it’s “The Plant Store” but Planthony has made it famous with his social media videos.  And he was there!  I was in the presence of a celebrity, but I was too shy to take a selfie with Planthony.  He was so gracious.  I bought some Gay Plant Store stickers.

me, about to collide with a celebrity

We walked all over the Capitol Hill area.  Just down the street from The Gay Plant Store is Voodoo Doughnuts.  Or if you would like to sip a coffee while surrounded by cats (achooo!), try the Cat Cafe.  The neighborhood is welcoming to queer and transgender people (unlike other parts of our country).  We saw the park where No Kings rallies took place. We passed a cafe which was having a drag sing along.  Sadly, I do not have a photo of the Elliott Bay Book Company, where we stopped in for a rest and a beverage.   

Voodoo Doughnuts started
in Portland, I think.

This is the actual voodoo doughnut.
Pretzel stick stuck in the side of the pastry.

The cat cafe

massive amounts of posts plastered to poles

Black Lives Matter street art
just outside the huge park
where many public rallies take place

We were going to head to Seattle Center for a food festival, but the traffic was thick and we were tired so our friends took us back to our hotel.  It turns out there was a mass shooting there that very afternoon.  It doesn’t have to be this way, folks.  It doesn’t.  

View from Ray's Boathouse restaurant

We had a lovely meal at Ray's Boathouse, overlooking Shilshole Bay, drove along Alki Beach Park, and also at some point past the statue of Lenin, a building being built around an airplane (why do this?!), and eventually back to our hotel to rest before the next leg of our trip.

Lenin has blood on his hands.
As viewed from the car.

Why would anyone build this?
We all agreed it was creepy.

Did I mention that the weather was unexpectedly cooperative the whole time?

Thank you, Seattle friends.
A wonderful start to our vacation.

Posts in this series:

Alaska: rocks, fjords, and water 

Alaska: flora and fauna

Alaska: culture and commerce

Anecdotal Evidence: Furniture

The weight of a piece of furniture is inversely proportional to its price.

Evidence:

When Son moved out to his own apartment (yesssss,  adulting!  but ach, I miss him!) he took some furniture from our house.  We did not allow him to take the dining room table, as it is currently needed here for storing mail, dishes, campaign literature, and baked goods. Occasionally we use it for Shabbat dinner.

Son moved on a Saturday; he had invited a couple friends over for Sunday evening to play games.  For this, he needed a Dining Room Table Of One’s Own.  On Sunday right after I got home from church Son called me and said, “Let’s go shopping for a table.”  I said, no thanks, but he said he needed my car to transport the table.  Okay, fine. 

We went to one Goodwill, which had nothing.  We went to another Goodwill, which had a very beat-up dining room table, but just the right size for his needs.  Price: One dollar.  I wrote it out in words because if I had put it in numerals you would think I had mismarked the decimal point.  (It was marked down from $10.) 

Price: $1.  Weight:  10 tons. 

According to my exhaustive research of looking at one random website, particleboard can be twice as dense as actual real wood.  I do not know nor care what Son’s ‘new’ table is made of, I just know that it was damn heavy.

Son's table, squinched in my car

So then it was up to Son and weakling-me to carry it out of Goodwill, squinch it into the back of my car, carry it out of the car, up the steps, and into his apartment.  We got it done, but I needed to sleep extra on Sunday night.

It cleans up real nice!

Hint to the wise:  If you are going to Goodwill to buy furniture, bring a tape measure AND two screwdrivers (flathead and Philips head).  That way, if you need to, you can detach the legs for transportation (not the son’s legs, but the table’s legs).

The 'new' table can also be used to store puzzle pieces.

Dear Reader, what is currently stored on your table? 

Physics lesson

Welcome to my TED Talk.

Force equals mass times acceleration.

Wear your seatbelt.

Every object in a state of uniform motion will remain in that state of motion unless an external force acts on it.

Do not text while driving.  Just don’t.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Leave a good distance between your car and the vehicle in front of you.

Newton’s Laws of Motion are true and cannot be repealed.

Do not, do not, do not drive while under the influence of a mind-altering substance.  Whether that’s alcohol, pot, antihistamine, opioids, or your mother-in-law’s comments, just don’t.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

* * * * * * * *

Please do not tell my mother about this.  I will tell her at the right time.

On an average day in the US, there are about 18,000 car crashes.  On Monday, I was in one of them.  On an average day in the US, there are about 90 fatal car crashes.  On Monday, I was not one of them. I walked away without a scratch.  Just achy, and very, very grateful.

The force with which the car hit me (from behind) felt stunning and sudden.  But the airbag did not deploy, so maybe it was not that large a force, in the grand scheme of Newton’s Physics Rules.  It felt pretty damn forceful, and it pushed my car into the opposing lane of traffic.  That lane was empty, so I did not get hit twice.  The other driver was not hurt physically, at least as far as I saw.

One of the few photos I have of my car intact.
Mine is the maroon car, third from the front.

One more photo, from back in February, moving
my son back home.  This is such a great car for me.

I do not think that God intended for this crash to happen, nor do I think that a car crash is a good thing.  But I do see some of the hand of God in this:  the hand of God that created the human ingenuity and the political will to invent and implement: 

·      seat belts

·      car bumpers

·      headrests/whiplash preventers

·      fire departments with large brooms to sweep up glass and metal shards

·      taxpayers who pay local taxes to support a trained Emergency Medical Team, trained police force, and trained fire department, with adequate equipment to handle car crashes

·      technology to make 911 calls possible

·      a church full of people to pray for me and the other driver

·      a gas tank that does not automatically explode on impact

·      windows, through which an observer in the nearby school could see the whole thing happen and who then came to me before any emergency officials arrived, to check on me and give me a hug, and waited around to give a statement to police.

 

Thoroughly smashed up. 

* * * * * * * *

A few other observations

O Best Beloved, do not become too fond of thy car.  You never know when someone will smash it to smithereens. 

After the crash, I could not stop shaking.  My husband told me afterwards that the shaking was probably an element of being in shock. 

I found out that the fire department was not particularly necessary for this incident, but the fire station was in a training period.  So this car crash was used for practice.  You done good, fire fighters!   Never have the shards from a car crash been swept up more quickly and thoroughly.

A friend tells me that air bags do not usually deploy in a rear-end collision.  Which makes that seat belt even more important.  Please refer to my TED Talk above.

It still looks pretty good from the front.

But it's all jumbled up in the back.