Ahhh, yes, lot's of letters for my fingers to type out and in turn for your eyes to see and take in....shall we?
Exploring the Emerald City
Tuesday morning arrived and I awoke to Dad coming into the hotel room with a paper and a cup of coffee. (for him, he's not that nice. lol) Asked him if it was a local paper and he said no they had USA Today or Wall Street Journal so he grabbed the WSJ, although he didn't know why the hell he did since it wasn't really what he was looking for. He was hungry so I jumped in the shower and got ready. The game wasn't until 7pm that night so we had time to kill until we had to go to Safeco Field.
Once I was ready and we were going to head out, I received a text message from an old friend that now works in Seattle and lives just north of there. She had just got off work and was going to crash and had to work that night so would Wednesday work to meet up, texted her of course it would because it was a day game then. Dad and I went to the elevator, and I asked what he wanted to have. He had heard someone talking in the lobby how you didn't want to eat at the restaurant there because it was to expensive, when I said one of the coffeeshops would have bagels and stuff he said no because he wanted some eggs and bacon dammit. Fine by me, let's go.
We started walking up 2nd avenue looking for a restaurant somewhere around there, and of course there were coffee shops everywhere, but no eateries that stood out, so we kept walking, all of a sudden, there's Pike Place Market, one of the places we had been told we had to see, so we went that way. Walking through that early in the day, people are setting up their wares, shops are opening, and the smell of fish welcomes you. Luckily it also had a restaurant within it that had good looking breakfasts on it's menu. These turned out to be a little expensive too, but we had a view of the harbor, and the pancakes and bacon were delicious, dad said his french toast and sausage was good too, and don't worry, we had eggs.
This was the point where I got a voice mail that I couldn't pick up on because of the building, so once we had wandered through the people setting up and went to a little park across the street I called voicemail and listened. It was a woman that works for the University of Montana, the one that helped me line things up as needed to get the paperwork done on my thesis. I also had received an email from her that I saw and responded to on my phone. I was nervous for a bit, but a few emails back and forth, and one or two from my thesis chair had everything straightened out and I had resolved to get that taken care of when I got back to Glendive. (I was so fricking relieved by that, I honestly thought my trip could get ruined by this, if I was stressing while there, but phew, no biggie)
The little park was pretty cool, just a small oasis in the middle of the city, had a couple patches of grass, some tables, two totem poles from the northwest cultures (some of my favorites that I have studied) and a view of the water. My phone's camera got a workout starting here. At one point dad leaned down and felt the grass to see how wet it was because he couldn't believe people were napping on it, grass was pretty damn wet, so they were tough individuals one might say.
Dad had his Braves hat on and I had one of mine as well, which proved to be nice as the day went on, we met so many Braves fans wandering around, and all of em smiled, nodded, or said Go Braves, twas awesome. I asked dad what he wanted to do and he didn't care, so I said there was a statue park up from there that I kinda wanted to see, and I knew the Space Needle was that direction, so of we went. The statue park was pretty cool, even though dad and I didn't get what half of those structures were, but hey, you don't have to get it to appreciate it.
We wandered through there, taking the pieces in, some I thought were really cool, some I just kinda shook my head at, but we talked to mom on the phone for a bit and just let it be what it would. After the park we headed towards the Needle. Like dad said as we went towards it, you have to be in shape to live in a city like this, those hills surprised us. I didn't really know much about Seattle, but for some reason hills never really came to mind, but they have some pretty good ones there. The area around the Space Needle was neat, looked like a science musuem, an imax theater, a water structure to beat the heat (which there wasn't much of while we were there, it was just right) a center where their WNBA team plays, and of course the Needle itself. Once I saw that you could see out the elevator's I knew I wasn't going up it. I have a thing about heights, they don't like me, or vice versa. I told dad he could go up if he wanted and I would wait, but he was cool so we wandered some more.
Our wanderings were taking a toll on dad, but I didn't know it because anytime we were deciding where to go he just kept hoofing it so I didn't think anything of it. We went by a construction site and watched and excavator push a giant boulder around for a while, then just kept walking, I knew the general direction to go, but that was about it. We finally stopped at a coffee shop and got something to drink and sat for a while. We marveled at the parking lots and I mentioned how that would be a great investment to have, minimal upkeep and a machine keeps track of everything, win/win.
Coffee finished, up we got and headed towards the water, we meandered around until we found the park again, I got a better picture of the spinning ampersand I liked and then we went by the buildings on the various docks, to see what was down there as well. We couldn't believe how old some of the beams were holding these buildings and structures up, how they looked partially rotten, but were obviously solid. We watched rats running around on the rocks below them, and just kinda took it in. We talked about going back through the Market and heading towards the hotel.
When we saw where the market was I couldn't believe all the steps we were going to have to go up to get to it, but off we went again. There were cement steps under the viaduct, and they were covered in deer poop, middle of the city and here was obviously a gathering place for them. Then through a parking lot and up wooden stairs to get back by the park from earlier. But hey, there's the market and so much more going on as everybody is set up. Mom had mentioned to me that dad should buy her a necklace or something because they had really neat glasswares and beadings or what have you, so I passed that information along to him. He did wind up finding a really pretty necklace and earring set that he got for her.
When we had gone through the first time I had noticed a lady that had hand made wooden spoons and I had mentioned to dad that I should get one for mom as a joke. When I was an unruly child that was her go to spanking device, so I thought it would be funny. Saw the price on em, 42 frickin dollars, joke wasn't that funny so I just told her about it later. I wound up buying some cool prints, and a present for my sister, a metal work butterfly. We went up and down in the Market looking at shops on all three levels. I went in a Mexican store and got a dog and donkey that are Dia De La Muerta inspired, and a brightly colored chicken for mom, she collects them. As I waited for the shopkeep to wrap up my purchase I noticed an empty tequila bottle that had a sign in front of it saying, On Thursdays all sales get a free shot of Tequila, DAMN YOU TUESDAY. 
We saw people throwing fish, so that was our little touristy thing to do. We got some snack sticks and smoked cheese from the meat vendor. He asked if it was Atlanta money due to our hats, we set him straight that it was Montana money. Explored a little more and came out on 1st avenue. The chocolate shop was to much to pass up so we went in and got an English toffee caramel apple, they cut it up, and we sat and enjoyed it. Sampled the apple pie one, pretty sure all of em would have been amazing. Next door was a store with Northwest culture art so I knew I was going in there. Ever since I had heard the story of Raven, and gotten an appreciation for the art style of that group, I knew that I would be having some Ravens in my possession. I just love Raven's in general, thank you Mr. Poe. So I picked up two great prints for a decent price and off we went....wait a second not so fast, yeah this is where dad decided we should sit down for a while.
Nothing wrong with relaxing for a bit. After a while we got up and headed towards the hotel, walking down 1st I saw signs pointing out the stadiums so I knew which direction we would be going later that day, which is always a good thing. Once at the hotel dad told me that his legs were killing him because of his varicose veins, I hadn't even thought of that since he'd been such a trooper. But it was only 3 or 4ish and the game wasn't until 7 so no big deal, rest for a bit, call mom, get ready.
I think around 5:30 we set out, before we left the room dad asked if I was going to grab the map we had, I said nah, hadn't needed it yet, which surprised him, but I told him about those signs I had seen so I knew where we were headed. When the write up on the hotel said a ten minute walk to the stadium, they weren't shitting. I literally was asking my dad where it was cuz I knew it was near when I was almost parallel with Qwest field, where the Seahawks play, which is half a block from Safeco field. At that point I got goosebumps, it was really happening, we were going to see our first professional baseball game, we were going to see our favorite team, we were having that quintessential father son bonding moment that you always hear about. Most of those times it's a father taking his young son to a game, but hey, what's wrong with a 58 year old and his 32 year old son, I coulda acted young I suppose.
Even better was the fact that the first gate we see was the exact one we wanted, left field, right by where we were sitting. This game I bought us seats up on the visitor side close to third so I could see my favorite player, Chipper Jones, in action. I was surprised at all the people lined up to get autographs, at least a few hundred, but I didn't see many people signing, but there was batting practice and fielding exercises and stretching to be done. I had to get a kick out of how they set up BP, the player hit a few balls and then ran the bases as the next person was up. Dan Uggla hit before Chipper and so when Chipper was swinging he nearly hit Dan twice, I laughed as I saw the grin come across Chipper's face. He might not have been doing it on purpose, but he was enjoying it nonetheless. It was fun to see them get into a make shift home run derby and hit bombs.
I couldn't believe how small things seemed, I think it was because I had always heard the first game stories and how everything seemed so big, but hey to a kid it would be, to a full grown man, not so much, but still, it surprised me dammit. The game started off a little rocky for our Braves, but they are an excellent team so that came around like it should. There was a great family of Braves fans in the row in front of us up from Eugene Oregon, they were glad to see us because the game before they had Mariners fans behind them that didn't like it when they yelled. I got into the yelling for my team, that was a good time, only time I didn't enjoy it was when my voice broke mid yell. The one lady in front of us turned and surprisingly said "was that you" yeah, yeah that was me.
The Braves came from behind to win the game, I got to see my boys congratulate one another, and have a big ol grin on my face as we left the field. We were in the midst of many Braves fans as we headed back towards the hotel, got a high five from one when I was on the phone with mom telling her the good guys won. So yeah, after a few beers and a little food we were headed back to the hotel, but first we stopped in a little shop on the way. I don't know if I was more buzzed than I thought I was, or if it was just because the store was so frickin hot, but I went into strategic shopping mode which is something I only do when drunk or high. But it basically boils down to having beverage covered, and making sure there is a balance between salty and sweet. I got some stuff for in the morning too, in case dad didn't want to hoof it looking for food.
Dad watched TV for a while but crashed fairly quickly, I watched and then was reading. I saw dad had the covers over his head which I thought was odd, but figured hey he isn't snoring and it's probably the light, so we're good. Then I heard a noise that made me chuckle, then I heard him say "oh God" and pull the cover's off his head and I laughed. Yes I laughed at my father for he had just dutch ovened himself.
That was day two in Seattle, a fantastic day full of awesome.
The Giant Aluminum Tree, which I loved.
Exploring the Emerald City
Tuesday morning arrived and I awoke to Dad coming into the hotel room with a paper and a cup of coffee. (for him, he's not that nice. lol) Asked him if it was a local paper and he said no they had USA Today or Wall Street Journal so he grabbed the WSJ, although he didn't know why the hell he did since it wasn't really what he was looking for. He was hungry so I jumped in the shower and got ready. The game wasn't until 7pm that night so we had time to kill until we had to go to Safeco Field.
Once I was ready and we were going to head out, I received a text message from an old friend that now works in Seattle and lives just north of there. She had just got off work and was going to crash and had to work that night so would Wednesday work to meet up, texted her of course it would because it was a day game then. Dad and I went to the elevator, and I asked what he wanted to have. He had heard someone talking in the lobby how you didn't want to eat at the restaurant there because it was to expensive, when I said one of the coffeeshops would have bagels and stuff he said no because he wanted some eggs and bacon dammit. Fine by me, let's go.
We started walking up 2nd avenue looking for a restaurant somewhere around there, and of course there were coffee shops everywhere, but no eateries that stood out, so we kept walking, all of a sudden, there's Pike Place Market, one of the places we had been told we had to see, so we went that way. Walking through that early in the day, people are setting up their wares, shops are opening, and the smell of fish welcomes you. Luckily it also had a restaurant within it that had good looking breakfasts on it's menu. These turned out to be a little expensive too, but we had a view of the harbor, and the pancakes and bacon were delicious, dad said his french toast and sausage was good too, and don't worry, we had eggs.
This was the point where I got a voice mail that I couldn't pick up on because of the building, so once we had wandered through the people setting up and went to a little park across the street I called voicemail and listened. It was a woman that works for the University of Montana, the one that helped me line things up as needed to get the paperwork done on my thesis. I also had received an email from her that I saw and responded to on my phone. I was nervous for a bit, but a few emails back and forth, and one or two from my thesis chair had everything straightened out and I had resolved to get that taken care of when I got back to Glendive. (I was so fricking relieved by that, I honestly thought my trip could get ruined by this, if I was stressing while there, but phew, no biggie)
The little park was pretty cool, just a small oasis in the middle of the city, had a couple patches of grass, some tables, two totem poles from the northwest cultures (some of my favorites that I have studied) and a view of the water. My phone's camera got a workout starting here. At one point dad leaned down and felt the grass to see how wet it was because he couldn't believe people were napping on it, grass was pretty damn wet, so they were tough individuals one might say.
Dad had his Braves hat on and I had one of mine as well, which proved to be nice as the day went on, we met so many Braves fans wandering around, and all of em smiled, nodded, or said Go Braves, twas awesome. I asked dad what he wanted to do and he didn't care, so I said there was a statue park up from there that I kinda wanted to see, and I knew the Space Needle was that direction, so of we went. The statue park was pretty cool, even though dad and I didn't get what half of those structures were, but hey, you don't have to get it to appreciate it.
We wandered through there, taking the pieces in, some I thought were really cool, some I just kinda shook my head at, but we talked to mom on the phone for a bit and just let it be what it would. After the park we headed towards the Needle. Like dad said as we went towards it, you have to be in shape to live in a city like this, those hills surprised us. I didn't really know much about Seattle, but for some reason hills never really came to mind, but they have some pretty good ones there. The area around the Space Needle was neat, looked like a science musuem, an imax theater, a water structure to beat the heat (which there wasn't much of while we were there, it was just right) a center where their WNBA team plays, and of course the Needle itself. Once I saw that you could see out the elevator's I knew I wasn't going up it. I have a thing about heights, they don't like me, or vice versa.
I told dad he could go up if he wanted and I would wait, but he was cool so we wandered some more.Our wanderings were taking a toll on dad, but I didn't know it because anytime we were deciding where to go he just kept hoofing it so I didn't think anything of it. We went by a construction site and watched and excavator push a giant boulder around for a while, then just kept walking, I knew the general direction to go, but that was about it. We finally stopped at a coffee shop and got something to drink and sat for a while. We marveled at the parking lots and I mentioned how that would be a great investment to have, minimal upkeep and a machine keeps track of everything, win/win.
Coffee finished, up we got and headed towards the water, we meandered around until we found the park again, I got a better picture of the spinning ampersand I liked and then we went by the buildings on the various docks, to see what was down there as well. We couldn't believe how old some of the beams were holding these buildings and structures up, how they looked partially rotten, but were obviously solid. We watched rats running around on the rocks below them, and just kinda took it in. We talked about going back through the Market and heading towards the hotel.
When we saw where the market was I couldn't believe all the steps we were going to have to go up to get to it, but off we went again. There were cement steps under the viaduct, and they were covered in deer poop, middle of the city and here was obviously a gathering place for them. Then through a parking lot and up wooden stairs to get back by the park from earlier. But hey, there's the market and so much more going on as everybody is set up. Mom had mentioned to me that dad should buy her a necklace or something because they had really neat glasswares and beadings or what have you, so I passed that information along to him. He did wind up finding a really pretty necklace and earring set that he got for her.
When we had gone through the first time I had noticed a lady that had hand made wooden spoons and I had mentioned to dad that I should get one for mom as a joke. When I was an unruly child that was her go to spanking device, so I thought it would be funny. Saw the price on em, 42 frickin dollars, joke wasn't that funny so I just told her about it later.
I wound up buying some cool prints, and a present for my sister, a metal work butterfly. We went up and down in the Market looking at shops on all three levels. I went in a Mexican store and got a dog and donkey that are Dia De La Muerta inspired, and a brightly colored chicken for mom, she collects them. As I waited for the shopkeep to wrap up my purchase I noticed an empty tequila bottle that had a sign in front of it saying, On Thursdays all sales get a free shot of Tequila, DAMN YOU TUESDAY. We saw people throwing fish, so that was our little touristy thing to do. We got some snack sticks and smoked cheese from the meat vendor. He asked if it was Atlanta money due to our hats, we set him straight that it was Montana money. Explored a little more and came out on 1st avenue. The chocolate shop was to much to pass up so we went in and got an English toffee caramel apple, they cut it up, and we sat and enjoyed it. Sampled the apple pie one, pretty sure all of em would have been amazing. Next door was a store with Northwest culture art so I knew I was going in there. Ever since I had heard the story of Raven, and gotten an appreciation for the art style of that group, I knew that I would be having some Ravens in my possession. I just love Raven's in general, thank you Mr. Poe. So I picked up two great prints for a decent price and off we went....wait a second not so fast, yeah this is where dad decided we should sit down for a while.
Nothing wrong with relaxing for a bit. After a while we got up and headed towards the hotel, walking down 1st I saw signs pointing out the stadiums so I knew which direction we would be going later that day, which is always a good thing. Once at the hotel dad told me that his legs were killing him because of his varicose veins, I hadn't even thought of that since he'd been such a trooper. But it was only 3 or 4ish and the game wasn't until 7 so no big deal, rest for a bit, call mom, get ready.
I think around 5:30 we set out, before we left the room dad asked if I was going to grab the map we had, I said nah, hadn't needed it yet, which surprised him, but I told him about those signs I had seen so I knew where we were headed. When the write up on the hotel said a ten minute walk to the stadium, they weren't shitting. I literally was asking my dad where it was cuz I knew it was near when I was almost parallel with Qwest field, where the Seahawks play, which is half a block from Safeco field. At that point I got goosebumps, it was really happening, we were going to see our first professional baseball game, we were going to see our favorite team, we were having that quintessential father son bonding moment that you always hear about. Most of those times it's a father taking his young son to a game, but hey, what's wrong with a 58 year old and his 32 year old son, I coulda acted young I suppose.
Even better was the fact that the first gate we see was the exact one we wanted, left field, right by where we were sitting. This game I bought us seats up on the visitor side close to third so I could see my favorite player, Chipper Jones, in action. I was surprised at all the people lined up to get autographs, at least a few hundred, but I didn't see many people signing, but there was batting practice and fielding exercises and stretching to be done. I had to get a kick out of how they set up BP, the player hit a few balls and then ran the bases as the next person was up. Dan Uggla hit before Chipper and so when Chipper was swinging he nearly hit Dan twice, I laughed as I saw the grin come across Chipper's face. He might not have been doing it on purpose, but he was enjoying it nonetheless. It was fun to see them get into a make shift home run derby and hit bombs.
I couldn't believe how small things seemed, I think it was because I had always heard the first game stories and how everything seemed so big, but hey to a kid it would be, to a full grown man, not so much, but still, it surprised me dammit. The game started off a little rocky for our Braves, but they are an excellent team so that came around like it should. There was a great family of Braves fans in the row in front of us up from Eugene Oregon, they were glad to see us because the game before they had Mariners fans behind them that didn't like it when they yelled. I got into the yelling for my team, that was a good time, only time I didn't enjoy it was when my voice broke mid yell. The one lady in front of us turned and surprisingly said "was that you" yeah, yeah that was me.
The Braves came from behind to win the game, I got to see my boys congratulate one another, and have a big ol grin on my face as we left the field. We were in the midst of many Braves fans as we headed back towards the hotel, got a high five from one when I was on the phone with mom telling her the good guys won. So yeah, after a few beers and a little food we were headed back to the hotel, but first we stopped in a little shop on the way. I don't know if I was more buzzed than I thought I was, or if it was just because the store was so frickin hot, but I went into strategic shopping mode which is something I only do when drunk or high. But it basically boils down to having beverage covered, and making sure there is a balance between salty and sweet. I got some stuff for in the morning too, in case dad didn't want to hoof it looking for food.
Dad watched TV for a while but crashed fairly quickly, I watched and then was reading. I saw dad had the covers over his head which I thought was odd, but figured hey he isn't snoring and it's probably the light, so we're good. Then I heard a noise that made me chuckle, then I heard him say "oh God" and pull the cover's off his head and I laughed. Yes I laughed at my father for he had just dutch ovened himself.
That was day two in Seattle, a fantastic day full of awesome.
The Giant Aluminum Tree, which I loved.
VIEW 14 of 14 COMMENTS
kas:
pocket knife, emergency hole 
kas:
<-----votes for uncomplicated belts