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Saturday (continued)
My chums arrived. They surveyed the maze of boxes and bookcases that filled my flat. I continued to do a crappy job of packing for the trip. Soon we were off to Peet's for coffee and then to the airport for transport. We dealt with the airport, the flight.
We caught a bus that ran to the Four Seasons hotel, which was just a half block from our hotel--the Hotel Seattle. When we got off of the bus at the Four Seasons, there was a crowd of people gathered. They seemed to be waiting for someone. They didn't seem to be waiting for me. I looked around, and saw lots of fannish paraphanelia for the Chicago Bulls basketball team. Now it all clicked. The NBA finals were in progress: the Chicago Bulls vs. the Seattle Supersonics. The Bulls had beat the Sonics in two games of the series so far. The third game was going to be in Seattle Sunday night. Chicago fans were gathered to welcome their team, who was apparently staying at the Four Seasons.
Arlene spotted the Hotel Seattle and we went over to drop off luggage and to discover that the suite I had reserved was being remodeled, so they had decided to put us into a couple of double rooms instead. Not connected double rooms. Actually, it took a long time to figure out what was going on, to change it to something acceptable, to make it clear who I was... I made a mental note that maybe I never wanted to have anything to do with this hotel again. When I saw the rooms later that day, I would be certain of this, but that's not especially interesting, so let's change the subject.
We were a bit punchy from the flight. General consensus was that we should have lunch and figure out what to do next. We ended up at the Elliott Bay Book Company Cafe, my default choice for recuperatory planning lunches in the downtown Seattle area. We made some plans, left other planning for later, and ate some much needed food.
We walked along the pier/dock area, checking schedules of ferry tours. We walked up the hill to an architecture bookstore, where I read 10 pages into The Timeless Way of Building while James confirmed that this bookstore was really nothing special.
We walked up to Freeway Park. Why does this thing make it into all the guidebooks? I can see that it might be a cool place if there was an event going on there, but on its own it was sort of dull. There were some fountains, but nothing to write home about. The white noise of the fountains kept lulling me to sleep, which was strange, because I was standing up.
We stopped off at the hotel room to figure out who was sleeping where and regroup a bit. And to plan the afternoon: we were going to the Space Needle!
On both of my previous Seattle sojourns I'd managed to avoid the Space Needle. I've never really got into the idea of views from high places, especially of cities that I'm not that familiar with. Dave and Veronica had persuaded me to go up to the top of Smith tower on our previous Seattle trip, and that had been okay. But I hadn't spent most of my time looking at the view there--I'd mostly been reading.
I keep losing my beeswax. I lose it more often than use it.
I'd been talked into going to the Public Market on my first Seattle trip, and it had turned out to be like San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf: a many-tiered area of tourist traps. Was I now going to be talked into going to the Space Needle? A tourist trap without so much as a beeswax vendor to redeem it?
We walked to Ranier square. I goggled at the Alternative Youth who were wandering around. In previous trips to Seattle, there had been some Seattlites who had obviously missed out on Alternative the first time around and were finally catching up with the Macy*s version. This time, there were several. Perhaps it's because we were downtown on a weekend, but there seemed to be an awful lot of phonies wandering around. There were signs up saying, "Sonics--In To Win". I'd seen what Chicago's basketball team had done to the Sonics in their two previous games. The signs immediately struck me as funny. A large sign encouraged the Sonics to Make History. "Yeah,"I thought, "Make history by proving that the Bulls really are the greatest team ever."
We caught the monorail to the Space Needle. Between the monorail station and the Needle itself, there was a carnival area, which we navigated. I approached the Needle. My chums started to queue up. I stepped with them. Behind us was a clump of retirees, muttering at one another of various health complaints. I shifted nervously. I remembered the disappointed looks of tourists who'd been brought up to the top of San Francisco's Twin Peaks. The natives would excitedly point out landmarks--but the tourists didn't know the landmarks. They had been granted a new view of a city they weren't really that familiar with; it was lost on them. I looked up at the top of the Needle. There were huge letters on it: "GO SONICS". Jeez. I told my friends that I would be waiting for them on the lawn around the back of the Needle.
I had brought a book, halfway figuring that something like this would happen. The book was Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner, about water politics and the history of the American West. I lay down on the lawn and started to read. A group of people was drumming in a circle. People were climbing on statues. Clumps of tired tourists ran by. Families passed, children in straggling orbits around parents who looked a little peaked. I read of Washington State water projects, including the Grand Coulee dam which had provided gobs of electrical power which had in turn allowed for the mass production of large amounts of aluminum which had in turn enabled the production of many airplanes which had in turn helped win World War II. I lay back on the grass and wiggled my toes, enjoying the gentle sun. World War II seemed very far away. I felt very far away. It was nice. A short while later, my chums came along, apologizing about having spent so much time in the Needle. They did not seem to derive the same enjoyment from the lawn area that I did. Some punk kids had panhandled them; the drummers were apparently not up to par. They felt bad for having subjected me to this place for so long. The place had been kind to me. The time I had spent there had provided some necessary relaxation. My friends were nuts or something. I let it go.
We wandered over to a large, ornate fountain in the Seattle Center area. I cannot describe this fountain very well; but it held our attention for well over half an hour. If I could convey the size of the bowl-shaped depression that this fountain squatted in the center of like a spider with legs of water; then maybe you would understand the hope for excitement I felt when I saw a couple of young rollerbladers crawling down--but no, they took their blades off. Small children ran into the fountain and back out again. A few days later, I would talk to Jenny, who would mention that she had been in Seattle a couple of weeks before for an international folk music festival. She had pleasant memories of this fountain.
We saw an IMAX movie about Yellowstone. IMAX is not as dumb as I thought it might be. If I were at Great America, I would certainly make a point of seeing the IMAX movies there. Of course, that's only because there would be nothing else to do at Great America. So never mind. IMAX is a little less interesting than an episode of Beavis and Butthead you've seen a few times, which is to say that it's okay. For those of you who don't know, IMAX is a really big movie theater. The screen is really big, and they use really fine film, so they can show huge, high-resolution films. Gosh.
We played miniature golf. This provided a much-needed silliness outlet. Most of the other people in the mini-golf establishment seemed to be taking the game much too seriously. You never saw them using their club like a pool cue or croquet mallet. You never saw them smile. This was my first time playing miniature golf, and I'm sure that if I'd been playing it with one of the other people in the park, I would have thought it a game totally without merit. As it was, it was fun. Especially once I learned to stop taking it seriously.
We had dinner at a place called Tulio's which was absolutely awful, but I was the only one in the group who thought so, probably because I am neither a fan of meat nor of olives, thus ruling out all the restaurant's entrees. I ended up having a special which seemed to consist of noodles in a buttery sauce with thin-sliced bok choi. I ate the noodles and plenty of bread and potatoes.