We made our way back to the city on Friday morning. It was cooler and cloudy again today (64°F/ 18°C), but there is no rain in the forecast for the weekend.
Thursday/ Fort Flagler State Park
We drove out to Fort Flagler State Park today. We walked from the lighthouse at Marrowstone Point a mile or two all along the beach, and made our way back on a trail through the woods.
Wednesday/ tracking the North Star
Bryan and I took the ferry to Bainbridge Island today, to visit our friend Paul on the Kitsap Peninsula to the north. The ferry passed by a container ship called the North Star, from the TOTE Maritime Alaska company. The ship provides twice weekly shipments to Alaska, from the Port of Tacoma.
Sunday/ ‘Clipper Round the World’ bids Seattle good-bye
Cruise ship season is starting up here in Seattle. We saw the Norwegian Pearl from Norwegian Cruise Lines at the pier today. She was scheduled to leave at 4 pm.
Also departing Seattle, were a line-up of yachts taking part in the Clipper Round the World race. The yachts are heading out to Panama, and will make their way up the East Coast to New York. It will take an estimated 26 days to reach Panama, and another 12 to get to New York City from there. Bon voyage!
Monday/ it’s warming up
It’s Friday 4/20
Today marked the annual, unofficial international pot smoking day. (April 20 is written as 4/20 here in the States. 420 in all its forms, is code for smoking pot).
And where did the use of 420 (say ‘four-twenty’) come from? The term was coined in 1971 by a group of five San Rafael High School friends known as the Waldos, by virtue of their meeting time of 4:20 pm to smoke pot. Not long after that, 420 became a general code word for smoking pot.
Tuesday/ blue sky and .. ‘U SUCK’
An electronic signboard here on highway I-5 showed displayed a cheeky (rude?) ‘U SUCK’ message for some time today. Was it real? Yes, because Washington State DOT later tweeted ‘This was an inappropriate message and we apologize if anyone was offended. This was due to a training error and clearly a mistake. We are taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again’.
People did not seem too offended. Here are some snarky comments posted on Reddit –
- It’s part of WSDOT’s new initiative to reduce traffic. The idea is to insult people who drive so they are more likely to take other forms of transportation.
- It’s kind of like congestion pricing, but with emotions instead of money.
- No, you are right WSDOT, I do suck and I am sorry for that.
- Amateur hour. You have to try harder to insult me .. no really, try harder. Please.
Sunday/ this mall is not dead
It was the last day of spring break for public schools here, and the Westfield Southcenter mall here in the Seattle area was packed with visitors today. It’s a great mall, and I’m sure it will survive the mall armageddon that all the experts predict, with Amazon and all.
I bought some clothes, and while I was there I checked in on the Toys-R-Us store, to see if their Lego blocks were on sale. Not really: the stock was still only marked down 5%. So they are trying hard to get as much as they can from liquidating the inventory.
Sunday/ cherry blossoms
Spring is in full bloom here in the Northern Hemisphere, and the cherry blossoms are all out – here in the United States, and also in Japan and China.
Rainy Saturday
It rained steadily this morning, but cleared up enough later so that I could make my way down to the Capitol Hill public library. At the corner of Broadway and Thomas, I spotted this guy: big 3-0 balloons in one hand, and a cake box in the other. He was surely on his way to the party for the birthday boy or gal that was turning 30. I remember how I had thought my life was over, when I turned 30. Well, live and learn. I now say: it’s not over until it is over.
Wednesday/ chieftains and Kings
It was Wednesday, and so my friends and I went for a beer and a bite at one of our regular watering holes, The Chieftain.
Also: today marked the 50th anniversary of civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King’s assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
Monday/ all clear after the storm
It was a brisk 44°F/ 6 °C in the University District this morning at 10 am, where I was this morning. The storm we had on Sunday night was gone. It brought down a little hail at my house, and a thunderbolt so loud, and so close, that it rattled the windows and the glasses up in my kitchen cabinet.
Saturday/ spring weather
March ended with a lovely, sunny spring day (60 °F/ 15 °C) here in the city of Seattle.
Saturday/ St Patrick’s Day
Happy St Patrick’s Day! Here in Seattle we had the annual 1K and 5K St Patrick’s Day Dash, ending at the Seattle Center. My mission for Saturday was to dash down to the Seattle Public Library’s Book Sale which was right there, as well.
I did pick up a few books at the huge book sale ($1 and $2 a book! Yay!) : a thick Archie Comics cartoon book; travel guides for Washington DC and Switzerland, and a few others.
Friday/ the snow in the North Cascades
Washington State Dept of Traffic recently tweeted a picture of State Route 20 at the Early Winter Spires. The road is closed for winter, but they will evaluate next week what needs to be done to start clearing the road. I compared their picture with mine, which I took on a road trip last year.
Thursday/ trouble at Toys-R-Us
The nationwide toy store franchise Toys-R-Us is in trouble and is said to be closing or selling all of its stores soon. (Aw. I like Toys-R-Us). The company just has too much debt, and this dates back to before competition from Amazon, Target and Wal-Mart all took their toll.
So I made a run to the store here in the area today, and bought a giant box of special Only-at-Toys-R-Us Lego bricks, for myself, of course.(‘Age 5-99’ said the box, and I fall in that age range, see?).
Sunday/ ferry to Bremerton
It was a beautiful sunny, blue-sky day (61° F/ 16°C), and I hopped onto the Bremerton ferry, to go check out the marina there, and the Navy Museum. Bremerton is home to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Bremerton Annex of Naval Base Kitsap.
Friday/ progress?
I walked by a new condo development here on Capitol Hill this afternoon, and wondered what was there before. It turns out there was a stately 1901 home there with triangles and bay windows – which will now become boxes and rectangles.
Thursday/ architect Minoru Yamasaki
I saw ‘Black Panther’ (more about it later) in the IMAX theater here in the Pacific Science Center today.
The Pacific Science Center was designed by Minoru Yamasaki for the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle, and housed the United States Science Pavilion. It is located right by the city’s iconic Space Needle.
Yamasaki was born in Seattle in 1912, a second-generation immigrant. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1934, and became a very successful architect with his own firm in Seattle.
He was the architect of two prominent buildings in downtown Seattle: the IBM Building (1963) and Rainier Bank Tower (1977). His firm won the contract to design the St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project in 1953, but the project ended in disaster. It was a big setback for his firm and for his reputation.
Tuesday/ the 2014 mammoth tusk
This utility box from my walk on Sunday, reminded me of the 8½-foot mammoth tusk discovered right here in the city, in South Lake Union, in February 2014.
The water-logged tusk was put in a protective plaster cast, carefully removed from the soil and taken to the local Burke Museum of Natural History.
It belonged to a Columbian mammoth. These were the largest of the mammoths that roamed around in North America during the last Ice Age – as recently as 11,000 years ago. They reached 13 ft/ 4m in height at the shoulders, and weighed up to 22,000 lbs/ 10 tonnes.