[vacation] Up to the Northwest
Jul. 4th, 2011 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jon_chaissonWe flew up to Seattle for the long weekend as a sort of mini-vacation, and had quite a bit of fun. It's a lovely city to visit--on a good day the summer weather is very similar to how it is here, and it's very easy to get to and from Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Highly suggested.
I'd made a mental note that we weren't even twenty-four hours into our trip and I'd already declared it awesome. I'll say part of it was due to the view from the airplane, being that I lucked out and got a window seat. In the span of two hours, we flew over Mt. Shasta (California's fifth highest peak and a New Age mecca), passed by Crater Lake (a place I've always wanted to see/visit since hearing about it in college), saw Mt Hood nearby (Oregon's highest point) passed near Mount St. Helens (which was unexpected!) and saw exactly how enormous Mt. Rainier is (at 14,411 ft). Pure awesome, seeing all those geographical wonders one right after the other.
We landed just as the sun was setting so the sky was a gorgeous dark blue and creating a sepia haze over the land and all the streetlights were coming on. By the time we caught a cab it was getting dark, so Seattle came into view just as the stars were coming out. It was quite stunning to see. We got to our hotel (Five stars to the Hotel Monaco on 4th and Spring Streets--Kimpton once again came through with an excellent place to stay) and crashed, with no real plan in mind for the next day, other than checking out Pike Place Market, maybe finding a yarn store and a nifty bookstore, and taking pictures. We weren't planning on heading up to the top of the Space Needle, but it wasn't too far so we could at least walk to it. The only other addition to the short list was the fantastically modern Central Library, which was right across the street from us. Yes, we're nerds.
And it just occurred to me now, that with the random coffee we had in Seattle, not once did we actually have any from Starbucks. :p
So! Without further ado, here are some nifty pictures for your enjoyment of our mini-vacation!
Here's the library--it's quite big (11 floors) so we couldn't quite get it all in a picture, but it's quite nifty. It's got a brilliant layout, a writer's room, a map room, and many fantastic views. Apparently it holds over a million books, which is all right by us. :)
The Seattle Art Museum (aka SAM), which we visited on Sunday. It had quite the collection of Native Indian art, as well as a couple of neat exhibitions (one called Beauty & Bounty: American Art in an Age of Exploration featuring many gorgeous landscapes), and a very odd piece by Cai Guo-Qiang called Inopportune: Stage One. It's kind of hard to describe other than it looks like a sparkly car flipping in air and landing in the front lobby, so here's a partial view:
Odd, yes, but fun. :)
So! Backing up again...on Saturday we went to Pike Place, which is a long stretch of cobblestoned street filled with all types of food, fish stalls, fruit stands, and everything else. It's like one big crazy farmer's market:
(The above, by the way, is the original first Starbucks in its second location--it was originally further down the street where Pike Place and Western Avenue meet. As you can see by the crowd, it is a bit of a mecca.)
After that we walked around a bit more and found ourselves heading down towards the Space Needle. We didn't go up to the top, but we walked around the area, taking pictures of it:
One thing I knew was in Seattle and hadn't known was nearby (just in the shadow of the Space Needle, actually) was the Experience Music Project Museum, so we went in and checked it out. They had a fun exhibition of the Seattle grunge scene (egads, that blew up in this country twenty years ago?? Man, I'm old...) and focusing on local boys Nirvana; a cool exhibition of Jimi Hendrix during his years in town and up to when he rocketed to fame; a beautiful selection of guitars over the years (including a Martin acoustic from 1834!), and a musical (sort of) tower amusingly called If VI Was IX: Roots and Branches. It's a two-story tornado of guitars, banjos, drums, fiddles, pretty much any instrument you can think of, and some of them actually play. Here's a close up:
After that, we were pretty much done for the day and walked along 4th Avenue back to the hotel. I should mention that on the way, there was a small apartment building named Charlesgate, which amused me greatly! :)
The next day was our walk to the library as well as to the Seattle Art Museum, and that was pretty much it...so I'll finish up this post with some views from the park at the end of Pike Place:
A view of the mountains that make up part of Olympic National Park. These peaks are about 40 or so miles away.
A stunning view of Mt. Rainier just above Qwest and Safeco Fields (homes of the Seahawks and Mariners, respectively). That peak is just shy of fifty miles away, so its enormity here really goes to show how HUGE that mountain is. Here's a closer shot, same angle:
So yes...I would DEFINITELY visit that city again! :)
I'd made a mental note that we weren't even twenty-four hours into our trip and I'd already declared it awesome. I'll say part of it was due to the view from the airplane, being that I lucked out and got a window seat. In the span of two hours, we flew over Mt. Shasta (California's fifth highest peak and a New Age mecca), passed by Crater Lake (a place I've always wanted to see/visit since hearing about it in college), saw Mt Hood nearby (Oregon's highest point) passed near Mount St. Helens (which was unexpected!) and saw exactly how enormous Mt. Rainier is (at 14,411 ft). Pure awesome, seeing all those geographical wonders one right after the other.
We landed just as the sun was setting so the sky was a gorgeous dark blue and creating a sepia haze over the land and all the streetlights were coming on. By the time we caught a cab it was getting dark, so Seattle came into view just as the stars were coming out. It was quite stunning to see. We got to our hotel (Five stars to the Hotel Monaco on 4th and Spring Streets--Kimpton once again came through with an excellent place to stay) and crashed, with no real plan in mind for the next day, other than checking out Pike Place Market, maybe finding a yarn store and a nifty bookstore, and taking pictures. We weren't planning on heading up to the top of the Space Needle, but it wasn't too far so we could at least walk to it. The only other addition to the short list was the fantastically modern Central Library, which was right across the street from us. Yes, we're nerds.
And it just occurred to me now, that with the random coffee we had in Seattle, not once did we actually have any from Starbucks. :p
So! Without further ado, here are some nifty pictures for your enjoyment of our mini-vacation!
Here's the library--it's quite big (11 floors) so we couldn't quite get it all in a picture, but it's quite nifty. It's got a brilliant layout, a writer's room, a map room, and many fantastic views. Apparently it holds over a million books, which is all right by us. :)
The Seattle Art Museum (aka SAM), which we visited on Sunday. It had quite the collection of Native Indian art, as well as a couple of neat exhibitions (one called Beauty & Bounty: American Art in an Age of Exploration featuring many gorgeous landscapes), and a very odd piece by Cai Guo-Qiang called Inopportune: Stage One. It's kind of hard to describe other than it looks like a sparkly car flipping in air and landing in the front lobby, so here's a partial view:
Odd, yes, but fun. :)
So! Backing up again...on Saturday we went to Pike Place, which is a long stretch of cobblestoned street filled with all types of food, fish stalls, fruit stands, and everything else. It's like one big crazy farmer's market:
(The above, by the way, is the original first Starbucks in its second location--it was originally further down the street where Pike Place and Western Avenue meet. As you can see by the crowd, it is a bit of a mecca.)
After that we walked around a bit more and found ourselves heading down towards the Space Needle. We didn't go up to the top, but we walked around the area, taking pictures of it:
One thing I knew was in Seattle and hadn't known was nearby (just in the shadow of the Space Needle, actually) was the Experience Music Project Museum, so we went in and checked it out. They had a fun exhibition of the Seattle grunge scene (egads, that blew up in this country twenty years ago?? Man, I'm old...) and focusing on local boys Nirvana; a cool exhibition of Jimi Hendrix during his years in town and up to when he rocketed to fame; a beautiful selection of guitars over the years (including a Martin acoustic from 1834!), and a musical (sort of) tower amusingly called If VI Was IX: Roots and Branches. It's a two-story tornado of guitars, banjos, drums, fiddles, pretty much any instrument you can think of, and some of them actually play. Here's a close up:
After that, we were pretty much done for the day and walked along 4th Avenue back to the hotel. I should mention that on the way, there was a small apartment building named Charlesgate, which amused me greatly! :)
The next day was our walk to the library as well as to the Seattle Art Museum, and that was pretty much it...so I'll finish up this post with some views from the park at the end of Pike Place:
A view of the mountains that make up part of Olympic National Park. These peaks are about 40 or so miles away.
A stunning view of Mt. Rainier just above Qwest and Safeco Fields (homes of the Seahawks and Mariners, respectively). That peak is just shy of fifty miles away, so its enormity here really goes to show how HUGE that mountain is. Here's a closer shot, same angle:
So yes...I would DEFINITELY visit that city again! :)
