Pioneer Square

All things have a natural rhythm to them, even the irregularity of a random road trip. Mornings come, days pass, miles go by, evening arrives. We start from some place, visit some things, go somewhere else, and stop. Even in the inconsistency of a wandering life, there are events and actions on which you can depend.

The one great thing about travel is that you see different things, different ways of living, places you have not seen before. Even when you travel to the familiar, it takes so little to see it through different eyes, to look at the common as if it was unique. Life does not have to exist in the boring tedium of the unchanging; even if you don't travel there is so much new to be found every day, right where you life. Travel is not necessary for life, it just makes it more interesting.

Yesterday we started with a trip to the Boeing Museum in Everett, Washington. It was not a great value, spending $10 to see a bunch of static pieces and display boards. Personally I think the "gallery" is just a way to hold you in the building until you get the tour of the Boeing factory. Unfortunately our wait yesterday would have been about 3 hours; to be honest, spending 3 hours waiting to see an airplane factory was not something I wanted to do. It wasn't the additional $10, it was the lost time in my life.

After Boeing we headed to the Seattle Center to see the Space Needle and the EMP Museum of Pop Culture. I've been to the Space Needle a couple of times; it wasn't necessary to go up. The EMP Museum was where we really wanted to go, a place I would recommend. It had a great exhibit on Sci-Fi and Fantasy writers, a terrific display of guitars, and a wonderful collection of architectural displays made out of Lego. We spent a couple of hours there until I became truly over-stimulated. I was done; so was David.

I wanted to go to the Dale Chihuly Glass Museum and Garden but I was simply too tired. Instead we decided to head south. On our way out of town we stopped in Pioneer Square for a moment, where I parked next to the Mad Mouse Toy Shop while David got us coffee from the Starbucks across the street. This location, this store, holds may memories for me of times when I took my kids there, and then to Cow Chip Cookies across the street. I sat there lost in a few moments of melancholic nostalgia while the traffic pushed past, waiting for David to return.

The rest yesterday was the long drive from Seattle to McMinnville, Oregon, where David wants to see the Spruce Goose. That, along with heading east after lunch, is our general plan for the day.