USA: Weekending in Seattle

This past October I had the pleasure of traveling to Seattle with my friends Marjorie and Bill Handel, to celebrate a birthday of a special friend.

October is an ideal month to travel almost everywhere, and particularly to Seattle. The air was crisp, the sky a deep blue with white, fluffy, cumulous clouds, and the leaves on trees were glorious shades of red, gold and orange. For a moment, I thought I took the wrong flight, and ended up somewhere in New England.

The word “rain” is often associated with Seattle, but I think this association is part of a plot to keep Californian’s from wanting to relocate to the “Emerald City.” Over the many years I have visited Judith and her family in her beloved city, not once have I had to use my umbrella, which I dutifully pack every time I go for a visit.

On my many Northwest visits, I have enjoyed the wonderful diversity of festivals and concerts at the Seattle Center, road the elevator to the top of the Space Needle for a birds eye view of downtown Seattle, ate my share of fresh seafood at Pike Place Market, drank my share of wine in the bars and clubs in and around Pioneer Square, watched with fascination as the salmon jumped up the fish ladders at the Hiram Chrittenham locks making their way back to the streams where they were born, shopped to my heart’s content in the original Nordstrom’s Department Store, and enjoyed more than one “double tall skinny latté” at both Starbucks and Seattle’s Best.

Since my last visit two years ago, Judith and Jim had moved from the University District, near the University of Washington, a bit north to the Ravenna-Roosevelt Neighborhood, near Revenna park, but still close to the much sought-after heirloom tomatoes and fresh focaccia bread of the University District’s Saturday morning Farmers Market.

Seattle is a city of neighborhoods, not based on ethnicity, like Little Italy or Korea Town, but each having evolved with its own personality or character. The Greenlake Neighborhood has wonderful Craftsman style homes overlooking the lake. I decided it was the “sporty neighborhood” as everything revolves around the lake. There is a three-mile walking and bike path around the lake, plus a baseball field and roller blade area. There were several paddleboats on the lake and a rowing club meets regularly year around.

West of Greenlake is the funky Fremont Neighborhood. It reminded me of Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles with its small, offbeat boutiques and restaurants. The people living in the area consider Fremont to be “the Center of the Universe,” or so a sign on one of the storefronts proclaimed. Fremont is also well known for its larger than life size statue of Lenin (found in Slovakia after the breakup of the Soviet Union), a genuine 1950’s rocket ship, a great Sunday Farmers’ Market, and the Troll, living under the Aurora Street Bridge. It can’t be all bad---especially with three microbreweries nearby.

Another of my favorite areas in Seattle is the International District, just south and east of downtown. Wonderful restaurants, particularly if you’re in the mood for Dim Sum. It also has the most incredible Asian Supermarket --- Uwajimaya, a huge conglomeration of often unidentifiable but beckoning vegetables, seafood, and sauces. Judith is a gourmet, in every sense of the word, and discovered Uwajimaya during her Asian phase. I remember that phase well; it was a real treat for everyone.

On Sunday morning, we learned our flight would be delayed for several hours so we had the entire day free for sightseeing. It was a toss up between the Seattle Art Museum, the Experience Music Project and the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field. Since Bill is an avid plane enthusiast, and none of us had visited the Museum of Flight before, it won hands down, or wings up, as the case may be.

The Boeing Company is an institution in Seattle and has been a major part of the Seattle economy since it opened its doors in 1909. Today, the original building, known as the Red Barn, is now part of the Flight Museum complex at Boeing Field. We started our tour with a visit to Air Force One, now on permanent display in the “air park” across from the museum. The Boeing 707 was the first presidential plane, and was used by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. Compared to the 747, the 707 seemed tiny: there was a small conference room, a desk, some couches, the “command center,” a galley and seating for a dozen or so people. There were even a few feminine touches in one of the bathrooms, compliments of Jacqueline Kennedy and a doggie door requested by President Johnson for his beloved Beagles.

The museum is amazing. The main building houses 54 different full-size aircraft, including an SR-71 Blackbird and a DC-3. If you’ve always dreamed of being a pilot, there is a state-of-art flight simulator that offers 3-D visual effects, special effects like wind and smoke and plenty of motion. Since we recently had lunch, no one opted to try out the simulator.

The Red Barn, the original manufacturing plant, has a wonderful permanent exhibit that traces aviation history from its early beginnings through 1938. On display is a 1914 Italian Caproni CA 20, the world’s first fighter aircraft, and the Jenny biplane, with its fabric covering removed to showcase the exquisite woodwork underneath.

Commemorating the centennial year of flight, The Museum has a wonderful special exhibit, “The Birth of Aviation, the Wright Brothers Story: the lives and times of Orville and Wilbur Wright.” The exhibit tells the story of the Wright Brothers struggle to make their dream of flight a reality and honors the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first powered flight on December 17th, 1903.

As someone who doesn’t like to fly, I surprised myself by enjoying the museum. We had a wonderful guide, an ex-pilot and long time Boeing employee who had great stories to tell and was well versed on all the aircraft on display.

We had a wonderful weekend. We saw many new areas of the city, and even started planning our next trip back to Seattle. I’d love to see the new Safeco Field, where the Mariners play, and the Seahawks Stadium, and Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project, an amazing Frank Geary-designed interactive museum at the Seattle Center, and…..there is so much to see. If you’ve looking for a great way to spend a weekend---or even a week, consider a trip to Seattle, and remember to pack your umbrella, because if you don’t, it surely will rain.

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