Notes from the Road - Day 12

2/10/04 10:30pm Seattle, WA

Every city is much friendlier in the soft light of morning, and Seattle is no exception. Last night in bed, I worried about all kinds of things going wrong in the “Big City”, but mostly that for some reason the garage where I left my car wouldn’t let me get it out this morning. After I got breakfast in the hostel and headed out for the day, with the morning traffic going by and the sun shining, those thoughts were far away. Fear grows in the dark, and always has. The car was fine and I drove it right out.

My first stop was a cemetery north of downtown where Bruce and Brandon Lee are buried. Before I found it, I stopped by the nearby Asian Art Museum overlooked by a water tower dedicated to the landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, who I had recently read about in a book about the 1896 Chicago World’s Fair called The Devil in the White City, and I got some pictures from the top of it. At the cemetery, a friendly guy named John was sitting on the bench that faces their headstones, and we got to talking about where we’re from and what we were doing here. It seems like everyone I talk to thinks it’s so great that I’m doing this, traveling the country, and they’re also sympathetic about me being laid off, because they know someone in the same situation, if they’re not struggling themselves. While it’s disappointing that the story’s so common, I think it speaks well of people that they put up a brave face and soldier on, keeping the American dream alive.

From there, it was over to Fremont, a borough of Seattle, for some sightseeing. Some sculptor with a sense of humor built a giant troll eating a VW bug under the Aurora Street bridge. There’s also a giant statue of Lenin on a street corner nearby for some reason. I ate lunch at a little Thai place across from the statue. I had no idea Seattle had so many bridges and bodies of water surrounding the city.

I drove back to the same garage I’d used yesterday to park for another 24 hours and bought a pass at the hostel good for the monorail, space needle, and EMP, the Experience Music Project. The monorail is a 90-second ride from the center of downtown to the space needle, with no other stops. It was no more than half as high off the ground as the one in Sydney, Australia, and I guess that’s why I wasn’t impressed. I did like the space needle’s views, which really brought home how large the city really is. On days as clear as today, you can see Mount Rainier floating in the distance, its base invisible but its peak appearing only as tall as the skyscrapers. The tower itself has a very cool story, too. It was built for the Seattle World’s Fair in 1964, and other structures from the fair remain in that area as well. After reading how everything but the Ferris wheel was lost from the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, I’m glad.

I didn’t have enough time to get through all of the Experience Music Project, but I saw a lot of it. It was put together by a couple of millionaires with a serious Jimi Hendrix fetish, which was reflected in the fact that the section of the building devoted to him was the largest for any single band or performer. The building itself was designed by Frank Gehry, and it’s profoundly ugly, in an arty sort of way. I read somewhere that for inspiration he smashed up several guitars, put the pieces in a pile, and drew the EMP based on that. All I can say is it shows, and Jimi would be proud. Most of the other stuff was information I’d already seen before, but I rushed through some exhibits and had to skip entirely a room full of presumably famous guitars.

As I was leaving when the museum closed, one of the men working there saw my hat and told me he went to Purdue too. In fact, he was there at the same time I was, in a completely different major. It’s too bad the place was closing or I would have talked to him longer and found out what dorm he was in and if we knew any of the same people. He’s at least the third person to see me wearing something from Purdue and start a conversation, the second on this trip alone.

By the time I got back, it was time to eat, but the hostel only serves Monday/ Wed/Fri, so I got Subway. Then I got a discount ticket and walked a few blocks to the movie theater to see Monster. It was better than I expected, especially Christina Ricci’s performance. Even though it’s dark once again in the city, tonight I’m not worried. If only it was as easy to get comfortable anywhere as it is in Seattle. Tomorrow I head south.