Day 9, 9/18/08:
Seattle or bust
Leaving my 2-day hotel room in Missoula I charted a course to Seattle, Washington. As seattle is home to Seahawks, Space Needles and Nirvana, I decided that this should be heaven. Go ahead and groan, now. Then my GPS toy showed me a 450 mile journey ahead of me. After a sigh, I hit the gas and rapidly traversed the remains of Montana and the sliver of Idaho (no, Udah... nevermind). I didn't realize Spokane was so close to the Oregon/Idaho border, and having decided that I wanted pizza for lunch, found a mall in Spokane with a suitable Sbarros and ate an overpriced meal in the peace and comfort of screaming ankle-biters.
On the issue of overpriced, I've decided that I'm running out of money faster than anticipated. Instead of taking to responsible approach of not eating at Sbarro's anymore, I concluded that I am going to shorten my planned trip by a few weeks. This basically means I won't be driving through southern California anymore (or at least not stopping). Given the expense of the cities I've seen so far I imagine that CALEEFORNYA will be much worse. Thus, I am going to do some more stuff around the pacific coast (Karee's mom's place in Bend, Crater Lake, Redwoods and San Francisco) before traveling directly for Hoover Dam/Las Vegas, then on to New Orleans before turning back north for Minnesota. I know this will be a let down for some of the Blanketeers now residing in SoCal, but them's the breaks. 'Sides, Florly at least still needs to graduate, and I assume that she'll be doing so in person this fall. I am planning tentatively on attending falls PSU graduation, so unless the stars align and I have a job thing before then I'll see her and Matt then.
Moving on, I crossed the rest of the semiaridness of eastern Washington without a hitch, stopping only for gas and to take pics of the Columbia river crossing of I-90. Evidently there are forest fires about that are obscuring the landscape more than the resident smog. Maybe; not like I could tell a difference anyhow.
I tried unsuccessfully for 2 hours to find an open campground to no avail. I finally settled on a hotel in Everett, Washington in a seedy part of town.
Day 10, 9/19/08:
Seattle proper
Today I awoke to the sound of street racers revving their engines for some sort of non-existent race. Charming. I drove to Seattle. I considered stopping at a car pool place and taking a bus in but decided that since I didn't know the city nor where I would be staying that night, I was better off finding a parking place downtown.
I ended up parking near the Seattle Center, which I surmise is the location of the Seattle World's Fair for which the Space Needle was built. The site also has a number of museums and amusements. Given that it was a cloudy day and it would cost $15 I decided to forgo the trip to the top. I instead opted to visit the SciFi musem in the Seattle Center area. The Experience Music thing was included in the price of admission. I saw some cool scifi kitsch inside, but was underwhelmed by it all; too many blasters, not enough history or depth on well-known or otherwise scifi franchises.
I then trekked across Seattle, by foot, to the central market area. This cacophony of sound, sight and smell was truly a wonder all on its own. The market area covers a hill that leads from the docks at sea level and the upper city, about 40 feet above the docks level. This means that the main buildings in the market area look deceptively small, belying the 6 or 7 stories of small shops that inhabit the market. This means there is a huge concentration of open market commerce in the heart of Seattle that would not be obvious if you didn't explore it. I found shops selling everything from oriental herbal supplements to fish to chocolate to fish to fish. Did I mention the fish? Smell and sight? Yeah, they sell alot of fish there.
Next I hoofed it to the underground tours. This business revolves around skimming money off tourists for a 90 minute look around the underground of Seattle. Admittedly, the history is interesting, as are the tour guides themselves (my kind of satire) but the understories themselves were a bit disappointing. Anyhow, Seattle was built on a floodplain. There was nowhere else to start a fledgling city back in the 1850s, as the shoreline for miles in both directions was steep and rocky. Remember above where I mentioned the hill around the market? That's part of this. The city had a flooding problem, what with the strong tides related to the city's latitude. Furthermore they had a problem with sewage backwash when the tide came in. I imagine the sewage problem gave the fish smell a run for its money, but in any case none of that mattered after the city burned to the ground in the 1890s.
Upon the charcoal that was once Seattle the townsfolk decided that they still wanted a city here. But in their wisdom and olfactory satisfaction they decided to raise the level of the city streets above the high tide mark thus removing the backwash problem. In order to do so the guide said they had to move more dirt around than was moved building the Panama Canal. But without the Yellow Fever, and not to mention without invading a sovereign nation. Unless of course you count the Indians/Native Americans/First Peoples. Anyhow, the merchants didn't want to wait to put up buildings and start making money again until after the streets were raised, so they built their businesses at the old, lower, level with the intention of eventually doing business from the second or third story of the buildings after the streets, sewer pipes and City was raised and regraded. Hence the birth of the underground city tours in the 1960s.
And with that tour done and more shot glasses purchased I headed back to my car to look for a place to sleep before my trip to Vancouver on day 12. I decided to try to stay at Deception Point State Park, but after arriving to find a $25 camping fee and $15 State Park entrance fee, I said to hell with it and stayed in a hotel. Unfortunately it lacked a wireless connection, but alas, there we are.
Tomorrow or the next day I'll chronicle the Great Canada Trip. Until then, thanks for reading!
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