My West Coast Trip

On an early Sunday in December I wove my way from my home through several variations of public transportation and landed at the Green Tortoise Hostel some 2500 miles away in Seattle. The purpose was to visit my daughter who moved there some 15 months ago and landed a job at the http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifvery same Hostel that I would stay at. Seattle is not like home, sure it’s about the same size but that is nearly all that is comparable.

As I disembarked from the Light Rail that took me from SeaTac airport to downtown Seattle I was immediately met by a street waif beggar and as I completed the steps up to civilization I encountered a large number of ne’er do wells. At home this would have been a problem. A gray hair like me who also dragged rolling luggage behind would be easy prey. In Seattle the street toughs stopped to look at me and said nothing. I did my best to look like a hard guy but carrying luggage diminishes any feint of power. No one bothered me. As I walked and rolled to the Hostel some three blocks away I encountered numerous other street beggars and was in no position to aide them. At home there would have minimally been threats and possible violence attempting to walk those three blocks at 11:00pm. In Seattle the begging occasionally turns to pleading but never a threat. When I described the situation to my daughter, she said that in Seattle these folks had lots of bark and no bite. When I was home I did an internet search on violent crimes between the two cities-mine and hers and found that mine has a murder rate that is about ten times that of Seattle. The social scientist that lingers in me wonders why there is such a difference. Certainly Seattle is no more bourgeois than home. I have no answer so onto the next story of my trip.

Being on East Coast time I had trouble sleeping the first night and awoke at a profoundly early time for Seattle. A Hostel room is pretty barren so there is no television to watch or radio to listen to so I went for a pre-dawn walk. It was cold and damp though not raining. Almost everything was closed but I found a coffee shop (in Seattle there is a coffee shop about every thirty feet and it amazes me that so many can stay in business) that was open and so I entered, bought my drink and ventured to a table. On my table was a paperback book that was on my short list of soon to read books. I asked the barista or whatever exotic name proffered to this profession in this café, if this were laid there for customer browsing and he told me that in fact it was there for the taking. A marketing agent had left several different books there for anyone who wanted to read them. I was one of those and was pleased to encounter a free gift only five hours or so after having arrived in Seattle.

Since my daughter was working I made due with the daylight hours first by a walk to Chinatown about two miles away from the Hostel. It was worth the few hours spent in that I found a new neighborhood, watched the bustle of activity that accompanies food production and the colorful arch that represents Chinatowns all over the country. Of course sampling food is essential to such a trip but mine was a few finger foods which were fine but not sensational. One egg roll and one Crab Rangoon sated my already mostly sated stomach and it was back to the Hostel for a brief retreat. That morning also included a long slow walk through Pikes Market and an even longer bird watching walk along the water through the bizarre sculptor garden-one highlighted by a statue of a naked man with arms outreached to a naked little boy. Go figure…

As would be expected bird watching on the opposite coast will show birds not seen on the Atlantic side of things. There were Northwest Crows, Barrow’s Golden Eyes, American Widgeons, Glaucous Gulls and a Pigeon Guillemot.

Once my daughter was off work we hiked through Capitol Hill for some sightseeing, dinner and a brief pub crawl. It is a section of town designed for young people to network and while I am not of that demographic, it was a fine evening. Since it had been a day of walking and adjustment to a new time zone, I cut back to the Hostel for an early evening to the sack.

The next day was an off day for my girl so we went north a few miles to Discovery Park. We used a bus to get there and then went on an extensive walk through prairies of dried grass, through deciduous wooded areas and to the cliffs that overlooked the bay. Seattle is a city of hills and all walks away from the water are up and sometimes steeply so. One is pretty high in Discovery Park unless they wend their way from cliff to seaside which we did not do. From our vantage point we could see Bald Eagles.

Then it was off to find food. We took an extensive walk along Salmon Bay until we found a bus stop and then rode to the Ballard neighborhood where we ate at small bistro specializing in pies. Then back to the Hostel for some card playing, local brew drinking and tacos. Once sated and the beer gone it was a short jaunt to a local bar with live music. The venue was nearly comical in that the Latin solo act was a man with a guitar singing the loneliest, saddest songs in his native tongue. His cheeriest song was the Spanish language version of Orbison’s “Crying”. We left after about 6 songs-me to my room and daughter off to further evening ventures with peers.

The next day included a bus ride up to the University of Washington district for food (fish and chips) which was disappointing but probably satisfactory for students whose taste tends towards the substantial more than the gourmand. A short walk later I found myself at the Natural History Museum.

The Burke Natural History Museum is a research facility and probably is the home of some very interesting work but as a museum it was quite a disappointment. A thorough walk through the entire collection takes about half an hour. What is on display is fine and informative but there was not much of it. At the time I was reading McPhee’s Annals of a Former World. That inspired an interest in Geology and the museum did represent a considerable amount on the earth of Washington. In that regard it was good.

From there it was on northward toward my daughter’s house on 65th about a mile and a half from the Museum and through Cowan and Ravenna Parks where I was side tracked with about two hours to kill. I still had too much time so a traipsed around the Ravenna business district then back to 50th for a library to read my book for awhile. I needed to rest my feet and warm up. It was cold and damp during my stay in Seattle. At last it was time to head back up to 65th and over from 11th to 14th. On the way I stopped for a beer and finally my daughter was ready for me to visit.

She lives in a large upstairs room, temporarily sharing it with another Baltimore émigré and with several other young people in a neighborhood full of young people. It is the affordable part of town. From there it was off to a Mexican restaurant and some enchiladas. Having walked about 15 miles largely uphill, I was pretty beat by 6:30 and left for the Green Tortoise for an early to bed. I had to leave early the next morning anyway. Fortunately my daughter works at the Hostel so I could make my goodbyes shortly after she arrived. The flight home was seamless-everything was on time so 10 hours later I was in my home. The best part of the flight home was looking out the window at the Tetons and Cascades which was perfect given that I was reading a book about American geology.

So there you have it. Since we are about 2500 miles apart my daughter and I cannot visit very often. It was great to see her. Hostels I was reminded are great and efficient places to stay. West Coast seabirds are rarely or never found on the East Coast-plenty of life birds for me during my short stay. It is always good to see a city that one is not a common visitor. During this visit I was able to see many neighborhoods that I had never been to so local color became closer to reality.

I walked a lot of miles during my stay. I found a great book in a used book store (got that free one too). I found a map store that pretty much had a map of every place imaginable. I left with a topographical map of the Chesapeake Bay and of course I left with the memories that I just described.