Seattle Great Wheel Ride!

We had a nice ride on the Seattle Great Wheel!

The Westin Seattle

We had a very nice stay at the Westin in Seattle before our cruise!

Seattle Tacoma Airport & Sub Pop Record Shop

There is a Sub Pop Record Shop inside of the Seattle Tacoma Airport!

Seattle Mariners T Mobile Park September 2024

We got to see a Mariners game while we were in Seattle!

Pike Place Market Seattle Washington

And we were able to spend some time at the legendary Pike Place Market while we were in Seattle!

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park Seattle Washington

Seattle has a great, "Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park" covering the Gold Rush!

Pike Pub Pike Brewing Seattle Washington

We stopped for lunch at the Pike Pub while in Seattle!

Bus Ride from Seattle Airport

On our cruise, Norwegian provided a bus ride for us from the airport to our hotel!  It was a very nice ride and arrangement.

Fremont Troll Seattle Washington

I love icon statues that come to define a city.  Well, Seattle has their "Fremont Troll."  I was super excited to get to see this guy!

Bruce and Brandon Lee Grave Seattle Washington

While we were in Seattle, we stopped by to see the graves of Bruce and Brandon Lee at Lake View Cemetery.

Cherry Street Coffee Seattle Washington

In September of 2024, before doing our Alaskan Cruise, we stopped by Cherry Street Coffee in Seattle!

Driving Around Seattle Washington 2024

Before we got on our recent Alaskan Cruise, we were lucky enough to spend some time exploring Seattle!  Here is a quick drive around the great city!

Beneath The Streets Underground Seattle Tour Sept 2024

We did the very fun and weird "Beneath the Streets" tour while in Seattle!

Norwegian Encore Alaska Cruise October 2024

And we got to take a SECOND cruise to Alaska!  Here is the first of several videos about that wonderful trip!

Mt. Rainier postcards

The Seattle area is extremely unique. I love this area. GREAT scenery, and friendly people. I hope to spent more quality time in the area sometime.

The postcard on top is a beautiful old linen card sent in the mail in 1954!

It reads:

Four hundred square miles of beautiful National Park playground encircles Mount Rainier. "the Mountain that was God," according to Indian legend. This towering 14,408 foot peak is exceeded by only two mountains in the United States. Mt. Rainier bears a greater number of glaciers than any mountain in this country.

The bottom postcard is a a bit newer and also shows the Space Needle!

"In the Path of Destruction: Eyewitness Chronicles of Mount St. Helens" by Richard Waitt

Right before I started this blog, my wife and I visited some of our relatives out in Seattle.  It was a great trip. 

Well, we were taken out to visit Mount St. Helens!  AND, at that time, the volcano was smoking!  I have a photo of us in front of Mount St. Helens WITH SMOKE piping out of the top!

Living in Kentucky, volcanoes are so foreign.....  and I am really grateful that I was able to visit this one.  I remember driving toward the volcano (and this was in the mid 00s), but you could still see a lot of the destruction from the eruption in 1980- in fact, we just passed the 40th anniversary of the event!

I am still fascinated with it.  Luckily, I was given the book, "In the Path of Destruction:  Eyewitness Chronicles of Mount St. Helens" by Richard Waitt!

This is a GREAT book, mostly giving quotes from people who witnessed the eruption (and even some who were killed by it).

The author has put together over 300 FULL pages of quotes.  Its a big, thick book, and it is NOT a quick read.  This is one to dive into and really immerse yourself in.

I wouldn't call it a complete volume on the event, but it is a complete enough collection of first hand accounts, all in one nice book for your bookshelf.

Waitt sets up the scene at the beginning of the book before getting in to the accounts.  There are some characters that are forever linked to the event (David Johnston and Harry Truman) that I learned more about here.  My jaw dropped as I also learned about people affected very directly who were MANY miles from Mount St. Helens.

AND, my heart broke as I read about the animals described by those who were there.

I read about families, children, an entire lodge, and a huge section of the US affected by this.

Richard Waitt's book is mammoth in size and content and I really enjoyed slowly reading through it.  It gets my highest possible recommendation.

Random Thoughts on Friday: Northern Exposure

There are a fist full of TV shows we have gotten on DVD and watched...  sometimes even re-watching.  Well, for some time we have slowly been working our way through every episode of Northern Exposure.

I can't remember if I have ever mentioned it here before or not, but this is one of those shows that is just really special to me.  It was strange, weird, entertaining, and sweet.  If you weren't around in the 90s to appreciate this one, let me recommend that you look it up.

Well, back in the 90s, I remember that reruns came on pretty late.  I am thinking around 9 or 10pm.  I had a fast food job where I would be getting home around that time.  We had a small black and white TV in our kitchen.  I would watch Northern Exposure on that little TV in the kitchen (it was pretty far away from the bedrooms and I wouldn't wake my family up by watching it in the distant kitchen).  I might eat a sandwich I made at work as I watched Joel and Maggie on that little black & white screen.

Oh, and I mentioned that I was able to see John Collum in "Waitress" a year or so ago.  That was a huge thrill for me.

Northern Exposure isn't on Netflix or Amazon, so we bought the DVDs.  We have kind of slowly worked our way through watching them.  I don't think of it as a binge watchable show.  Its nice to watch one in the evening before bed as a treat every now and then.

So, we watched the very last episode last night.  Luckily, I missed a lot of episodes back when I would watched them at my parents home on the small TV, so there was a lot of freshness here.  Still, the last season was the worse one.  It was still good, just not as good as the earlier ones.  Rob Morrow left the show midway through the last season.  A new town doctor and his wife were brought in. 

The new doctor is a bit of a clone of Morrow...  and I did read that he was originally going to take over Morrow's role on the show, but they decided against that.  He is a fine actor, but bringing in the new doctor and his wife to the show at this point had a very "Coy and Vance" feel to it.  I got the feeling that several of the scripts at this point had to be retooled to fit the new additions to the cast.

AND, the last episode really didn't tie everything together.  It felt like just another episode.  I felt like (and assume) the episode was made thinking that there would be a season seven of Northern Exposure.  BUT, there was a very sweet and sad last five minutes or so of the last episode, played out to Iris Dement's "Our Town" (and, as a side note, I love Iris Dement and this song).  It was an absolute tear jerker, and one of the saddest (yet, most appropriate) ways to end this series.

I think a couple of years ago there was talk of a reboot.  I can think of no other show more deserving of one.

"Spooked in Seattle" by Ross Allison

Since it is October, I wanted to mention another book from Clerisy Press and the America's Haunted Road Trip guys that I like a lot.

Ross Allison has put together a really good book noting haunted sites in Seattle.  The book is a jam packed 200 plus pages of interesting places.

"Spooked in Seattle" is exactly what a "haunted" type book should be.  Allison has done his research on the history of each site, noting location, the date the building was built, AND any interesting known facts about a place!  THEN, he gets to the reported ghost stories.

I really like that set up.  Personally, I am much more interested in the known facts part, but I still enjoy a good ghost story too.  Ross gives a good mix of both that many other similar books lack.

The book is divided into neighborhood sections.  Each section includes a map of each area, which could be really helpful if you are visiting the area with book in hand.

PLUS, Ross does a wonderful job of giving a thorough, yet easy to understand history lesson on the more notable events in the city.  The fires, and the underground and covered nicely- and those are important when considering Seattle's spookiness.

Seattle is a great town, and I look forward to getting back there again so that I can check out some of the places Ross Allison mentions!

Mount St. Helens

This postcard is undated, and it is a bit more modern than the postcard photos I usually like to put on the blog, but I like this one a lot.

If you are familiar with this volcano, you KNOW that the photo is from sometime before May of 1982!

Mount St. Helens- Washington

I thought today would be an appropriate day to mention two legends associated with the anniversary of Mount St. Helens erupting.

Robert Landsburg took photos of the event.  He was close to the action, and must have realized that he was about to be over taken by the cloud of ash.  Knowing that he would not make it, but that his photos would be very important, he did what he could do to secure his camera.  Check out these links-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Landsberg#cite_ref-natgeo_1-0

http://www.petapixel.com/2011/09/07/photographer-died-protecting-his-film-during-the-1980-mt-st-helens-eruption/

David A. Johnston was observing the eruption and famously reported it immediately before his death.  When I visited the volcano myself some time ago, I saw a film at Johnston Ridge Observatory.  The film closed with his famous last words, "Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it!"  The film screen then pulled back to show the actual volcano.  It was very dramatic.

http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/CVO_Info/david_johnston.html