Pacific Northwest Trip 2008 Day 7 Sunday July 27, 2008

UPDATED: Feburary 4, 2022

This is the seventh of a series of posts recalling my third annual trip to Seattle. I’ve made minor corrections to these reports. Also, I’ve added additional thoughts with the hindsight of five years later or to add further clarification; I use “NOW” to denote such cases.

This morning I'm on probably the only PC; rest are Macs; at least one computer has the 2001 Internet Explorer).

Because I turned in late I only heard the loud knocker once.  Rooms are overall more humid than rest of the hostel.  It may rain today so we'll see if that makes a difference.  

[NOW: The above was written in the morning; the rest I wrote in the evening.]

This morning I walked to Seattle Center, taking pics of what little remains of the parade aftermath, mostly orange tubes grouped together and some caution tape around certain things.  Also initially the Seattle Center had extra trash bins outside. 

I went to 7-11 and got a partly 3-D Seattle magazine as well as a strawberry Twizzlers Slurpee, as I love strawberry drinks.  Only I forgot Twizzlers were licorice and thus not ideal Slurpee material.  I drank as much as I could until my body told me to discard the rest.

There was no one standing in line for the Space Needle 10 minutes before opening, so I went to the front (a line promptly started behind me).  I want to buy a day and night pass, which allowed for 2 trips at a discounted price as long as they're n a 24 hour period.  The cashier only charged me for the one trip and told me to come back in line later for the upgrade.  Big mistake: it was an okay experience as far as it went but I decided later I didn't feel like the second trip, so they lost money there.  The view was decent but with all the wires a camera with zoom is strongly recommended.  You could stay indoors or go outside for a better view, which I opened to do.  Got some nice overhead views of places close to the Space Needle.

Then I dashed downtown, taking more parade aftermath pics, and then took a bus to the Museum of Flight (the final CityPass item and what I opted for in lieu of using the pass on the Sci-Fi Museum/EMP (which I still got at a discount).  The weekend daypass has gone all the way up from $2.50 to $3.50 and since I got on in the Ride Free area, I bought it at the Museum of Flight stop.

[NOW: there are no longer day bus passes in Seattle. The Sci-Fi/EMP Museum is now the Museum of Pop Culture.]

At with 2 years ago, I took pics on plane building, classic planes, WWI planes, WW2 planes.  There was already some space related attractions before, but these have been expanded.  I took a pic of myself in front of the Red Baron display.

Heading back downtown I took the Lake Union (and currently only) line of the streetcar system.  Reportedly this was going to be called the South Lake Union Trolley until the officials realized what the acronym would be.  Too late: the nickname has stuck.  It's a smooth enough ride, but the south end of Lake Union isn't that far, so I recommend riding the [BLEEP] when you already have a transit pass or transfer.

I went to the Center for Wooden Boats, a small free museum that has classic boat rides each Sunday, already free, though normally only 2-3.  I was too late for that, but there were extra trips because John Wayne's first yacht the Norwester was doing trips, so I managed to sign up for the final, 4 pm trip.  

[NOW: The Norwester sank in the san Juan Islands in April 2021, though its owners are trying to salvage it.]

Just as well because I hadn't had lunch so I went to a nearby restaurant you may have heard of called Hooter's.  To answer your questions, well, the food tastes good but is quite pricey, mitigated only slight by the pop being bottomless.  Oh, you want to know about the women?  Well I was seated promptly and the waitress served me a in a pretty decent time. So the service was pretty decent. 

 

[NOW: That Hooter's has now closed.]

I was going to leave it at that for humour effect but I find I actually have stuff to say about the experience.  To be honest I found the experience a disappointment even beyond the price.  There's a certain absurdity to the concept of Hooter's and I was hoping that people would see that; no indication that was the case.  The waitress, while fast with the pop refills made me a bit uncomfortable because of how close they waitresses are supposed to sit to chat the customers up. This was even more disturbing by the implants and makeup which appeals to some portion of heterosexual males but not to me personally; more to the point she actually creeped me out a bit.  I'm glad I went once to satisfy my curiosity but I've learned all I really need to know about the place.

To kill more time I visited an outdoor goods place called REI that had a climbing wall; I actually found the highlight instead was the trails and waterfalls on the way from the street to the entrance.  A decent time passer.  I also checked out a DVD place I had seen along the way before taking the trolley back to Lake Union.

The ride was relaxing enough; lots of float planes taking off and landed, Ducks doing tours in the distance, Gasworks Park visible; a lot of people seemed to be there considering the whole day was overcast.  And of course it was fun to be on a yacht that the Duke once owned.

I walked over to Seattle Center and along with way found a place that had six 2GB cards on Sale for $25 each.  I bought the six they had; don't know if it's enough for the entire rest of the trip, but it will take me ahead a few days.  I relaxed some more at the International Fountain before returning to my hostel for the final free dinner of the trip (tacos again).  I also did laundry and am currently recharging my electric razor, which keeps on getting bumped and turning on; I went for brief walks during this.