Seattle

INDIANS!
Duckabush, Dosiwallops, Kittitas, Klickitat, Puyallup, Kitsap, Sekiu, Sequim are all places in Washington State - and you Californians thought San Jose was bad. This is my ancestral home. My Father’s remains are with Davy Jones, somewhere near the San Juan Islands. It was hard for me to find closure without a body; one day when I was up here visiting I realized that if I were close to the ocean, I was close to my Dad. His Dad called this home; his Mother and his only Brother Ralph, who also drowned, are buried here.
CB and I have been in Washington for ten days and we are amazed at how friendly and helpful people have been to us, especially now after having such a terribly wet and cold winter. Perhaps the sun is thawing out people as well as the snow pack. The weather has been both overcast with rain showers and sunny. The temperature has been steady at about 50° for the low and 65° for the high; my Viking blood loves it. In contrast Surprise, AZ has been in the 110° + range - hell that is hot enough to roast chickens! I don’t know if I could spend an entire summer in that kind of heat.
CB and I had planned to retire up here but after some thought we decided to anchor in Arizona, that way we could enjoy the winter in comfort and visit where we want in the summer time. We can take a leisurely drive down Chuckanut Drive, between Bellingham and Mount Vernon, to get Oysters and crab; Quilcene Oysters are some of the best. Add to that the over abundance of berries, adding red freckles to the lush green flora. Colorful vegetables fill the numerous farmers markets and there are apples up the Kazoo. Small towns with historic buildings housing myriads of stuff to shop, smell, admire, buy and fill that craving for food and drink. Things move at a slower pace here and folks seem content with life in the slow lane. Things here are more like what we were used to when we were young curmudgeons.
What is not to like, you ask – the answer is rain and cold. But I think it is easier to get warm than it is to get cool, unless you happen to have a pool handy. You spend less money on antiperspirant and sun-tan lotion if you live here. However, you would have to learn to speak a bit of the Native-American lingo to find towns and get along in the Casinos.
If you have never been in a boat watching whales and killer whales, you have missed an extremely humbling event, it makes you realize just how small and sometimes insignificant we are in a world where you could be a light snack! Next to watching Grizzly Bears feeding on salmon, this would be my all time favorite on a list of life’s most amazing things.
The ferry system here is second to none; all aboard for a boat trip to Friday Harbor. Here you get a glimpse of how the top one percent lives. Massive steel and fiberglass floating beauties pulling in to the dock, carrying Neiman Marcus clad (beautiful) people. His hair silver (dirty old man), her long blonde curls descending to large, firm bosoms and coppery tan legs (hussy). Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure can buy big boats and implants.
Tuesday we drove to Seattle, my Brother Gary and his bride Blanch were there visiting her daughter Julie and son-in-law Anthony. We went to Pike’s Place Market a block up from the Ferry terminal. This place is quite well known throughout the world. Actually a composition of old buildings with several floors, all attached with row after row of business - open air markets, restaurants, artist galleries, and a huge fish market where they are famous for throwing very large fish to customers. Splashed along this shopping bonanza are hundreds of flower arrangements for sale, both fragrant and food for the eyes.
We had window seats on the second floor of Lowell’s Restaurant (there are three levels). Other than Gary’s Reuben we all had fish; everything was excellent and we left happy and full. A short drive from the market is Olympic Sculpture Park, a couple of acres financed by my old friends Bill and Melinda Gates (we went to different schools together). Art is in the eye of the beholder but am I wrong that a palette of bricks glued together and painted with different color splotches seems to me to be nothing but a very large paper weight. It was interesting to learn the names of some of the flora planted there, and there were chairs where you could sit and watch the ocean or the freight trains that run between the park and Puget Sound.
After a great meal at Julie and Anthony’s house, we were entertained by their dog Guinness and our Cara playing Mutt and Jeff, seeing who could sniff who and where. Guinness is a BIG dog, outweighing Cara by about 60 lbs, but he prefers to be with small dogs because small dogs like to play. We were amazed at how gentle he was with Cara. He seemed to be fully aware of just how much bigger and more powerful he was.
We said our goodbyes and headed home to Mt. Vernon. We had been gone all day and it was dark as we drove in so Harry the cat was not a happy camper and he let us know that, after all, we are here to serve him (we sometimes forget).