Kirk’s birthday was back in late September and I bought tickets to Trans Siberian Orchestra. We haven’t seen them in…I don’t know…15….maybe…..20 years?
Whenever they were last in Vancouver.
Every fall I look a their website and peruse their tour schedule.
And every year I am disappointed that they, again, don’t have a date for Vancouver.
This year my brother and sister-in-law are going to see them in Spokane and I looked up the schedule again, no Vancouver, so…dammit…Seattle it is!
This weekend was a moderately unscripted trip to Seattle, our sister city. We haven’t been down here in almost ten years. When the Cheeto came to office we decided to forgo, and then the world stopped… This year things sort of felt a little more normal and we got some pretty spectacular rides in.
And now, this weekend, TSO.
We’ve done so much riding on the motorcycles that the roads we know so well on two wheels felt weirdly unfamiliar on four. Like Chuckanut….it normally feels roomy on the motorcycles…but in the truck, it felt a bit cramped! The forestry truck infant of us didnt’ even really fit on the corners!
It was a frosty drive down, but pretty. The fields were half white, and the grasses and leaves in the shadows were crispy.
On the way down we stopped in at the strangest shop – Archie McPhee’s. Any weird and wonderful thing you wanted as a child was probably on the shelf here, and things you didn’t know you needed, like instant underpants.
And….a rubber chicken museum in the back.
Seattle seemed familiar. Pike Place Market was as it had been. The gum wall was as disgusting as always. The night was filled with neon.
Some things were new. The ferris wheel wasn’t there last time. The Alaskan Way viaduct is gone and a new waterfront access and pedestrian space is developing.
November is usually rainy and miserable in the Pacific Northwest. But, though nippy, the days were sunny and the nights spectacular. Sunsets were worthy of summer evenings.
We came down on the 24th….not really thinking about what we were heading into. The 24th, today, is Black Friday. The Canucks are here in town to play the Seattle Kraken tonight. The city is officially lighting Christmas celebrations. Protests are interrupting some of those celebrations.
The Washington Cougars are playing…I don’t know…someone… tomorrow.
And Sunday, when we head home, there is a marathon on that is closing part of the I-5.
Oh well, it will be an interesting weekend.
