Freezing in Seattle

That has a nice ring to it, right? Oops, guess it was Sleepless in Seattle. Today at various times it was sleeting, snowing HUGE flakes which melted on contact, sunny, cloudy, but never warm. In spite of the weather we had a great day. (By the way, did you know that the house boat that Tom Hanks lived in is on an inland lake? No house boats on the sound! There's also no Seattle Grace Hospital!)

The Space Needle was first thing on our docket this morning. In spite of being overcast we had a great view of the harbor and city, although we mostly ogled from the inside. Man, the outside walkway was cold! We then went next door to the Geary designed Museum of Music, a multi-colored strangely shaped building on the order of Geary's other buildings - very cool! I now know the history of the guitar in our culture, have seen a huge cone-shaped statue of playing guitars, and relived a lot of the 60s and 70s music and culture. I recommend it!

Our tour guide, Tom, then got us on the monorail for a quick ride downtown and to the Pike Street Market. We passed on buying the famous flying fish, furry knit hats (though their warmth was tempting), second hand books, raspberry honey, or gorgeous tulips but enjoyed people watching as we shivered along. At the flower vender, Tom gave $10 to the sales person. Seems he had selected flowers for his girlfriend a few weeks ago and then discovered he was out of cash. The salesperson had told him to take the flowers anyway and pay her back next time he was at the market. Think that would happen in Chicago?

Then it was down the STEEEEEEP hill to the wharf area and the Seattle Aquarium. I do not believe Ken and I have missed any major aquarium in any city we have visited...and this was a good one to add to our list. Did you know that octopi can change color almost instantly? Did you know that they squeeze "milk" out of female salmon as the first step in the salmon fertilization sequence? Did you know that sea otters are unbelievably joyful in the lousy Seattle weather of today?

We then went up the STEEEEP hill to a seafood restaurant for our dinner splurge of the trip. Yes, seafood was eaten by all and Sous Chef Tom decreed it was all very good!

Spending time with Tom has also been very good! He took a big leap coming to an unknown city six years ago, has established himself well at his work, is pursuing his musical dreams successfully, has a depth of knowledge of myriad subjects, has a great sense of humor, and is just fun to be around.

Of course, apples don't fall far from trees and I'm very partial to his "trees".