Northwest, So Long

Seattle from a sky bridge.

Coming Home, One Step at a Time

Saturday night, March 23

I checked out of the hotel shortly before noon, not long after I sent yesterday’s e-mail.

I may have mentioned that Hotel Sea tle (as one of the signs outside has it) has seen better days. Kat, the bartender at Bernard’s in the cellar, says the bar was set up for the Seattle World’s Fair. That was 1962 and it’s possible nothing has been done to the hotel since then. It’s kept clean enough, but paint is peeling off the lobby ceiling. The rugs are vacuumed; the towels are plentiful and changed every day, and the sheets are changed daily.

The walls are covered with old wood paneling and industrial-strength wallpaper.

And the people are pretty terrific. I ran into the maid a few times in the hall and the elevator. She likes rum and Coke, jazz, and has a great smile. The people behind the desk have all been very warm and helpful. The only real annoyance is that I was staying on the 11th floor of a building with one slow elevator and WiFi only in the lobby.

If it did nothing else, it made me aware of how important the Internet is to my seeming random travel plans. I’d be in the room and think, “Oh, let me check that.” Nope. Make an old-fashioned note to remind yourself to look it up when you take the Mac to the lobby.

Speaking of the Mac, so far, so good. I am past security and am using it now. I put it into a bin that goes into the scanner right after my bag. When they come out of the machine, I put the Mac back into its pocket in the bag before I lift anything off the conveyor.

I left it at the security desk in Spain and it took two months to get it back. I was supposed to go back to Madrid to pick it up. It took half a dozen calls to Federal Express just to get them to agree to put the damned thing in a box and so they could ship it to New Jersey.

It’s a long story that still makes me angry. I may tell it some time. Considering the level of motivation I saw over there, it’s no surprise that their country has tanked.

I pretty much wandered around Seattle all afternoon. One very cool piece of public sculpture on a downtown street corner is a monumental flower pot with an operating watering can.

I strolled back to the Olympic Sculpture Park, because I had missed a few things there the other day. I found P-Patch on the way, for instance. It consists of a colorful cottage or two not far from the Sound, with a garden in back.

On my first trip to the sculpture park, I started at the top, at the visitors center. One very funny piece is downhill from there and partly hidden behind a wall. It’s a bright metal tree, maybe aluminum, looking for all the world like it’s waiting for the tin woodman.

Some other pieces that I had overlooked included a pair by Louise Nevelson.

They are benches on one side and eyes on the other.

I didn’t get Love and Loss the first time around. But it’s fun.

The Pike Place Market was mobbed because it’s Saturday and it seems everybody in town heads there. There were huge lines of people waiting for strange things, including pierogies at one eatery and a chance to get into the first Starbucks. This is the one with the original logo, when the mermaid still had boobs.

Yeah, it’s a novelty and you might do it just to say you did. But wow, that line was long.

There’s a huge Starbucks around the corner on First Avenue and Pike Street. I had thought that was the original. After all, the guy at the register said they do that French press thing only at that store. There are probably more Starbucks outlets in Seattle than anywhere else. There are more Starbucks here than there are Tim Horton’s in Ontario. Or drug stores in Midtown Manhattan.

It was fun, if a little claustrophobic, to mix with the intense crowd. Any time somebody stopped to look at merchandise, there was a traffic jam. The guys at the big fish stand were still throwing salmon back and forth.

The market has its own totem pole, by the way.

I walked from the market to Pioneer Place by way of the Rescue Mission. There must be some unwritten rule that nobody panhandles outside the mission. The sidewalk and nearby little park were swarming with guys and a few women too, but no one approached me.

I’ve been getting hit up every couple of blocks by people asking for money, or offering copies of Real Change, the local paper that homeless people sell on the sidewalk. Street musicians are everywhere, and many of them look hungry. It can be overwhelming at times.

Somewhere along the way I saw a building that looked like a church but wasn’t. It’s at 215 Columbia Street. There is a large arched doorway and two friezes that, as it turns out, are not of the apostles.

It seems the one on the right represents the forms of commerce brought by the Europeans.

The one on the left depicts the Amerindian economy.

Another curiosity I had seen from time to time is an ad campaign for a lawyer who says his name is James Bible. What? Nobody is named James Bible. That is the nickname for the Authorized Version, the biblical translation into English ordered by James I. Maybe he is a lawyer. Maybe this is an assumed name under the witness relocation project. I don’t know.

I think the hill climbing has worn me down a bit. I stopped around 4 for a sandwich and my first beer of the day. Hot corned beef with a pint of Guinness at an Irish style pub maybe called Fadó.

It’s about 8:30. My plane leaves at 10:30. I’m ready to go to sleep. I’ll go have a beer instead. It’s the middle of the evening and this is my second of the day.

OK, this is better. It’s Pike IPA. That was the variety that went so well with the fatty Irish stew at the Pike Pub on Sunday. The hops and the slightly elevated alcohol content give it a nice sharp edge.

Sunday morning, March 24, Chicago O’Hare

United seemed to be very nervous about getting everyone onto the plane in time to take off on schedule. The flight was full except for one seat next to me. That is the third time that has happened in the past few months.

The problem is stowing all the carry-ons. The airlines allow more carry-on luggage than a plane is designed to handle. So of course they botched the schedule and got us on late.

But that didn’t matter at all because there was a broken arm rest in the pilot’s cabin, we were told. The mechanic was on it, hammering away. What? If you say so.

About half an hour later, we hear that we are just about to move. Problem corrected. They just have to wrap up the paper work. Another half hour after that, they closed the doors.

They made up time on the flight, though. I’m sitting at the gate a little after 5 a.m. for a 6 o’clock flight.

I know wherever you want to go, you can’t get there from here. You have to change planes, especially if you’re flying on the cheap the way I do. But this was one connection I didn’t want to miss. This is an overnighter with little sleep possible. If I had to spend four or five more hours in an airport to wait for a new seat, long before flight time, I’d not be very agreeable.

It looks like I’ll be getting home this morning. They are starting to talk to us. So this trip seems to be over.

Be well.