Day 55 -- Excursion to Seattle and dinner with the Wolinskis

Monday 8/14/2006

One of the things the advertise at the KOA is a pancake breakfast for just $3, all you can eat. The kids really wanted to try it out. They served it in a building not far from our campsite. The boys were already there when Isabella and I arrived. I paid for the two of us and forgot that $3/each means 2x3 + tax. Hmm.. I grumbled a bit. What about coffee? Another buck. I passed. Other extra items were also additional money, including milk for the boys. It felt cheesy, especially since they charged extra for the kids when we paid for the campsite.

The kids have the 'all you can eat' pancake breakfast at the Tacoma KOA. All of them are TV deprived at this point.

Judy Wolinski offered to take us for a tour of Seattle in her own car. This was very kind of her. We drove through a number of areas of Seattle, including one that had a fair number of Scandinavians in it. We got to see a genuine statute of Lenin that someone had bought from the Russians. We also had a chance to see a funky "Troll" statue that members of a hippie community in Seattle had build under a bridge. It apparently had some connection with the Swede's folklore about Trolls.

Karl poses on the Troll under the bridge. Notice the full size and real VW beatle it is holding in its hand!

One of the things the boys have asked about is the Space Needle in downtown Seattle. Judy took us there. We walked by Paul Allen's Experience Music Project which has a very interesting shape. Judy thought she had heard it represented the shape of a guitar that Jimmy Hendrix smashed.

Walking by the Experience Music Project in Seattle

Another part of the exterior walls of the Experience Music Project building. Quite fascinating if you like Airstream shapes.

Art outside the Experience Music Project representing necks of guitars, each reaching about 30-40ft into the sky

Isabella poses by the Space Needle

We took the elevator up and viewed the city of Seattle from the viewing platform above. Quite spectacular.

A view of downtown Seattle and the port from the Space Needle

Erik and Isabella enjoys the view of Seattle from the Space Needle

A view to the north east towards the Microsoft campus in Redmond and the wealthiest zipcode in USA: Medina

Karl, Isabella and Erik with Judy Wolinski (our local tour guide)

After we had spent time there we started to get a bit hungry. I wanted to see the fish throwing at Pike

We and other tourists watch the famous fish throwing at Pike's market in Seattle

Hand painted silk for sale at the market

The kids are catching some fresh air by a window at the market

One of many passages in Pike's Market in Seattle

After our excursion into town we returned back to Mike and Judy's house for dinner. What a great job Judy did taking us out for sightseeing! For dinner, they prepared a fresh salmon on the grill, with salad. It tasted just great. The kids got a chance to watch Terminator 3 on Mike's cool plasma TV. The sound system was excellent and the whole house was shaking when the kids watched that movie. I had a chance to compare notes with Mike on what we knew about friends from the Valbonne days and where they might be now. I learned of a few more that have since passed away, including Steve Gabaldon (who worked in the LCG support group back then).

Our friends Judy and Mike Wolinski pose by their backyard garden in Bothel, WA

Erik tries out one of many golf clubs that Mike has built himself;
Both Mike and Judy are big golf fans

After dinner, we got back to our campground in Tacoma where we hooked up the truck and trailer. Because our site was so short this only worked when we had the truck at a 30 degree angle relative to the trailer so that we would not block the campground passage in front of us. We also got other things ready for an early departure.

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All Pictures (c) 2006 Hamnqvist, Background features the Yukon Sky.