Chapter 28 - Seattle Area
October 22, 1998
Greetings from the United States of America. After two and a half months in Canada (we entered Canada July 23, and left on October 2), it feels good to be "home". And it does indeed feel like home, even though we're in a strange place. The first two nights back were spent in Birch Bay State Park - described at the end of our last report. It rained most of the time. We relaxed in the trailer, made a shopping run into Bellingham, and walked the beach in a dry interval. It's interesting to note that the huge cedar trees shed rain almost as well as a shingle roof. After several days of rain, the ground is still dry under the trees. One could go camping in this park without a tent - just sleep under a big cedar.
10/5 Yesterday, after a little research in the campground directories, we moved closer to Seattle, and will spend a few days playing tourist. We chose Lakeside RV Park, Everett, WA. The sites are small, but the park is immaculately maintained. The restrooms got a "10" from Trailer Life, and we agree that these restrooms are the best we've ever seen in an RV Park. The interior of the park was given a "9", apparently as a result of smooth paved roads, neatly clipped grass and hedges, and occasional patches of well-tended flowers. Our site looks out on a pond, with ducks and geese swimming around. Most of the 200 sites are rented monthly. They claim that 45 are available for transients. On Sunday night, they were full before dark. The park is modem-friendly, allowing us to use their fax line, and the manager's desk.
10/7 Today, we drove a few miles to the Boeing widebody production facility and took their tour. The tour is superficial, but still quite interesting. We stood on a catwalk high in the "largest building in the world" looking down on bits and pieces of 747's, very slowly coalescing into airplanes. The predominate noise was rivet guns. It takes about 4 months for a plane to move through this assembly line. About 33,000 people work here, assembling a few hundred planes per year. Later, we rode a bus through the flight test area, past rows of planes going through final checkout before delivery. It was interesting to see the custom paint jobs from airlines all over the world. Russia's Aeroflot takes the "gaudiest" prize, with engines and tail painted in a surreal multi-colored blur. One 747, finished except for paint, was sitting forlornly by itself. If any of you are looking for a bargain, it's available cheap. It was ordered by Philippine Airlines, which went out of business shortly before delivery. You could probably pick it up quickly for about $150,000,000. Normal schedule is for delivery about 18 months after the order is placed.
The street labeling system in this area is impossible. According to Street Atlas, NE 205th and 243d street SW run parallel to each other, a block apart.
Seattle's Old Town really isn't all that old, since the entire area burned to the ground early in this century. At that time, it was rebuilt durably in stone and brick, and a substantial area has been preserved and renovated. The new buildings are mostly a massive but tasteless "Romanesque" style. This part of town was built on low mud flats, and had serious drainage problems from the beginning, so some time after the fire (and unfortunately, after the new buildings were put up), the streets were raised from 8 to 35 feet above the original levels. The sidewalks, belonging to the building owners rather than the city, were not raised, leaving dangerous canyons along the sides of the streets. Eventually, years later, new sidewalks were built at street level, effectively burying one to three lower stories of each building. The underground sidewalks remained, and disreputable businesses continued to thrive in the now-underground portions of the buildings. We took a tour through a few blocks of these underground passageways. It was mildly interesting, although the tour guide was short on information and long on jokes and cute but useless patter.
The waterfront along Old Town is dominated by ferry terminals, but some of the docks have been turned into restaurants and tourist shops, and at the north end, the Aquarium and an OmniMax theater.
The Frye Museum is small but interesting. The original collection is based on the personal collection of the Frye family, and reflects a particular set of interests and a particular point in history - mostly late 19th and early 20th century European art, with a little western American art from that period. They chose excellent paintings by the slightly lesser-known masters - many of them completely unknown to us (not surprising - we have no art education and have paid attention to only a few genres).
10/9 Today, we drove into town, and just before we turned off I-5 in downtown Seattle, we stopped in the usual stop-'n-go heavy traffic and the 18-wheeler behind us didn't stop quite as quick as we did - crunching the back of the truck and pushing us into the car ahead of us, crumpling the front too. Everyone involved is ok, and the vehicles were still driveable, but it looks like we'll be staying in Seattle somewhat longer than we expected, while we deal with insurance adjusters and repair shops. The trucking company has admitted full liability and their insurance will pay full costs of repairs, rental car, and perhaps some other costs as well. If we have to be stuck somewhere, this is probably as good a place as any.
After an hour spent sorting out the accident and calling insurance companies (the police were called and refused to respond to such a minor event), we went on to the Seattle Art Museum. Half the space was empty - being prepared for a large traveling exhibit of Egyptian artifacts. The museum has a 20th century American collection which was of little interest to us. There are also small but interesting collections of African and West Coast Indian artifacts and art.
10/10 We attended a concert of The Tudor Choir at St. Marks Cathedral in Seattle. St. Marks is a large building. Our first impression, in the dark, was of a very impressive edifice. When we went back in daylight, we discovered it was mostly built of poured concrete, now stained and mottled inside and out. The church had a large Flentrop organ. We haven't heard the big organ yet (a small portable organ was used in the choir concert), but we'll be attending an organ concert there this coming weekend. The cathedral seems to be a major center for music in the city, with many different local and visiting groups performing there and several concerts scheduled each week
The Tudor Choir, directed by Doug Fullington, was marvelous. The concert was all Spanish Renaissance - Vittoria, Allegri, etc. I tried to do my usual nit-picking analysis of the choir, and couldn't find anything significant to criticize. It is 20 voices, well-blended, perfect intonation, using a light no-vibrato technique, with near-perfect togetherness in attacks and releases. (of course, the acoustics could have a lot to do with this impression - we counted out a 4-second reverb time). The director is known for research on early performance practice, but in spite of that <g> I found the musical interpretations to be appropriate and pleasing.
And for our Rochester musical associates: Yes, St. Marks is the church where Mel Butler is Organist and Choirmaster. Mel is also the organist for the Tudor Choir, and we had a chance to speak to him for a few minutes after the concert. He's very busy and looks healthy and happy. He's giving a big organ recital in January, but of course we'll be long gone. He asked us to say hello to everyone.
10/15 Japanese immigrant Fujitaro Kubota built his personal 20-acre garden over a 45-year career as a landscaper and garden designer. After his death in 1973, the garden was declared a Historical Landmark by the City of Seattle, and the property was eventually acquired by the city, helped by the efforts and money of many individuals. It is currently maintained by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, assisted by volunteer gardeners. The garden is a wonderful place, but is badly overgrown - it needs a strong creative hand to re-shape it, but is currently getting only conservative maintenance.
The Puget Sound Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) was an interesting tour. This organization is part of the Coast Guard. The Control Center looks remarkably like the control tower of a major airport, and serves a very similar function. Working in conjunction with similar organizations in Vancouver and Tofino, VTS keeps track of all commercial and Navy shipping, as well as quite a bit of the recreational boating in the entire Puget Sound Area - an incredibly busy and complex harbor system. Using radio contact with each ship and radar mapping of the busier areas, they watch for potential problems, resolve conflicts, and control access to congested areas. An articulate and enthusiastic Coast Guard Watch Officer showed us the control room and explained what was going on, using a real-time computer map display of a portion of the harbor. The graphic computer presentation is updated every few seconds from radar scans, with identification tags for the various ships automatically inserted. To supplement the radar, they are just beginning to use automated digital position reporting from the ships (initially installed on some of the Washington State Ferries).
This area is living up to its rainy reputation. We've had an incredible amount of rain. I think it rained for 24 straight hours on several occasions, and we had at least a little rain every day for the past week. It's clear this evening, for the first time in over a week, and as a result, it will be cold too - probably in the low 40's. We note that the long-term RV residents around us have their water lines carefully wrapped with insulation. I hope we get out of here before that becomes a problem.
There is an incredible amount of classical music in the area. We have our choice of a dozen or so events to attend this weekend. What richness, after complaining about no music at all during the summer!
10/16 Bruce Neswick gave an organ concert at St. Marks. The big Flentrop organ has a wonderful sound, and the large resonant space helped too. Neswick is well-known as an organ virtuoso, and also as an improviser. At the beginning of the program, and again at the end, he did extended improvisations on a theme that was presented to him about a minute before he started playing.
10/17 A rainy day. I ran some errands - shopping, reserving a rental car for next week, renting a small storage locker across the street from the RV Park. We have to empty out the back of the truck while it is in for repairs.
In the evening, we drove to the new Beneroya Hall in downtown Seattle, to attend a performance of Dvorak's Stabat Mater, by the Seattle Chamber Singers and Orchestra Seattle. We hadn't heard a performance of this wonderful work before, so it was a thrilling experience. The 47-voice chorus did a good job, and I was impressed with the conductor, George Shangrow. The orchestra was less satisfactory - a bit sloppy at times. The concert was not in the big hall, but in the 500 seat Recital Hall. Our first impression is that this is a near-ideal concert hall for small ensembles. The acoustics are fine, the sightlines are good, and the seats are comfortable. It's nice to see such places getting built - there aren't many in the world.
An Early Music organization had an ad on the local classical music station tonight, ending in "For further information call 1-800-SACKBUT.
10/18 This afternoon we attended yet another choral concert at St. Marks. This time, by Choral Arts Northwest - a 32-voice professional choir based in Seattle. The program was all Russian, and featured the Choir Concerto by Alfred Schnittke. This was a completely new work to me. I enjoyed it a lot. I'd recommend it for performance in Rochester, except that I doubt if the right chorus exists in Rochester. It's a cappella, with parts of it fairly difficult. In places, it divides out into up to 16 separate parts, so it needs a somewhat bigger group than Madrigalia. The rest of the program was the Rachmaninoff Vespers, and shorter pieces by Tchaikovsky and Chesnokov.
10/19 The truck has been delivered to the repair shop, and we're now driving a rented Ford Coutour. It's not much of a car, but at least it's very maneuverable in the city, and we can actually drive into the parking ramps, many of which were off-limits to our truck.
The Seattle (Woodland Park) Zoo is not the largest zoo in the world, but the exhibits are extremely well done, several having received major awards. We watched a pair of young but full-grown grizzly bears frolicking in a pond, the bears separated from us only by half an inch of plate glass. The huge windows extended down to the bottom of the pond, and the bears were occasionally leaning directly against the window while swimming or standing in the pond. I wish I had brought the camera. At one point, a bear and a fascinated three-year-old boy were staring at each other, a few inches apart. Several other small children ran screaming back to their parents when a bear charged up to the glass.
A river otter enclosure was also designed so that the otters spent significant amounts of time very close to the viewing window.
The gorilla enclosure was a similar experience. It has a large pleasant enclosure, but has somehow been designed so that at least one family of gorillas chose to hang out right near a viewing window. An 18-month-old gorilla played with the spectators - trading funny faces and gestures with a girl on the opposite side of the glass, turning summersaults and then looking at the audience for approval. At one point, mother came over, beat on her chest, glared at the spectators, and grabbed baby, and banished him to a place far from the glass. He sneaked back as soon as mommy's attention wandered. Daddy, a huge gray-haired monster, stayed fairly close, but kept his back to the window, systematically ignoring the proceedings.
We also had fairly close encounters with a serval, an ocelot, and a gray wolf.
10/20 The drive from Everett, through Seattle, and down to Tacoma - about 65 miles - was crowded expressway all the way. Only a few miles of this distance is still rural farmland - the rest is continuous city. The southern half of the drive gave us views of Mt. Rainier - 40 miles to the southeast, but dominating the horizon.
We drove around Tacoma, then spent an hour in the Tacoma Art Museum, finding very little of interest (Half of it was a traveling exhibit of Picasso prints and ceramics - not one of our favorite artists). Later, we drove out to Point Defiance Park. The Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium is small, but has several very interesting exhibits, specializing in Pacific Rim animals. Glass walls, part above water and part below, allow spectators to get up close to sea otters, a gigantic walrus, a beluga whale, polar bears, and a flock of Puffins. We also got close-up views of reindeer, musk oxen red wolves, arctic foxes, snow leopards, and several others that I can't dredge up at the moment. At sunset, we drove to a mature, nicely implemented Japanese garden, and then out to the tip of the point, enjoying views across the water to distant mountains.
The sun has shown all day, for the second day in a row! Incredible!
10/23 Another weekend of music. Tonight was Opus 7, Loren Ponten, director: Another Seattle-based professional choir of "up to 24" singers. A polished performance of an interestingly varied program, only a little of it familiar to me. The Rheinberger work is very nice, and (I suspect) rarely performed. It's odd that they have an ugly concert program but a beautiful, very expensive professionally designed flyer - a combination poster, season mailer, and order form. This performance was one of the first to be held in the brand-new Nordstrom Recital Hall - built as part of Benaroya Hall - the new home of the Seattle Symphony. It's nice to see a new recital - good ones are very scarce. It appears to seat about 500, and has wonderful acoustics.
We'll be in the Seattle area for another couple of weeks, waiting for the truck to be repaired. But this chapter is overdue, and some of you will be wondering where we've disappeared to, so we'll send it off soon.