Day 16

What? I missed something?

I got up before most of the campsite here at Lewis and Clark State park, which is roughly one hundred miles from Seattle, so I could get into town before too much of the Sunday crowd could clog the streets of downtown.

Unfortunately parking was not nearly as simple as I would have hoped. I ended up just parking in a parking garage, which was probably the best choice because then my car was off the street. Since most of the towns have been good about bicyclist and bike lanes I thought about taking my bike with me to explore the cityscape, but decided that I was probably going to spend most of my time at the markets, or in museums so it would just be a hassle to keep track of while I was doing my thing elsewhere.

After parking my car, I took the elevator up to street level, brought out my GPS, and placed a point called "CAR", figuring I'd just wander aimlessly and see what I could see. This turned out to be a brilliant move. Soon I found myself down by the docks and the water ways for a really good look to the west. After enjoying the view, it was time to find these famous markets. I'm still not sure if I did more following people, or reading signs, both of which were leading directly to the markets.

Now, if I were my sister, there would never have been a need to go anywhere else in the city. There were little stores selling this, that, and the other thing you really don't need but think you do right now. Good thing nothing here is labeled "free" or else I might have spent more than a half hour walking through there. I did see the fish throwers, but after standing a corner, well, not so much of a corner as waiting for people to move out of the way as I think everyone was hoping to see a flying fish, and seeing none, flying fish that is, everyone in the area seemed to concluded that no one was buying fish and the crowds started to move gain.

Ok, enough of the shops and things, time to go learn stuff... where's the museums around here? Time to pull out the GPS. It says walk a mile that-a-way... deal. Funny, the Space Needle is getting really close now. Hey look the Science Fiction Museum is basically right underneath the space needle... who'd have guessed it. The museum also happens to be attached to the Experience Music Project and for $15 you can go through both of them. But, I may not ever get back to the Space Needle and I kinda wanted to go up there too... ick, $16 just to ride the elevator the 520 feet to the top... I'm going to the museum.

What a cool museum. Not only do they have lots of Blade Runner costumes, Dune gear, Battlestar Galactica costumes (then new ones even!), a Tron costume, a Mercury astronaut's suit, Darth Vader helmet, mask, cloak and light saber, but get this, they even mix in lots of history of Science Fiction and history of world events at the time this or that book or scientific discovery was made. Of all the movie gear that was there (and there was a lot) there was only one movie that I hadn't seen and didn't know anything about: The Fountain (2006). One of the screens had a preview of the movie running, and all I have to say is: How did I never watch that movie? That preview was sweet!

After going through that museum, I'm going to have to read more books. They had original prints of Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, and many, many others including some original manuscripts and oh so many sketches and models built for movies and television shows. Of course it had large sections of Star Trek and Star Wars stuff, but I was mostly impressed how large the collection was on Dune and Blade Runner. They had the police car from Blade Runner, and all the major actor and actress costumes and weapons. Except for the backdrops, I think you could film the movie tomorrow using just the stuff they had in the museum. Dune wasn't any worse off. I'm not as familiar with that movie, but they had all the weapons to be sure. Even some that I had trouble placing at first glance. It was almost enough to make me want to go read Frank's books... almost.

After I made it through the Science Fiction Museum, I still had to go through the Experience Music Project, but as I'd spent almost four hours going through the museum, I basically breezed through the music section in a little more than an hour and a half. There was a large section dedicated to Jimmy Hendrix, and Disney that where quite detailed. True to form, they had many relics as well. The history of the electric guitar went way over my head as they had actual amps, guitars and basses from the 20s and 30s up to present time. And since it is in Seattle, they had another section dedicated to the history of the Seattle music scene.

As much as they tried to make it look like there was still a large music scene in Seattle after grunge, I was having trouble buying it. Their best example was the Presidents of the United States of America, which disbanded sometime in the late 90s, hardly recent. They did have a wall full of seemingly current light pole ads for local bands playing concerts around the area as one of the posters I recognized from a pole I walked by on the way from the markets, but I didn't ever find out for sure.

One neat area of the experience was a section that tried to teach you how to play the piano, drums, and guitar. Using colored lights and music you could pickup the instrument and attempt to learn to play it in a game like fashion. This was the section of the building that seemed to be pushed the hardest from what I remember reading on the internet when it was being built, and it seems like they pulled it off in a fairly user friendly fashion. While I didn't feel like jumping on and trying out the equipment, just standing back and watching some kids that obviously had no musical experience, I found that they could put a few notes together that sounded eerily like a song, if they didn't get impatient and just rattle on the keyboard. Who knows, it might be the kick start some of them needed to get lessons and learn an instrument for real.

The architecture of the building was just plain bazaar. I found the music area to be hard to follow, disjointed and illogical. To make myself seem even more Spock-like, I found the Sci-Fi area to be easy to follow even if slightly disjointed, and very progressive in it's setup from section to section. Maybe that's the creative vs intellectual sides battling each other, but I know where I felt more at home. And from the fact that there were very few movie clips and characters that I didn't instantly know going back to the 60s made me feel I'd made the correct choice on spending so much time browsing through the artifacts collected in the Sci-Fi museum.

All said and done, I'd go there again, and if you get the chance I highly recommend it.

Day 16 Distance: 116, Elevation: 0 -> 462

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