July 17-21a - to Kent and more Seattle

Wednesday was moving day.  We said our good byes to the Grudin's ROTT~N~RIDGE RANCH and our personal guard dog, Mister Magoo.

We moved about 60 miles south to Kent, Washington, (the Seattle/Tacoma KOA).   This is a very busy park.  We had only reserved for three days, but stayed the weekend to better fit Graham's schedule.  We'll have to move out of this spot tomorrow morning, as soon as the people in the spot we are going into move out.  The space on our driver side is on the third neighbor.  They don't give you much swing room, so watching a Monarch coach on a Prevost chassis (full size bus) was quite entertaining this afternoon.  He had to do lots of jockeying...and pulled right up to the awning of a trailer across the way.  The people sitting at a picnic table under the awning scattered...had to be scary with this big bus that close.  It is a beautiful motorhome, makes ours look a bit pedestrian (but I'd rather park ours). 

 This place has a nice playground for kids and a fenced one with toys for dogs too.

 We went bicycle riding on a mostly nice path on Thursday.  It took us through several towns, but at times the path would just disappear.  We would have to really look to find where it started up again.  These water tanks were interesting.  They are recycled water used for the landscaping.  Must work, as everything there was very green.

 Friday we drove into Seattle and met a friend for lunch.  Parking is at a premium down by the water.  No discount for motorcycle spaces either.  This space wasn't very flat, but the one next to it had a huge depression.  Neither suited well for bikes without center stands.  But it was only $4/hr to park.  Sir Paul McCartney was playing in town.  We rode by the venue.  They were charging $50 for the event parking.   Maybe that was their way to encourage the 42,000 ticket holders to carpool.  We looked at taking the bus into town, but unless you are 65 yrs old, it wasn't very economical.

We used all of our $8.25 parking fee time, then moved up town, closer to where Graham would be performing that evening.  We found a street spot (that is us with the cover).  Took a chance no one would take the cover, so we didn't have to deal with a damp bike (or helmets) after the show.

We were very close to the sculpture park. 

Sculptures seem to be most anything three dimensional. 

We were wondering if any of our kids would recognize what this was...Possibly Stacy might, but bet her kids can't identify it.

If we would have known that Graham and Mary Slate picked the Edgewater Hotel, which is right down along this waterfront, for their wedding venue, we would have taken a picture of it. 

 

 Graham was performing in a theater at the Seattle Center.  This is a very big area that we missed on our last trip when we drove down to see the space needle.  It was much nicer to visit coming in from the water side.  There was all kinds of events going on.  Taste of Seattle had food booths from a wide variety of sources.  There was a K9 competition, play activities, one we watched for a while had people climb into deflated balls, which were inflated, zipped up and rolled into a pool.  One lady in a dress was particularly entertaining when she rolled and fell, all the time working to keep her skirt down.  She must have lost a bet or something.  Mostly it was kids in the spheres.

We were able to connect with Mary Slate, her mother Louise and sister-in-law Jessica shortly before the show and visit with them and Graham after.  One of the younger dancers came up and asked Graham to autograph her program.  He was so gracious about it, making her sparkle by remembering her name.  I thought it was neat, so I asked him to autograph my program too.  I figured I'd give it to mom.  When I mentioned who it was for, he asked to take it home and bring it back when we met on Saturday.  He did a full page note to her.  I think she will be pleased.

The Seattle Center complex was wall to wall people before the performance.  It was so different just a few hours later.  The space needle looked grander somehow against the night sky.

Orcas.

Lousie and her husband Dave rented an executive apartment downtown for the month of July.  They had a parking space available, so we met the group there this morning.   Jessica and her husband and daughter are here visiting from Florida.  A second son lives close by in Seattle, but we didn't have the opportunity to meet him or his family.   Nine people for brunch today and three were named David.  Not too hard remembering the men's names. 

We went to Church Sat night, so we didn't have to juggle moving spots around it Sunday morning.  We were quite impressed with the priest.  He sang well, spoke well, and had a good sense of humor.  We spoke to him after Mass and David asked him about something they did during Mass.  He explained how David could verify it was "allowed" and said he really didn't care if it was done or not, but he found the kids (altar servers) really liked it.  He was all for stoking their enthusiasm.   We didn't ask, but I wondered later if that was why he used the altar servers to pass the collection baskets.

Nice ramp up the side of the altar.

While waiting until Graham and Mary Slate had time to visit us, we decided to see if we could get the tandem on the train to Seattle.

People on the car helped telling us where to put the bike.  It was much less crowded and much more friendly going into town than coming back.  We had to hold the bike upright coming back.  They have a hook for the front tire, but it isn't in the right spot for a tandem.

They had never been here before.

This bike has been in some very different places today.

This tunnel below the City is where we picked up the train back.  Graham walked us to the terminal to make sure we found the right place.  The buses drive over the the same place the trains run.

The bike didn't fit in the elevators.  Some of the terminals had escalators for some of the steps.  This is at the airport.  Just lots of stairs.

We had to move spots Sunday morning.  At least we have open bird sanctuary in front of us.