Miles 4056-4056: Seattle
Yesterday morning, I woke up way before Jackson and we just hung out for a long bit while His Majesty got his beauty rest. After he woke up and started eating, I practiced some flute (can’t get out of practice!) for about 30 minutes and then Jackson practiced the trumpet. He’s doing pretty well for not having a teacher other than my dad, but it will still be a while before it stops sounding like a dying animal, possibly a duck. We walked over to the University of Washington and ate lunch at a German sausage place. Jackson and I split a sausage sandwich with a four-cheese mix on it. It was delicious, even though it sounds kind of weird. We went into the University Bookstore which, though technically a bookstore, also had spirit wear, like T-shirts, hats, jackets, and everything else you can imagine. I was especially interested in the University of Washington because I recently read a book called the Boys in the Boat, which was recommended to me by Elizabeth. It’s about the University of Washington’s varsity rowing team going on to represent America at the 1936 Summer Olympics and triumphing in Berlin, Germany, under Adolf Hitler’s nose. They still have a very hard-core rowing program there and you could tell by how much of the stuff in the store had rowing on it. We walked through the University to a bus we took down to the Space Needle.
We got there around two and our tickets were for three, so we looked in the Museum of Pop Culture gift shop and the gift shop at the Needle. We went up in the elevator at about 3:20. It was such an amazing view. At the very upper layer, there was a glass wall, but it wasn’t straight up; it was diagonal out over the side. I leaned out against the wall and looked down and it was so cool, but also scary; it looked like I was about to fall off. It had been cloudy earlier in the day, but was pretty clear by then; the only clouds were out in the distance, sadly keeping us from seeing Mount Rainier. It was a great view of the city, Lake Union, and Puget Sound. We went down one layer onto the Loupe, the world’s first and only rotating glass floor. I laid down on the floor and watched the tiny ants walk around below. Jackson took a picture pretending to squash them. Everything looks different when looking down from above. For example, the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPop) looked really cool. There were also giant sculptures of spiders on top of the Art Gallery and some balance beam logs next to the playground spelled out SOS.
When we came back down, we walked down by the waterfront and got some drinks, beers for Mom and Dad and sodas for Jackson and I. We Ubered back to the apartment, and while Mom made dinner, Dad took Jackson and I down to a nearby elementary school to practice field hockey/baseball respectively. I thought practicing would be better on the asphalt since the ball moved faster, but it was really hard to do anything without scraping up my stick. We went back to the apartment, ate dinner (Chinese chicken, rice, and green beans), and finished the Lord of the Rings. It was so good. Jackson teared up a little at the end. I stayed up to write my blog for the seventh and then went to bed.
“My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.”