Seattle, Day Five

Our final day in the city of Seattle started off slower than the rest. Being it was the last day, we didn't want to rush anything so we woke up, got some breakfast, packed our junk, and lounged around in the hotel lobby or our room until about noon. At that time we had to check out. After checking out we stowed our bags at the hotel's baggage room and headed off to our first activity.

This activity happened to be the Experience Music Project and Seattle Science Fiction Museum. They are both a part of the same building, which was created to look like a sketch that Jimi Hendrix had drawn at one point in his life. It was a really unique structure.

We spent a significant amount of time at the two museums, with most of my time being spent in the sci-fi half being the geeky nerd that I am. It was really a classy, wonderful museum that treated science fiction seriously. It wasn't just a bunch of old Buck Rogers toys tossed in a display case, but instead was galleries upon galleries of different aspects of sci-fi history, literature, culture, and subjects. It was a shame that they didn't allow photography because I would have filled up my camera with geeky pictures.

The Experience Music Project was interesting, especially the history of the guitar section, but the galleries on Seattle hip-hop and Seattle bands of the early to mid 1900's didn't interest me as much. There was also a significant shortage of grunge information and displays. I had hoped for a little more.

After exhausting ourselves there, we grabbed some food, wandered around the Seattle Center (if you're there, check out the International Fountain as it's pretty cool), and then moseyed to the Seattle Art Museum's sculpture garden along the shore. It was an interestingly set up garden, but there was a shortage of art and what was there wasn't all that interesting to me.

By the time we had finished looking at the gardens, Randy needed to head to the airport to catch his flight home. He headed out with one of his friends, Alan, that had hung out with us while we were visiting. Once he took off, a couple of my friends (Alex and Crystal) came and picked up the three of us that were remaining.

They took us up to a beach in the area and showed us their place, which has a wonderful view of Lake Union. Later, before we also had to head to the airport, we had some Mexican food at a wonderful restaurant in Ballard. I believe it was called The Matador. The entire town or village of Ballard was very interesting and unique. We walked around for a bit and there were a ton of very neat, homey shops that hadn't been eaten up by your standard tourist shops.

Finally, it came time to head home so we hopped on our 1:00 am Seattle time flight (which is 3:00 am Minnesota time) and got back at 6:15 in the morning -- just in time to head in to work for the day. It might not have been the best idea as it took gobs of coffee to keep me going, but it saved me a vacation day to use later on.

All in all, this was a wonderful vacation and I hope this group can get together and travel again next year. It'll just be a matter of figuring out where to go!