1974: This brief note was on a postcard with an picture of the arches in front of the Pacific Science Center and Space Needle.
On the bus I sat with a woman about my age who pointed out some the features of the area. We spent some time talking about Seattle weather and that I was here at the peak sunny time. She mentioned how colleges encouraged students to decorate their dorm rooms with bright colors to keep spirits up.
After I got home, I looked up Seattle in a climate atlas and was impressed at just how cloudy Seattle is.
2009: Climate data is online now and either I was mistaken or data is recorded differently or I was looking at annual data. In Seattle's cloudiest month, December, they have only 23% of the possible sunshine. At home in northeast Ohio lake effect clouds and snow keep it down to 25%. (Still, the difference between 23% and 25% is nearly 9%.) In New England, Concord NH's cloudiest month is November, but we have 42% of the possible sunshine.
Short note today. Got tired of inland headwind, took bus to Seattle, will go to youth hostel or camp on Vashon Island tonight?
June 19th, 1:55 PM, Downtown Vashon
odometer start
June 18: 1520.6
June 19: 1528.1 (Yes! 7.5 total!)
now: 1554.6
The next paragraph refers to the K2 ski company which produced some of the most memorable ski ads in ski magazine history. The best was a parody of the monolith scene from 2001 - A Space Odyssey which depicted skiers jumping and dancing around a monolith that was a large K2 ski tip.
For a place as strange on the outside as K2, it sure is straight around their factory - No K2 monolith outside, no factory tours - rather nonimpressive. Got into Seattle around 1430 and spent the day playing tourist - Space Needle, Pacific Science Center, Food Circus and International Bazaar. (List for my later use in identifying pictures.) The Science Center was sort of neat, but not as up to date as it could be. For example, they showed a picture of Jupiter - one taken from an earth telescope; not the Pioneer 10 version! They did have a lot of kid type play stuff - pendulum art stuff, gyros, some cubes, etc. It's in the building with the gothic arches outside. All the places I went were on the site of the '62 World's Fair, so I didn't go much of anywhere else.
Spent the night at a real AYH in the Seattle YWCA for $2.00. I had a roomate who is from Chicago and attending an Archer's instructor course.
From here, I'll take the ferry to Southworth, 150 - 3 - 303 - 308 - 3 - 104 - 20 - Pt Townsend and take ferry over to continue on 20 and be back on my route.
2024: Both of my daughters moved to Seattle a few years ago. Then my sister and brother-in-law moved to Port Townsend. Maybe on my next visit I'll make it up the Space Needle and to the Science Center again.
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Written 2024 June 5, last updated 2024 June 5.