« We do more by 10am... (Part Two of Three) | Main | We do more by 10am... (Coda) »
January 16, 2005
We do more by 10am... (Part Three of Three)
We met the out-of-towners in their hotel room and discussed the plans for the day. They had decided to extend their stay through Sunday - leaving for Sequim on Monday morning, and we decided that the hotel breakfast wasn't really up to scratch for commemorating Vince's birthday. Dawnise and I had heard good things about a place in Queen Ann called The Five Spot, so we hopped in their rental car, and drove the 2 miles to the restaurant. Managed to find parking, walk the block back, and were seated with a minimum of delay.
Our timing turned out to be excellent, by the time we had our coffee, the line had grown to fill the entry way. I have nothing but good things to say about breakfast at The Five Spot - we will definitely be going back. Good food, good service, and very reasonable prices.
From there Vince decided he wanted to check out the Science Fiction Museum in the Seattle Center. Figuring that many of our visiting friends were likely to have the same idea - Dawnise and I bought an annual membership (as we did at the aquarium on Friday). The museum, it turns out, is essentially Paul Allen's personal memorabilia showcase in a non-profit wrapper. There's stuff from other people - and even stuff (like the power-loader and queen alien) on loan from studios - but I was amazed at how much was from "The Allen Family Collection."
Stuff from all ages of SF - from Verne to Babylon 5 and everything in between (nothing from Firefly, though - very disappointing). Way too much to take in given the time we had.
We stopped in the Seattle Center food court to get Donna and Ari some lunch, and Ari spotted a play-ground in the Children's Museum. Bowing to the fact that she'd basically been dragged around to places completely uninteresting to her all day Saturday and most of the morning, Donna took her down for half hour while Vince, Dawnise and I hung around upstairs.
When Ari returned, rejuvenated, we decided to make a dash to the Museum of Flight near Boeing Field. Figuring this wasn't something likely to interest Dawnise, I bought us standard admission, which I ended up upgrading to an annual membership as well.
We only had two hours to see the whole thing, and they had lots more there than just planes.
But ah, the planes. They had a British Airways concord on display - that you could walk through, as well as a previous Air Force 1 (not nearly as cool as the concord). We saw as much as humanly possible in two hours - including a really cool history lesson from a docent on the predecessor to the SR-71 that they have - the only one on display with the surveillance drone attached. The docent was an elderly fellow, ex-military, and spoke - it seems safe to say - from first-hand experience. They also had an F-14 - the plane I always wanted to fly (even before Top Gun came out, thank-you-very-much) - unfortunately it was outside, on the front lawn, and it was a bit drizzly, so I didn't go take a closer look. No matter, we have a pass :)
When the museum closed at 5, we headed back to the hotel and decided to hit the local Mexican place for dinner. The food was pretty good - albeit completely devoid of anything resembling spice, and we hit the tail end of happy hour - drinks all around. We left the restaurant, dropped the left-overs at the apartment, and - at Vince's request - headed down to Pikes for a visit to the original Starbucks store. We tried some of their drinking chocolate - it's rich and chocolately but too sweet (why is everything at Starbucks either burnt or sweetened to death?). A little less sugar, and perhaps a touch of cayenne.
A quick walk back to the apartment, and they came up to our place and we watched a film - just like old times. Dawnise and Vince finished the evening with a delayed New Year's traditional Time Warp - much to the chagrin of our neighbors, I suspect.
They really, honestly, were leaving Monday morning, so we had one more breakfast to figure out before they hopped in their car across the Peninsula...
Posted by dberger at January 16, 2005 11:59 PM