Today promised to be a busy day so we headed off early back into downtown Seattle trying to beat the rush hour traffic. Luckily they have high occupancy vehicle express lanes on the freeway so we got in without too much trouble. Seattle does have a reputation for being one of the wettest cities in the US, but its average of 36 inches of rain ranks it at only number 44th. The Hoh Rainforest we visited a couple of days earlier actually receives 145 inches of rain annually. The problem is that the rain comes down over a longer period, often as a slow drizzle, deposited by low lying clouds that seem to hang around for ever. Luckily we have been blessed with fine weather for our time here, in fact Mark has visited Seattle several times and says more often than not when he has been there the weather has been okay.
The clear weather makes this a perfect day for going to the top of the Space Needle, and not wanting to chance the weather we decided to make this our first activity for the day. Doing this midweek and so early has another advantage; there are no queues of people to negotiate. The journey to observation deck, which is 500 feet above the ground takes less than a minute. When the tower was built in 1962 it was the tallest building east of the Mississippi. The views across the city towards the surrounding mountains are stunning. Just one floor below where we are is the revolving SkyCity Restaurant. As with all visits to the top of tower and observation decks of tall buildings there is not too much to do, so after taking in the 360o views and taking a few photographs we take the elevator back down to terra firma and the safety of the gift store. It is not long before we have satisfied our need for retail therapy . The Space Needle is not the tallest tower we have summited but it does have special feeling about it.The Space Needle is the centre piece of the Seattle Center a collection of buildings mostly dating back to the time of the world fair. One of the newer constructions in the complex is the home of the
Science Fiction Museum / Hall of Fame and the Experience Music Project. The radical design of the building was conceived by Frank Gehry, and resembles many of his firm's other works in its sheet-metal construction, such as Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Walt Disney Concert Hall and Gehry Tower. Not everyone loves this building (we actually did) and it has come under a lot of criticism. New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp described it as "something that crawled out of the sea, rolled over, and died”. Forbes magazine called it one of the world's 10 ugliest buildings. Others describe it as a "blob" or call it "The Hemorrhoids".We decided to do the Science Fiction Museum first of all. The museum attempts to follow the development of science fiction in the written and visual form from the earliest materials from the likes of Jules Verne to the modern day works like Star Trek and the X files. Potentially a topic like science fiction presents an unlimited scope to make interactive and entertaining exhibits, but sadly the whole thing fell well below our expectations. Many of the displays were static pieces with memorabilia from shows like Star Trek, Lost in Space and Star Wars which, whilst bringing back fond nostalgic memories, soon got tedious especially for Jack and Emily who were born long after many of these shows left the big or little screen. There were some fun things like clips from some of the shows, which more often than not left us wanting to see what happened next. Not sure whether budget constrained the development of the exhibits but certainly it seems they need to employ more creativity for the future.
Sharing the building is another museum called the Experience Music Project, which takes its name from the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix was a native of Seattle and is paid homage to, along with other rock ‘n’ roll icons, in the central "Sky Church" room using a 40-foot high by 70-foot wide video screen. As you enter the main foyer, known as the “Guitar Gallery” there is a sculpture on mainly guitars rising at least two stories, which in itself would be a fascinating feature but a large number of these guitars have electro-mechanical solenoids attached so they can actually be played. At frequent intervals the whole structure breaks into song. This is less of a museum than an interactive music experience. Yes, there are some exhibits which pay tribute to the rock ‘n’ roll stars future and past through videos, memorabilia and photographs, but there are many other fun things to do. The Sound Lab is an interactive play area with several stations where you can learn to play a electric guitar or electronic drums, or play around with samplers and mixing consoles. These stations are fitted out with multimedia systems to help even the tone deaf, all fingers and thumbs guy through the basic steps of the instruments and electronic tools. There are also a number of sound proof rooms for you to use equipped with guitars, drum kits and keyboards where you can simply jam away to your heart’s content. The Jam studio is equipped like the sound proof rooms but there is recording equipment so you can capture your music for posterity. Another fun exhibit is On Stage. Here you can pretend to be a rock star even if you've never played an instrument! On Stage transports you to the centre stage of a large arena, complete with smoke, hot lights and screaming fans. We had a great time murdering the Troggs’ “Wild Thing”, with Mark on guitar, Jack on drums and Emily on keyboards. The whole thing is recorded so you can watch yourselves being complete fools and if you are real masochist you can buy a copy to take home. This was a much more pleasurable experience than the Science Fiction museum.
As if we had not had our fill of fun for the day we headed off to the Woodland Park Zoo. If not aficionados on zoos we certainly have sampled many and this was definitely up there with the best. We love the big apes. Mark in particular has a thing about the orangutans. The enclosures for the gorillas and the orangutans were fantastic, as was the vast enclosure for the grizzly bears. We had such a wonderful time, but our favourite part of our time at the zoo was our visit to the Willawong Station. This is a walk-through bird feeding experience focused on the world of the Australian parrot, where there are 100 free flying 
small birds. We resisted buying the food sticks as it was the end of the day and the birds did not seem very hungry. Having said that this did not stop some pestering the visitors! There was one particular cockatiel who took a fancy to almost everyone who happened to come into the enclosure. Jack in particular got the treatment, and this bird seemed to find interesting things up his nose. We have never laughed so much. Unfortunately we had left it quite late in the day so we ended up being pushed for time so it turned out to be a bit of rush to get around the whole zoo.Our day is not yet done and on our way back home we stopped off at the REI flagship store (an outdoor goods retailer). Jack loves this store; he is such a keen Boy Scout and adores camping out. This is a huge place and it takes us simply ages to explore, our fervour is only dented by the desire to eat. But before we can go Jack and Emily simply had to climb the Pinnacle, which at 65 feet, is one of the tallest free standing climbing walls in the world. Jack makes a brave attempt but his body shape and size are not well suited to being a climber. Emily, who usually does not feel comfortable with heights, was actually coaxed to made it a good way to the top. She was so proud of herself.
We had really worked up an appetite with all this activity so it was time to eat. Mark when he is hungry can get very ugly!
After stuffing ourselves at Sweet Tomatos we head back to prepare ourselves for the cross country journey that lays ahead of us.
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