Day Two in Washington

We all met late morning to go and have "real" coffee as Paul specifically requested! We ended up going to this Las Vegas style restaurant called the 13 Coins. Very bizarre and dark decor. We had a decent breakfast and then Murray had to go back to the hotel to work on his computer for the day. Paul and I wanted to go sightseeing, but Peter wanted to stay and watch the NAACP games on TV. So we dropped Peter and Murray off at the hotel and Paul and I proceeded to drive into Seattle to the Experience Music Project museum. This is an incredible museum that showcases music of the United States, a lot of Rock and Roll, Jimi Hendrix, lots of guitars and an incredible sculpture of instruments that reaches at least 40 feet into the air. The building was designed by Frank Gehry and so is very interesting on the exterior with a lot of colored metal bent and twisted into many shapes.

We also wanted to take a ride up to the top of the Space Needle but when we saw it would be almost $20 to just go up and then come back down, we decided that going to Pike's Market made much more sense. So off we went in the rental car and drove a little ways next to the docks where the ferries go. We parked the car and walked for a bit until we finally found the market. It's a pretty crazy lively place. Very much the tourist attraction. Paul had to show me the fish tossing guys--definitely one of the highlights of the day!! So funny. Luckily the weather was holding pretty well until we got into the car to go back to the hotel. Then the skies opened up and it began to pour buckets.

We all decided to meet up at 8pm to go into Seattle for a nice meal, but when we were about to leave the hotel it starting snowing really hard. None of us wanted to drive in that weather. The shuttle driver overheard us and suggested we go to this "great" place down the street where they serve steaks and have karaoke. Since he was offering to drive us there we all blindly followed him into the shuttle and allowed him to drop us off at the Bullpen. Oh my God!! It was like entering the twilight zone. The people were definitely from a different world than what we were used to. A lot of beer drinking, overweight, rowdy, some of them mentally challenged, dart playing, karaoke singing people. It was at least very entertaining to watch all the activity. I think we all were nervous about eating there, fearing that we would end up with food poisoning, but we were basically stranded in a snow storm and didn't have many other options for escape. So we stayed, ordered the safest looking things on the menu, tempered it with a pitcher of beer and watched people get up and sing their hearts out to these karaoke songs. To say it was a bizarre experience would be a huge understatement. After we had had enough (which really didn't take long) we all opted to walk back to the hotel instead of waiting for the shuttle driver to come back and get us. It has definitely made for a lot of laughs on this trip!

Day three will be the next blog--our journey up to beautiful Bellingham to perform for the Jazz Project.