Yesterday we had a bit of snow. A precursor to the cold weather we had today, this was our first one of the year and it was, in its way, fun.
It was a great surprise when we first noticed it was snowing so we rushed outside to get a taste of it firsthand. And you know I rarely go anywhere without my camera. Rarely.
And this one was having WAY too much fun!! Hahaha, I had to remind her to get some shoes on before she went out.
For a while it looked like it was going to be more than a passing fancy but . . .
It didn't stick around. This morning there were some small traces of the snow where the sun doesn't shine much. The water in the bird baths was frozen over and Carol had to break it up. Not much snow but, Mister, it was cold!!
The plan for today was to enjoy the blue skies and The Emerald City. We were heading downtown to Westlake Park to visit the A Christmas Story's Holiday Carousel.
Renton Avenue Selfie
Hahaha, it pays to check the weather report. We dressed in layers and brought our sunglasses.
Then the oddest thing happened. We were walking to the Link as we always do to start our adventures. Normally, we do a lot of looking down for the flowers but this part of the year is mighty thin on flowers. So we were just amblin' along, just enjoying the crisp Autumn weather and not expecting much of anything.
Until - we saw a robin . . . and then we saw a Round of robins. I did a small bit of research, Quick, to the Google Machine!! and found that robins don't have their own name for a group of them. You know, like a crowd of crows are called a murder, and a pack of peacocks are called a muster. However, a group of enterprising Germans have suggested they call a slew of robins a round, and so I am going to go with that.
We saw a round of robins!! Amazing!! We saw the one in a holly tree and then he flew to another tree, bereft of leaves and, lo and behold, there were a round of robins there!
We've seen the occasional robin around the neighborhood and, even, at our feeders but we've never seen more than one at a time and, BAM!! we saw a round of robins (Hahaha, I am enjoying using that term, can you tell?) in one tree.
The highest we counted to was 11.
American Robins are fairly large songbirds with a large, round body, long legs and a fairly long tail. They're an industrious and authoritarian bird that bounds across lawns or stand erect, beak tilted upward, to survey their environs. In fall and winter they form large flocks, or rounds (I'm with the Germans on this one, let's call them rounds!), and gather in trees to roost or eat berries.
And these guys were feasting on the holly berries on the tree (exceedingly large bush?) next to where they were roosting.
Fun Fact: Postmen in Victorian England were popularly called 'robins.' This was because their uniforms were red. The British Post Office grew out of the carrying of royal dispatches. Red was considered a royal color, so uniforms and letter-boxes were red. Christmas cards often showed a robin delivering Christmas mail.
Who Killed Cock Robin?
Who Killed Cock Robin is an English nursery rhyme which has been used as a murder archetype throughout the world. The earliest record of the rhyme is in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, published c. 1744, which had only the first four verses. The extended version, which is quite long and detailed, was not printed until c. 1770. Although the song was not recorded until the 18th-century, there's some evidence it might be much older. The death of a robin by an arrow is depicted in a 15th-century stained glass window at the Buckland Rectory, Gloucestershire, and the rhyme is similar to a story, Phyllyp Sparowe, written by John Skelton about 1508.
Hahaha, those zany English with their funny city names and penchant for killing things and then memorializing them in song and verse!!
And, if you were still wondering, after all that foo-fer-all, who really did kill Cock Robin, I'll let you read the first and last verses from this long rhyme:
Who killed Cock Robin?
I, said the Sparrow,
with my bow and arrow,
I killed Cock Robin.
(Note: No reason was given for this heinous act nor was any punishment noted. While the version I read just covered the funeral, etc., for poor ol' Cock Robin, the rhyme does have an alternate ending, in which the sparrow who killed Cock Robin is hanged for his crime.)
Finally, here's the final verse of the rhyme:
All the birds of the air
fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,
when they heard the bell toll
for poor Cock Robin.
The end.
P.S. There are some who claim that Cock Robin is actually a pseudonym for Robin Hood and the rhyme laments his passing. Check it out!!
BAM!!
From Robins to this, a discarded couch that's been relaxing on the side of the road just up Renton Avenue for about a week now.
Hahaha, silly Rainier Valleyites . . . they don't believe in paying any extra to dispose of their unwanted furniture so they, in the dark of night, just leave their used couches, etc., along the side of a handy street and let someone else worry about it.
I just realized that Carol and I haven't seen any TVs out on the curb lately. There was a while where we would see at least one, sometimes more, TVs setting out, abandoned and forlorn, on some street along our walks. Every time.
Hahaha, silly people.
Hahaha, we rode the Link and got downtown most ricky-tic.
And then we came up to the street to a cold fall day here in The Emerald City. In this picture you can see Westlake Park. You can see some of the trees still have a good deal of leaves left. The Holiday Carousel is off to the left and the tents are set up for other Holiday events.
(I keep italicizing Holiday because it irritates me that the PC Zealots have forced all the weak-kneed whatevers to accede to their demand to remove Christ, vis-a-vis Christmas from the holiday.)
Evidently, it doesn't matter how cold it is outside . . . they'll keep the Ducks a-runnin'. Just bundle up, y'all!! Hahaha, I can see it now . . .
Why, yes, Ma'am, we do have duck ear-muffs for sale. Only $35 a pair.
We headed over to the Christmas Tree right away.
Christmas Tree Ornament Reflected Selfie!!
Hahaha, it was a natural and we took full advantage of the opportunity!!
Here's the Christmas Tree in all its splendor and festive glory!!
Hahahaha, and there's Carol right by the sign that says, when strategically blocked, Carol!!
Ahhhh, it was tempting but we both bravely and resolutely pushed by the alluring sights, sounds and delicious aroma of Mini Donuts and made our way over to . . .
The Christmas Carousel!!
Hahaha, we were on a mission and that mission was to have some fun riding the Merry-Go-Round!! It's been a Seattle Tradition for some time now. They had an article in the newspaper today of a photo of three women who have been the first in line for the Christmas Carousel for 23 years.
Great tradition, eh?
And here it is!!
We quickly got our tickets for the ride and . . .
. . . got on board!!
It was fun!
It was simple, it was delightful. The music, the lights, the whole thing was a lot of fun.
The trusty steeds!! The bigger horses were on the outside and they, the horses, got progressively smaller towards the inside.
It was fun!!
And then we wandered around a while in the Westlake Park and found an opportunity for another . . .
Christmas Window Reflected Selfie!!
Some more kids having some old-fashioned fun on the Merry-Go-Round.
Oddly enough there is a See's Store right there at Westlake Park. While we didn't go in, there's only so much steel in our iron-clad resolve to eat healthy, but we did allow ourselves some envious glances to the candy delights inside . . . like these Classic Bars.
Mmmmmmm...
We'd had our fun and ridden our ride back through time but we still had missions to accomplish.
It was such a beautiful day that we, despite the definitely cold weather, decided to walk on over to the Seattle Center. It's only a mile away and today was a day meant to be enjoyed with a leisurely stroll along the avenue.
We could even see our quarry from the Westlake Center . . . this is taken looking down 4th Avenue towards the PSC.
The streets weren't too busy it being a frosty Sunday afternoon.
Hahaha, I just really like that sign of the chef holding a fish. Appropriately enough, it advertises a seafood restaurant.
The light was really brilliant and the cold weather gave it a special shine. There's something special about the crisp, snappy air on a fall day.
I've told you about my affinity for old brick buildings and I think I've mentioned how I enjoy seeing the old advertisements painted on them. Well, I also have an interest in windows. I enjoy the architectural details in them but also, I have fun thinking about the lives behind them.
I look at these windows and try to imagine all the joys and all the living that has gone on inside those rooms. Especially in these older buildings. What a lot of living has gone on there, right!?!
Barry Manilow has done something like that with one of his albums, Here at the Mayflower. It's a concept album he released in 2001 based on an apartment complex. Each song addresses a life contained inside the walls of the Mayflower. Interesting idea, eh.
Hahaha, I am a sucker for these. While I'm not a big fan of the lazy and cheap architecture embodied in these glass menageries, not a fan at all, I am taken with the reflections you can get off of them.
Like these . . . they're like abstract paintings. They reflect the neighborhood but give it such a different look.
And they reflect icons as well. Can you see it?
The light crossing the streets made for some interesting shadow play.
Like this, at the Charlesgate Apartments.
If I were a more accomplished photographer, I'd make something of these shadows on the brick.
Ahhhh, if.
And still we enjoy the light show given to us by the changing seasons. Just a couple of leaves on the street.
Pretty colorful.
Another of the Glass Monsters but what a reflection it has. Carol said it best, maybe, It's like a puzzle, or a painting.
And more color from nature. This time they're still, but not for long, on the trees. I particularly liked this shot.
And these two riots in Autumn Color.
And, SNAP, from those colorful beauties to these man-made glass thingies. I think they're supposed to be flowers but I'm not sure. They're from the Chihuly Garden at the Seattle Center. It does grab your attention for its size and its color but, honestly, it still doesn't hold a color candle to those leaves you see everyday on the ground or in the trees.
Hahaha, yeah, this is the Seattle Center Christmas Tree. The ball effect is reflected in the small silver balls beneath this along the overhang to the entrance of the Seattle Center and the Space Needle.
We were crossing Broad Street and I was able to stop and get this shot looking down the street towards Lake Union.
I didn't know why, but they had blocked off Broad Street to vehicular traffic. My first thought was those Rascally Rascals, The SAPS. You know, the Seattle Activists (or A**holes, depending on your point of view) Protesting Stuff. I thought they could have been out and about. Pretty reasonable assumption.
We'll get back to this later.
OK, you can thank me now, but FYI, I took maybe 25-30 pictures of the Space Needle. How could I not? It was a brilliantly beautiful blue day. The sky was screaming to be in a picture today!!
But I only chose one to put in this blog.
#you'rewelcome
As you come into the Seattle Center there is a small garden off to the left and prominent in that garden was a Willow Tree.
Past tense.
The wind blew the willow over a day or two before and this was what was left.
A water tree, the willow typically has shallow roots and, well, you can see what happens.
While we were there, a man was standing nearby and had taken a couple pictures of the tree. He remarked to Carol that it was a shame and, BOOM, they were off.
Seems the tree was a memorial tree planted when the Seattle Center first opened as the Century 21 Exposition, or, as most know it, the Seattle World's Fair way back in 1962.
Fun Fact: Unlike most world's fairs of the past century, Century 21 actually made a profit.
They chatted for a while and then Carol said that they should get someone to carve something out of the tree and place it there as a kind of a monument. The guy was taken with that notion saying that it was a great idea and he would forward it along for consideration.
All of this sorta leads me to think he was somebody in the City Parks Department maybe and that Carol may have suggested something that could result in . . . who know?
Eventually we made it to the Armory. The second part of our adventure was a visit to the Winterfest Winter Train and Village at the Seattle Center Armory.
Formerly known as the Center House (early 1970s - 2012) and the Food Circus (1962 - early 1970s) the Armory, built in 1939, is now an official city landmark. It housed the 146th Field Artillery and its half-ton tanks. The basement still has markings from the old firing range and an unfinished swimming pool intended for recruits. In 1941, Duke Ellington played on stage for the UW's Junior Prom.
For the 1962 Worlds Fair, the Armory was reconfigured into the first vertical shopping mall, called the Food Circus. It just pre-dated Northgate Mall, which was the first indoor mall in the U.S. In the early 70s, the Food Circus was renamed Center House. In 1985, the Children' Museum moved into the first floor of the building and expanded their space in 1995, building a giant toy mountain. Today there are over 3,000 free public performances given each year in the Seattle Center Armory.
Each year they hold a Winterfest at the Seattle Center with many different offerings including an ice-skating rink. One of the Winterfest's favorites is the magnificent, turn-of-the-century village in miniature size with garlanded homes and buildings, snowy streets and a moving model train. You can even, if you like, take a turn controlling the model train.
The first thing we saw as we came in were these fine folks. They had been strolling along singing and when I raised my camera they sort of naturally and fluidly arranged themselves in this pleasing arrangement to allow me to get a good picture.
And they didn't miss a beat of the song they were singing.
Tres cool.
OK, this was a veritable bonanza of pictures for me. I mean, with very little effort and a lot of oohing and ahhing and look at this and see that!! we went all around it and saw it from every angle.
It was fun!! They really hit all the turn-of-the-century highlights of small-town America here.
So I'll let you school through all the pics and occasionally interject a comment or two on something or the other that caught our attention.
'Kay?
'Kay!
Carol especially likes the old cars and trucks.
The gas station.
Some of the turn-of-the-century Valued Homeless.
We both laughed at this scene!!
Oh, the humanity!!
Can't those silly people see the constant danger they're exposing their children to!?! My gosh, call the CPS and start arresting some of those people!!
Hahaha, see the dreaded Teeter-Totter? How about the dastardly Merry-Go-Round or the infamous Slide. Look!! They don't even have safety belts on those swings.
Hahaha, they were a simpler people back then. Thank goodness enough of them survived their perilous childhoods to help build this Great Nation.
We got a good laugh at this one.
And a Carousel. This was nice right after we had ridden on our own Carousel.
Notice the balloon, they have it going up and going down. Cute touch.
And the rather handsome but, obviously, not too intelligent photographer. Hahaha, I say that because he is ready to take a picture but . . . his camera is pointed the wrong way.
He'll learn.
Things go better with Coke . . .
Hahahaha, this happened a lot during the early years.
I'm guessing that the guy was, evidently, a tuba player.
Hahaha, that was fun, wasn't it? Believe me, it was much, much better if you were actually there.
Remember, I mentioned that you could, if you wanted, drive the trains? Here's the train station where you could have a chance to power the locomotives. Pretty cool, eh? The campanile is like the one at the Seattle King Street AmTrak Station.
And the Armory was busy. We're on the top floor and this was the old Food Circus. They have a lot of restaurants surrounding the open area in the middle.
This shows the huge mountain built for the Children's Museum in 1995. It's on the first floor of the Armory.
And, of course, in this Season of Joy and Light, der Weihnachtsbaum.
You can see some of the original flavor of the Armory here. This Armory has certainly had an interesting and varied past.
The day was getting close to an end when we exited the Armory.
Meandering on our way back, we passed the Collections Cafe. I'm guessing, besides their Christmas Ornament collection they've got another exhibit for vases? Jars? Carafes?
Heading out towards 4th Avenue in front of the Space Needle. The afternoon light was playing across the folks going in and out of the Needle Store.
And these back-lit hydrangeas near the fallen Willow Tree.
R.I.P. Old Fellow.
Here's the panorama that presents itself as you exit the Space Needle Store. To the lift front is the Fisher Plaza, home of KOMO 4 TV. KIRO 7 TV is in the glass building to the right. It was from the KOMO 4 tower that the news copter took off of and immediately crashed onto Broad Street just a couple months ago.
My plan had been to go to the 5-Point Cafe over at Tilikum Place Plaza. That's where they have the statue of Chief Stealth and it's also the site marking the junction of the land claims of Arthur Denny, Wm. Bell, and Carson Boren, some of the original settlers of Seattle.
A notable feature of the Plaza is the life-size statue of Chief Seattle by local sculptor James Wehn. The copper statue, which weighs between 300 and 400 lbs, shows Seattle with his right hand raised in greeting. That statue stands on a stone base that was also designed to serve as a fountain.
The statute was commissioned in 1907 and formally unveiled in Tilikum Place by a great-great-granddaughter of Chief Seattle, on November 13, 1912. It was the first statue commissioned in Seattle and only the second piece of public art for the city.
There were several unsuccessful proposals to move the statue to other areas of the city but they failed. It was removed for cleaning in anticipation of the Century 21 Exposition of 1962. When they returned it, Wehn objected to a proposal to turn the statue around so it would face the then-new Seattle Center Monorail and so after its cleaning, the statue was returned to its original location and orientation, facing Elliott Bay.
Wow, how'd I get that far off the mark!?! Hahaha, to get back to my original point, I'd planned on eating at the 5-point Cafe but when we walked in the place was packed and so I ditched that idea.
Whew, long story for a short point, eh?
Across the street from the 5 Point Cafe is Zeeks Pizza. They're a lot friendlier here than they are over at that cafe.
While we were leaving I spotted this young woman walking along wrapped up in plastic. She wasn't the first one dressed like this that I'd seen today. The previous ones I'd seen wrapped up in plastic, were all guys . . . with beards. OK, I admit it, I am predisposed to see and classify or sort people into different categories based on my initial impression and I had thought that those young bearded men all wrapped up in plastic were among our city's numerous Valued Homeless.
Nope!! I was wrong!! Remember earlier I'd mentioned that they had closed off Broad Street and I had wondered if that was because of protests? It wasn't. They'd closed it off because they were having a huge marathon race starting out of the Seattle Center.
This young lady and those guys I had seen earlier were all coming from the race and had taken to wrapping themselves in plastic to give them some protection against the very cold wind as they made their way back home.
See the Seattle Marathon on the plastic?
Hahahaha, mystery solved!!
So we took off down the road looking for a place to eat. And admiring the views this beautiful city offers to us.
Look at the blue sky reflected here with the buildings colored by the afternoon sun.
Looking west on Vine Street towards Elliott Bay . . . and the Puget Sound. On the right is the front of an older apartment building and on the left is a newer one.
I prefer the one on the right. Which one do you like best?
It's a Sunny Sunday and there isn't much traffic on the city streets. There's Elliott Bay in the distance.
And then, as we were heading up 5th Avenue, we saw this coming off a side street. The Seattle Ducks!! I always, when they pass, yell and wave at them and, invariably, they all yell and wave back in return. Oh, and give me a bleat on their duck whistles.
Those old amphibian vehicles have a rich history.
The DUKW, colloquially known as Duck, is a six-wheel-drive modification of the 2-ton "deuce" trucks used by the Army in WWII. This amphibious truck was used for transporting goods and troops over land and water and for approaching and crossing beaches in amphibious attacks.
The DUKW was designed by Rod Stephens, Jr., Dennis Puleston and Frank Speir. They were developed to solve the problem of resupply to units that had just made an amphi landing. Initially, the DUKWs were rejected by the military. Then, when a Coast Guard patrol craft ran aground on a sand bar near Provincetown, MA, an experimental DUKW that happened to be in the area for a demonstration attempted a rescue. While the winds of up to 60 knots, the rain and the heavy surf prevented conventional craft from rescuing the seven stranded Coasties, the DUKW had no trouble. The military opposition to the DUKW evaporated with the rescue and the DUKW later proved its seaworthiness by crossing the English Channel in support of the landings at Normandy on D-Day.
And now they ferry tourists around and through The Emerald City. Nice retirement job, y'know.
The light was great. It really, really was.
Looking south on 5th Avenue. Something new is going to go in there on the right.
In a blog or two ago, I had included a detail shot of a building that I said reminded us of a castle. Here it is from the other side. Still somewhat reminiscent of a castle and still a great looking building.
Even with all the winds and the cold weather, these leaves refuse to drop off. Some trees are naked and others, well, they're almost fully clothed.
I've really enjoyed this fall season. It's been a lot of fun going to Coulon Park to check on the status of the trees there and marveling at all the different colors we've been treated to.
Woo, woo!! The Monorail!!
Hahaha, I still get a kick out of seeing it whiz by as we walk along the streets. A city constant since 1962.
The angle, the light and the lines. That's why I took this picture.
#melikey
We were both pretty bushed. We hadn't found a restaurant that interested us and, surprisingly, we found that a good number of the downtown restaurants were closed for the weekend. So we deferred our dinner until we got back.
Mmmmmm, chili dogs!!!
Waiting on the Link at the Westlake Station. We've got the location of the doors down pat and we're usually right in front of the doors when they open . . . and this ensures that we get our choice of seats. Hey, this is important in the afternoon . . . those things can get quite busy and it's around 22 minutes to get to Othello.
Hahahaha, yeah, I'm lazy AND old.
Walking home, I caught this shot of the Link heading north into the city.
And even there, on Renton, we got a little glimpse of beauty amongst the weeds. It's a kick, it is.
And it was late enough that the moon was out and I caught this hand-held picture from the sidewalk. Hahaha, think if I'd made the effort to get a tripod, mount it and then shoot the moon with the zoom pushed out to its farthest length.
POW!!
For sure we checked the Robin Tree (we have the Eagle Tree and now, forever more, we will have the Robin Tree) to see if they were still there and . . . they were!!
He rocks in the treetops all the day long
Hoppin' and a-boppin' and a-singing this song.
Every little bird, every little bee
Loves to hear the robin go Tweet-Tweet-Tweet.
Rockin' Robin, Tweet, Twiddley Dee
Rockin' Robin, Tweet, Twiddley Dee
Yeah go rockin' robin, really gonna rock tonight!!
Thank you, Hollies.
And, finally, another shot of the beautiful light we were treated to today.
This is the setting sun on the house directly across from ours on Renton Ave.
What a day. Nice walk, beautiful day, fun ride on a carousel and we got to see a miniature village from another day. What wasn't to like about it?
All in all a great time.
All in all, life is good.
Hooah!!
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