Retroblogging the megatrip: part 8a

So by the time we were rolling into Sidney for our ferry ride on July 16th, I was ready to hit the road again. Not that I didn't have a fantastic time visiting in BC, but it had been almost three weeks since we'd been out on the open road fending for ourselves and it was a part of the trip that I was looking forward to doing more of.

The last day that we had spent roaring around Sidney and Victoria didn't quite go as scheduled. We ended up spending a bit more time than planned doing pretty much everything so we were in a bit of a rush to get to the terminal. We picked up some drive-through for the kids and got in line. Someone immediately dumped a ketchup-laden burger all over themselves and the van and I just about lost it. Or I lost it and just about really lost it. Regardless, everyone eventually got fed, we hit the ferry shop for some ice cream, got out of the van for some fresh air and waited. Eventually, we got on the boat (it was not even close to full - the side ramps loaded cars up onto the second deck but the bottom car deck was almost completely empty) and set up camp. The kids were spazzing out because we had taken away their Pokémon cards on our way into Grand Forks (the boys were fighting over them all the time and it was distracting them from having good visits) and we had told them that we'd give them back on the boat. We figured it would help keep them busy for most of the sailing, but they started fighting again after a short time and gave up on the cards. We took to wandering around the boat even though there wasn't much boat to explore - there was certainly no awesome Passages Gift Shop to explore or White Spot diner à la BC Ferries. After that, Max and I played some Crazy 8s while Leo and Henry coloured.

A few of the highlights of the trip were seeing a yacht along the way that the kids thought was a pirate ship (a picture is below), stopping off at Friday Harbour on San Juan Island - it seems like so many of the other Gulf Islands, it's a haven for artisans and enthusiasts of the outdoors - and checking out the main car deck, where the wind was whipping through hard enough to just about knock the kids over.

This picture is taken in Anacortes, where we took a wrong turn down the main drag and ended up here at a sort of dry dock/shipyard with some massive ships being fixed up or something. A pretty impressive sight to see them out of the water and up in the air like that.

After we got on the road, we knew it would be a long haul into the Seattle area and it had already been a pretty long day so we had a gas station pit stop before hitting the interstate and then the kids all conked out right away. Holly wanted to grab some Zs too but before nodding off, asked me to wake her up when we were getting close so that we could do some Hotwiring on the way into town. So my Spitz, my iPod and I got all the way down to the 405 split-off before we got online and found a nice cheap option in Auburn, a little bit southeast of Seattle. The price was definitely right so we bit. Another pro: we found our first North Carolina plate in the parking lot. Con: they gave us a room with a single bed so Holly had to argue over the booking while someone else was trying (with their "friend") to get an hourly rate. The room had almost 0 amenities...actually 0 if you didn't count everything bolted to a floor or wall. This was the hotel room that duked it out with that hole in Drumheller for the worst place we stayed on the whole trip. Thanks a lot, Cedars Inn Auburn.

The next morning, we helped ourselves to everything the lobby had to offer in way of a "continental breakfast" (let's just say that the free "breakfast" was the same quality as the room) and we scrammed into Seattle. The 5 is such a tease - so much traffic and you're always so close to that beautiful city. It beckons "come visit, it's only 3 miles to the next exit...how long could that possibly take?" (answer: 30 minutes). We eventually got into the Seattle Centre area where most of the tourist attractions are conveniently located. Our first stop was supposed to be the EMP Museum before we moved on to maybe the Space Needle or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Visitor Centre. The EMP is a museum "dedicated to the ideas and risk-taking that fuel contemporary popular culture" and probably one of my happiest places in the whole world. It was very kind of Holly to suggest scheduling this first so that I could be adrenalized by whatever was inside. I'd say that if we were to guess, I would have been 100% satisfied by whatever was going on, the kids maybe 40-60% and Holly in the same range. After going in, here's what they had to offer:

Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic, an exhibit on the inspiration behind fantasy’s most magnificent creations, including maps, costumes, and manuscript pages.

An exhibit on Nirvana bringing punk music to the masses

Block By Block: Inventing Amazing Architecture, an exhibit on some of the world's greatest buildings built to scale using LEGO bricks

Spectacle: The Music Video, a sprawling exhibit on the history of music videos "as an important and influential art form in contemporary culture"

and all the rest of the standard awesome music stuff that's on display year-round.
Needless to say, our satisfaction levels all reached 100% within the first hour or so. We spent the rest of our day there and never made it anywhere else! I almost started weeping; it was all so beautiful. Here's what we got up to:

Leo hamming it up outside the EMP. The building itself was designed by famed architect Frank O. Gehry. The grounds around it have lovely public art everywhere.

In the Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic exhibit, they had some very cool interactive games - one gave you the opportunity to determine which fantasy archetype you embodied and another gave users the chance to design a map of their own fantasy world. All of the boys' maps were awesome.

Here are some of the cool costumes and artifacts they had on display: this is from The Wizard of Oz

Prototypes of cards from Magic: The Gathering

Cersei Lannister's gown from GoT

Tyrion Lannister's doublet from GoT

And the pièces de resistance for Holly: a trove of goodies from The Princess Bride

The boys in the Sky Church, taking in some performances on the insanely large screen.

Yep, that's a scale model of the Space Needle made of LEGO. Some of the buildings on display were stunning.

Not only did they have all sorts of buildings constructed by a professional designer, but they had bins and bins of LEGO for anyone to use to make their own buildings and put on display.

It's possible Leo enjoyed himself in the Lego room

Henry was definitely getting in on the action too.

The boys kicked back and watched a documentary about Dan Parker, the guy who built the scale models, and his passion for LEGO in general and how he built it into his livelihood as a LEGO artist.

Leo listening to the art piece "If VI Was IX"

A close up of the crazy tower of instruments

The boys loved all of the guitars.

Leo, getting exposed to some of the greatest music videos of all time. This is the display for a-ha's "Take on Me".

Leo and Henry, mesmerized by their tenth viewing of "This Too Shall Pass" by Ok Go!.

Naturally, they had a whole shrine dedicated to local boys Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

This is a map of all the places around the state where they filmed their videos.

One of the LEGO constructions used in the White Stripes' "Fell in Love With a Girl" video.

Henry rocking out under shots from the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" video.

On the top floor of the EMP, there are a bunch of sound stages where visitors can try their hands at playing guitars, keyboards and drums. There was also this giant table in the middle of the floor where if you passed your hands in the various lit spots around the table, different sorts of percussion would play. Henry spent almost half an hour playing here.

And then there was Max.  The poor guy spent something like 20-30 minutes for his turn in one of the private drumming rooms.  I'm not sure what the hold-up was, but he was desperate to play.  Eventually, he got his chance (while I took the other boys to do the thing pictured below) and Holly captured him in all his Whiplash glory.  You tell me, IS HE RUSHING OR DRAGGING???

There was a giant computer station set up in the hallway on the top floor where visitors could select a category (like "Best song to wake up to") and search through a massive database to nominate a song. The nominated song would get posted on the screen along with your name for other people to see (and maybe vote along with). I think the system tallied votes over the course of a day and then reset in the morning. When we stopped by, "The Pokemon Theme Song" was killing it in the "Best Breakup Song" category (huh?) The above pictures show the four songs we threw up on the big board.

The boys' first official viewing of "Gangnam Style".

Leo, watching Bjork's stereoscopic 3-D video for "Wanderlust"

The big boys, popping' tags with only $20 in their pockets.

Hmm. I bet this smelled like R. Kelly's sheets...but it was 99 cents!

Well, Seattle, it was short (way too short), but it was so sweet. I can't wait to come back again. Next time, on top of spending a day at EMP, I'll be sure to schedule in a few more days to see the rest of the beautiful city.

Holly adds: John could easily have spent a full day taking in all of the music videos. I think Kerry's mind would also have been blown by that exhibit. It was one of those days that we just needed more time without those pesky things like eating and napping. Definitely a highlight of the trip for all of us!

Next up: eastern Washington!