Trip to Seattle: Queen Anne's hill

I got back from my trip to Seattle to visit blogfriends Kimberly and Paul and to play for the Cascadia English Country Dance weekend.

I was going to stay one more day but I was so overstimulated I had to come home and blog in bed where it is very, very quiet. The weather is just as bad here as the weather I fled in Seattle!

The weather was wonderful at first, and vistas from the airplane were spectacular.

I had three clear, warm, sunny days for rambles in the "Music and Cats" neighborhood.


Kimberly and Paul live on the top of Queen Anne hill. I'd like to say historic buildings are its focal point, but frankly I was more impressed with the many gigantic cellphone towers.

They're actually quite cool close up and they would make excellent landmarks if there weren't so many of them.

Cell phone reception is superb throughout Seattle. I never saw less than maximum bars! By contrast, here in my house, I have only one poor little bar. Sometimes no bars at all.


This guy was expending as little energy as possible while watering his plants.


The mapping programs haven't really figured out that many streets on the hill are conceptual only. "You can't get there from here."

For instance, on the backside of the hill there are quite a few real, official road signs, stuck in grass by the side of the road you're walking on, indicating cross streets which, in fact, if you look to your right and left, do not exist at all in that particular location.

I figured out that these road signs mean: "Perpendicular to your current location, on the other side of the mountain, there is a street of this name."



On THIS side, however, there is often a cliff or a set of stairs on the downhill side...




And a garage carved into the side of the hill on the uphill side.

This is extremely entertaining as long as there's nowhere in particular that you have to be.






If you look closely you will see an "Impeach Bush" sticker in the window here as a sort of public service announcement. It improved my already good mood.


In my neighborhood, you can't find "hand-crafted groceries."


On the other hand, I bet you can't get pork rinds packaged in cellophane in Kimberly and Paul's neighborhood. Life is full of trade-offs.


Neighborhood watch.


I felt jealous of this excellent retaining wall made from pieces of a demolished parking lot. It looked great.

This is a building material which has not yet achieved boutique status - hurry, load up your truck before they start selling old concrete by the pound.


This artist was moving fast, cleaning her equipment as I walked past.


This sort of view, every day? On your daily walk?


Guest towel at the "Music and Cats" house...


I never saw a soul in this restaurant in all the many times I walked past it. Funny how blasé people seem to get, living next to the best calzones on earth.

Or maybe I misunderstood the sign, and it's more of an historical marker - that's to say, the world's best calzone was here once, but it's gone now.

UPDATE: Speaking as a mother, I can't say I'm sorry that El Borracho Guapo has disappeared. Better now than later, wouldn't you think? And if Melina is right and El Borracho has found this blog: Go get some help, young man!



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