The Seattle Aquarium

The first day of our staycation, necessitated by my injured leg, involved hitting the Seattle Aquarium. If we're stuck anywhere without much walking, doing the touristy things with the kids is definitely the way to go.

Kouryou-chan and diver

Our visit started with a nasty surprise: a dead cocker spaniel floating in the water under the aquarium. (We later confirmed with one of the staff that that's what it was.) Once inside, though it was a much cleaner world. Inside the foyer is a huge plexiglassed-in aquarium and through it we watched a diver feed the fish and anemones while she talked to the kids about what she was doing.

Yamaarashi-chan touches a starfish

Further inside there was the tidepool area, where the kids entertained themselves touching the starfish and other tidepool life the aquarium had determined was safe to touch, plus a large octopus and other miscellany. We walked among the "weird fish" exhibit and the tidal reef exhibits, and learned that one of the staff at the Seattle Aquarium is the "official studbook keeper for the seahorse," which doesn't sound like a very effective pick-up line, if you ask me.

We went to lunch at a fast-food joint further down the waterfront from the aquarium, then headed back for the afternoon shows. We sat in the underwater dome (which at its top is less than a foot underwater, but it's still a cool feat of engineering) and watched another feeding. I watched a starfish eat, that was pretty cool. Then we went to the mammals section, saw the otters and the seals and the sea lions. There was a demonstration with the seals about feeding them and habituating them to medical attention.

I had a chance to speak with three of the biologists on staff at different occasions. All of them said we ought to be very worried about the acidification of the oceans and the loss of phytoplankton on the surface. As in no-shit-the-70's-ecodisaster-folks-were-right worried.

But there was very little of that visible within the aquarium. It was all very much a happy place, with the only concerns being minimized throughout the exhibits. It was one of the things that annoyed me the most: there wasn't much of an attempt to educate the audience, just entertain. Look at the octopus, isn't he big? Look at the otter, isn't he cute? There were a few child-friendly "You can help save the watersheds!" scattered here and there, but right outside, under the pier, you could see a vast wasteland of plastic and waste wood that belied the cheerful reticence of the aquarium to be a bummer. The cynic in me says that the board, made up as it is of people from Boeing, Microsoft, and other corporate interests, don't want to alarm the people too much. Omaha says I'm too cynical: it's just that they believe the audience doesn't care.

They're probably right. And they won't care until soylent green is people.

The Seattle Underground Tour

The second day of our staycation we'd planned on doing the Seattle Underground Tour. We arrived around two, having taken the light rail into the city, only to discover that the first tour with any openings was the 4pm. Drat.

Chess Game

So we wandered the city. First stop, Utilikilts, where I surveyed the assortment and settled on a charcoal Mocker, 38x23, but I didn't have enough cash on me at the time to pick it up. Some other day, then. We walked past the glassblower's place and finally wound up back at the bus tunnel. We hopped the train to Westlake, which is one of the city's major centers, sat and ate lunch, mocked a woman trying to be Seattle's answer to Snooki, stopped at See's candies to buy truffles and chocolate, and watched a chess game. The weather was beautiful, and we had a pretty good time running around. The brace around my ankle is doing pretty well.

We did the underground tour finally. It consists of being led through three ruined basements under the original commercial district of Seattle, while the tour guide tells you about the wild and wooly origins of our young city. And a wooly tale it is, too, with people stealing each other's bars, women, and sheep. Lots of mean jokes about the city to our south, Tacoma. Miscellaneous ghost stories. And how the founder of our city was a madam who donated the founding foundation that funds our school system-- yet there isn't a school in the city with her name on it. Wonder why?

One thing that caught my eye was a bar. The tour guide told us that the bar wasn't part of the original tour, but had been left here by a film crew doing a shoot of Kolchak the Nightstalker. I was a longtime Kolchak fan and thought that was the coolest thing I'd seen yet.

We took the train home. I spotted five of those new Rapid-Ride buses in the Metro refit lot (we call them "bus barns," although I'm not sure why) we're supposed to be getting in 2013; I'd kinda like them now, thank you. We got home late and ate tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Definitely something that hit the spot.