Seattle At Its Finest

A college friend of mine and her family came down to visit me yesterday and to see Seattle, as my friend Jeanne had never been.

My itinerary for the day was that we'd go to the Seattle Center, where the Space Needle is, ride the monorail over to another part of Seattle and then from there, walk down to Pike Place Market and see the original Starbucks. Beyond that, I wasn't really sure where to take them or how to entertain. I was hoping for inspiration. In that regard, Seattle did not disappoint.

I knew something was going on in Seattle when the traffic slowed down on the highway near our exit. We then proceeded to creep the ten miles towards the Space Needle, taking up 30-45 minutes of our afternoon. Swarms of people and cars were constantly around us all the way to the parking garage, next to the Seattle Center. Only when we were nearly to the parking garage were we finally enlightened as to what was going on: the Northwest Folklife Festival.

Jeanne asked me was "folklife" meant...my guess was earthy, "green," tree-huggers, bohemian type of people. Well...it was that but a bit more. Toss in some pot-loving, grunge-dressing, free-thinkers and you have almost a complete picture. There was literally a section that we had to walk through that was fragranced with the smell of pot. Not to mention that there were individuals trying to coax people to sign a petition to legalize marijuana. The highlight was when one such individual declared that "alcohol kills more individuals than marijuana." I kept laughing through our entire walk-through of the Seattle Center thinking that this little festival was showing my friends Seattle at its finest.

The rest of the Seattle excursion was good: we saw Pike Place as vendors were shutting down and joined the flock of Asians taking photos of the tiny original Starbucks, with the original scandalous logo.

Despite our interesting time in Seattle, I had a wonderful time seeing my dear friend again, getting to know her good husband even more, and being introduced to her babe. Conversation was good, laughter was present, and God is good!