Festival

During my previous stay in Seattle, I had bought tickets for two days of the Capitol Hill Block Party, a three day, four stage music festival in the streets of downtown Seattle. Friday was already sold out.

Music festivals are always a pleasant way to spend a few summer days, and the day after the event Erin was scheduled to fly in to meet me.

I couldn't afford another $150 per night motel stay, so I figured I was going to do some serious urban camping for the weekend.

But on my way back from Orcas I got some good news from Erin. It turns out some folks we know, Mike and Sarah, who moved from San Francisco to Seattle had offered up their Wallingford townhouse for us to stay in, and I was welcome to come and stay ahead of Erin's arrival. For some reason, I mistakenly thought they lived in a far flung suburb, so I never considered staying with them before.

To compliment that windfall, Mike also pulled some strings and got me a ticket for the otherwise sold out Friday shows. Things were shaping up nicely.

They weren't going to be home when I rolled into town, so they left a key for me under the mat.

I managed to find their neighborhood, but got turned around and almost knocked on the door of a house with the same address on the wrong street. So when I did find their townhouse, I was a little bit sheepish about just waltzing inside.

After a few hello, hello's, it seemed clear no one was home. I went upstairs and immediately recognized some art they had bought from Erin's restaurant, so I knew I was in the right place.

Whew.

Something else I noticed about their neighborhood... It was lovely. The houses dotting the shady street seemed to be built around the 1920's. One and two story single families with walk up porches and little grassy driveways that headed toward the back yard. After looking at a few real estate fliers over the past weeks, it seemed like home prices here were a good $200,000 below what they would be in San Francisco. They are still not cheap, but down into the realm of realistic.

This is the first time I had felt that I was in a city that I could both enjoy and afford (real estate-wise) at the same time. It was a new feeling.

Of course... there's the weather.

I have been getting a completely false impression of Seattle weather during my multiple stays. Every single day has been sunny and hot - generally in the low to mid 80's. All the Seattleites have been walking around in a euphoric daze shaking their heads at how nice the weather is. Clearly, I'm getting a skewed impression. Nevertheless, I like it.

After poking around on Google Maps' public transit feature, I was able to navigate the city bus system down to Capitol Hill to meet Mike and his friends within about thirty minutes.

I didn't recognize most of the bands on the bill except for MGMT, Atmosphere, and The Dead Weather. I was looking forward to hearing some new music. Luckily, Mike and his friends were pretty dialed in to the music scene and pulled me around to some good acts.

Here were some of my favorites:

• Victor Shade aka RA Scion - Absolutely awesome MC. To me he sounds a lot like Zach de la Rocha from Rage Against the Machine only with more of an old school hip hop feel.
  
• Head Like a Kite - Hipster producer Dave Enimo collaborates with a variety of artists to put out well-crafted Broken Soul / Hip Hop / Electro tracks. Some of those artists joined him on the Neumos stage.
• Atmosphere - Always high quality hip hop.
  
• Night Marchers - They sounded like punk to me, but their Myspace page lists them as Rock / Afro beat / Concrete. Maybe that's a joke. The lead singer looked like he walked right out of the suburbs of San Diego, which was in contrast their hard sound, but they had the tightest performance of any other band I heard.
  

Another popular attraction at the fair were the ever-present "street meat" sausage vendors. These guys are on the corners outside the bars in the neighborhood every night of the week, and they were slinging more dogs than ever for the special event. I had my fair share for sure. The traditional fixup in Seattle is a polish sausage with grilled onions and cream cheese. I have never heard of cream cheese on a sausage, but people sure did seem to love it.

The security staff seemed to have a rough time. Not because of the crowd. They were pleasant for the most part. But because of all the crazy rules they were required to enforce. There was a bit of a rat maze that one had to navigate to get from alcohol to non-alcohol areas of the event, and from indoor events to outdoor events. By the last day, the rules seemed to have gotten more strict and the staff seemed tired of debating with attendees about the rationale for all of them.

On the last night, after the final show we saw at Neumos, we strolled out the exit door where workmen were packing up the outdoor part of the event, and the street meat vendor was still hard at work. I said, "It smells like wieners out here!" The security guard laughed out loud. Hopefully I cheered him up a little.

I might make a tradition of this annual festival. Good times.

In between concert days, I got to take advantage of the warm weather. Believe it or not, Seattle has a proper beach called Golden Gardens near Ballard. It comes complete with sand, ice cream vendors, and boats that sail right up to shore. I imagine it's pretty vacant most of the year. But when it's 85 degrees, even on a weekday, the parking lot is full and white-skinned sun worshipers abound. I plopped down to join them for a bit.

Ballard also has locks, those cool water elevators for boats. Apparently the lakes around the city are controlled by dams, so the water level of the lakes is slightly higher than the Puget Sound. It's fun to watch boats (and even kayaks) sail into the locks, then float up to lake level to be set free. Only a few steps away is the fish ladder. Boats aren't the only things that need a lift. Salmon swimming upstream to spawn also need some help, so the city built a neighboring water staircase so the salmon can hop back up to their spawning grounds in the lake. It seemed like such a modern day environmentalist idea. But the ladder was actually built in 1917.

While I was in Ballard, I made it a point to stop into that guitar shop I had seen on my last visit. I walked in, and Robb the owner was in there alone plucking out an impressive folksy solo. I smiled and took a lap around the store looking for something in my price range. It was clear many of them weren't - many of them over a thousand dollars. When he finished his song, I explained to him that I was a beginner, but that I'd like a decent instrument to practice on without spending too much. He spent about an hour with me talking about guitars and what might work. He showed me one he thought was appropriate and offered to re-string and adjust it for me. It would be even better than it was from the factory. I knew that if I was to buy an instrument, I'd like for it to be from someone like Robb. He lives and breathes fine guitars and knows as much as anyone I'd ever have access to. He clearly wouldn't deliver an instrument he wasn't proud of. He is also an avid outdoorsman and we chatted about my trip and places I might visit after leaving Seattle. He scribbled a map of some mountains near Crater Lake we might like to explore. I bought the guitar, thanked him and headed off feeling like my mission was accomplished. Now all I need to do is learn how to play it properly.

The next morning, Erin flew in to meet me and drive the final week of my trip with me. We spent next two days retracing some of my steps. I wanted to show her the places I thought she'd love, like Fremont Vintage Mall, an awesome second hand store full of fantastic treasures. I was right. She loved it.

We also got to spend some quality time with Mike and Sarah who showed us their favorite neighborhood spots, The Latona in Green Lake and Ivar's Salmon House, a great place to eat on a nice day right on Lake Union. They have a dock at the restaurant, and a steady stream of boats floated in and tied up to have a bite or a happy hour drink.

In between our sunny walks by the lake in Fremont and lunch at Pike Place Market, we managed to outline a plan for our travel over the next week. We'd head for Columbia Gorge in northern Oregon and then Crater Lake in the south, before heading toward the redwood forests or possibly the Rogue River valley.

The morning we left Seattle, it was finally overcast and gloomy. I was glad I got to see the city in its natural and usual state, and also glad it was only for a few hours.

Southward, Rusty.