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Friday,
April 21, 2006

Seattle, Rock Two

Or, "Neat shit! Yay!"

First fun thing of the day was to head to Wallingford and visit with Vonda McIntyre, who was kind enough to offer herself as tour guide. After a quick trip on the 16 bus (which gave me a chance to ogle the architecture and people-watch -- yay!), we wound up on a rather steep little street thickly lined with lovely clapboard houses and riotously blooming front yards. After the expected picture-taking (hey, we live in Dallas -- that much vegetation ain't natural to our eyes), we found Vonda's place.

For those of you who haven't had the good luck to meet Vonda, she's warm, incredibly smart, funny, well-spoken, and has a disarming twinkle in her blue eyes. After I got a chance to admire the beaded sea creatures she makes and the beautiful painting that became the cover of THE MOON AND THE SUN, we decided to head off for lunch and adventure.

First stop was lunch at Ray's on the sound, where we had some absolutely faboo seafood (the Dungeness crab cake sandwich looked divine, but I had to try the fish and chips -- man, that was good) and even better talk about, well, everything. Well, you know what happens when you get a couple of writers together -- the conversation meanders all over the place. She told me about the local SF scene, and Seattle gained another brownie point in my mind.

Afterwards, we headed out to the deck so that Lyndon could take pictures of the sound and the Olympic mountain range, the latter just peeking out from the clouds. Vonda pointed out the cormorants and kingfishers that could be seen in the area, then swept us off to the nearby Golden Gardens park, where there's a native vegetation replanting project underway (I immediately thought of Elizabeth Moon's 80 acres).

We walked along the sound and talked about photography and the lack of shells on the shoreline, and this time I got to take lots o' pictures, including some great shots of a green, GREEN hillside against a perfectly azure sky. Sooooo pretty. There were also a slew of ducks and other birds about the place, and just being that close to a large body of water made this displaced Chicagoan's heart grow three sizes that day.

Next stop was Archie McPhee's in Ballard, where we stocked up on action figures for my Literary Coffeehouse room box, MS cases, and other cool stuff. I was surprised I got away with only spending $25 in that place. After a nice wander around the McPhee fabric showroom, it was time to head back to the room and get ready for a family dinner.

This...turned out to be slightly more problematic. I'd reserved a car at the downtown Alamo office, which was two blocks away at the Hilton Hotel, at 6:00 PM. What I DIDN'T know was that the office closed exactly at 6:00 PM, so there was nobody there when we showed up to get the keys. After a quick conference with the Hilton concierge (who was extraordinarily helpful -- if we come back here, we'll probably try staying at the Hilton), we got on a shuttle to the airport to pick up a car from the Alamo office there. Said bus wound around downtown dropping people off at the various hotels, which gave us a rather unexpected but nice tour, before finally heading off to Sea-Tac.

By now, we were more than a little late for dinner (which turned out to be okay, as my aunt Mary had called me and told me my aunt Margie would be late, so we weren't to feel rushed or anything, but was tweaking me something wicked). Got to Alamo, signed all the paperwork, picked up the keys for our midsize, got in it and WHOA. I can only assume that car was designed for children, because Lyndon was eating his knees, I couldn't move my seat back worth shit and my head kept bumping the ceiling. I knew I'd crack the damn thing up the moment I took it out on the road, so I stormed back to the desk and told them to upgrade me -- they gave me an SUV this time, which worked, and we finally got out on I-5.

After a brief detour onto the Seattle Bridge (don't ask), the nervous wreck behind the wheel and Lyndon finally got out to Mercer Island and my aunt's house. Neither of them had ever met Lyndon before, so there was a lot of hugging and welcoming noises, which was lovely. Since I was driving, I couldn't drink (unfortunately), so I settled for a Coke and some hummus while dinner (steak, salmon and a wonderful salad) was prepared. The meal itself was great, and we went over what had been going on in our respective lives, family history and a number of other things -- Mary's husband David turned out to be an SF fan, and brought out THE SPEED OF DARK when we talked about autism. I told him I knew the author and that she was coming to Seattle the next week for a book signing -- that went over well.

Finally, 11:30 PM rolled around, and after another round of hugs and reminders that there were lots of IT jobs in Seattle, we headed back towards the big lights across the water and our waiting hotel room. Tomorrow -- the Space Needle!