Some good luck for some hapless boys

As I mentioned last time, I got to go to a Rockies game during a short Denver interlude in my Colorado "vacation." The poor guys are having a miserable year, but the ballpark is beautful, the guys are (mostly) fun to watch...AND, we brought them luck in the guise of a smashing 11-4 victory! Yes, they should pay us to come to games all the time.

Those eleven runs were generated in part by 5 homers by the good guys. The ballpark has a neat feature to celebrate Rox home runs...not as wild as the old Astrodome scoreboard, but more in keeping with the nearby mountain scenery:

fountains erupt when Rox go yard

We got to see another interesting feature of the ballpark on a stroll around the Wells Fargo Club level, where our great seats were thanks to a friend's fortunate status. Here's the control room, not of Cape Canaveral, but where this small army of technocrats operates all the many screens on offer around the park:

this would be an interesting place to work, don't you think?

I really think they have too many of these devices distracting from the game (especially between innings) although I find the out-of-town scoreboard and the strikeout tallies interesting. But I've never seen where the sausage is made for these things before. Fascinating!

One good use of the video board is to show closeups of the musicians playing the national anthem. This night it was a fine brass ensemble...

Altogether a fine, fun evening at one of my favorite ballparks. And in the company of some of my favorite people...

Starting out from a Mile High

We took a quick trip to Colorado last week that was supposed to be mostly for work purposes (arranging for the exterior painting of our cabin in Garfield—which we really couldn't do in January due to the enormous amount of snow hiding most of the walls to be painted!).

But it turned out to offer lots of opportunities for fun along the way as well, which I'll tell you about in upcoming posts.

However, even our first day in the Centennial State was more enjoyable than anticipated.

It started at the glorious Denver International Airport; it's one of our favorites—gigantic but well-laid out and clearly signed, spacious with lots of eating and entertainment options, should you ever be stuck there (as we occasionally have been)—but its main drawback is its location, on land that seems like it's hours from downtown.

But even that minus has been at least somewhat mitigated by the city's light rail extension. You can catch it in the new airport station, down an escalator from the gorgeous new onsite hotel pictured above. Here's another shot of it:

And, since we are old ^{[citation needed]} it doesn't even cost very much to ride in comfort all the way to LoDo and the main station downtown. (We found out later that it was even a better bargain than we first thought—more about that later.)

Incidentally, long-time readers will remember that LoDo is the home of Coors Field, the fabulous Rockies ballpark. Unfortunately a game wasn't on our schedule this trip, but we did get a glimpse of the stadium from the train...

Since we were meeting our adorable grand-nieces down there for a late breakfast, taking the train was a no-brainer...

cute twin great-nieces enjoy the fountain near Union Station

We also had another errand to run in the area: Henry needed new hiking boots. His old ones had been glued together with contact cement a few months earlier but that hadn't proved to be a permanent fix. So how handy that Denver's main REI store is within walking distance (just barely) from the train station.

It did turn out to be a longer walk (with giant suitcase) than anticipated, but it allowed us to see more of LoDo, including this charming mosaic as we walked under an overpass...

The flagship REI where new boots were purchased is a tourist attraction on its own...

...located in a turn-of-the-20th-century building, and including its own climbing wall. There's also some neat gear and gear/vehicles on display, like this nifty trailer...

...plenty for me to look at while Henry boot-shopped.

There are also helpful staff members who can tell you where to get a bus back to Union Station (which we should have thought about taking the other way!). And since our senior train ticket is also good for bus rides all day, it was free!

AND, that's not all that we got out of our $4.50. It also provided us with free bus transportation all the way from Union Station in LoDo to Longmont, where a friend picked us up and hosted us for the first two days of our excursion. More about this exciting and non-work-related side trip next time.

Sam Diego panoramas

I thought I would mix up posts about my coast-to-coast travels a bit. After spending a wonderful two weeks in Portland, ME, with the Adorable Granddaughter and her Fabulous Parents, I had a wonderful few days in San Diego, CA. (More about the reason for this cross-country trek later.)

What a beautiful city this is! In a location that's not only gorgeous but topographically very interesting. Here is a shot from near the tip of Point Loma, the little peninsula that shelters the entrance to San Diego Bay. 

The spit of land sticking out on the left is part of the Point Loma Navy base, and the large lobe coming straight at you is the bulbous tip of the Coronado Peninsula, where there is also a substantial Naval installation. 

(Yes, you can't miss the fact that the Navy is very big around here. We saw this big guy [cruiser?destroyer? despite all my WWI and WWII reading I still get all these types of ships mixed up] steam into the harbor while we were on Point Loma, and I have the feeling that it's not an unusual sight...)

The main attraction at the end of Point Loma is the Cabrillo National Monument. I'll have a lot more to show you from this fascinating piece of real estate in future posts. (Some of my long-time readers might find the Cabrillo name familiar; there is a Point Cabrillo 'way up the coast in northern California and I visited it 3 years ago. An admittedly quick and sketchy search couldn't confirm this, but I suspect the Cabrillo that both of these areas were named for is this guy, a very interesting early intrepid explorer of the California coast.)

Here is a panoramic shot that shows not only the city across the bay, but also the Cabrillo Memorial that's sort of the centerpiece of the Monument; it's the white statue in the mid-ground:

We spent a delightful day exploring this extremely varied gem of the National Park Service (your tax dollars at work): it offers not only great views, but also an interesting little historical museum; not one, but two lighthouses (as long-time readers know, one of my favorite types of scenic structures); an amazing tide pool area; and even some WWII bunkers. I'll show and tell more about these other attractions in future posts.

But for now, here are a couple more panoramic shots of the city of San Diego from Point Loma...

...as well as another shot of the city at sunset, taken (as was the photo at the top of the post) from the roof of our rather luxurious hotel...

Another example of its luxuriousness is this wonderful window wall in our room...

all the palm trees around town were a shock to my system
after two weeks in wintry Maine!

But I do need to tell you the reason for this seemingly random flight across the the country (the first time, as far as I can recall, that I ever flew coast to coast).

The timing worked out for me to fly straight to San Diego instead of coming home first, so that I could bid an official farewell to Henry's amazing Aunt Lucy. Her memorial service was just down the street from our hotel, in this city that she loved. 

As you can tell from this glowing obituary in the LA Times, she had accomplishments that could easily have spilled over into several lifetimes. What an honor to be even tangentially related to such a lady!

But what I love best about the obit is the picture of her that I've borrowed here. That's how I always think of her: smiling, if not outright laughing, and finding so much joy in life. 

She was a marvelous host when we visited San Diego several years ago (in pre-blog days), obtaining great tickets for Sally and me to attend two Astros/Padres games in their fabulous downtown ballpark, within walking distance from her apartment. As well as showing us all around the city and the gorgeous nearby Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve.

This current visit to San Diego was impoverished by not having her as a tour guide, but we enjoyed reminiscing with family and friends about her wonderful life.

Greater Seattle

After our day of sight-seeing in the big city, we moved our bases of operation to the southern part of Puget Sound in anticipation of wedding festivities in and around Centralia. And we found, to our delight, that there was plenty to see in that area, too.

The shot above is of a busy marina in Olympia, with the extremely handsome Washington state capitol in the background. Yes, the clouds have returned, but we still dodged the rain bullet, and only got slightly sprinkled on during our excursions in the area.

Olympia isn't just the state capital, but also a bustling port. In addition to marinas like the one shown above, there were also some larger vessels loading here. And I expect the most common cargo must be enormous logs like these...

While walking the length of one block in Olympis (admittedly slowly, since the granddaughter had to stop frequently and do a lot of dirt and rock examining, as well as climb up and run down any incline numerous times) we saw 2 or 3 of these trucks heading for the docks...

They have a LOT of really big trees up here! And I'll show you some of them (still in the ground) in a future post.

We were pretty impressed with Olympia—they have a nice farmer's market, coffee-snob-approved coffee shops, and a terrific children's museum where we spent most of a day with the grandchild. And we also had a big family lunch at Tugboat Annie's, a funkily authentic seafood eatery right on the water, complete with cute decorative touches and great food...

note the personalized Texas plate that reads "San Antonio" on the far right

I have kids who agree that "beer is the answer..."

It's actually pretty easy to be "on the water" around here, and it's not surprising that they have such great seafood*...take a look at this map of the Sound posted at a waterfront park:

so many little inlets, sloughs (no doubt!) and lakes!

*Although it's apparently not all locally sourced! Here's a display that caught our eye in the Pike Market:

I wonder if they were shipped in on the same plane as our Maine-rs?

Finishing up my impressions of Olympia, you just can't say enough about their capitol building. Isn't it a handsome structure? And in a great setting...

capitol from across its lake, in the parking area for Heritage Park
(note, again, the clear blue sky!)

from a neighboring street (we don't know what the pinwheels are for;
 some kind of protest or memorial?)

Centralia, where the wedding festivities happened, has its interesting aspects, too. In fact, right across the street from our Centralia Square Ballroom and Hotel (it's so nice to be quartered in the same venue as the event!) was a lovely little park with not only lots of wonderful flowers and trees (more about these in later posts), but also a very intriguing set of memorials. 

Part of it is a somewhat traditional listing of the war dead of  of the area...

and that's a handsome Carnegie Library (built in 1911) in the background

Here's another shot of the slab with the names listed, and with members of younger generations in the background...

The statue, however, doesn't memorialize war dead, at least not directly. It seems that on Armistice Day, 1919, just a year after the end of World War I, there was a violent labor confrontation in this quiet little town, between American Legionnaires and members of the IWW, or "Wobblies." Here's Wikipedia's information on the incident. 

The memorial lists names of the marching veterans who were killed in the riot:

Later a Wobbly was taken from the local jail and lynched, as well. Another, more lurid, account of the incident was painted on a wall of our very hotel, a mural facing the square and providing one side of a lovely veranda where it was quite nice for us to sit and wait for the wedding fun to begin...

two flower girls wait for their big moment

Believe me, it caused quite a bit of puzzlement as we sat and relaxed. I think you'll agree if you study the reproduction in the link above. It was good to find that link and get a full explanation of its symbolism, although we did have some ideas about its subject matter after we visited the memorial across the street. 

Fascinating small-town history, indeed!

The hotel was a very interesting place, recently refurbished but retaining a lot of its 1920's charm (and lack of amenities: no TVs—not missed—or elevator!).

And across the street was that lovely park, where the big attraction is a marvelous, massive, cherry tree in full bloom! You can see some of it in this shot I took of the hotel façade (along with a glimpse of that mural). 

More about cherry blossoms, and other fabulous Washington spring flowers, next time!

Seattle Sights

Yes, that city under the astonishingly clear blue sky is Seattle. I had a delightful time in the greater metro area last week, and it didn't rain a drop on us! 

The occasion was a nephew's wedding (Congratulations, Matt and Danaé!) but I was lucky enough to be able to add on some sight-seeing days. So fun family (and granddaughter!) time was made even more enjoyable in this great setting.

Since we were almost always in the company of small children, we perhaps didn't see the kind of sights we might have chosen were we on our own. (Although some adult spots were visited, like the original Starbucks, shown on the left with one of their best customers.)

And I'm really sorry we weren't able to get up north to see Amy and her tulips, but the traffic was a challenge even for the adults in the party; asking the little ones to bear with that much more of it was a bridge too far.

As you might know if you have taken kiddos to new places, there are compensations. It really is fun to show them new things, and watch them have new experiences.

For example, we had a nice lunch at Lowell's in the Pike Market, and even the youngest enjoyed its incomparable views. That's Grammy with one of her granddaughters at the window on the right.

And here's what you could see through one of those nice windows:

There aren't too many places, certainly not near where we live, where you can see such an gorgeous amalgam of natural beauty and human-made awesomeness. Here's a look out another Lowell's window...

Unfortunately the ferris wheel and the adjoining aquarium will have to wait a few years until our next generation is a little older and taller (although they probably wouldn't be intimidated by the ride even now—they're pretty fearless).

On my only previous visit to Seattle I had to miss out on the Pike Market since I was there for a work meeting. So I was especially glad to be able see it this time, both inside...

...and out:

The rest of downtown Seattle is pretty photogenic, too. I like both the old buildings...

...and the new...

aren't those blocky protuberances interesting?
I wonder what the views are like from inside them

...as well as the generously sprinkled pieces of public art, like this driftwood whale...

...and this perfect meeting place landmark (really handy when you're trying to keep track of several different groups of relatives!):

There are two other, even more iconic Seattle symbols and we got to see one up close. I'll tell you about that next time. 

The other one is a little farther away, and it sometimes isn't even visible, but at least on this clearest of our days, we could see it...

That's the downtown viaduct (that we learned is in the process of getting buried!) on the left in the foreground, and the stadiums for the Sounders, Seahawks, and Mariners in the near background. The big guy in the far background is, of course, Mt. Rainier, such an amazing sight it looks almost like a fake piece of stagecraft. The highest point (!) in an area that's blessed with so much wonderful scenery. I'll be showing you samples of this variety in the next several posts.