For the past few months I've been writing for Walking in Seattle, a blog that focuses on news and issues relevant to pedestrians and other walkers in the city.
When I started the blog, I expected to mostly use it to share various walking routes in the city as a way to get me to go out and discover new places to walk and then to share them with others. As the blog has evolved it has included more references to content from local news sources.
It takes a lot of time to write for Walking in Seattle, but it's something I've enjoyed doing. Also, the content fills a niche, as the number of subscribers in Google Reader has grown above 30 (this blog by comparison has 9).
Over the next few months I will be making some improvements to Walking in Seattle and hope to continue to deliver good content for people interested in walking in Seattle.
We moved to Seattle in February 2008 and shared blog posts and photos during our first few years in Seattle.
- Troy & Lesley H
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Writing for Walking in Seattle
Posted by Troy at 4:00 PM
Friday, October 29, 2010
Seattle best city for trick-or-treaters
Posted by Lesley at 4:00 PM
I've never been that interested in trick-or-treating, but apparently Seattle is the best city in the country to do it according to a study by an online housing blog. The study calculates the "Zillow Trick-or-Treat Housing Index" using four equally weighted data variables: Zillow Home Value Index, population density, Walk Score, and local crime data from Relocation Essentials. Based on those variables, the Index represents cities that will provide the most candy, with the least walking and safety risks. San Francisco, Portland, San Jose, and Denver rounded out the top 5 cities.
The study ranked the individual neighborhoods in each of the top 20 cities as well. The top 5 Seattle neighborhoods to trick-or-treat in are Wallingford, Ballard, Queen Anne, Roosevelt, and Ravenna. I'm not at all surprised that Wallingford is at the top of the list since it's very family friendly and there are lots of nice homes in the area. Ballard is a very safe and walkable area as well, with lots of families. We were in the Queen Anne area this past weekend and saw lots of Halloween decorations on many of the houses there. Halloween and trick-or-treating seem to be a big deal here in Seattle.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Going to Game 3 of the World Series!
Posted by Lesley at 12:00 PM
Last week my Dad said I should fly back to Texas if the Rangers made it to the World Series and he could get me a ticket, but I figured it wasn't possible since plane tickets would cost over $450. Then the Rangers won the ALCS last Friday night to make it to their first World Series in franchise history. And then the San Francisco Giants won the NLCS on Saturday night. My friend Megan said I should fly back for a World Series game and that gave me the idea to ask if she could get me free round trip airfare through Southwest Airlines since she works there. Luckily she had a free pass and was incredibly nice to offer it to me! So, that means I'll be going to Game 3 of the World Series this Saturday between the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants! Who would have thought two of my favorite baseball teams would make it to the World Series in the same year?!
So, I'll be flying in tomorrow night around 8:30 pm and leave Sunday morning at 9:10 am, with a stop in Albuquerque each way. Not only will I see the first ever World Series game at the Ballpark in Arlington, but I'll get to see my niece, Evie! She's already over 8 months old and starting to stand on her own and even make word-like sounds! I'm really excited about seeing her, my sister, and Mom and Dad. I'll also be having dinner with Megan after she picks me up from the airport. It should be a lot of fun!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Rangers in the World Series
Posted by Troy at 4:00 PM
The Texas Rangers have made it all the way to the World Series and it has been a lot of fun to watch them over the last few weeks. While we both rooted for the Rangers back in Texas, when we moved here we decided to adopt the Mariners as our favorite team. Until this year, neither of these two teams had made it to the World Series, they're not exactly the most successful franchises.
The Mariners just finished a 100-loss season, so it wasn't that much fun watching them this last summer. It is exciting to have a good baseball team to root for now, though, and to be able to watch the Rangers in the playoffs on national TV. I wish they could've been more successful when we lived there, but we'll be rooting for them this World Series.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Went to a pumpkin patch!
Posted by Lesley at 8:00 AM
Troy and I went to a pumpkin patch this past Saturday. There are tons of them in the area and we'd never been to one before, so we decided to go to the Craven Farm in Snohomish, about 30 miles to the northeast. The drive was pretty with lots of colorful trees all red, orange, and yellow. We got there and the parking lot was intimidatingly full. Once we got inside, there was so much stuff going on and so many people there that we didn't know what to do first.
We made our way to the pumpkin patch that seemed to go on for miles. I couldn't believe how many pumpkins of all shapes and sizes there were! Some were as small as two fists and others were the size of two basketballs. There were probably over 5,000 pumpkins there to choose from. I guess we could have bought one to carve or make food from, but we didn't bother with it. Last time we had a carved pumpkin in our apartment, it started to smell after a few days.
Other things we could have done included a hay ride, corn maze, pumpkin slinging, face painting, and seeing baby livestock. I was interested in the corn maze, but we didn't have rain boots on and it was probably pretty muddy in there from the recent rain we've had. I snacked on some roasted corn and Troy got two donuts, including a pumpkin one.
The only thing I was disappointed with was the lack of a nice set for taking pictures. It sounds corny, but I wanted a picture of Troy and I sitting on some hay with pumpkins around us. Oh well, maybe next year we can try out a different pumpkin patch. It was a fun experience this year and definitely worth doing at least once.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Produce Box
Posted by Troy at 5:00 PM
I picked the box up after work on Thursday and brought it home. It was a pretty big box so we had to rearrange the fridge to fit everything inside. The box included quite a lot of vegetables and fruit:
- Yukon Gold Potatoes, Organic - 1.5 pounds
Farmer's Own Organics, Seattle, Washington. - Bunched Carrots, Organic - 1 bunch
Lakeside Organic Gardens, Watsonville, California. - Green Chard, Organic - 1 bunch
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington. - Celery, Organic - 1 each
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington. - Spinach, Organic - 1 bunch
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington. - Green Bell Peppers, Organic - 2 each
Siri and Sons, Clackamas, Oregon. - Romaine Lettuce, Organic - 1 bunch
Lakeside Organic Gardens, Watsonville, California. - Delicata Squash, Organic - 1 each
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington. - Red Flame Grapes, Organic - 0.75 pound
Delano Farms, Delano, California. - Dapple Dandy Pluots, Organic - 3 each
Okanogan Producers, Okanogan, Washington. - D'anjou Pears, Organic - 3 each
Nicholson's Orchard Fresh, Peshastin, Washington. - Fuji Apples, Organic - 3 each
Earth Conscious Organics, Brewster, Washington.
With our coupon, we were automatically signed up for to get a new box every two weeks. It costs $32 each time, so I'm not sure how long we'll stay subscribed, but considering the amount of food, the price is probably competitive with the grocery store. It's also nice to get two weeks worth of high-quality produce without having to go to the store to pick it out. And, since the contents of the produce box vary depending on what is in season, we'll have the chance to try out a lot of different kinds of fruit and vegetables, and to try to new recipes to use them.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Sea-Tac is a nice airport
Posted by Lesley at 12:45 PM
According to a recent Travel + Leisure review, Sea-Tac International Airport is the best in the nation in terms of delays, with only 10.6% of flights being delayed. By comparison, 22.3% of flights are delayed at D/FW International Airport, the 3rd worst in the nation. According to the survey, the best time to fly in or out of Sea-Tac is before 10:00 am. The worst time window is 6–8 p.m.
Sea-Tac is one of the best airports I've been in. I've always liked that it's smaller than the gigantic D/FW Airport and isn't nearly as hard to get around between the terminals and concourses. It's still definitely large enough to get most places we want to go via direct flights. Sea-Tac rarely changes the terminal or gate on you at the last minute, which is nice. I've always been able to get through security rather quickly and most flights I can remember have been on time. The only exception to that was our flight out for Christmas in 2008 with the terrible snow storm that hit the area that winter. I also really like Alaska Airlines, which has its main hub at Sea-Tac.
Sea-Tac also has a lot of public art inside it, making it one of the most unique airports I've seen. Free Wi-Fi is available throughout the terminals, which comes in handy while waiting 1-2 hours for flights. It is also served well by Link Light Rail from downtown Seattle, although we've never actually taken it to or from the airport the entire way. We hope to do that this Christmas.
All of these factors add up to a generally stress-free traveling experience, which is not very common at other airports.
And because I like interesting statistics, here are the top 10 domestic routes out of Sea-Tac in 2009 by number of passengers (from Wikipedia):
- Los Angeles, CA - 744,000
- San Francisco, CA - 719,000
- Anchorage, AK - 681,000
- Denver, CO - 650,000
- Chicago, IL (O'Hare) - 589,000
- Phoenix, AZ - 550,000
- Las Vegas, NV - 540,000
- Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN - 519,000
- Spokane, WA - 503,000
- Dallas/Fort Worth, TX - 484,000
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Hubcap fell off
Posted by Troy at 8:00 AM
The weather was beautiful yesterday - clear skies filled with crisp fall air. Since I chose to drive to work, I wasn't able to enjoy the weather as much as I could've if I walked and took the bus to work. I was driving home with my window rolled down and when I turned on a street near our apartment, I heard a noise that I immediately knew was the sound of one of our car's hubcaps falling off.
This wasn't totally unexpected as our car's wheel covers have been cracked almost since the car was new, and each visit to the tire shop to have our tires rotated came with a warning that our hubcaps were cracked. In fact, last time I was told that if I didn't take the wheel covers off, they would come off on the road.
I was able to park on the next block to go pick the wheel cover up off the street. We had been planning to get new wheel covers soon anyway, so I suppose this was just a good reminder to do that.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Got a cortisone shot
Posted by Lesley at 9:30 AM
I've had my orthotics for 5 weeks now and yesterday was my follow up appointment with my podiatrist. I told him I wasn't too thrilled with my orthotics and that they haven't helped my feet improve that much. My left heel still hurts every now and then and it doesn't seem to correspond with times of extended activity on my feet. He said most people have about a 50% improvement by now and I'm maybe 30% better.
So he said to try a cortisone shot that should make the inflammation and swelling go down so theoretically the muscle can heal faster. I wasn't expecting to get a shot yesterday, so when he suggested it I got a little nervous because I hate getting shots. But it wasn't too bad because I was able to lay down and he told me to breathe deeply several times before he did it. I didn't react as badly as I normally do, maybe because it was in my heel instead of in my arm, or maybe it was because he prepared me pretty well. It was numb all of last night. He said I could stop wearing the night splint for a little while too so we can see what the cortisone does.
I'm not that optimistic this will help in the long run though. Everyone I've talked to says a cortisone shot is just a big band-aid over a bigger problem. But I guess I'm willing to try anything at this point... It didn't hurt when I was walking to work this morning, which was nice. I have another appointment in two weeks to see how it's doing.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Borrowed a Kill-A-Watt
Posted by Troy at 7:00 AM
The Seattle Public Library has Kill-A-Watt's to borrow. A Kill-A-Watt is a device that you can plug other electronic devices into and it will tell you how much electrical power it uses. I've known about these for a while, but it's not relly worth buying at around $25, so it's really nice that they can be rented from the library.
Over the past several days, I've been plugging all of our electronics into it to see how much power they consume. While electricity is very inexpensive here at around $0.05 per kWh, it's still cool to know how much electricity our electronics are using.
We weren't able to measure any high-voltage appliances, but certainly our refrigerator and oven use a lot of electricity. Of the appliances we were able to measure, our microwave and vacuum use the most power when in use, but we don't use them very often, so they don't account for a very large portion of our electrical consumption.
I was most interested in finding out how much standby power our devices used when turned off. Over time, these phantom loads from TVs, microwaves, and video game systems can add up to quite a lot of power. Some estimates are that standby power costs Americans $3 billion annually and accounts for as much as 10% of residential electrical consumption.
We found that the biggest things that steal electricity when not in use our CD player (particularly the clock), computer equipment (especially the modem and router), and our cable box. In fact, somehow just the clock on our CD player uses more power than our laptop does when powered on.
Contrary to things we'd heard, many things didn't use electricity when not in use - our cell phone chargers and other electronics chargers didn't show any electric consumption when our devices weren't charging.
Now that we have a better understanding of how much electricity our things use, we'll try to make better decisions about how we use them. For example, it's not very hard to switch off our surge protectors at night when we're not using them, and in doing so we could save over 10% off of our annual electricity bills (we only spend around $157 annually anyway). We'll also likely keep our CD player clock off now that we know how much power it wastes.
Anyway, it's cool that we were able to borrow the Kill A Watt from the library and now we're a little more educated on how we're using electricity.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Seattle Neighborhoods: Wallingford
Posted by Troy at 4:00 PM
We headed out on the bus, which took us pretty much straight to Mighty-O Donuts, one of the best doughnut places in Seattle. A neat thing about their donuts is that not only are they very good, but they also don't use any animal products. I really liked my apple fritter. Lesley got an apple spice donut that was good. After doughnuts, Lesley got some tea, and we walked to a nearby park. We enjoyed our tea and time sitting in the park. Then we walked around the neighborhood some. Like many of Seattle's older residential neighborhoods, there are a lot of unique homes with beautiful landscaping.
For lunch we went to a taco truck called Rancho Bravo Tacos in the area and had some pretty good burritos - the best we've had in Seattle.
We then walked up the main drag of Wallingford, 45th St, which is lined with a mile of shops and restaurants. We stopped in a Hawaiian store with shirts and food from the islands. We also stopped in a stationery store, which had some cute cards, and a travel store with a lot of books and maps.
In the middle of Wallingford is the Wallingford Center, which used to be a school and now has a few stores inside. Outside are plenty of benches, as there were throughout the neighborhood. I enjoyed spending time sitting outside before walking around the neighborhood more, passing through a very busy kid-filled playground/soccer field, and by an old school.
There is a two-screen theater in the neighborhood, which we almost went to, but the movies weren't playing at a good time.
We went to Archee McPhee, a popular novelty store, for the first time. We didn't buy any bacon-scented air freshener, but I really enjoyed looking at the various rubber animals, listening to the Mr. T voice box, and dreaming of buying the bacon tuxedo for someone.
We also stopped at Bottleworks, a shop with a lot of different kinds of beer, where we bought a few individual bottles to take home and try, and stopped by a wine store. We then sat outside more at Wallingford Center and watching the cars, bikes, and people go by.
One of our favorite Thai places in the city, Djan's, is in Wallingford, but for dinner we decided to go somewhere different to Jhanjay. Lesley had pad see eew and I had a ginger stir-fry. After dinner, we stopped at the main grocery store in the area (with a giant "WALLINGFORD" sign) to get some food for the next day, and then we took the bus home.
We had a good time in Wallingford. Based on the types of stores and the playgrounds and children we saw, it's apparent that more families live there than in other Seattle neighborhoods we've spent time in. The neighborhood is more kid-friendly and has fewer apartments and condos than other dense neighborhoods in the city. Unlike other urban neighborhoods close to downtown (Capitol Hill, Fremont, Ballard, etc), Wallingford lacks a notable landmark. It's still one of Seattle's most walkable and pleasant neighborhoods.
Quick Wallingford facts:
- Population: 20,433
- Population density per square mile: 11,544
- 2009 Median Home Price: $411,000
- 2008 Median Condo Sales Price: $299,000
- 10th most walkable neighborhood in Seattle
1. Seattle Metropolitan Real Estate
2. Walk Score: Seattle's Most Walkable Neighborhoods
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Lease up early next year
Posted by Lesley at 8:00 AM
Our lease for our current 550 square foot studio apartment is up at the end of February. We're not as satisfied with it as we used to be because of several things. For one thing, it's small and we technically don't even have a bedroom. We have a small area for the bed, which sits against two walls and the dresser is right at the foot of it. We're also running out of storage space because we have gotten a fake Christmas tree, some floor fans, and more drinking glasses and other kitchen stuff since moving here.
Secondly, we're tired of being directly above the community grill area a few floors down. When someone uses the grill the smoke always rises up and inevitably gets into our apartment because we usually have the windows open for ventilation. This always causes us to have to close the windows, which sometimes makes it pretty hot in here during the summer.
Thirdly, people make a lot of noise near the grill area and in the alley between our complex and the recording studio, especially if they've had a few drinks. The noise from the studio itself is also obnoxious.
We'll definitely be moving to at least a one bedroom apartment instead of a studio. We still like this complex overall. It's a nice building and the unit is nice with pretty new appliances and nice wooden cabinets and a big window facing the sunset to the West. The neighborhood is growing on us, especially with the addition of South Lake Union Park and more businesses opening nearby because of Amazon. It's very convenient to get to downtown and walking to work is really nice. We won't rule out looking at other buildings or in other neighborhoods though, such as Capitol Hill or Lower Queen Anne.
We're also considering the possibility of getting a two bedroom and using one of the rooms as a guest room for visitors. Having an extra room would make it a lot cheaper for friends and family to visit more often or for longer because they wouldn't have to pay for hotels. However, it would cost about $250-$300 more per month for an extra room and we're not sure it would result in more frequent visitors in the next year. We would also have the large extra costs of purchasing a second set of bedroom furniture, a mattress, etc. And we don't really have a use for a second room for the rest of the year. Perhaps in 2012 we might get a two bedroom apartment.
I'm also interested in buying a house or townhouse in the next few years. After a down payment, monthly house payments can be almost the same as apartment rent, depending on how big the house is and how close to downtown it is. I guess we'll just have to see what prices are and what would be affordable at that time.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Just found out we can compost
Posted by Troy at 4:00 PM
We found out recently that our apartment building offers composting. I can put things in compost at work, but we've never done it at home. Some people have their own composting bins at home so that they can use the fertile soil that comes from it. Residents in our building can just put their compost in a separate bin and some company picks it up.
Food scraps are the main thing that is compostable. We eat a lot of vegetables and there are always unused portions for composting. We also just finished a bag of Sun Chips, which are now sold in a compostable bag, and were happy to put the bag in compost instead of adding to our landfill-bound trash.
We already have bags to put our recyclables and our regular trash in, but we don't yet have a place for a composting bag, so we'll need to figure that out soon. It's too bad we didn't take advantage of this over the past couple years, but it's nice that there's another way in which we can reduce our negative impact on the planet.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tsunamis an uncommon danger
Posted by Lesley at 8:00 AM
The last earthquake and tsunami from the Cascadia fault occurred 300 years ago. The last tsunami to hit the northwest coast was in 1964 when an Alaska earthquake caused a tsunami that damaged Cannon Beach, OR. Here's an excerpt from a Seattle Times article that explains what parts of the northwest coast are considering in order to be more prepared for tsunamis:
The Oregon town of Cannon Beach is considering construction of an earthquake- and tsunami-resistant building that could serve both as a city hall and a refuge. On Washington's Long Beach Peninsula, where there's very little high ground, leaders are mulling the idea of building berms where people could gather to escape a tsunami surge.We live near Puget Sound, which isn't that close to the Pacific Ocean, so tsunamis aren't as big of a threat to us, but are still possible.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Pictures from Lake Union Park Opening
Posted by Lesley at 8:15 AM
Here are some pictures Troy took at the Lake Union Park opening last Saturday. We added to an existing gallery, so be sure to check out the second page of photos. There was a lot more people and a lot less food there than we were expecting at the park opening. We did see some guys cooking salmon on an open fire which I'd never seen before. We were sort of hungry after we'd been there a while, so we bought some cheese bread and banana bread from the farmer's market. We also bought some blueberry jam from a local farmer and it was really good. The weather was also incredible for late September, with a high around 75 and completely sunny.
Monday, September 27, 2010
South Lake Union Park open
Posted by Troy at 4:30 PM
More than a year ago, phase 1 of South Lake Union Park opened. Unfortunately, the park closed again after just a few months so that the other phases could be built. After a very long wait, the rest of the park opened on Saturday.
We're just over a half mile away from Lake Union, but with the park being closed, we didn't really have a good way to get to the lake. The park has some good open space and offers a plesant environment for enjoying the view across the lake.
During the opening festivities, there were kayak and stand-up paddleboard rentals, several informative booths, and a farmers market.
The park includes a model boat pond, a public fountain, which had plenty of children playing in it today, and green space for sitting, lying down, throwing a frisbee, and whatever else.
Now that the park is open, it contributes to the growing livability of this part of the city along with the new restaurants that have opened in the past few months. We're looking forward to being able to walk down to the lake and enjoy the park.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Orthotics maybe helping?
Posted by Lesley at 2:00 PM
I've had my foot orthotics for two weeks now and my heel has improved slightly, but not as much as I'd hoped. I don't have sharp pains much any more, but still have the dull pain sometimes. The extra support near my heel felt nice at first and now I'm sort of used to it. In fact it might hurt my feet a little bit, but I guess it just takes getting used to.
The week after I got them, I wore my work shoes while at work with my old mediocre support from Foot Solutions in it. My new orthotics won't fit in my work shoes. My heel continued to hurt even though I would wear my athletic shoes whenever I wasn't at work. So this week, I decided to just wear my athletic shoes all the time, even at work. Nobody asked me why I wasn't wearing my nice work shoes, so I guess no one had a problem with it. I just looked kind of silly wearing my work pants with athletic shoes, but whatever helps my heel get better is what I'll do.
I'm still stretching and wearing my foot splint every night, which is getting old. I have a follow-up appointment in a few weeks, so we'll see how I feel then.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Oregon Coast: Planning next visit
Posted by Troy at 4:00 PM
Now that we've been to the coast and are more familiar with the area and the various towns and the things to do, we have a better idea of what we might like to do next time. The best part of going to the coast was the time we spent on the beach - walking, watching the waves, lying down in the sand - it was all great. If we go back, I'd like to make sure we do more of that.
I'd also like to do less driving. We had wanted to see as much as we could of what the coast had to offer, and while we did see a lot of different things, all the beautiful viewpoints started to look the same after a while. I think it would be nice to spend more time in each place we stop.
We passed through quite a few towns along the coast and many of them were forgettable, but we have a better idea of where we might like to stay next time. Though Cannon Beach was overrun with tourists, it had a nice beach and lots of places to eat. Also, we liked our time near Yachats - the town was okay, we really liked the food at Luna Sea Fish House, and our motel there was a good value.
We don't have a date set, or even that much of a plan for when we'll travel back to the coast, but we're already looking forward to it.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Oregon Coast: Lighthouses
Posted by Lesley at 8:00 AM
I've always liked lighthouses and made it a point to visit several on the Oregon coast. Unfortunately we somehow missed the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, but we were able to see 4 out of a possible 5 on the trip. There are a total of 11 lighthouses on the Oregon coast, 3 of which are not open to the public. All of the lighthouses we saw originally had a first order of the Fresnel lens, which is the largest of it's kind at 12 feet tall and 6 feet wide. Lighthouses make for really beautiful coastline photos and also have interesting stories of their own.
Location: Cannon Beach
First Lit: 1881
Deactivated: 1957
Height: 62 feet
Feet above sea level: 133 feet
Range: 18 miles
It was the most expensive to operate in the US before it was decommissioned. Nicknamed "Terrible Tilly" because of the exposure from terrible storm waves, the former beacon is now used as a columbarium (for storing peoples' ashes). It is the only privately owned Oregon coast lighthouse on National Register of Historic Places.
Cape Meares Lighthouse
Location: Tillamook
First Lit: 1890
Deactivated: 1963
Height: 38 feet
Feet above sea level: 217 feet
Range: 20 miles
Cape Meares is the shortest lighthouse in Oregon and is also the home of the Octopus tree. Unfortunately Cape Meares has had several instances of vandalism since the 60s, with an occurrence as recent as January of 2010 when two men fired several shots into the windows and damaged the Fresnel lens. It cost over $500,000 to repair the lens.
Yaquina Head Lighthouse
Location: Newport
First Lit: 1873
Height: 93 feet
Feet above sea level: 162 feet
Range: 18 miles
This is the tallest lighthouse in Oregon. During World War II, 17 servicemen were stationed at Yaquina Head keeping a lookout for enemy ships. This is also a popular area for whale, seal, and bird watching.
Heceta Head Lighthouse
Location: Florence
First Lit: 1894
Height: 56 feet
Feet above sea level: 205 feet
Range: 21 miles
Heceta Head is named after the Spanish explorer Bruno de Heceta, who explored the Pacific Northwest during the late 18th century. The lighthouse is claimed to be the strongest light on the coast by several sources. It is also one of the most scenic and is the most photographed on the entire West Coast. You can also stay at the old keeper's house which was turned in a bed and breakfast able to house 14 guests. Nice antique furniture, a seven-course breakfast, relaxing fireplace parlors, and breathtaking views make it a great romantic getaway.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Went to Benaroya Hall
Posted by Lesley at 8:00 AM
We'd been interested in seeing the Seattle Symphony for a while and we finally decided to go to a show last Friday. We saw Live & Let Die: A Symphonic Tribute to the Music of Paul McCartney, which had a Beatles cover band along with a partial orchestra. There's actually several Beatles/Wings that have flutes, violins, trumpets, or other instruments in them. The guy playing as Paul was especially good and sounded and looked pretty close to the real thing. Some of the songs included Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Yesterday, Maybe I'm Amazed, When I'm Sixty-Four, Jet, and Band on the Run. It reminded me of the two Paul McCartney concerts I went to and also the time some of my friends and I saw the cover band Me & My Monkey at the Moon in Fort Worth.
Benaroya Hall was a pretty basic symphony hall. The inside was plain and wasn't nearly as fancy as other places I've seen the symphony. Overall it probably wasn't the best value for our money, but it was still fun singing along and hearing the orchestra.