Gas Works Park

On a promontory jutting into Lake Union the Seattle Gas Light Company built a gasification plant to convert coal into gas. After fifty years of operation the plant shut down in 1956. Two decades later the land was opened as a public park. Rather than being demolished, the processing towers, boiler house, storage tanks, and various other machinery were left standing or converted into a children's play barn and picnic shelter. Political rallies, drum circles, kite flyings, chalk parties, candlelight vigils, solstice pageants, and film shootings are some of the goings-on that typically occur on the grounds.

A Day in Seattle

The iconic Space Needle.


An alien monster from Doctor Who.


"Mono means one. And rail means rail."


The monorail tracks plunge straight into the side of the EMP Museum.


The Smith Building, of Smith-Corona typewriter fame.




Pioneer Square.




A reservoir in Volunteer Park at the top of Capital Hill.




An unusual fountain in Cal Anderson Park.
















Twice Sold Tales used bookshop.


The troll who lurks under the Aurora Bridge.




Skyline from the Bainbridge ferry.

Sitka National Historic Park

The Sitka National Historical Park commemorates the 1804 Battle of Sitka between the native Tlingit tribes and Russian fur hunters. The collection of native totem poles on display along the trails are actually replicas, since the deteriorating originals are now kept in protective storage.

Juneau By Whirlybird

In Juneau I rode out to a tiny airfield at the edge of the city, beside a stream which reeked of dead salmon. There I boarded a copter which flew me over the mountains and out to a remote glacier, entirely inaccessible to land vehicles. My boots were outfitted with a Gore-Tex slipover grip for walking on the ice with a minimal of slippage. Even with the grip a misstep could be treacherous.

The vivid blue color of the glacier is an illusion, I was told, because the ice absorbs every color except blue, which is reflected back at us. How this differs from any other material object we see, I don't quite understand, but who am I to raise questions?

We saw a waterfall in the ice and learned that moraines are ribbons of ground-up rock and debris carried along by the ice flow. The glacier's surface was fractured by many crevasses of indeterminable depth. The pilot dropped a rock down one of these shafts and we listened to the gradual decay into oblivion of its ricochets. He advised us not to fall in.

As the chopper took off from the glacier the pilot pumped music into our headphones for dramatic effect. This could've been a cheesy ploy had the tune not been the "From Russia With Love" theme, which at that moment felt oddly appropriate. Our breasts swelled with undeserved heroism.