The many peaks of Seattle

Day 9, Monday
Seattle, Washington
Sunny all day, awesome!
This post by: Craig and Crystal

This was our first day that we were going to do separate things. Crystal was heading off with Lisa from last night into the hills and I headed off to meet with a friend, Hamish, who works at Valve Software. Half Life? Left 4 Dead? Team Fortress? Yeah, THAT Valve. Sweeeeeeeeeet…

Lisa was kind enough to pick us up and drop me at Valve, but before that we went to yet ANOTHER awesome record store, Easy Street Records. This country REALLY knows how to do good music stores.

They also know how to appeal to my immaturity. Here’s a food store called Dick’s. And a day that starts with a Dick Shake is usually a pretty good day. Bam.

Ha ha ha... dicks.

So anyway… Valve! I met up with Hamish for lunch and we talked about how Valve does things… they’re amazing! I won’t bore you with details but wow – they don’t have producers or managers, they just pull random people together whenever a problem needs solving, everyone has buy-in, they set their own goals, it’s wonderful. Hamish gave me a tour of the studio too. Swoit!

The only tool an fps gamer needs

I bused back to the city, decided to walk an hour across town to work off some of the cheese-induced pounds, and ended up at the Experience Music Project...


to see a wonderful Muppets exhibition,


some WICKID geetars,


and a bunch of Sci Fi props from movies.

Hang on a minute, that's the Seattle Space Needle!

Got to see the Space Needle too. It was all ACE!

And now we go back in time to earlier today, to hear about Crystal’s adventures in the hills.

OVER TO CRYSTAL!

A few months ago a friend of mine, Josh, heartily recommended David Lynch’s TV show Twin Peaks. I missed it when it originally aired on TV (around 1990), and I started watching it about a month ago. I can safely say that the reason I was keen to see Seattle was to try to get a glimpse of the lush green landscape featured so beautifully by Mr Lynch.

a not so beautifully captured screenshot of Twin Peaks opening credits

I didn’t even consider for a moment that I would get the chance to see some of the actual locations, but that is exactly what Jasmine’s friend, Lisa, offered to do. w00t!

We took a drive out of town, first stopping at Snoqualmie Falls, a place impressive enough on its own apart from its majestic appearance in the opening credits.

As seen on TV

Lisa and me at the falls lookout
(Lisa looks apprehensive because looking over the railing provided
an uninterrupted view straight down to the bottom of the falls)

I figured (as is the case with much of the TV I watch, case in point: Moonlighting) that Twin Peaks was a distant memory in everyone’s mind but my own. This is not the case in North Bend, where the Twin Peaks café still stands.

They still bake and serve cherry pie.

This *IS* where pies go when they die.

Oh, it was really, REALLY good pie.

Eerie peak.

OVER TO CRAIG!

Craig here again! The gang came together late afternoon, with Jasmine, Lisa, Crystal and me meeting up for a final Happy Hour before heading to the airport.

mmmmmm...sangria.

It was here I learned of something slightly more hardcore than a Tequila Slammer. It’s similar, except you SNORT the salt, scull the tequila, then squirt the lemon IN YOUR EYE. It’s called a Tequila Stuntman, and Lisa’s brother has actually done it. Senseless in Seattle!

And for anyone who saw the last travel blog and remembers the bacon chocolate we found, it’s since been topped:

eww.

So Jasmine drove us to the airport (all these people are so NICE!) and we were on our way on the Red Eye to Chicago (via Detroit changeover). And yes, the words “First Class” on the ticket turned out to be a mistake. WAAAAAAH!