The Yellow Brick Road

We began our morning at our hotel in Wilsonville. Mark awoke early and went to get a haircut while allowing me to sleep a little while longer. He returned with some liquid breakfast [smoothies] from a place that has much to learn from Jamba Juice.

We knew this would not be enough and so went off in search of a place we had wanted to spend the night at, but was full by the time we called. Now let me preface this with two thoughts: 1) I am a NERD and love school WAY more than is actually healthy; 2) someone has taken an idea I had when I was 8 and is now making money off of it.

That said, the place of which I speak is called McMenamin's Kennedy School. It is a pub/theater/boutique hotel and it is BRILLIANT! What they have accomplished is to take a one hundred and five year old abandoned school building, this one opened in 1915 and closed in 1975, and they have returned it to prominence in the community. Contracting with local artists, they renovate and repurpose the building. They have taken the classrooms and converted them into hotel rooms. They've kept the "original" blackboards in the rooms and have even given guests some chalk with which to leave personal messages. The cafeteria, yup, that's the restaurant. We had lunch there. Mark's salad wasn't very good, but my chicken pesto calzone was tasty! My favorite part, the auditorium, is the movie theater but BETTER! They've replaced all the stiff auditorium seats with couches and some tables. The architecture has all been preserved. The classroom next door is the theater bar where you pay admission and order real food [as opposed to just popcorn and candy] to enjoy while you watch. The "detention" room is a cigar bar and the "honor's" room is called the honor bar and is a smoke-free version of the detention room. There is a brewery onsite, which I've learned is what McMenamin's is known for. After reading some of their brochures we found out that Kennedy School is not a unique project, apparently McMenamin's is in the business of renovating and revitalizing old, interesting buildings/sites and converting them into pubs/breweries/boutique lodgings. Really it just blew me away and was enough to put a smile on my face the rest of the day.

The drive from Portland to Seattle was an exercise in "name that mountain." Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Ranier all feature prominently on the horizon and it took some atlas searching to confirm which was which. Personally, much like my fascination with school, I have a strong love for majestic mountains, even more so when there is some cataclysmic event associated with them [see Mt. St. Helens]. Driving through Portland we also saw the home of the Portland Trailblazers [I know, that's only mildly interesting, please believe it was even less interesting to me...]

Once into Tacoma we saw the Tacoma Dome which plays host to concerts, Cirque du Soleil [Alegria is about to take up temporary residence there], and freak shows, I mean Lady Gaga. Mark was fascinated that city that does not have a professional team of any kind would have such a prominently placed arena. Again, personally, I didn't care. Good for them for trying to attract big name events for their citizens.

Something that I did find entertaining was the game of leapfrog we played with a seafood truck. Now for those of you who followed our first trip, you will remember that we played leapfrog with a truck pulling a trailer for a few miles before leaving them in the dust. Due to the traffic we could not leave this truck behind, but even if we had been able to I would still be mentioning it on this blog because of the nature of the image on the side of the truck. Let me preface this by saying that I had never heard of a gooey duck clam until Mike Rowe went looking for some on Dirty Jobs. Recently, gooey duck clams have been everywhere, from Chopped to the side of this truck. If you're shaking your head right now it's because you agree with me that a gooey duck clam has no place on the side of a truck.

We lost the truck right before we entered Seattle. No big deal, fun while it lasted. Since we had decided to skip Fort Clatsop, which was the point where Lewis and Clark finally reached the Pacific Ocean, we made great time getting to the Emerald City. Our hotel is situated right by the campus of the University of Washington, which the next day became a destination we had to visit. The hotel is called the Deca Hotel and it wants to be a posh art deco style hotel. It was well situated, but diminished by the fact that we could hear one neighbor coughing up a lung and another entertaining guests, both until about 11:30. I get ahead of myself just a bit there.

The highlight of our day was the Mariners - Yankees game at Safeco Field. Mark and I were more excited to see the ballpark and check it off our list than actually see the Mariners play, but I was excited to see Ichiro play on his "home" field and sample an Ichiroll. I came away unimpressed again, it was just too spicy for me. The ballpark itself was a little underwhelming. It fits neatly on the list with Coors Field, right in the middle of the pack. For me the best part of the stadium itself was the retractable roof. It was open during the game, but as we were leaving the park they closed it for the evening. We sat until it was closed. A nice preview of what the Marlins' retractable roof will be like and if they can get it as quiet as this one was then WOW! I didn't know it was closing until Mark looked up and pointed it out. Really very cool.

The game itself was one team valiantly trying to hold on, overcoming obstacles, failing to capitalize on opportunities, and David Aardsma being David Aardsma. The best part of the whole game was the reception given to a certain Alex Rodriguez EVERY at bat he had. Now, I will say that there was a time that I was extremely proud of A-Rod, being from Miami and all. We shall suffice it to say that my pride in A-Rod has since diminished greatly given his personal scandals and overall holier than thou attitude when talking to the media about an incident with Dallas "No-hit" Braden. So I was tickled pink when A-Rod came up to bat the first time and the ENTIRE stadium started BOOING [no matter that there were probably more Yankee fans than Mariners fans]!!! The Yankee fan sitting in front of us tried very hard to cheer over the boos, but to no avail. And it was same response every time he came up to bat...it was AWESOME! I was highly entertained, but sad that the Mariners couldn't pull off the lead despite taking the early lead.

All in all, we had fun. Tomorrow we will be exploring the Emerald City, doing all the touristy stuff before continuing with the National Parks.