Seattle to Lake Havasu City, AZ Day One

Dad is 90, and has handed over the keys to the kids for road trips. My mission (should I decide to accept it) is to transport him and his stuff from Seattle to Lake Havasu City, Arizona. And his car. He still drives locally. Golfs three times a week. Walks a mile or so on days he doesn’t golf. Remains active in his church. And takes pretty darn good care of his house, whichever one he’s in at the time. He’s an amazing man.
Okay, maybe I am a big city guy. Seattle is my root city, having lived there for the first 43 years of my life. But today with my sister, we acted like tourists. Just like Chicago, Seattle did not disappoint. The waterfront, speckled with boats, smelled of the sea. Trees held tenaciously to their leaves, yellow, orange and red in the sunshine. Yes, I said sunshine. In November. In Seattle. Nothing short of a miracle, and a beautiful reward.
We acted like Seattle tourists and visited the waterfront, downtown, and the Pike Place Market, where employees throw fish to each other. They don’t seem to have a reason to throw them, as they threw one and then threw it back. But it was still fun.
The city library is an incredible example of a building constructed by a city that thinks it has unlimited money. Not only is the building ridiculously beautiful, but the cost to keep the windows clean must be staggering. One entire floor is devoted to Seattle. Want to see the Seattle budget for 1923? How about books heralding the Great Seattle Fire? The sheer size of the available data was astounding.
At the Seattle Center, we attended the IMAX 3-D movie heralding the creation of the Boeing 787. Hmm. Boeing contributed a jillion dollars for the facility, and now we’re watching a 45 minute infomercial. I’m sorry to say, it worked. Before I knew it, I was flying a huge commercial airliner, and had a $110 million charge on my Visa card.
A new addition to Seattle is the Experience Music Project. Inside a wildly designed building, it takes one through the music of Seattle through the years. It particularly illuminates the life of Jimi Hendrix, whose meteoric rise to rock and roll stardom ended prematurely at the age of 27. Other Seattle bands included Heart and Pearl Jam.
We took a quick drive (thanks to the express lanes) across Lake Washington to Bellevue and Applebee’s for dinner with Dad. I made the switch from passenger with Colleen to chauffeur with Dad. We’ll spend the night at Dad’s house and tomorrow, early, we’ll hit the road, bound for Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
One more day, one more adventure.