March 4 - 9 -- Seattle and Portland

Wednesday’s arrival in Seattle was in good weather, perfect for the round trip ferry ride to Bainbridge Island, for ice cream. This after fish and chowders at Ivar’s on the docks. And the mild winters gave us a welcome view of sail underway. Our hotel was a short block uphill from Pike’s Market with its network of restaurants, crafts, and food stores.

Thursday we walked to the Center for Wooden Boats, a mile away. Students building them. Others restoring them, and in summer, free rides on their fleet of them. Their wooden schooner is a beauty.

The Center is next to Seattle’s Museum of History And Industry, “MOHAI”, which is the old navy base and tells the history of Seattle, a great deepwater seaport. Lene found that the municipal theater was staging “The Children” in which she is scheduled to perform in a scene with her acting troupe, WEDREPCO, so we took the performance.

Friday was the drive to Portland on I-5, past Tacoma, for our last glimpse at the Pacific, but not before a visit to a great map store a block from our hotel on the way to the Art Museum, two blocks further. There we saw a part of "Vertigo Sea"..

The slow motion videos of fishing birds hurling themselves into the water, whales cavorting, and old black and white films showing small steamships in big seas were all great. Not so interesting were modern pictures of a man dressed in 19th century clothing posed amidst furniture out in the wilds. And most disturbing were black and white films of men shooting and skinning polar bears.

In Portland family and friends, dance, art, shopping and dining replaced water related activities.

Due to COVID 19, airports, flights, restaurants and hotels were all sparely populated.