We’d arranged to meet the Clarkes one last time in Seattle for a trip to the Museum of Flight, somewhere I’ve been meaning to go in Seattle for some time but have never got around to. We’d arranged to meet at the Microsoft Store in Bellevue (in fact, we’d arranged to meet on campus at Redmond at the Microsoft company store and museum, but it was closed on Sundays). We drove to Bellevue just fine and then orbited around the town centre until we finally got close enough to dock, I mean park.
We got there in plenty of time so we could have breakfast (which ended up being from Starbucks as everywhere else was closed) and Lauren and the family (less the three youngest) arrived at about 10. Courtney, particularly, was pleased that Kate had come with the two older girls.
The Microsoft Store is one of about 10 around the US designed to showcase Microsoft consumer technology. The kids had a great time playing on the Kinect and Surface and Thomas and Josh joined me and Lauren in satisfying our geek urges by checking out some of the cool PCs on display.
Sam and Mary Ann got accosted by a producer shooting a promotional video in the store (apparently for an internal Microsoft audience) and were almost convinced to be Microsoft shills but they though better of it at the last moment. To be fair, I think Mary Ann was just being polite all along and was never comfortable with the shilling.
After the Microsoft Store, some of us went across the way to the Lego store which turned out to be much smaller and less interesting than what I remembered from last time I was there six or seven years ago.
By this time it was time to have some lunch. We went on a bit of a trek guided by Lauren’s GPS to a sandwich shop a couple of blocks away. Of course, being Sunday, the shop was closed so we came back to a very nice deli where we got an assortment of lovely food to share.
We all piled into the Clarkemobile and headed down the 405 to the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field. They have some great planes including an Airforce One (707)
one of the first 737s
a Concorde
The first ever 747
and this super-cool SR-71 Blackbird (which is, in fact, not black but midnight blue)
There’s also an excellent exhibit about Air Traffic Control, with a mock tower set up looking out over Boeing Field. They have the loudspeakers in the exhibit tuned to the the actual ATC tower frequency, so you can hear what’s going on with the traffic large and small.
That’s a 747-8F on the runway, I guess they were doing test flights in it. The little biplane in the middle ground was doing joyrides and the contrast between the old and the new, the large and the small was pretty extreme.
The families continued our bonding
We visited the excellent WWI and WWII exhibitions too with some great old planes like the B17 (this one’s outside, all the fighters are in a big 2-storey building)
All too soon it was closing time and we piled back into the van to go back to Bellevue where we’d left our car. We had a most unromantic location for our final goodbyes, but they were heartfelt nonetheless. This time was one of the highlights of the trip for me. I have been lucky to spend time with the Clarkes almost every time I’ve gone to Seattle and being able to have Sam and the kids meet my some of my favourite people (and for them to get on so well) was very special.
After saying goodbye, we made our way back downtown and dropped the car back at the hotel. We walked down to the waterfront – the part of Seattle that reminds me so much of Sydney. This is a working harbour and combines beautiful water with the interest of commercial shipping and ferries.
On the way along the piers the kids found some large stuffed animals.
and a sweets shop – I think maybe we’ve found a new logo and name for the podcast we do at work.
Eventually I found the restaurant I was looking for (having walked past it twice). It’s right on the water at the end of a wharf and the food’s very pleasant. The sun was setting and the light is amazing at this time of day.
The kids were keen to model their new T-shirts which they’d made the day before at the Future of Flight.
Everyone was pretty relaxed.
We walked home and enjoyed the perfect end to a fantastic day.
Coates Trip 2011 