Turn-around tourism

During my last week or so here in Seattle, I've been walking the waterfront and through the Market every day, because, for some reason, I just can't get enough of it.  The mixture of Pike Place's working waterfront and cheeky tourist stop just thrills me.  If you sit at the bar a Lowell's, you'll see fresh-off-the-boat fisherman sitting next to coiffed socialites.  Quite the contrast.

And, largely, the Market is unchanged since I first came to Seattle 27 years ago.  It seems that the hard-won vendors slots at the Market encourage the younger generation to continue the tradition, since many of these are the same businesses yet with decidedly younger purveyors.

Some things have changed, at the Market and in and around Seattle.  S. and I found to our utter dismay that Elliott Bay Book Company is no longer in Elliott Bay.  It isn't out of business, just moved to Capitol Hill.  But what is Pioneer Square without EBC?  Even my other Pioneer Square favorite, Metzger's Maps, moved - in this case, up to Pike Place.  The move seems to have erased a lot of their inventory of true collector maps, and most of the store caters to tourists with travel books and maps and the like.  Still a fun store to poke around in, and arguably more useful to both the actual traveller and the armchair variety.  But I do miss the quirky, sometimes dusty memories I have from the old place.  The new place is a little like going into Idaho Book and Supply back home.  Which actually says a lot for Idaho Book and Supply.  I'll have to go there more often!

I did find an intriguing book in Metzger's called "101 Things You Gotta See Before You're 12" and I thought "Oh no, another impossible list of travel adventures I'll never get around to...this one with a deadline!"  What a horrible thing to do to a kid.  Especially if the kid reading it just passed 12 (or is almost 40).  What if they didn't get to everything?

When I opened the book, though, it was filled with things like "visit a quality second hand store", "go to a petting zoo", "visit your parent's home town", "go to an art gallery", etc.  In fact, I am sure a motivated kid could probably complete 99% of the items in the book without ever leaving their home town except to hit "a national park", "a gateway to the new world", and things of that nature.  I was even more excited to say that I have, in fact, done all 101 "Things You Gotta See Before You're 12" and I am pretty sure I got them done all before I finished my 12th year, picking up the last few during that first visit to Seattle 27 years ago.

But now I have a new goal: I have not completed all 101 "Things You Gotta See Before You're 12" in Ogden, UT.  And, given I'm just starting my sabbatical year, I might just be able to pull it off.

I'll tick off a few of the more difficult ones, like "see an ocean" while I am here, and then get the rest after I get home.

And since the book even comes with stickers, I am motivated.