Sunday, August 30, 2009
Road Trip: Final Days
Well, I arrived home yesterday evening safely, and am now preparing to settle back into the routines of my daily life. As some may have noticed, I didn’t post up about the last two days of my journey, the reason being that very little happened. Basically, we left Portland and drove for twelve hours, had amazing pizza at Mt. Mike’s in San Jose and stayed with Tyler’s mom’s best friend, then drove home the next day. All of us switched of driving, and when it wasn’t our turn to drive we mostly read or napped. Probably the most dramatic part of our journey was seeing the massive plume of smoke from the fires out in LA. That situation is definitely something to be praying for, or even volunteering assistance if you can in any way.
Book Review: Surprised by Hope
Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N.T. Wright
Before I get into any longwinded discussion of N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope, let me just say that it’s absolutely amazing. I picked this book up and could hardly put it down, its presentation of Christian doctrine is incredible and for many it will be revolutionary (though it is really the historic understanding of things). Get this book, read it, then give it to your friends so they can read it. Don’t just take my word for it either, Dallas Willard, Rob Bell and Richard Foster all praise the book, and their recommendation should carry a bit more weight than mine I think. Now, on to why I think this book is so incredible.
I picked up Surprised by Hope while visiting Regent College, the seminary in Canada where I hope to do my masters education. I’d been given a $25 gift card by the college, and was looking around the store for something to pick, finding myself quite overwhelmed by the sheer quality and quantity of books available. One of the concepts which I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, has been the importance of embodiment, specifically as it relates to the biblical and historic conception of the afterlife. Thus, when asked if I needed help finding anything, I asked to see if they had any books on that subject, and I was immediately taken to several (the man knew what I meant and knew where to find it without looking it up, is that cool or what?). As I said, there were several, but in the end I decided to pick up Surprised by Hope, and as you already know I was not disappointed.
The book is subtitled Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, and it addresses the true biblical hope for our futures, the significance of the bodily resurrection of Christ and how these two things relate to the mission of the church in the world today. This is a book bursting with hope, and filled with the message that our lives as Christians have deep significance in the here and now. The book addresses many of the false ideas that have grown up in Western civilization about the biblical understanding of human nature and the afterlife, and seeks to recover the historical understanding of these things, which as Dallas Willard says “uniquely meets the challenge facing the Church by recovering the original, radical understanding of resurrection, salvation and the Good news of life now in the Kingdom of God.”
If I have one criticism of the book, it’s that I don’t think Wright is quite emphatic enough in emphasizing that building for the Kingdom must not take the form of a Theocracy. Mind you, he says this, but I just wish he’d made it more clear.
Anyway, as I said, read this book, and hopefully it will change your reading of the Bible, and also your life.
Before I get into any longwinded discussion of N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope, let me just say that it’s absolutely amazing. I picked this book up and could hardly put it down, its presentation of Christian doctrine is incredible and for many it will be revolutionary (though it is really the historic understanding of things). Get this book, read it, then give it to your friends so they can read it. Don’t just take my word for it either, Dallas Willard, Rob Bell and Richard Foster all praise the book, and their recommendation should carry a bit more weight than mine I think. Now, on to why I think this book is so incredible.
I picked up Surprised by Hope while visiting Regent College, the seminary in Canada where I hope to do my masters education. I’d been given a $25 gift card by the college, and was looking around the store for something to pick, finding myself quite overwhelmed by the sheer quality and quantity of books available. One of the concepts which I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, has been the importance of embodiment, specifically as it relates to the biblical and historic conception of the afterlife. Thus, when asked if I needed help finding anything, I asked to see if they had any books on that subject, and I was immediately taken to several (the man knew what I meant and knew where to find it without looking it up, is that cool or what?). As I said, there were several, but in the end I decided to pick up Surprised by Hope, and as you already know I was not disappointed.
The book is subtitled Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, and it addresses the true biblical hope for our futures, the significance of the bodily resurrection of Christ and how these two things relate to the mission of the church in the world today. This is a book bursting with hope, and filled with the message that our lives as Christians have deep significance in the here and now. The book addresses many of the false ideas that have grown up in Western civilization about the biblical understanding of human nature and the afterlife, and seeks to recover the historical understanding of these things, which as Dallas Willard says “uniquely meets the challenge facing the Church by recovering the original, radical understanding of resurrection, salvation and the Good news of life now in the Kingdom of God.”
If I have one criticism of the book, it’s that I don’t think Wright is quite emphatic enough in emphasizing that building for the Kingdom must not take the form of a Theocracy. Mind you, he says this, but I just wish he’d made it more clear.
Anyway, as I said, read this book, and hopefully it will change your reading of the Bible, and also your life.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Road Trip: Vancouver - If they call this a park, what's a forrest
Our luggage packed, and a wonderful breakfast of pancakes eaten, Tyler and I bid farewell to our hosts. Saying goodbye to people is always tough, and I hope I can maintain a friendship with them, they are truly awesome people. Also, Daniel is still ridiculously cute, and was even more talkative this morning. After our farewells, we drove the car over to Regent and picked up Nate, who had once again been driven there by his host, and I picked up my free cup of coffee. It was a very good cup, neither too strong nor too weak, with a nice rich and nutty flavor.
With Nate’s luggage securely placed inside the Scion, we set out from Regent and deeper into Vancouver to view the famous Stanley Park. Curiously, Tyler’s parents had actually flown up to Vancouver the day before, and we thought to meet them in Stanley Park, but, alas, they had to catch a small plane over to Vancouver Island. We had also, by the way, just missed seeing some of our Southern California friends when we were in San Francisco. Seems like everyone is traveling these days. Anyway, about a half-hour after we set out we arrived in Stanley Park.
Stanley Park is, like the Pacific Spirit Park, a little too epic to rightly be called a park. It is essentially, a forest located out on a peninsula. There are walking paths, bike paths, beaches, a lake, a lagoon, restraints, a rose garden, and probably plenty of other things we missed. Our time in the park started with a stroll through the rose garden and onto a path that led us into the forest and past Beaver Lake. Really, Beaver lake hardly counts as a lake, having hardly any water anymore (a sign on its banks calls it “The Incredible Shrinking Lake”). After passing the lake, we came down to a walking path which circled the peninsula and actually walked almost the entire circumference of the park. Along the way, we stopped to eat lunch at a beachside stand. Tyler and I ate Paninis and Nate had a salmon burger. The path around the park was raised above the waterline, and for the most part the beach it passed was rocky, but there were actually two sand beaches along the way, one of which had a swimming pool behind it.
Anyway, after enjoying our trip through the park, we set out on the road and drove all the way from Vancouver to Portland, where we’ll be staying the night. Tomorrow we get up super early for the twelve-hour drive to San Jose. Wewt.
By the way, for those of you keeping track, in two days in Canada, Tyler and I never had an actual conversation with a single Canadian. Our hosts were Australian, and our guide to Regent American. Nate, however, stayed with Canadian hosts.
With Nate’s luggage securely placed inside the Scion, we set out from Regent and deeper into Vancouver to view the famous Stanley Park. Curiously, Tyler’s parents had actually flown up to Vancouver the day before, and we thought to meet them in Stanley Park, but, alas, they had to catch a small plane over to Vancouver Island. We had also, by the way, just missed seeing some of our Southern California friends when we were in San Francisco. Seems like everyone is traveling these days. Anyway, about a half-hour after we set out we arrived in Stanley Park.
Stanley Park is, like the Pacific Spirit Park, a little too epic to rightly be called a park. It is essentially, a forest located out on a peninsula. There are walking paths, bike paths, beaches, a lake, a lagoon, restraints, a rose garden, and probably plenty of other things we missed. Our time in the park started with a stroll through the rose garden and onto a path that led us into the forest and past Beaver Lake. Really, Beaver lake hardly counts as a lake, having hardly any water anymore (a sign on its banks calls it “The Incredible Shrinking Lake”). After passing the lake, we came down to a walking path which circled the peninsula and actually walked almost the entire circumference of the park. Along the way, we stopped to eat lunch at a beachside stand. Tyler and I ate Paninis and Nate had a salmon burger. The path around the park was raised above the waterline, and for the most part the beach it passed was rocky, but there were actually two sand beaches along the way, one of which had a swimming pool behind it.
Anyway, after enjoying our trip through the park, we set out on the road and drove all the way from Vancouver to Portland, where we’ll be staying the night. Tomorrow we get up super early for the twelve-hour drive to San Jose. Wewt.
By the way, for those of you keeping track, in two days in Canada, Tyler and I never had an actual conversation with a single Canadian. Our hosts were Australian, and our guide to Regent American. Nate, however, stayed with Canadian hosts.
Road Trip: Vancouver - Radical Hospitality
One of Nate’s hosts works at Regent, and had to be there at eight in the morning, so she took him with her when she drove to work. Because of this, Tyler and I rose early so we could meet Nate at Regent close to eight, though our actual appointment was not until eleven in the morning. Our hosts actually live within walking distance of the college (and are awesome and don’t own a car), so after showers and a breakfast of toast we were shown the direction to Regent by Nathan. By this point, by the way, Daniel had become quite talkative, though his vocabulary was limited to “Dada,” “Daddy,” “Mama,” “Mommy,” and “Uh oh” combined with several grunts and a generous amount of pointing and facial expressions. This was, naturally, ridiculously cute.
Nate had decided to sequester himself in a far hidden corner of the library, so it took us some time to find him but we did eventually, after which we took a short walk around part of the University of British Columbia campus (where Regent is located) and we then returned to Regent. The college is entirely located in one building, with the library and administration in the basement, as well as several classrooms; the bookstore, coffee shop, chapel and more classrooms on the first floor; and several more classes and offices on the second floor. We still had some time before we were supposed to be given our tour of the building, so we poked around the bookstore and bought drinks and pastries at the coffee shop. As it turned out, a lot in the bookstore was on sale and I bought a CD lecture for half-off, figuring that’d be a good way to get an idea about the quality of teaching at the school.
Finally, we went down to administration at met Matt, the man responsible for taking care of visitors like us, and he showed us around the building and then sat down to talk with us about various details of the schools, from financing to programs. Matt is an American, so he was able to give us a lot of information on what U.S. Citizens have to do to attend Regent. Regent, by the way, is a Seminary which trains people in theology who won’t necessarily go on to be pastors or theology teachers (though they certainly do train these as well) and with a focus on the goodness of God’s creation (and new creation). One thing I love about the program is that they present a multitude of orthodox views on various subjects and allow students to come to their own conclusions about them. Anyway, Matt gave us plenty of materials to look at, as well as giving us each a coupon for a free cup of coffee from the café, a CD lecture on the essence of Anglicanism (Regent is not really an Anglican seminary, but they have an Anglican studies program that supplements the education of individuals who want to go on to Anglican ministry) and a $25 gift certificate to the book store. We thanked Matt for his hospitality, time and the information he had given us, and then walked across the street to eat at a Sushi place recommended by Matt. Apparently, Vancouver has really good Sushi and Nate and I found what we had to be quite good, though Tyler complained about his. To each his own I guess.
We finished our lunches, and then went back to the Regent bookstore to take advantage of our gift certificates. Tyler bought Blue Like Jazz and Through Painted deserts by Donald Miller, and I bought a book called Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (one of the foremost New Testament scholars of our age) on the hope of the resurrection. Nate didn’t find anything yet, but he’ll be able to use the gift certificate to buy books through the Regent bookstore’s website.
After our time at the bookstore, we returned to Tyler and my hosts’ house, where Tyler’s car was parked. We planned on heading over to Stanley Park, but realized there wasn’t going to be enough time to do both this and still get Nate back in time for his host to take him home. Instead, we went for a walk in the Pacific Spirit Park, which is within walking distance of Regent. It’s rather odd to call it a park really, since it’s more of a giant patch of forest with trails, or in other words, totally wicked awesome. Sadly, we didn’t actually get any pictures of this park, so you’ll just have to take my word for how awesome it is. There are thousands-upon-thousands of evergreen trees stretching high into the air, between them and the thick underbrush snake a multitude of paths. We probably walked for about forty minutes or so and covered maybe a tenth of the park.
Finally, we returned to our respective hosts. Tyler and I had delicious barbequed and spiced hamburgers, and Nate had barbequed chicken . Tyler and I also had a desert of cherries with our hosts, and an Australian sparkling beverage. After diner, Tyler and I went up stairs to read and eventually fell asleep.
Let me just say that we really appreciated the hospitality of Regent and our hosts. Talking with Nathan and Mareesa was also great fun. It was interesting to note though, that because of our common language and religion, it was easy to forget we came from different cultured. Tyler and I kept assuming they'd know things, like what Calvary Chapel is, or where Georgia is, that they didn't know. For their part, our hosts did a better job than us at recognizing things we might not know about. Oh, and I was apparently the first American to ever request black over Herbal tea in their house. Yay.
Nate had decided to sequester himself in a far hidden corner of the library, so it took us some time to find him but we did eventually, after which we took a short walk around part of the University of British Columbia campus (where Regent is located) and we then returned to Regent. The college is entirely located in one building, with the library and administration in the basement, as well as several classrooms; the bookstore, coffee shop, chapel and more classrooms on the first floor; and several more classes and offices on the second floor. We still had some time before we were supposed to be given our tour of the building, so we poked around the bookstore and bought drinks and pastries at the coffee shop. As it turned out, a lot in the bookstore was on sale and I bought a CD lecture for half-off, figuring that’d be a good way to get an idea about the quality of teaching at the school.
Finally, we went down to administration at met Matt, the man responsible for taking care of visitors like us, and he showed us around the building and then sat down to talk with us about various details of the schools, from financing to programs. Matt is an American, so he was able to give us a lot of information on what U.S. Citizens have to do to attend Regent. Regent, by the way, is a Seminary which trains people in theology who won’t necessarily go on to be pastors or theology teachers (though they certainly do train these as well) and with a focus on the goodness of God’s creation (and new creation). One thing I love about the program is that they present a multitude of orthodox views on various subjects and allow students to come to their own conclusions about them. Anyway, Matt gave us plenty of materials to look at, as well as giving us each a coupon for a free cup of coffee from the café, a CD lecture on the essence of Anglicanism (Regent is not really an Anglican seminary, but they have an Anglican studies program that supplements the education of individuals who want to go on to Anglican ministry) and a $25 gift certificate to the book store. We thanked Matt for his hospitality, time and the information he had given us, and then walked across the street to eat at a Sushi place recommended by Matt. Apparently, Vancouver has really good Sushi and Nate and I found what we had to be quite good, though Tyler complained about his. To each his own I guess.
We finished our lunches, and then went back to the Regent bookstore to take advantage of our gift certificates. Tyler bought Blue Like Jazz and Through Painted deserts by Donald Miller, and I bought a book called Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (one of the foremost New Testament scholars of our age) on the hope of the resurrection. Nate didn’t find anything yet, but he’ll be able to use the gift certificate to buy books through the Regent bookstore’s website.
After our time at the bookstore, we returned to Tyler and my hosts’ house, where Tyler’s car was parked. We planned on heading over to Stanley Park, but realized there wasn’t going to be enough time to do both this and still get Nate back in time for his host to take him home. Instead, we went for a walk in the Pacific Spirit Park, which is within walking distance of Regent. It’s rather odd to call it a park really, since it’s more of a giant patch of forest with trails, or in other words, totally wicked awesome. Sadly, we didn’t actually get any pictures of this park, so you’ll just have to take my word for how awesome it is. There are thousands-upon-thousands of evergreen trees stretching high into the air, between them and the thick underbrush snake a multitude of paths. We probably walked for about forty minutes or so and covered maybe a tenth of the park.
Finally, we returned to our respective hosts. Tyler and I had delicious barbequed and spiced hamburgers, and Nate had barbequed chicken . Tyler and I also had a desert of cherries with our hosts, and an Australian sparkling beverage. After diner, Tyler and I went up stairs to read and eventually fell asleep.
Let me just say that we really appreciated the hospitality of Regent and our hosts. Talking with Nathan and Mareesa was also great fun. It was interesting to note though, that because of our common language and religion, it was easy to forget we came from different cultured. Tyler and I kept assuming they'd know things, like what Calvary Chapel is, or where Georgia is, that they didn't know. For their part, our hosts did a better job than us at recognizing things we might not know about. Oh, and I was apparently the first American to ever request black over Herbal tea in their house. Yay.
Road Trip: Washington and Vancouver: Leaving America
No night of restless sleep could keep us from our adventures, and so we headed back into Seattle for more time of exploration before heading to Canada. Our first stop was a little open air nautical museum displaying a collection of wooden ships, from old tug boats to steamers. The ships were cool, free to look at, and even the parking was free (which seems to be a rarity in cities). Adjacent to the museum was a cruise yacht offering tours of the harbor and we decided to find out how much tickets would be. The captain informed us that, normally, it would be two hours for $22, but then gave us coupons to get on for $11. Not a bad deal, so we bit. Ultimately, it turned out that we were the only ones on the tour, so we got a private two hour tour of the bay for $11 – even better.
Our captain was a slightly creepy, but amiable older man who was happy to inform us where the Vancouver nude beach was when we told him we were going up there to see a seminary. Something tells me he probably didn’t know what a seminary is, or at least he didn’t hear us right. The tour was great fun, Nate and I both bought lunches on the boat, and we got to get little bits of history and information about the city. Some of my favorite sights were the floating homes within the bay. They’re a group of old, grandfathered in settlements built back in the 20s to avoid property taxes. Some of them are fancy little mansions, while others are little more than shacks, but they all look like they’d be cool places to live. Some of the neatest ones had porches crammed full of all kinds of potted plants. This city has in modern times severely limited the expansion of these communities, and almost the only way to get such a house is to buy one from a previous owner and either use it or demolish it and build your own.
In addition to the floating homes, we saw a whole series of crazy-huge waterfront mansions owned by some of the world’s richest people, including the house of Bill Gates himself (interestingly, I’d say the house was moderate in terms of Gates’ income, but that’s not saying much).These houses were mostly built right down on the beach, which was backed by a short cliff. Each of the homes had a garage on the top of the cliff with an incline elevator/gondola to get down the cliff. I think that in some ways this part of the tour was designed to arouse envy in us, and while a beach front house would be nice, the things many of these people did with their money were just absurd to the point of making them almost clownish. For example, one of the other founders of Microsoft bought a huge yacht with a helicopter pad, then he got bored with it and bought an even bigger one, and finally got a massive one with two helicopter pads.
So, we viewed the homes of the rich, as well as various bridges, famous boats and public buildings and we then returned to shore. After this, we drove back to downtown Seattle and spent about an hour meandering through the Pike Place Marketplace. The Marketplace is a cool covered market with produce, craft and food places packed tightly inside. In addition to the shops, there were several street performers playing, which if you ask me are the best part of any marketplace.
Finally, we got back on the road and headed for the Canadian border, another rather uneventful drive. We arrived at the border, which among other things meant we had to navigate the old fashioned way, because Maggie doesn’t have any Canada maps. The length of the line at the border was nothing compared to the monstrosity that is the Mexican border, but there was a bit of a line, and we ended up behind an SUV from California.
“Hello Fellow Californian.”
But alas, the Canadian border police kept up the car for a long time, probably suspicious of them because they had giant USC stickers on the back. Apparently the Canadians have good sense. (I now wink at my friends from USC). We, however, got through without any trouble. One really clever thing we discovered shortly after crossing the border was that the lanes on the freeway are reversible for purposes of traffic control. Before entering Canada, we had written down directions to the place where Tyler and I were staying, but we missed our turn and had a massive amount of difficulty finding our way back onto our route, but we eventually did and soon afterward found our way to our hosts’ townhouse. Our hosts were a nice Australian couple (named Nathan and Mareesa) with a single one-year-old boy (Daniel), and they were wonderfully hospitable, helping us with directions and feeding us well for both breakfast and lunch. That night, they fed us a hearty meal of spaghetti and answering my bombardment of questions about Regent College.
I really enjoyed looking at Nathan’s collection of books, which demonstrated a broad and intelligent theological base (and of course reflected the theological bent of Regent). Best of all I think, was a book on quantum mechanics and theology written by a man who is both an Anglican priest and a theoretical physicist. Though I haven’t read the book, I would imagine this background makes him suited to writing an actually quality analysis of the subject, as opposed to the steaming piles of crap found in such works as What the *Bleep* Do We Know?
Daniel was also a lot of fun, though rather quite at first. After dinner, we drove Nate to his hosts’ house further into the city, and then returned to our hosts’ for a dessert of Strawberries and Cream. After dessert, we bid our hosts goodbye and settled in for a night of good sleep on actual beds (well… a bed and a mattress, but infinitely better than sleeping in the car).
Our captain was a slightly creepy, but amiable older man who was happy to inform us where the Vancouver nude beach was when we told him we were going up there to see a seminary. Something tells me he probably didn’t know what a seminary is, or at least he didn’t hear us right. The tour was great fun, Nate and I both bought lunches on the boat, and we got to get little bits of history and information about the city. Some of my favorite sights were the floating homes within the bay. They’re a group of old, grandfathered in settlements built back in the 20s to avoid property taxes. Some of them are fancy little mansions, while others are little more than shacks, but they all look like they’d be cool places to live. Some of the neatest ones had porches crammed full of all kinds of potted plants. This city has in modern times severely limited the expansion of these communities, and almost the only way to get such a house is to buy one from a previous owner and either use it or demolish it and build your own.
In addition to the floating homes, we saw a whole series of crazy-huge waterfront mansions owned by some of the world’s richest people, including the house of Bill Gates himself (interestingly, I’d say the house was moderate in terms of Gates’ income, but that’s not saying much).These houses were mostly built right down on the beach, which was backed by a short cliff. Each of the homes had a garage on the top of the cliff with an incline elevator/gondola to get down the cliff. I think that in some ways this part of the tour was designed to arouse envy in us, and while a beach front house would be nice, the things many of these people did with their money were just absurd to the point of making them almost clownish. For example, one of the other founders of Microsoft bought a huge yacht with a helicopter pad, then he got bored with it and bought an even bigger one, and finally got a massive one with two helicopter pads.
So, we viewed the homes of the rich, as well as various bridges, famous boats and public buildings and we then returned to shore. After this, we drove back to downtown Seattle and spent about an hour meandering through the Pike Place Marketplace. The Marketplace is a cool covered market with produce, craft and food places packed tightly inside. In addition to the shops, there were several street performers playing, which if you ask me are the best part of any marketplace.
Finally, we got back on the road and headed for the Canadian border, another rather uneventful drive. We arrived at the border, which among other things meant we had to navigate the old fashioned way, because Maggie doesn’t have any Canada maps. The length of the line at the border was nothing compared to the monstrosity that is the Mexican border, but there was a bit of a line, and we ended up behind an SUV from California.
“Hello Fellow Californian.”
But alas, the Canadian border police kept up the car for a long time, probably suspicious of them because they had giant USC stickers on the back. Apparently the Canadians have good sense. (I now wink at my friends from USC). We, however, got through without any trouble. One really clever thing we discovered shortly after crossing the border was that the lanes on the freeway are reversible for purposes of traffic control. Before entering Canada, we had written down directions to the place where Tyler and I were staying, but we missed our turn and had a massive amount of difficulty finding our way back onto our route, but we eventually did and soon afterward found our way to our hosts’ townhouse. Our hosts were a nice Australian couple (named Nathan and Mareesa) with a single one-year-old boy (Daniel), and they were wonderfully hospitable, helping us with directions and feeding us well for both breakfast and lunch. That night, they fed us a hearty meal of spaghetti and answering my bombardment of questions about Regent College.
I really enjoyed looking at Nathan’s collection of books, which demonstrated a broad and intelligent theological base (and of course reflected the theological bent of Regent). Best of all I think, was a book on quantum mechanics and theology written by a man who is both an Anglican priest and a theoretical physicist. Though I haven’t read the book, I would imagine this background makes him suited to writing an actually quality analysis of the subject, as opposed to the steaming piles of crap found in such works as What the *Bleep* Do We Know?
Daniel was also a lot of fun, though rather quite at first. After dinner, we drove Nate to his hosts’ house further into the city, and then returned to our hosts’ for a dessert of Strawberries and Cream. After dessert, we bid our hosts goodbye and settled in for a night of good sleep on actual beds (well… a bed and a mattress, but infinitely better than sleeping in the car).
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Road Trip: Break in Communication
Well folks, I'm heading up into Canada now, which means ny phone's going off and with it my only guaranteed internet connection. I'll keep writing my blog posts anyway, and if I get no net I'll just post them up when I'm back in the states.
Road Trip: Seattle - Space Needle... in Space
A night of sleeping in a car is hard, probably not so hard as sleeping on an airplane, but it’s definitely not bed-status, nor even as good as a floor. Nevertheless, after finishing working on the blog I posted last night I settled into a relatively comfortable position and then, with the help of rain pattering on the roof, I finally fell back to sleep and didn’t wake again until morning. Normally I can sleep soundly pretty much anywhere… if I feel tired, but my body decided that feeling sleepy in a car at night was a bad idea. The same thing happened to my friends, unfortunately, and they had a more difficult night than I did, but they managed to get some sleep. So now it’s morning, we’re driving along on the freeway, and it’s time to finish yesterdays story.
Driving up to Seattle proved rather uneventful, Nate read more of Halo: First Strike, and I read for a while myself until car sickness started to make that impossible. Our route was nothing near as striking as the Oregon coastal route, though we got some stunning glimpses of white and blue of Mt. St. Helens through the tall green trees that lined the freeway.
The jutting retro-futuristic spire of the space needle came into view around two in the afternoon. Finding parking proved in some ways as difficult as it had been in every city, but we had a bit more experience by this point and were familiar with the pay-to-park system used for street parking, as we’d encountered it in Portland. We ended up parking some distance from the Space Needle and walking there. Naturally, the entrance fee for the famous landmark was outrageous, costing a full $15 just to ride up on an elevator at get a view of the city, but of course we bit. You can’t go to Seattle as a tourist for the first time and not go on the Space Needle. Getting the gorgeous views of the Seattle skyline, bay and mountains was quite worth it though, and perhaps more interesting to me was the information posted up on the history and construction of the building.
At the time the Space Needle was built, Seattle had won the right to host the World Fair by pushing its commitment to science and to becoming a 21st century city… almost half a century early. As part of this World Fair, the Space Needle was built to exhibit the grandeur of Seattle’s vision for the future, just as the Eiffel Tower had been built for the World Fair in Paris. One fact about its construction that I found very interesting, was that they decided to have the center of gravity be only a few feet off the ground, this meant they had to have a massive amount of steel and concrete underground as a counterbalance for the Needle. Ultimately, they spent 24 hours pouring concrete for the foundation, which is still the longest time on record.
After our journey up the Space Needle, we went across the street to a little café to have lunch. It was a pleasant little place, with outside seating giving us a good view of the Space Needle. Nate and I had a Chinese dish that was quite good, while Tyler had a BLT. I also had a honey nut latte, which was way too sweet. Though we had a good time, the cashier at the place seemed like she really didn’t want to be there, so that put something of a damper on the experience.
Our bellies fed, we walked back to the car to get more time in our parking spot and then went to the most amazing place ever (well… the second most amazing, the most amazing place ever is Powell’s Books) – the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. We all had a blast walking through the place, looking at all the sci-fi props, signed first edition books and the plethora of information on the history of science fiction. They also had some bits of advice on writing science fiction from some of the greats, most of which was absolute crap, but hey, just because you can perform it don’t mean you can teach it. For example, Ray Bradbury mumbled some mystical mumbo-jumbo about how you had to let the inner-man, not yourself write, and Harlan Ellison said profoundly that the deep secret to writing good was to hear the music. Whatever that means. He repeated the statement several times without ever explaining what he meant by it, and he also managed to call community college writing teachers worthless hacks.
Attached to the Sci-fi museum, and entered on the same ticket, was a musical experience museum on the history of Rock n’ Roll. It was cool, and I think Tyler really liked it, but I wasn’t nearly as exciting for me. Mostly, it consisted of lots and lots of displays of different guitars, and information on the instrument and the musicians. It was real cool, but seemed a tad monotonous to me.
Having gotten our money’s worth and more out of the museums, we set out to find dinner, a task which ultimately took us two whole hours. First, Tyler decided we’d eat out of downtown, and we agreed to try and find something we hadn’t had before. So, we asked our GPS to list restaurant categories in the area, and African cuisine came up. That sounded cool, so I clicked on it and found a lot of places, mostly Ethiopian. We decided on one of these, and drove about a half of an hour to get there, only to find it closed. Nearby, Maggie said, was another restraint called Zulu East African food, so we headed out that way and found… a house. Close to an hour wasted already, I began searching for food on the web using my phone and we finally decided on a German Sausage place, which turned out to be in downtown Seattle. Luckily, it was late by now and parking after six is free, so we drove the half-hour back to downtown and parked. We never did find the German place, and most of the places along the street were far too expensive, but we finally found a neat little fish taco place where we all ordered big fish burritos and had a hearty meal. It was also nice to see that the fish they used was caught sustainably.
Finally, we set out to find a place to sleep, heading to a truck stop I found by way of my phone… only it turned out it was a park-and-ride, not a truck stop, and that it explicitly forbade overnight car sleeping. Lame. We searched around on the net for a while to find a camp site or rest stop we could go to, and I finally called Ernie’s Truck Stop to see if we could park there and sleep the night over. It was not, I gathered, something they did on an official basis, but they told us to park in the employee parking on the side and let them know we were there. After rearranging our luggage so we could all get at least semi-recumbent, we set to the difficult task of trying to sleep.
Driving up to Seattle proved rather uneventful, Nate read more of Halo: First Strike, and I read for a while myself until car sickness started to make that impossible. Our route was nothing near as striking as the Oregon coastal route, though we got some stunning glimpses of white and blue of Mt. St. Helens through the tall green trees that lined the freeway.
The jutting retro-futuristic spire of the space needle came into view around two in the afternoon. Finding parking proved in some ways as difficult as it had been in every city, but we had a bit more experience by this point and were familiar with the pay-to-park system used for street parking, as we’d encountered it in Portland. We ended up parking some distance from the Space Needle and walking there. Naturally, the entrance fee for the famous landmark was outrageous, costing a full $15 just to ride up on an elevator at get a view of the city, but of course we bit. You can’t go to Seattle as a tourist for the first time and not go on the Space Needle. Getting the gorgeous views of the Seattle skyline, bay and mountains was quite worth it though, and perhaps more interesting to me was the information posted up on the history and construction of the building.
At the time the Space Needle was built, Seattle had won the right to host the World Fair by pushing its commitment to science and to becoming a 21st century city… almost half a century early. As part of this World Fair, the Space Needle was built to exhibit the grandeur of Seattle’s vision for the future, just as the Eiffel Tower had been built for the World Fair in Paris. One fact about its construction that I found very interesting, was that they decided to have the center of gravity be only a few feet off the ground, this meant they had to have a massive amount of steel and concrete underground as a counterbalance for the Needle. Ultimately, they spent 24 hours pouring concrete for the foundation, which is still the longest time on record.
After our journey up the Space Needle, we went across the street to a little café to have lunch. It was a pleasant little place, with outside seating giving us a good view of the Space Needle. Nate and I had a Chinese dish that was quite good, while Tyler had a BLT. I also had a honey nut latte, which was way too sweet. Though we had a good time, the cashier at the place seemed like she really didn’t want to be there, so that put something of a damper on the experience.
Our bellies fed, we walked back to the car to get more time in our parking spot and then went to the most amazing place ever (well… the second most amazing, the most amazing place ever is Powell’s Books) – the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. We all had a blast walking through the place, looking at all the sci-fi props, signed first edition books and the plethora of information on the history of science fiction. They also had some bits of advice on writing science fiction from some of the greats, most of which was absolute crap, but hey, just because you can perform it don’t mean you can teach it. For example, Ray Bradbury mumbled some mystical mumbo-jumbo about how you had to let the inner-man, not yourself write, and Harlan Ellison said profoundly that the deep secret to writing good was to hear the music. Whatever that means. He repeated the statement several times without ever explaining what he meant by it, and he also managed to call community college writing teachers worthless hacks.
Attached to the Sci-fi museum, and entered on the same ticket, was a musical experience museum on the history of Rock n’ Roll. It was cool, and I think Tyler really liked it, but I wasn’t nearly as exciting for me. Mostly, it consisted of lots and lots of displays of different guitars, and information on the instrument and the musicians. It was real cool, but seemed a tad monotonous to me.
Having gotten our money’s worth and more out of the museums, we set out to find dinner, a task which ultimately took us two whole hours. First, Tyler decided we’d eat out of downtown, and we agreed to try and find something we hadn’t had before. So, we asked our GPS to list restaurant categories in the area, and African cuisine came up. That sounded cool, so I clicked on it and found a lot of places, mostly Ethiopian. We decided on one of these, and drove about a half of an hour to get there, only to find it closed. Nearby, Maggie said, was another restraint called Zulu East African food, so we headed out that way and found… a house. Close to an hour wasted already, I began searching for food on the web using my phone and we finally decided on a German Sausage place, which turned out to be in downtown Seattle. Luckily, it was late by now and parking after six is free, so we drove the half-hour back to downtown and parked. We never did find the German place, and most of the places along the street were far too expensive, but we finally found a neat little fish taco place where we all ordered big fish burritos and had a hearty meal. It was also nice to see that the fish they used was caught sustainably.
Finally, we set out to find a place to sleep, heading to a truck stop I found by way of my phone… only it turned out it was a park-and-ride, not a truck stop, and that it explicitly forbade overnight car sleeping. Lame. We searched around on the net for a while to find a camp site or rest stop we could go to, and I finally called Ernie’s Truck Stop to see if we could park there and sleep the night over. It was not, I gathered, something they did on an official basis, but they told us to park in the employee parking on the side and let them know we were there. After rearranging our luggage so we could all get at least semi-recumbent, we set to the difficult task of trying to sleep.
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