Quote of the Moment

"It's never wrong to hope, Byx," said my mother. "Unless the truth says otherwise."
- from Endling #1: The Last, by Katherine Applegate

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Big Wheel Keep On Turnin'...


We spent today (or a few hours of it, at any rate) playing tourists aboard the Queen of Seattle, a paddleboat on Lake Union.  Things got off to a bit of a rough start; the website failed to mention that construction had closed off most of the parking, and construction fences forced a further massive walking detour.  Then a local fluff-news crew stopped by, evidently with little warning, to do a "short" segment on the ship that ended up delaying departure for nearly half an hour (no compensation for the lost time for those of us standing around waiting to board.) Other than that, for the cost, it wasn't that bad, though I get the impression that the crew is still getting the hang of the whole "old-timey tourist boat and banter" part of things.  In addition to the narrated tour of the waterways, we were treated to the occasional steam calliope concert (with a steam calliope that could use a little work, as the notes would randomly not play... that, and the player was used to a piano keyboard and not the calliope controls, making for oft-mangled tunes.) On the way back to dock, they had a little cabaret show, which was just one gal singing Gold Rush era tunes and a guy playing the slightly-out-of-tune saloon piano while providing the aforementioned unpolished banter. The lady had a nice voice, at least...

Afterwards, we hit lunch and wound up visiting a little place we've been driving by forever but never managed to stop in at: Barone Gardens, whose cruddy website doesn't do justice to the zillions of statuary items, birdbaths, and fountains on site.  They're actually reasonably priced, too; not exactly bargain-basement, but not priced through the roof, either.



I'd post more pictures, of the paddleboat trip and the statuary, but my computer has decided to pitch a minor fit today: every time I try to play with graphics from the file folder where I stored these photos, the window locks up for upwards of a minute.  I've got a disc-check scheduled for my next bootup; since I just tested with another photo folder with no lockups, I'm hopeful it's just a bad sector. (I just copied the folder to a different part of My Pictures, and it works just fine there, too.) I know I'm pushing my luck insofar as age corrupting hard drives with this machine, but I'm really not in a fit financial state to consider a replacement at this point.

EDIT - Okay, got the pictures relocated to a less snarky folder, so I'll try posting some links.

Shipboard Singer
One of the costumed staff aboard the Queen of Seattle.

Voyeur on Houseboat
Hey, you don't see me taking pictures of everyone who floats by my house in an authentic steam-powered paddlewheel, do you?

Houseboat, or Floating Mansion?  You Decide...
There was quite a range of styles in the houseboat neighborhoods we paddlewheeled past, depending on when they were built and how much money people were willing to shell out. According to our tour guides, some modern houseboats even have basements with underwater windows.

Gasworks Park with Duck
A former power plant converted into a "safe" park. (How safe is it? If you picnic there and drop anything, it's not advised to pick it up...) In front is one of the amphibious vehicles from the "Ride the Ducks" Seattle tour.

So Much for the Extinction Theory...
An unfinished topiary project from the Jurassic era.

TARDIS sighting
I can only assume that, in the original timeline, the drawbridge failed to open and a major disaster ensued. (Okay, I know the scale's way off... still looks like the blue box to me...)

Mama Tug and Babies
Ah, ain't that cute?

Arc to Arcturus
In memory of Jack "Star Gazer" Horkheimer, as he speeds on to Spica.

The aforementioned Big Wheel, actually turning
Yep, that there's a paddlewheel...

The Calliope Whistles
After the cabaret show started and the little kids left the top deck, the staff dropped the "Authorized Personel Only" cable and let those adults remaining get a closer look at the steam-powered calliope. The buckets are for runoff/drainage.

Cabaret
Not the most dynamic show, but with a little polish it'll be more impressive, I expect.

Sail the Rainbow
The Center for Wooden Boats must run some sort of sailing day camp or school in the summers.  Earlier, they had kids out kayaking, too.

Barone Garden Decor: Catfish, Eagle, and Gargoyle Fountain
Because it was a darned cool place to wander through, even without a yard to decorate.  Or a budget to spend on said decoration.

3 comments:

PeppyPilotGirl said...

...rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river!

Well, at least the lady could sing! I'm surprised the news crew hadn't pre-arranged for that sort of thing.

pusiveth - to make something reek, a verb-ization of the adjective pusive, meaning to stink.

Brightdreamer said...

The impression I got, overhearing the staff, was that plans kept being changed without anyone letting them in on the deal. They seemed a little miffed about the deal, too.

(Incidentally, we watched the show, which aired tonight. Some family members can be seen in the background. Fortuantely, I'm mostly invisible, save my hair and coat.)

I should probably post pictures, now that I seem to have figured out the computer lag issue - moving the photos to another folder fixed it, though the original folder still has trouble when I try working with any of the pictures. (It looks like it's just that one folder that isn't happy... I even ran the error-scan thing at bootup and couldn't find any bad sectors, so I guess I'll just chalk it up to computers being weird and work around the issue.)

Jade said...

Nice pictures, looks like a fun day!

I've been wanting to go to Gasworks sometime and shoot the structure... all those gears and pipes could make for some moody shots.

I was wondering about some of those houseboats when we went floating around Lake Union a couple weeks back - basements with windows would be cool... to visit... but I think I'd be too paranoid about leaks to live like that.