A Few of My Favorite Things: May 2015

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Bellingham to Seattle...

On Monday the boys and I woke up at 6am to get ready for a whole day of trains and Seattle. We joined the Whatcom Homeschool Association's field trip and participated in the "Schools on Trains" program offered each year through Amtrak.

Our train left Bellingham at 8:30 am and we arrived in Seattle just before 11:00. Our day would include 5 different modes of transportation and plenty of selfies.

The boys kept themselves busy on the train ride down.

With the help of another homeschool family we quickly found the light rail that took us to Westlake.

From there we rode the Monorail to the Space Needle.

By 11:30 am we had already rode 3 different types of trains, walked a good distance and we were HUNGRY!

Look! I found Weedle at the Needle!

Thankfully there was minimal wait time and we were up on the observation deck eating the lunch of champions, hotdogs and donuts by 12 noon.

When we were planning this day I gave the boys some options of what we could do for the 6 hours in Seattle. They all felt that the Space Needle was a must see. I agreed and added on the Experience Music Project museum because it was close.

Let me just say....
I now have the EMP out of my system. Seriously, I felt that it was just a waste of time. It touts itself as a music, pop culture, experience. I'm pretty sure my boys could have done without everything else and just spent multiple hours in the Indi-video game room.

These are new games being developed by different designers from around the world.

There was the tower of guitars which caught our attention for a few minutes.

The EMP building is laid out just as goofy inside as it is outside. I don't even want to get into explaining the madness.

After an hour or so we headed back to Westlake via the Monorail and into the mall for more snacks. Then it was time to make the Scientist's day. We looked out over the Westlake square and found chess.

He's been wanting to play chess in the city for quite awhile. All the movies about chess have parts with chess in the city. So, we made it happen.

He sat down quietly and watched this game until it was over and then asked if he could play. He ended up playing the gentleman on the left.

Half way through the game there was a crowd of 8 people gathered around watching. The Scientist had a strong game and the crowd was rooting for him. (Gangsters and all.) In the end he took a respectful loss. It was a great experience. I can only imagine what empathy the Scientist will have for all types of people because of these experiences with chess. What you look like, smell like, or where you live, just doesn't matter in chess. Your mind is all that matters.

You can't see it in this picture but near the end of the game there were people from so many walks of life watching and talking about the game. He was complimented and so was I, just for being his mom. They wanted him to play more but it was time to move on. We got a couple cheers when I told them we homeschool and this was a field trip.

On our way back to the Amtrak in the International district I snapped a few more pictures.

The train station is so grand! I wish I had learned some history about it before we went.

By 6:45 we were on the Amtrak headed back to Bellingham. We were tired but the boys in the group had a blast hanging out in the back of the train car.