{"id":552,"date":"2008-04-25T15:45:44","date_gmt":"2008-04-25T22:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/?p=552"},"modified":"2008-04-25T15:54:12","modified_gmt":"2008-04-25T22:54:12","slug":"50_states_washington_4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/04\/25\/50_states_washington_4.html","title":{"rendered":"50 States: Washington (4)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/btmeacham\/2426249913\/\" title=\"50 States: Washington by btmeacham, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3106\/2426249913_5b010345f3.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"50 States: Washington\" \/><\/a><BR><BR>Seattle always seemed like it was almost part of Alaska &#8211; or rather, that Anchorage was somehow a suburb of Seattle &#8211; when I was growing up.  Everything shipped to Alaska came through Seattle, every trip to the Lower 48 went through Seattle, Alaskans followed Seattle&#8217;s pro sports teams &#8211; even one of the things we could really take pride in as a state, Alaska Airlines, was headquartered in Seattle.  It wasn&#8217;t so bad, though; if you&#8217;re going to have a long weekend getaway place, you could do a lot worse than Seattle.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t remember my first trip to Seattle, but I remember many early trips to the city, and Washington in general: La Conner, <A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.manresacastle.com\/\">Manresa Castle<\/A>, the San Juans, and the kiddie hotspots of Seattle, like <A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.ivars.net\/Acres_Home\/kids_menu.html\">Ivar&#8217;s<\/A>, with their coloring book-style placemats, that great toy store with the kites, the <A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.pacsci.org\/\">Pacific Science Center<\/A> and its penny-flatteners, and <A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.elliottbaybook.com\/\">Elliott Bay Books<\/A>.  OK, nerd kid hotspots, I guess.  <\/p>\n<p>Anyway, the photo above comes from a visit to Seattle in the late summer of 2001 (what was I thinking with those sideburns?), visiting Brent on my way back east from Alaska.  By this time, the focus had moved from the kid&#8217;s menu at Ivar&#8217;s to hanging out at the Baltic Room, running around Green Lake, watching the Mariners at Safeco, and hiking in the Olympic Peninsula.  We&#8217;ve had some great times, and I always enjoy visiting Brent; it&#8217;s great to be in a city with someone who knows his surroundings as well as he does, and it&#8217;s been fun getting to know his different neighborhoods, roommates, co-workers, and friends over the years. Amanda and Darius are just outside Seattle, as well, and we&#8217;ve managed to see all three of them a few times in the last few years.  It&#8217;s a joy to have great friends in a great city, and it&#8217;s nice to be on the same coast, as well, for now.<\/p>\n<p>And also, now that I&#8217;ve got more than a few states, <A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/btmeacham\/sets\/72157604628502830\/map\/\">a link to the photo map on Flickr<\/A>, showing where (with varying degrees of accuracy) the photos were taken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seattle always seemed like it was almost part of Alaska &#8211; or rather, that Anchorage was somehow a suburb of Seattle &#8211; when I was growing up. Everything shipped to Alaska came through Seattle, every trip to the Lower 48 went through Seattle, Alaskans followed Seattle&#8217;s pro sports teams &#8211; even one of the things [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,12,10,16],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alaska","category-nostalgia","category-photos","category-travel","tag-50states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}