Familiar and New

DOCK WALK: We started the day with a brisk walk down to a frequent destination of ours, Fisherman's Terminal. It's about a 2.7 mile round trip, maybe a bit more the way we meander. 

Once down at the terminal, we decided to walk out to the end of Dock 8 and check out the eclectic mix of ships tied up along it.

CJ's favorite vessel was this imposing one, Thor.  I wouldn't want to mess with Thor.  Annabelle favored a little electric boat named Juliette. Different strokes. ;)

We saw some big working ships. 

And we also spied the boat that conducts the Sunday morning ice cream tours.

I've always wanted to go on one of those. I remember reading about it years ago, when we first moved here. We're going to have to follow up on that. Per their Web site, the boat departs on the hour, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays.  They offer a 45 to 50 minute tour of Lake Union, with highlights including Dale Chihuly's studio, Gas Works Park, and the Sleepless in Seattle houseboat. Admission is reasonable, as are snacks on board. They tour year round. Sounds fun!  I found a story about the boat's captain, Larry Kezner, on the KPLU radio site: http://kplu.org/post/tour-lake-union-captain-whos-circled-it-2800-times.  That's Kezner standing on the top deck of the boat in my photo (above).

SECRET PROJECT: Annabelle and I spent a couple of hours on a book project we're working on. I think we've slogged our way through to page 5 at this point. Most of our work together consists of me telling her how something should look and then her figuring out how to make it happen in Adobe Illustrator. :)

STUMBLED UPON: Yesterday, during our rounds, we encountered a couple of torn up roads and so we wound up taking an alternative route to the Greenwood Fred Meyer. 

A few blocks away, in unfamiliar territory, we passed a big ol' Seattle City Light substation at North 105th Street and Fremont Avenue North. While the enormous, electrical-related equipment was what caught our eyes first, I also noticed a number of bright-colored object, moving.  We drove on past, but about a half block later, I said, "You know what, we've never been here before, and we might not ever be here again. We should check that out," and back we went to the Viewland/Hoffman Electrical Substation.

I'm glad we stopped, as what we found was a large art installation, dating back to 1979, and a first of its kind project, from what I read online today. Artists worked with structural and landscape architects and engineers to plan the overall concept and layout of the substation. One of the things the design team did was include 27 whirligigs, made by Emil and Veva Gehrke, of Grand Coulee, Washington.

There's a fading plaque on site, noting the Gehrkes' contributions. 

Their wind-driven pieces are made with recycled/upcycled/found parts, everything from wheels to toys, hard hats to dust pans. A chain link fence surrounds the Gehrkes' creations, which is great for protecting them, but it is too bad the public can walk in and around them.  

I found a YouTube videos of the whirligigs (much better than my bad cell phone photos!):
http://youtu.be/OW9BFH33DPU


There was a sign on site about the construction of the substation. It's fading away ...

 as is a plaque about Eugene R. Hoffman, who was superintendent of Seattle City Light from 1939 to 1953.

Per an article on HistoryLink.org, "the free online encyclopedia of Washington state history," Hoffman had been Hoffman an engineer with the Public Works Administration, the state Parks Department and for the state highways prior to taking on the Seattle job.