Pike Place Market and the Wall of Gum

 

by Pa Rock

Weary Traveler

Thursday:   Our last full day in Seattle.  

Molly, an amazing urban driver, managed to get us close to the waterfront and squeeze our war wagon rental into one of the many small parking lots that punctuate the landscape of downtown Seattle.  From there we walked to the very busy Pike Place Market, a sprawling crafts fair that supposedly connects to a fish market, which we never found - but I did catch a whiff.

(I've been to the famous fish market in New Orleans, and also to a less hectic one on Okinawa, but I guess I will have to save Seattle's for another visit.  I wasn't planning on buying a fish anyway - and once you've smelled one fish market, you've smelled them all!) 

The weather has been remarkably good which is fortunate because most of my traveling wardrobe consists of shorts and tee-shirts.   This morning as I was pulling clothes out on my travel bag in the dark, I came up with a well-worn political shirt that says "Beto for Governor of Texas," so it is almost four years old.  I don't wear it outside of the house when I am home, but it is extremely comfortable and I figured that it would not attract controversy in a place like Seattle. 

The old shirt did lead to one fun conversation while we were in the market.  Molly and the kids had moved on ahead and I was lagging behind looking at some handcrafted glass art. The lady sitting behind the counter was reading a book and seemed to be ignoring me, which I usually prefer.  As I was snooping through her wares, however, she looked up and commented on my shirt.  "Beto for Governor," she said, and added, "He should have won.  I can't understand why people in this county keep electing assholes." Her remark, of course, led into an unkind discussion of Donald John Trump, and I thought about how nice it would e to live among an educated, progressive populace.  

While we were talking, I asked about the "wall of gum," a tourist attraction in a nearby alleyway where patrons of a local club began sticking their gum on the brick walls of buildings bordering the alley thirty years ago.  Now dabs of multi-colored chewing gum are stuck to buildings on both sides of the alley, some of it quite arty, and some so high on the walls that some of the amateur artists must have brought ladders. to do their artistic vandalism and littering.

My new friend gave me directions to the oddball tourist attraction.  She said, "If civilization ever disappears and aliens find that wall, they will be able to recreate us.  (There is the basis for a sci-fi novel in there somewhere!)

We found the alley and began to walk it at the foot of a long hill.  It almost felt like a tunnel of used chewing gum.  For those who forgot their gum, a large gumball machine is located at the base of the hill.  The art itself was amazing.  Lots of it was just random placement of individual pieces of different colored gum, like fields of stars in the night sky.  But there were also many projects where people had placed pieces in order to spell their names or messages.  There were also long strings of gum hanging from window and door sills and resembling icicles.  Some of the artists had used chewed gum to hold up printed posters.  One of my favorites was "I drink my Dr. Pepper warm, f*ck ICE!"

Yeah, brother!

So far today I have walked 8,500 steps, most of it uphill.  All of the hills in Seattle seem to be one-way:  Up!

Back on the train tomorrow.