Last Saturday, James and I drove up to Seattle to visit our favorite Seattlites, Holly and Nathan. We woke up early-ish (hey, it's my day off, let's be realistic!) and got fancy pastries and hot chocolate from a posh little bakery in Hillsdale, and then drove up to our hotel in Bellinham, across the bridge from Seattle proper. After setting in, we met up with H&N at their apartment to carpool to the Seattle Art Museum, where there was an Edward Hopper exhibit that James was keen on seeing.

My only experience with Edward Hopper was the classic Nighthawks, which sadly wasn't in the exhibit, but I was touched by the melancholic works of the Norman Rockwell contemporary. My favorite was The Automat.

Nighthawks

The Automat

After seeing Hopper's work, we decided to get our admission money's worth and check our the rest of the museum. There were some fascinating Native American artifacts, notably Tlingit Indians, of which Holly is a quarter member. I didn't used to get drawn into Native American stuff, but after our trip to Alaska, I finally feel like I can see the intent of the totem art and appreciate its beauty and majesty. Also, we saw some masks made with human hair! Freaky. :)

I wish I'd thought to write down the names and artists of my favorite non-Hopper works of art, but I just allowed myself to get drawn into the experience without concern for the future impact. I'll admit, it made for a better experience, if not a better blog. Fortunately for me, google came to the rescue!

I loved this Lin Onus painting called Gathering Storm. You can't see the detail in this pic, but the detail of layering is beautiful and it boggles my mind.

Gathering Storm, by Lin Onus

This sculpture is called Mann und Maus, by a we-can-assume-German artist Katharina Fritsch. Not only did the stark black-vs-white imagery captivate me, but the thing is like 7 1/2 feet tall!

Mann und Maus, by Katharina Fritsch

So, after breakfast in a swanky bakery and all afternoon in a museum, we were all cultured up for the main event: Monster Truck Show!! This was the initial reason for visiting, as H&N were totally excited and we were willing to suspend our hoity-toity Portland standards for an evening. We started to Redneck-down by going to an awesome BBQ joint where they serve a ridiculous amount of meat and sides on an inverted garbage can lid, "family style" (don't ask who's family, for I surely don't know). There were at least half a dozen kinds of sauce to slather on the food, but I was content with those cooked on them, downing my share of brisket and ribs, steering clear of the corn-on-the-cob (braces) and chicken (this is BBQ - mammals only!). By this time, our party had doubled thanks to the company of Holly's two cousins, Nathan's co-worker and their long-time friend John, so it was a fun party. Since dinner took longer than expected (they mean slow roasted), the girls took off to leave the boys to handle the check so we could pick our tickets up from Will Call. Where does one go for a Monster Truc Show in Seattle? One doesn't - one goes to Tacoma! Of course, being a good friends, I won't even mention how Holly got the girl's car totally lost in Tacoma. At least we still got there before the boys.

In retrospect, it was a lot of fun. There were these buggy races, and of course the fabulous antics of Grave Digger and his cronies. There was a wonderfully helpful (if somewhat toothless - I am not exaggerating) fellow sitting in front of us who explained things like when the announcer yells "WHAT TIME IS IT??!" we're supposed to reply "FREESTYLE!!!" and not "Um...9:30?" as I was tempted to do. Three things that surprised me that I later realized shouldn't have: (1) it was cold, which was probably because they had to keep the heated-but-carbon-monoxide-heavy air circulating with the clean-but-cold January air from outside, (2) it was loud (which got me to thinking: why is it whenever we visit Seattle I lose a little bit of my hearing?), and (3) it was fun! Just let that mob-mentality seep into your subconscious and let the inner redneck out! What time is it? FREESTYLE!!!

After the show, I was tempted to find a late-night Winchell's or something, afraid to swing back into my normal lifestyle too quickly by finding an upscale establishment for dessert. We found a bar not too far from the Tacoma Dome that served dessert and let us sit in the closed restaurant area for the benefit of Holly's not-quite-21-year-old cousins. It was a good compromise, and we arrived back at our hotel in smooth transition. Ah, back to insular yuppie DINK lifestyle!

All in all, had a great time!