Saturday at the Seattle Center

I spent last Saturday, Valentine's Day,  with the I's, my grand kids Isaac and Irene.  Tom was away for the weekend at the beach cabin at Rockaway, Oregon, participating in a guys only work weekend.  That is the topic of another post.  Jill was playing in the mountains, teaching an orienteering class with The Mountaineers.  I had kid duty.

A Star Wars costume exhibit was showing at the EMP, the Experience Music Project.  The kids have seen all the Star Wars movies, and none of us had been to the EMP, so that's how we decided to spend our day.

I ordered tickets on line and we had an exhibit entry time of 10:40.  We left the house about 8:30 to have plenty of time to catch the Link Light Rail into the city and connect to the Monorail to go out to Seattle Center. 

Silly kids on the Monorail

The Monorail takes you right to the base of the Space Needle.  The Seattle Center is a gift to the city of Seattle from the 1962 World's Fair, the year I graduated from high school! The Monorail, the Space Needle, and the Pacific Science Center are still a functioning legacy of the fair. 

We were early so we spent some time at the Space Needle gift shop.

 How about a Space Needle hat?

Irene sitting on a leg of the Needle. 

The Experience Music Project was built on the Center grounds in 2000 by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen.

This is a borrowed photo, and fuzzy, but on the right you can see the Monorail going right through the EMP.

 The EMP was designed by Frank Gehry to express the "creative process" that is music, and especially rock music. It is said that he sliced guitars in half and looked at the cut ends to get ideas. 

 The Space Needle reflected in the EMP

We entered and found our way to the Star Wars exhibit. These are actual costumes worn in the making of the movies. 

 ObiWan Kenobi

 The kids could tell me who all of these characters were, but I really only know the original trilogy. 

 Sometimes C-3PO and R2-D2 were mechanical, but sometimes actual actors were inside these costumes. 

 Leia's simple white dress from the original movie. 

 The Dark Side!

 Leia's slave bikini.

 Chewbacca the Wookie

 And of course, Darth Vader, the evil one himself.

 When we finished with the Star Wars exhibit, we had to decide what to do next.  We consulted at the base of this central sculpture, a tornado of guitars. 

 The kids spent some time in the video game room while I sat, and then we went upstairs to the Sound Lab, where we could play instruments.

 I got in the act too, of course.  

Irene loved the vocal room, with different types of voice effects. 

 In the music video section, the kids vamped to Macklemore's Thrift Shop.

 As you may know, Paul Allen is majority owner of the Seahawks.  In the  We Are 12 room, we saw the 2013-14 Vince Lombardi trophy, confetti from the victory, and the Super Bowl ring. 

 We left the EMP to go over to the Armory/Center House for lunch, to hang out in the sunshine, and to play in the International Fountain, another legacy from the World's Fair. 

Irene was daring, and only a little bit wet. 

 Some new flowers have been added outside of the Chihuly Glass Museum and Garden. 

 The air was scented with big banks of blooming Daphne odora. 

 We returned to the EMP to go through the Jimi Hendrix exhibit and the guitar museum.

 And we paid tribute to another Seattle sound, Nirvana.

 Then Isaac went back to the video game room and Irene and I went back to the vocal booth in the Sound Lab.  It was getting near to closing time and we saw that they were setting up for formal dining in the Sky Theater.  As we left, we saw why.  Lots of leg and black dresses, but look at the shoes! 

We rode the Monorail back to Westlake Center, where there was a stop at a candy store.  It was Valentine's Day, after all, then back on the train to the car and home.  By then it was almost 6:00 and I was a tired Grandma.