Friday, October 7

Just to take a more fine grained approach for the moment, here's a day (or two) in the life -- in Bellingham, Washington:

We're staying at Marriott Springhill Suites in Bellingham - which isn't exactly in Bellingham. It isn't exactly anywhere. It's in motel-land, near the I-5 in a grove of more or less identical tall concrete buildings with various interchangeable corporate (hotel) names attached.

On our first day we decompressed, hung around the motel, and to be honest, I spent a lot of the day blog-writing. 

On the second day (today) we decided to see the "real" Bellingham - historical Bellingham - and to get some exercise while doing it. We set out on foot for Old Town Bellingham. After walking several miles we concluded that Old Town Bellingham wasn't exactly the historic section, it was just, um, old. Our walk took us to the waterfront in a rough and ready part of downtown. We felt right at home in a sense, because we were pretty much surrounded by homeless folks and the institutions that serve them. 

We stopped for lunch at a bar with signs in the window saying "Best Fish & Chips in Town," "16 Different Beers on Tap," and "Bikers Welcome." As we entered the bartender asked me for my backpack. I looked puzzled. "We've had a problem with people bringing in firearms." We had the fish burgers with chowder and a local pilsner. Excellent.

We wandered around the downtown for a while and to kill some time I visited the local Democratic Headquarters. It wasn't too lively there. Just two volunteers and me. I chatted with them for a while. The only phone call that came in was from someone asking if they had any Bernie stickers. They didn't.

We walked further downtown. We were poring over our map of the Bellingham area trying to figure out where the historical district really is when we were approached by Jeff - a kind of burly guy about our age wearing a Stihl Tools baseball cap. "Are you lost?" My standard reply to this question is "usually," but before I could say anything he had launched into suggestions as to what we should do and where we should go in the Bellingham area. Jeff owns a natural foods store that makes "the best sandwiches anywhere in the area." He gave us his card. He especially encouraged us to check out the Village Book Store in Fairhaven (sort of the historical district of Bellingham) and to see the live show "Broadway Takes on Politics" at the Firehouse Theater this evening. We got many more ideas from Jeff than we would have time to act on.

We thanked Jeff and parted ways with him, continuing our walk -- now toward Fairhaven. The ambience improved as we began walking on the Bay Walk path, with views of Bellingham Bay and harbor.

 By the time we finally reached the Village Book Store we had already covered almost nine miles on our little walk.

Village Books is a super book store/cafe/beer bar. I could maybe live there happily. 

This week is "Banned Books Week."

While Kate perused books, I was hot on the trail of tickets to "Broadway Takes On Politics." I tried online but tickets for tonight weren't available. I thought our newest best friend Jeff might have some juice with the Firehouse theater, so I called the number on his card. He wasn't there at the store, but I convinced them to give me his cellphone number. I called him, but his only suggestion was that I should get directions from the Village Books staff and walk to the theater. Maybe I could find someone there who could get us tickets. I got the directions and walked to the theater. There was indeed someone there. She said I could buy tickets at Village Books. Returning to Village Books, I inquired about buying tickets. They only had one left for tonight. They had to call Nadia, who was downstairs. Eventually Nadia appeared and confirmed that they only had one ticket left. I whined a little. Nadia said she'd call Isabel at the theater. Isabel said they're completely sold out. I asked if I were to buy the last ticket, could they squeeze in one extra person. They  could. And so, easy peasy, we got our show tickets.

The show was really good. A plot very loosely woven around forty Broadway show songs about politics, written between the thirties and the sixties, showing in a funny, musical way that nothing ever changes. It was really well performed by local talents who were quite talented. Thanks, Jeff.

We like Bellingham; we may come back again soon.