SAM & The Space Needle

Inopportune: Stage One by Cai Guo-Qiang

Thursday is our last day in Seattle and it rained. How fitting! That makes it a perfect day for the Seattle Art Museum or SAM, as it's called here. We hopped on Bus 15, paid our $2 fares and headed into Downtown. The entrance fee is $15. We brought our cameras, hoping to get a shot or two of something beautiful to take with us. About 15 minutes into the tour, a young man came over and asked us to not take photos of the painting we were viewing. We were confused since we both had read downstairs that photography was allowed, without flash and we were careful to turn off the flash. We decided to go back down and check and sure enough, we were right. Apparently, the rules had recently changed and the young man had not been told. We shrugged this off and continued our viewing. A short time laster, we were asked to put away the pen we were using to take notes. The gentleman said "We're terrified of pens here" and he handed us a pencil. We apparently missed that rule. There seemed to be a lot of rules in this museum...and guards. All in all, our trip to SAM was enjoyable. There's not much here but they do have some great pieces. Go on the first Thursday of the month and avoid the entryfee.

After spending about 5 hours at SAM, we hopped back on the bus and headed for the Space Needle. Although it had stopped raining earlier, it had started again. We had contemplated spending the $17 for a ticket to the top, all week. We finally went for it. The rain meant fewer people but also cut down the view. But it was still pretty breathtaking.