Things to Do Around Seattle

Hear phone poles hum
Catch garter snakes. Make lizard tails fall off;
Biking to Lake Washington, catch muddy little fish.
Peeling old bark off madrone to see the clean red new bark
Cleaning fir pitch off your hands
Reading books in the back of the University District Goodwill.
Swim in Puget Sound below the railroad tracks
Dig clams
Ride the Kalakala to Bremerton
See Mt. Constance from the water tower up by the art museum
Fudgsicles in Woodland Park zoo, the eagle and the camel
The mummy Eskimo baby in the University Anthropology museum...
- Gary Snyder, from "Three Worlds, Three Realms, Six Roads"



Take the ferry to Bainbridge Island; get dazzled by the afternoon sunlight that ripples across Puget Sound.
Listen to a street musician sing Mexican folk songs outside the world's first Starbucks.
Take in the expanse of the city from the observation deck of the space needle with your friend's eight-year-old daughter. Smile uncomfortably when she asks if you were ever in love with her mother.
Step out of a long, hot shower and into a cool white robe; take a nap before dinner.
Attend a small-group discussion hosted by Barbara Ehrenreich.
Walk to Chinatown in search of lo mai gai; eat it out on the street, using a mailbox as a table.
Decide on a sudden whim to travel to Vancouver; remember at the last minute that you didn't bring a passport.
Learn how to play drums in a sound booth at the Experience Music Project after hours.
Wander the streets of downtown in the late-night drizzle after being dropped off at the hotel.
Get caught up in song at an interfaith prayer service with Pastor Pat Wright and the Total Experience Gospel Choir.
Feel nauseatingly lonely and homesick amid 500 chattering people in Benaroya Hall.
Reconnect with old friends over expensive drinks at a trendy Pine Street night spot.
Hear a speech on philanthropy by Melinda Gates.
Look for Quaker meetings that are accessible by public transportation on Sunday morning.
Get into a conversation near Chukar Cherries in Pike Place with a Native American man walking his pet ferret.
Marvel at how everything seems silvery-blue: the wind, the water, the mountains, the skyscrapers, the fog.
Assure the fretful concierge that, being from Baltimore, you have nothing to fear from walking the streets of downtown Seattle in broad daylight.
Watch the Cascades until they fade out of sight.