Washington by Harper

Harper wanted to write something for the travel blog,too.   We decided to do a poem. For each line, I asked her to tell me one or two words describing something she loves or remembers from Washington and in that way she dictated to me her phrase poem.  I edited out some of her more long winded descriptions (like in the starfish line where she explained in quite shocking detail how a starfish’s stomach comes out of its body to eat seafood-that part did not make the cut. Evidently she does listen when those tour guides talk) but below is the rest of what she “wrote”.  She also picked the pictures which was not at all a painstaking process….since I only had several hundred for her to browse.  She is very excited about her poem.  Looks like I may be in for lots more poetic dictation.  A side note: any rhyming in the poem was a happy coincidence.  I say happy because she did not intend it but was thrilled no, ecstatic  when we read it back and it did have a couple of rhymes.  It is the little things that are exciting don’t ya know?

Washington

Horses and blackberries

Got to ride a ferry

Seattle Cotton candy

Turquoise cupcake taste

A little bit rainy

Wrestling with my brother and sister

In green green grass

Laughing loud fall down

Sea lions slippery

Puffin bird with golden hairs

Crabs kind of snappy

Starfish pointy amazing eaters big and gooey

Jellyfish sting with stingy rays

Double rainbow

Beautiful and cool

Happy farm

Bully goat chasing us

Pretty chicken feathers

Amazing turkeys white guys with all the colors

Lots of buzzing flies

Kittens so cute

Can’t come inside don’t know why

Sand dollars for Babba

At the beach

Water clear clear

See the sand dollars

PIke Place Market by Lindsey and Keith Teague

PIKE PLACE MARKET

Pike’s Place Market is the place to go if you are in Seattle.  It has been called the “soul of Seattle” because it is full of food, life, flowers, music, and art.  You can feel the history in the cobblestone streets and the creaky stairs.  If you visit there you know that you have stepped into the oldest market in Washington.

SIGHT SEEING

Ten million people visit Pike Place Market annually to see vendors, flowers, the iron pig, Pacific Ocean, fruit stands and the famous Gum Wall where the whole alley way is covered in colorful, sticky gum.  On any given day, you are guaranteed to see one of the 240 street performers or musicians dancing or singing.  Flowers are what make the market so colorful with their green, yellow, purple, and red petals.  Vendors also sell handmade art from rope dog leashes to beautiful silver necklaces and bracelets.

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HISTORY

Have you ever seen a guy dancing with two hula hoops while singing with a guitar balanced on his chin?  If your answer was “no”, then you have never been to Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington.  Founded in 1907, today Pike Place Market is the largest open aired market in USA.  Between 1906 and 1907 the price of onions increased tenfold.  They went from one cent to $1 dollar a pound.  The farmers and the consumers got angry and decided to cut out the middle man.  On August 17^th   1907, a total of 8 farmers came out to Pike Street with their carts full and they were swarmed by an estimated 10,000 eager shoppers who bought everything by 11 a.m.   This is how Pike’s Place Market was born.

FOOD

Today at the Pike Place Market you can get almost every fruit and vegetable imaginable and they are not shipped in but everything is fresh from local, organic farms.  There are also bakeries that sell jumbo cookies, hot cinnamon rolls, and bread straight from the oven. The original Starbucks is there, too, but you better get there early because the line stretches out the door.  In addition to the fruit and vegetable stands, there are sit down restaurants that serve a variety of food.

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CLIMATE

Seattle’s weather in the winter is normally wet and cool.  In the summer and early fall, however, it is warm and dry with average temperatures of 70 degrees which makes it a perfect time to wander the lively streets of Pike Place Market.