March 26, 2000

[The picture I want will go here as soon as I get permission to use it.]

 I was seven years old, standing in line as we had been for well over an hour, singing "Plop-plop-fizz-fizz oh what a relief it is" over and over with many of the other kids in our class (my apologies to anyone else who was in that line) waiting in 1976 for our turn to walk through that rolling museum of American history known as "The Freedom Train" when I first saw the Kingdome. It was in it's last few days of construction, and would leave King County in debt for it for the next thirty years. A few years ago, a ceiling tile fell from the roof. More bonds were issued and several millions were spent, and two people died repairing that roof. Well, the debt will continue, but the King Dome will be no more. The building that housed the Sonics for their almost championship '77-'78 season and championship '78-'79 season and brought the Mariner's their first pennant in 1995 and their second in '97 is going to be demolished today... and we're going to watch it.

Last night, we left Kirkland and went through the locks. It's now about four o'clock in the morning, and we're following the Argosy boats around West Point (not the famous one) into Elliot Bay. I still have a problem with the engine overheating if the rpms go above 2000 so we're taking it kinda slow. It takes Brad and I almost two hours to get from the locks to the Seacrest boat launch. We call and wake up our wives, who went out together last night, and tell them to grab some stuff for breakfast and head on down. They do, and by seven, we're moving into position to watch the implosion.

The bay was a zoo. Boats everywhere, there were several thousand boats littering the bay. The ferry service, determined to keep on schedule despite the event, became trapped by the sheer masses of boats drifting with the breeze and currents. I found a nice little hole that I could stuff my boat into, not too crowded and a good view. Brad cooked breakfast, not an easy task on a boat that's taking chop from every angle. Suddenly, this huge monster of a boat decided that he had to be in front. He squeezed his way into my little hole, and stopped right in front of me. Wondering why the guy with the biggest boat decided he had to be right in front of me, I motored on and found some room left in my little hole, in front of him. Since he could easily see over me, I didn't worry too much about him... till he started drifting. His big ol' boat caught a bit more wind than everyone else on the bay, and as I was on the leeward side of him. He began to drift in to me. My space was quickly closing up, and I was going to have nowhere to go. I put the boat in reverse, and began my turn to get out of this trap I was stuck in. Now in order to turn the direction I needed to to make my escape, I had to come quite close to Mr. Moneybag's yacht. Well, he was none to pleased and laid on his horn to let me know. We exchanged a few words, and I made my escape. We found another spot, and waited.

The implosion went off as scheduled. First we saw the ceiling joints being blown up. Dust began rising from the joints... and then we heard it. But not just the sound hit us, we actually were able to feel it as well. The building collapsed, and shook the ground where it sat. The shockwaves rumbled out into the bay, and it felt like we could feel all the pieces hitting the ground. Finally the rumbling stopped and this eerie cloud of dust floated across Seattle obscuring every building in the city from view. It was an apocalyptic scene, all rubble and dust. We went back to Seacrest and dropped off Sunshine who had to go to work, then went over to Elliot Bay Marina to try and use their restrooms as my head still has no holding tank, and have my parents bring my checkbook that I had left at their house so I could fill up the tanks. The marina had no free space to tie up, even for a few minutes, as they filled up almost immediately after the implosion. We dropped anchor just outside, and I rowed the dingy to shore with Rosie, our dog. She was grateful to have some land to run on... and pee on. My parent's called about 20 minutes later. They were almost done drying out my checkbook... yes, drying it out. My mom, always trying to be helpful, washed my grubby clothes I had left there that I had been wearing while working on the pickup. The checkbook had been in the pocket.

My parents arrived with the checkbook, and we raised anchor, and went into the marina to the fuel dock. They met me at the dock, and I filled up the boat. A few minutes later, we left the marina and decided to head over to Blake Island. I wanted to go exploring so I found a little spot to anchor, and we made lunch. After lunch, though, my lack of sleep caught up with me and Tina and I decided to lie down for a nap. Brad tried crabbing but couldn't come up with one anywhere around the island. Eventually, we headed back for the locks. The sun set while we were waiting to enter the locks. We locked through and the sun set again, the altitude of the lake being so much higher than the sound at low tide. It was getting late, and Brad decided that he better have Sunshine come pick him up before it got any later. We stopped at Ivar's and bought some fish and chips. Sunshine was there waiting, and they left for home. We ate our dinner and headed back into Lake Washington. I had heard of a marina with public moorage, and headed for it. The wind started picking up, and we arrived at that marina about eight o'clock. There was nobody there, and there was a sign that said, "No public moorage." Exhausted, I decided that we would just anchor somewhere for the night, and get up early to take Joey to school the next morning. I found a nice little spot out of the wind, and we went to sleep.