Seafair With Satchel

So Friday was the first day of the main Seafair event in Seattle and I decided to take Satchel to take in one of the city's most popular events.

For those who aren't from Seattle or who are oblivious to summer festivals, Seafair lasts pretty much the entire summer and is full of events throughout the city, from really fun weekend-long community parties to really lame local parades that mostly feature local politicians riding around in cars waving and getting heckled.

Traditionally, I haven't done much during Seafair that I didn't have to do. Now and then I went to the Greenwood Seafair Parade and this year I took Satchel to the Tour de Terrace, one of those community parties that is right in our backyard. As I said earlier, the parade was lame (and went on and on and on) but the carnival was fun and Satchel rode the Ferris Wheel, which was a surprise.

Seafair's big event is a weekend-long party in South Seattle that features the hydroplane boat races on Lake Washington and the air show featuring the Blue Angels. There's also the requisite fried food booths, give-aways and music. It's generally fun if a bit overdone.

I got my fill of the hydros/air show when I was a reporter for the Everett Herald and had to cover the three-day event. I hated covering the hydros. It wasn't that I'm against boat racing, though I find it fairly dumb. And I will say that the drivers are entertaining because they all seem to hate each other, which was always funny. It's just that the days are incredibly long with a ton of time where nothing is happening, the races are kind of hard to follow and understand and at the end of the day, you write and file your story and three hours later you find out that a boat committed some obscure rule violation and everything you wrote is wrong.

The air show is pretty good with some pretty daring moves, but you better really, really love the Top Gun soundtrack because you are going to hear it over and over, and once you've seen the air show once, you've seen it. Unfortunately, I was there all weekend and saw it about six or eight times. The people watching is pretty good too. I used to get there at around 7:30 in the morning and people would already be eating enormous heaps of curly fries and corn dogs. I wanted to tell them that just because corn dogs are available at 7:30 a.m. doesn't mean you actually have to eat them at that time. But whatever.

After a few years away from the festivities, I decided to check it out as a common citizen with no press pass, and took Satchel along for the ride. Friday there is no entrance fee so I figured that was the time to go. I told him all about it beforehand, that there would be airplanes and hydroplane boats that were cool, music, food and he could get an ice cream and maybe french fries. He seemed OK but definitely apprehensive because he hates loud noises and knows that planes are loud. But the night before we went, he happily said he'd be dreaming about the blue jets and the hydroplane boats.

The next day, all I heard was how much he didn't want to go. Oh brother.

Well, we went. He didn't like the fact that we went, but we went. We parked about 10 blocks away and genius that I am, I brought along a stroller. He almost never is in a stroller anymore but I knew I was going to be doing a lot of walking, and I knew that I wasn't carrying him the whole time.

Once we actually got there, he was in a good mood. We were walking faster than people were driving (there is a ton of traffic in that area on Seafair weekend) so he liked trying to catch up with police cars and tow trucks stuck in traffic.

We went through the gates and headed into the main area, where all the food booths and activities are. We were greeted with about a dozen booths devoted to the military, none of which we stopped by but it was entertaining watching civilians have pullup contests against Marines. I think Satchel was pretty enthralled by all the sights and sounds and it was nice that there were no planes or boats going at that point so he wasn't overwhelmed.

Our first stop was some kind of organic foods booth where they were giving away these granola bars that Satchel really likes. Then there was another booth that were giving away power bar type things so Satchel picked one that was peanut butter and jelly flavored and one that was cherry flavored. He took one bit of the PB&J one and handed it over to me. I didn't think it was that bad.

We walked ahead and saw that there were three hydros on display that people could take pictures with. Satchel actually wanted to do that, which was a surprise. He climbed up on the first one and then we got in line for the other two and he actually got to sit in the cockpit, which he really liked. It was pretty cool and a good start for us.

Then the day came to a screaming pause. Why?

LEGO.

There was an enormous LEGO exhibit that was really cool but sucked every kid within 10 miles of it into its trap like the tractor beam on the Death Star in Star Wars. It was like they were powerless to resist. It was so colorful and loud that you could not miss it. Satchel took a picture of an awesome LEGO Lion and was completely mesmerized by the exhibits they had behind glass. They were really cool.

I signed Satchel up for a free subscription to LEGO Magazine and he got a LEGO necklace and we played with LEGOs for awhile. I thought for sure we were going to be there all day. He got very upset that there were no LEGO "guys" to add to his creations but we worked through that. Even though there were about a trillion LEGO blocks out to play with, he desperately wanted to play with the ones behind the glass.

Shockingly, we left LEGO after about 20 minutes without any struggle and made our way over to a tent that was sponsored by Boeing and featured exhibits by local nerds who put together robots. They were actually pretty cool but Satchel was upset he couldn't actually play with them. Then I noticed they were giving away mini-airplanes so we got one and that gave him something to do for most of the rest of the day. He was really pumped being able to fly it around and I was pumped that he had something to distract him.

We walked around some more, checking out sights, none of which was super exciting. We did see a firetruck but Satchel didn't want to get close to it. He's weird that way. His entire life revolves around firefighting but when given the chance to interact with a firetruck or firefighter he wants nothing to do with it.

At that point we were hungry (and by we, I mean me) so we walked over to the food row to decide what we'd have. I knew being vegetarian that my options would be fairly limited and they were. So I got a cheese pizza and curly fries (the pile of which was absurdly big and felt like it weighed about 10 pounds) and we sat in the grass to watch the air show, which had just started. Satchel ate some of the pizza and fries and had his peanut butter and jelly sandwhich and apple juice that I brought. And he put on his earphones, the ones he uses to watch movies on the portable DVD player, that he used as ear muffs against the air plane noise. It seemed to work, as he didn't seem to be really bothered by the noise, and it was definitely a lot louder than I remembered it being. When he finished eating, he broke into what has become his common routine: breaking into a solo concert of Beatles songs. He was rocking out and, seemingly offended that more people weren't paying attention to him, sang louder and louder until people took notice.

After working through his songbook, we walked over to a Seattle Fire Department booth. It was pretty cool because there were air tanks, axes, masks, etc. Satchel was a little shy with the firefighter but I told the guy that firefighting was his life and the he knew everything there was to know about firefighting. That was enough to convince the firefighter to give Satchel a very special sticker and pencil to go along with the sticker badge that he got. I told Satchel only the bravest, coolest firefighters got the special stickers and he felt really jazzed up by that.

Then he wanted his ice cream. So we went to the Ben & Jerry's stand and he got a chocolate ice cream that he proceded to get all over his face, hands, legs, pants, shirt, along with my hands. It was dazzling to see all the spots that he managed to get ice cream. He was only able to eat some of it so I was forced to help him finish it.

We walked over to a spot where he could see the hydros, which were in their pits. He couldn't have cared less. He's an interesting guy. He doesn't care about the main things, but is fascinated by secondary things. Like, he didn't care about the hydros or the huge cranes there to lift them into the water. But he couldn't stop talking about the little patrol boat that was just puttering around. He didn't care about the fire trucks, the air planes, the soccer kicking contests. But he couldn't stop talking about the garbage on the ground and that garbage trucks would get to come and pick it up.

So, we never saw the hydros actually moving, and he didn't seem to care.

We kept walking around, mostly to move the curly fries through my system. There was one really cool air show guy who I'd seen before who does some pretty spectacular things, but he does it to his own soundtrack that he wrote and recorded himself and the songs were so stupid that it was distracting. But it was awesome seeing people rocking out to the songs so maybe I'm wrong.

At that point it was time to start the long walk back to the car. I decided to make a large pass around the LEGO exhibit and we walked through the crowd. We made one last stop, my favorite of the day. It was a free photo booth and though he didn't want to wait and was getting tired, he very patiently waited for me in line and he and I took a few pictures together, that we got on a magnet. I don't have all that many pictures of myself with him (I'm usually the one taking the pictures) so this was a great chance to get one and I was super excited by it. They came out great.

We treked to the car right as it was getting hot out and got to the car just as I was about to pass out. Which is just what Satchel did on the way home. That was two days in a row with a nap, which was shocking but good for him.

So, it was an awesome day. He had so much fun, was so brave with the loud noises and it's always so much fun to see him find new things and enjoy himself. We've had some rough days in the past few months as he tests bounderies but it's days like these that I can fall back on when he's losing his mind and throwing the world's best tantrum, and remember what a wonderful, fun, awesome son he is.