Seattle Center: Waymarking Overload

My son's orchestra, the Tacoma Strings Philharmonic, was playing at the Seattle Center last weekend. We dropped him off at practice in Tacoma. The Orchestra bussed in together so Troy and I had a whole morning and afternoon of waymarking before his 1pm performance.

Now, anyone who's visited Seattle has likely visited the Seattle Center, home of the Space Needle, Monorail, Pacific Science Center, and much, much more. The place is a Seattle Landmark, and loaded with a nearly unlimited amount of waymarks. I had made my list of what I wanted to hit but knew there would be no way to hit it all. My goal was to pick up waymarks for categories for that are difficult to find waymarks for, but with this kind of history how do you draw the line? I skipped easy stuff like mini-golf and carousels that you can find anywhere and instead focused on things like"Beatlemania", "Elvis", "butterfly houses", "children's gardens", and "yellow arrow look up". Unfortunately the 3 yellow arrows that had been placed in the Center had all been removed. But by 1 pm we had succeeded in locating waymarks for 11 categories we hadn't waymarked in before and a grand total of 36 new waymarks (3 of them in Tacoma and a couple in South Seattle.) Those 36 waymarks were just a drop in the bucket. There were already a bunch of waymarks placed at the Center and we left plenty for future waymarkers. For example, we waymarked 2 penny smashers near the Space Needle. I know of 5 that are located there along with the 5+ coin op binoculars that are at the top of the Needle. I didn't bother with the Seattle Children's Museum, Intiman Theatre, Seattle Reperatory Theatre and Seattle Children's Theatre because I was too exhausted by then and figured I'd leave them for someone else. I also know of 3 fountains and at least 4 more sculptures that I chose not to waymark due to extreme waymarking overload.

How do people do this type of marathon waymarking? It got to the point where the compulsion to waymark made it stop being fun, and at that point we ordered coffee and called it a day. The Seattle Center will still be there the next time I'm in town. It's not going anywhere and now I have a few waymarks to look forward to for the next time I visit.

The concert went well, other than the crazy lady sitting next to my husband that he was too nice to ignore and the hundreds of screaming children there for the Whirligig Festival. We drove home and I browsed through the digital photos that I had taken throughout the day - over 150 pictures in one afternoon.

Following are a few of my favorite waymarks from the weekend: R2-D2 Mailbox in the "All Things Star Wars" category, Space Needle in "Picture Perfect Postcards" category, Elephant Car Wash sign in "Neon Lights" category, Olympic Iliad Sculpture in "Abstract Public Sculptures" category, and Starbucks Corporation in "Publicly Held Corporation Headquarters" category.

Hope your weekend was as fun and waymarking filled as ours was. Cheers!

Hikenutty