I was very fortunate this summer to spend about 6 days in Seattle – the furthest metropolis from Florida in the continental United States. I was there to attend the State Policy Network’s (SPN) 19th annual meeting. For those of you who do not know about SPN, it is an network of free-market think tanks based in the 50 states. The organization I work for, The James Madison Institute, is a member organization of SPN. While we all get together each year to share ideas, we are all independent organizations from each other. But SPN provides us with knowledge and resources to help us grow as organizations in our own states. Even though I may only see most of my colleagues in SPN-affiliated think tanks once or twice a year at various functions, I am literally swapping emails and phone calls on a weekly basis with so many of them across the country. So it’s nice to see their friendly faces each year at the annual meeting, which is moved from state to state.
Attending an SPN event is like nothing else in the free-market movement. After arriving on Tuesday night, we checked into the Hyatt Regency hotel in Bellevue (a very nice suburb of Seattle, where the conference was actually held). SPN comes up with so many great social gatherings throughout the conference. This one featured a “Speakeasy” on Tuesday night where we had to give a password to enter the bar (much like in the days of federal Prohibition). On Wednesday night, they bused us over to the Seattle ferry plaza area where we took a 45-minute (each way) ferry boat over to Blake Island – a small island with a state park – where we were entertained with Native American tribal dancing and other SPN presentations while eating a buffet-style dinner. It was a great night on the boat and the island as we networked and socialized with our fellow free-market entrepreneurs.
Earlier that day, on Wednesday morning, the organization on which I serve on the board of directors, Project Veritas, held a board meeting. All of our board members were out in Seattle for the SPN conference so we took a few hours to meet with our founder, James O’Keefe, to guide this one-year old organization forward. From Wednesday through Friday morning I attended various sessions on the SPN meeting agenda. Thursday morning I competed in the annual SPN 5k with about 60 or so of my colleagues – those of us crazy enough to run at 6am. It was the best run of any of the 3 I’ve done (Scottsdale 2008, Cleveland 2010). With my Mississippi counterpart, Grant Callen, we finished with a time of 24:26 – not bad with all the hills on this route. Thursday night kept up the fun with the Roe Award dinner, a cigar reception, and a fun 50s-60s-70s dance party!
As the conference wound down on Friday morning, all of my JMI colleagues that came out there and almost all of my SPN associates were departing our separate ways, headed back home. But not me. My brother Tony, the sports writer now living in San Francisco, was taking a short flight up the west coast to Seattle – a city he had never seen. I took a cab into downtown Seattle and met him at another hotel we were checking into – the Courtyard Marriott in historic Pioneer Square. This truly was a very neat part of the city. I have to say, the weather the entire time I was in Seattle was just perfect. Highs in the mid 70s, lows around the upper 50s. Clear, blue sky days. They say that July and August are the “standout” months for Seattle. The rest of the year it pretty much rains and is overcast all the time (which is how it was when I visited Seattle about 5 years ago in a late September – I never saw the sun). This time around, it was more like a song from the Seattle-based group Blind Mellon: however I was not going to complain that there was “no rain.”
Well it was early Friday afternoon and Tony and I hit the town. We grabbed lunch at a local sandwich place, walked down by the ferry boats, and then grabbed a cab to go to the famous Seattle Space Needle, which was built for the world’s fair in 1962. We had spectacular views on this crystal clear day. We could see out toward Mt. Rainier, but it was a little hazy out by the mountain (roughly 100 miles to the south). That evening, we were once again very privileged to get some complimentary tickets to the Seattle Mariners home game against the Chicago White Sox . Our seats were 20 rows behind home plate. Amazing! It helps to know a sports writer! It was a great game, about 15 hits or so. I think the White Sox won it something like 6-2 . The locals weren’t happy but how could you not enjoy the spectacular night with no rain with the retractable roof open before the night sky.
On our walk back to our hotel (yes, it was a 10-minute walk from the stadium) we passed the Seahawks stadium and got a couple drinks at two different bars. But it wouldn’t be too late of a night. We had a bike tour on Saturday morning. We met our tour guide near the Seattle Convention Center just minutes before our 10am bike tour. As we arrived, we noticed something was going on – I think it was me walking by someone dressed up in a Ghostbusters outfit. We were told there was a “game” convention going on – mostly video games, but also board games and the like. And, well… the tens of thousands of fans that were there to preview the games were kind of starting to believe they were actual characters in those games…well, ok.
The Seattle Cycling Tour we signed up for cost us each $60. For that price, we were provided with a nice road bike for a 3 hour tour with a guide. The tour says it might have “up to 8 people” but once again we lucked out. It was just the two of us with our tour guide, Craig – who turned out to be a very nice guy, probably in his late 40s/early 50s. He has lived in the Seattle area his entire life – and took us through about 18 miles to the north of the city – into the Fremont, Ballard, and Queene Anne Hill areas, then back along the bay through a park, down by the ferry plaza area, and back into downtown. What we did was most of this North Seattle route. We did a steady pace with some hills along the way and it took us about 3 1/2 hours. We got to see so many parts of Seattle that we would have otherwise missed or never ventured to. I highly recommend this tour and this company. If I had just one thing to do in Seattle with 3 hours of my time, this was definitely the highlight. Reserve it in advance! We even got to witness the Ballard Locks (see pic below) as boats are raised or lowered as the sea water hits the fresh water and they attempt to navigate through the locks.
After the bike tour, we went and had the longest lunch in our life at a local joint called “Six Arms” in the Capitol Hill neighborhood (yea, took them more than an hour to get our food once we were seated) – and it seemed like eternity after being so hungry after that bike ride. I will give them some credit though. When the waitress finally came with our food, she apologized profusely (without us ever even raising a complaint – though she could probably tell we weren’t exactly happy). And then she told us the entire meal for both of us was “on the house.” With that, she earned her tip. After lunch, we went back to the hotel for a power nap. We woke and were on our way out – having dinner at nearby Fado Irish Pub – one of my favorite places (it’s a small chain).
Then, we found a great bar-hop deal. For a $10 cover, we had admission to 5 different bars, all within walking distance of our hotel. Two of them had great live music. Another was pretty bad the two times we walked into it. I think we caught it at the wrong time between sets. The other two had dance music playing – one more of a beach party theme, the other had some techno – and that’s where we ended the night. Our bars for the night included: J&M Cafe (the oldest bar in Seattle, established in 1889), Central Tavern, (where many of the bands in Seattle’s grunge scene played, including Nirvana!), Tiki Bob’s (the beach party with dance music), Fuel (the place that we weren’t impressed with on this night), and then we ended the night with some high-energy techno at The Last Supper Club. A very fun night.
The next morning we didn’t sleep in too long. We wanted to drive out to Mount Rainier National Park – a two hour drive south of Seattle. Since our flights weren’t taking off until late at night, we felt we had the time, and we did. Barely. We spent several hours down at Mt. Rainier. It was by far the most beautiful and scenic part of our trip – and glad we didn’t miss it. Mt. Rainier is a 14,000-ft. active volcano. On this late August day, we drove to the “Paradise” visitor’s center, located at the 5,400-ft. mark. We then hiked around to around the 6,000-ft. area. We did two different trails, with some good climbs. There were lots of other visitors around and we were standing in snow in 70-degree weather in shorts and t-shirts on a late August day. Unreal. The pictures don’t do it justice. The natural surroundings were just incredibly beautiful. Green grass, wildflowers, and snow just feet away from each other. We read a sign that said that the snow at the very top of the mountain takes centuries to melt and reach the bottom. And we saw just how it reaches the bottom: as we witnessed some very majestic waterfalls.
We had an incredible day, an incredible weekend, and I had a great week – some quality time with my brother on the opposite coast! After traveling back into Seattle, I dropped my brother off at the airport so he could catch his 9:20 PM flight. I then met up with my friend and fellow patriot, James O’Keefe. He was stuck an extra day in Seattle due to the hurricane that had come through his home state of New Jersey . This was great for me as I now found myself with someone to eat dinner with and we did some plotting and planning of our own. I then boarded my “red-eye” flight at 11:55 PM and traveled across this great continent through the night, eventually connecting in Atlanta, to get back home to Tallahassee. What a great trip to the Pacific Northwest, perhaps one of the most beautiful parts of this great country.
