In praise of foliage

A path through the Northwest Perennial Alliance border

This post is for Heather, who joined me for a walk through the Bellevue Botanical Garden. It was a grey but beautiful Northwest day - the kind of day that mixes grey clouds with bursts of sunshine; raindrops that spangle your windshield, but are gone after the first pass of the wipers.

This magnificent park was once the property of a couple who enjoyed growing rhododendrons and other plants. In 1984 their property was deeded to the City of Bellevue to be a public park. A group of gardening enthusiasts promoted the creation of a botanical garden. I learned of the garden in the early '90s when the Northwest Perennial Alliance - my hometown garden society - designed and maintained the vast perennial border that crowns an east-facing slope at the edge of the huge lawn.

Farewell to the Undre Arms

I don't remember the first time I noticed The Undre Arms apartment building. It's located on Capitol Hill in Seattle, in a funny little wedge-shaped block created by Madison Street as it cuts its way diagonally across the street grid.

The Undre Arms faces west. It takes the entire meager block of 11th Avenue East between Madison and Union.


It's a totally nondescript two story wood frame building, sheathed since at least 1979 (when I first came to Seattle) in beige-colored asbestos shingles. The squared bay windows on the top floor and curved bays on the sides hint that the building might have been built before 1900. A long open porch runs the length of the building at the rear, creating open balconies for the upper apartments, and damp shaded hovels for the lower.


The only thing that distinguishes it is the tongue-in-cheek title displayed over the front door: "The Undre Arms."

Sometime in the last decade, a clever wag added a "dot com" to the name. Readers note: the although the url is a simple one-page site, it is NSFW.

An article about the odd little building, its history and its quirky residents was published in the Seattle Weekly this summer, as the news came that a delayed construction project that would demolish it was back on track.

Historically, the neighborhood was a home to blue-collar industries - auto repair shops, printers, and a large tool supply shop. Since the '70s, it was also home to a growing arts, gay, and rock and roll scene.

Now, the immediate neighborhood includes an AIDS assistance non-profit, a tired and shabby looking gay bar, a copier-printer shop, a paint store and an office for nearby Seattle University. A few block north and east, new condos similar to those proposed here are already up and flourishing, their retail spaces already filled with coffee shops and restaurants.

During the years I lived on the hills east of here, my daily commute took me past the Undre Arms. I often looked at the shabby building, when the morning sun slanted onto its rear balconies, and wondered what it would be like to live there. I even once wrote a story about a character who lived in the Undre Arms.

Three years ago, the building's owner sold it to a developer who planned to replace it and other buildings on the wedge-shaped block with a six-story 105 unit residential building. The downturn in the economy slowed the process, and the tenants have been living on a month-to-month basis.


According to the article, the project is back on track again, and demolition of the Undre Arms is slated for spring of 2011. Farewell to another quirky little piece of history.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be

The city of Seattle is home to a unique institution, dating from the days just after Prohibition was repealed. It's the Seattle tavern.

When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, temperance supporters - whose influence was strong in the state of Washington - successfully passed laws mandating that liquor could only be sold in stores controlled by the state. Only beer and wine could be sold by the drink in an establishment known as a tavern. In 1948, a ballot initiative liberalized the sale of alcohol by the drink, allowing distilled spirits to be sold by the drink, but only if the establishment where it was sold earned 70% of its revenue from the sale of food, and no more than 30% of its revenue from the sale of alcoholic beverages. Hotels and high-end restaurants flourished, but the law excluded taverns. This effectively ghettoized such establishments as working class joints catering to people who were just interested in cheap drinking.

1911 photo from the University of Washington archives. The doorway just beyond the car and the utility pole is where the Comet's entrance is located. Records indicate it was a tavern even then.

Taverns were cheap neighborhood watering holes. Profit margins were low, keeping the staff small and the amenities meager. If you're just selling some draft beer and cheap wine, you can't afford to install a kitchen and hire waitstaff. A bartender, a couple of pool tables, and a few booths are about all the improvements a typical tavern-owner could afford - and the patrons didn't care.

The storefront space in the 100 year old building on the corner of Pike and 11th was an Irish tavern in the '30s, but in the 1950s it was renamed the Comet Tavern. During the era of social change in the 1960s, the Comet became known as a free-wheeling place that tolerated the gay and hippie residents that began to frequent Capitol Hill.

Me with ex-boyfriend, directly across the street from the Comet Tavern, 1979.

I first visited the Comet in 1979, joining my then-boyfriend there for a beer with a friend of his, the director of an experimental theatre group that operated out of a loft across the street. The Comet was a perfect place for such an artsy and chaotic group of people. I remember it being dark, seedy, and crowded with graffiti all over the wooden surfaces of the bar, tables, booths and restrooms.

The experimental theatre folded and was replaced by a rock and roll club, the proving ground for so many grunge bands. If the opening act at Moe's sucked, you'd go across the street to the Comet for a beer, and then go back over to catch the headliner.

Seattle bands advertised their gigs by stapling flyers to utility poles. They still do.

Tad. The Accused. Skinyard. The Fastbacks. Supersuckers. Coffin Break. Gas Huffer. Flop. These are the names of some of the bands that played in the taverns and clubs of Seattle in the late '80s and early '90s. When the national media learned about it, the name Grunge was coined to categorize it, and soon it became the hottest new sound in the music scene.

The hallmarks of Grunge were the musicians' rejection both of conventional middle-class society and the values of the established commercial rock music scene. Their music expressed their feelings of social alienation. Apathy. A disenchantment with society. Rejection of contrivances, slick show-biz values, and rock and roll fame.

As Seattle's liquor laws created the tavern, they also affected the music scene. Music clubs like RKCNDY, the Re-bar, and the OK Hotel were all taverns - places that served only beer and wine, that didn't serve food. But the laws strictly forbade kids under 21 years of age from even being on the premises of a tavern.

The only way teens, who were the biggest fans of this new music, could see their favorite bands was to go to some of the all-ages venues that sprung up in town. I managed such a venue, run by the city, that showcased these bands for free concerts on Friday nights, for about 4 years, and I got to know those bands.

In the heat of summer in 1993, a musician named Mia Zapata, who played and sang lead for a band called The Gits, left the Comet after last call at 2:00 am. She visited a friend who lived nearby, and then headed out again on foot for her nearby apartment.

At 3:30 am, a hooker in the Central District reported a body lying in a quiet cul-de-sac. The cops said that if Mia hadn't died from strangulation by the cord of her hoodie, she would have died of the brutal beating she had received from her assailant.

In April of 1994, Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of Nirvana, committed suicide.

These losses shook the Seattle rock community. Mia Zapata's murder went unsolved until 2003, and during that time, her friends, her competitors, and other musicians and the whole scene lived with suspicion and mistrust. Her murderer was convicted in 2004. His conviction was upheld in 2009. It turned out he had never met her before the night he murdered her.

Grunge's heyday faded as quickly as it had been hyped. Capitol Hill has become gentrified. Moe's is still a music venue - now called Neumo's - with a slick, professional website. But the Comet remains.

And - at least in some aspect - it has maintained its status as a bastion of authentic sludge/punk/raw aesthetic. One recent Yelp reviewer called it "a dirty bar filled with dirty people."

On our recent visit, we returned to the Comet - a couple of 50-year-olds sidling up to the bar in the middle of the day, sitting on the cracked and patched vinyl barstools, and ordering a couple of pints of draft. Looking very square and very out of place.

The bar smelled of cleanser, stale beer, and bleach. There was no one else in the house except for the bartender - a nice looking young man with shoulder-length auburn dread-locks and a goatee - and a couple of customers seated at the bar. They wore black leather and dark Gore-tex against the cold weather, and denim jackets layered over grey sweatshirts. Knit watch caps covered long tangled hair. The guy nearest us had a gleaming pewter earring the size of a shower curtain ring.

They leaned on the rough bar, with pints of beer before them, watching the flat-screen TV hung on the wall.

There were lots of flat screens around the room - some showing football games. But the one these two guys were watching was showing the sit-com "30 Rock."

As we watched, Tina Fey and Jane Krakowski bantered about buying jeans, fair trade practices, and artisanal industries. And her butt.

The guys chuckled fondly.

On the screen, Tina Fey taunted Alec Baldwin to watch her butt as she walked out of his office.

The guys laughed.

The dread-locked bartender came in from the back room, and sat down and focused on the screen. Once again, Tina Fey walked away from the camera and everyone watched her butt. Krakowski said something sassy.

All three guys laughed.

I was incredulous. How could they do this? Weren't they members of the Seattle subculture? They shouldn't be watching a slick new sit-com! They should be watching something low-brow and retro, casting ironic and cynical eyes upon of ancient "I Love Lucy" or "Ozzie and Harriet" re-runs to poke fun at middle-class American innocence. Or they could be indulging in stoned hilarious enjoyment of "Gilligan's Island" or "The Simpsons." Or a post-modern appreciation of old Seinfeld re-runs.

I waited for some ironic repartee, or expressions of alienated disgust. It never came. These guys enjoyed "30 Rock" just as purely and as happily as the high school sophomore I once was enjoyed "Dark Shadows" or as an old aunt might gaze, rapt, at the afternoon soaps.

I wanted to shout out to them, "Turn off that junk!! You young men should be watching John Waters movies, documentaries about Robert Crumb, or bootleg music videos, for God's sake! Or even football! Not some slick network sit-com! Where are your counter-culture principles?"

Eventually, the draft beer I drank made me have to pee. I was a little leery about going to the ladies' room in a bar like the Comet. But the urge overcame my delicate sensibilities.

As I walked toward the back, the dread-locked bartender jumped up from his stool and offered to remove the mop bucket and handtruck that were blocking the door. He was very respectful. As if I were his mother.

One thing I learned is that the cleanest toilet in the world is the ladies' room in a grunge dive on a Saturday afternoon at 1:00 pm. Trust me. It's been cleaned and prepared for a night of revelry. Fully stocked paper and very clean fixtures.

Covered with graffiti, but sparkling clean!

Perhaps those young men should visit this stall in the ladies' room for a reminder of appropriate attitudes!

Photo from the UW archives from 2006. The Comet's sign is just above the roof of the SUV.

What has become of the counterculture, in these modern times?

Hot house

There's nothing more otherworldly than visiting a conservatory during the height of winter.

We walked in Seattle's Volunteer Park and after we'd had our fill of the chill and damp and freezing slush, we visited the Conservatory. Built in 1912, it has four separate climate chambers for growing display plants.

It was so warm and moist my camera's lens fogged up to take this photo of paphiopedlium orchids.

When you enter the greenhouse, you come into the hottest of the rooms - where palms, tropical plants and orchids thrive in a hot, humid sweat.

To the right, a more temperate greenhouse shelters coleus, tender perennials, and - this year's exhibit - fancy Chinese chrysanthemums.

This one looks as though it's made of fine curls of paper.

Beyond this room, a dry and sere room of cactus and desert succulents feels like an oven.


If you cross back through to the center, you pass into a moist yet cooler room for temperate rain forest plants, hardy begonias and cycads.

Beyond, the last room holds bromiliads, staghorn ferns, and other epiphytes.

A selection of carnivorous plants are displayed by the vestibule.

Don't fall in.

The way out takes you past the pretty prom-dance orchids once again.

Isn't this a great way to beat the winter chill?

Happy

To be back in Seattle.

13 Coins

Detail of the Coliseum from a '60s era postcard. The west bucket spotlight position.

It's 1981, and the load-out for the Kiss concert at the Seattle Center Coliseum ended at 1:00 AM - just enough time to get to Dez's Tavern on the corner of Mercer and 4th Avenue North before last call. The guys from the Opera House across the street have been drinking since 11:00. You're tired. You spent the evening running a Super Trouper from the west bucket, then loaded a truck full of Clair Brothers S4 speakers. The beer tastes good, but what you really want is some food.

Where do you go?

"I'm starving," someone says. "Let's go to The Coins."

Just north of Denny Way, just around the corner from the Seattle Times building, there's a brown awning sheltering the entry of the 13 Coins Restaurant, a Seattle institution.

Started in the '60s by restaurateur Jim Ward, the 13 Coins is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

You walk in the door and the decor envelops you in dark brown earth-tones, muted lighting, and padded, sound-absorbing surfaces. It's a narrow room, with a long counter facing the open grill and kitchen, and deep enclosed booths behind. The seats at the counter are large padded swivel stools, with high curved backs upholstered in tufted brown leatherette - sitting in one is like sitting in a padded womb, the chair's back curves around your ears to shut out noise and sights.

The deep booths are also padded with tufted leatherette that goes up the wall above your head. It has a nostalgic, aging bad-boy glamor, like your bachelor uncle who used to be quite a ladies' man but is now a bit over the hill, and still drives that Pontiac Fiero.

It's a great place to go when you're drunk and hungry, or when you're hungover and need that sense of gentle enclosure to shield your aching head from the rest of the world.

And how's the food?

A huge menu covered in brown vinyl lists the offerings - Monte Cristo sandwiches; all-day breakfast; crab and cheddar omelettes, eggs Benedict. There's a breakfast item called "Joe's Special" which is a heap of browned ground sirloin mixed with spinach and scrambled eggs. You can get steak and eggs, liver and onions, spaghetti and meatballs, fettucine alfredo, and surf-n-turf. This is the food of partying clubbers, late night pressmen, rock-and-roll-band truck drivers, kids-after-the-prom and policemen. It's filling, protein-rich, and perfect for soothing a stomach unsettled by too much Vitamin R.

You sit at the counter - which used to have real antique coins inset in the surface, covered by a thick layer of polyurethane resin - now gone in a 2007 remodel that brightened the place up while maintaining its dark '70s swinging style. The carpet is brown and the walls are faced with patterned copper panels, and a row of wooden, abstract-carved lamp holders hang low over the counter, all creating a warm dark womb-like atmosphere where you don't know what time of day it is and you don't care.

Before you the chefs work, juggling 3 or more sizzling saute pans over the gas flames - which often leap high in the air, spectacular sights at 3:00 AM.

If you get here before last call, you can get a cocktail, like a classic French 75 or an Old Fashioned. But since most folks come here already drunk or hungover, strong black coffee is the popular choice.

A lounge off the hostess stand has a bar and a small stage where jazz bands play on weekend nights.

The entry to The Coins at Sea-Tac

On our recent trips to Seattle, we went to the Coins twice - first at the branch near Sea-Tac International Airport, where our first hotel was. It was the first time I'd ever been to this branch, but inside it looked just like the original in the Denny Triangle. The clientele here runs more to airport workers, shuttle operators and (probably) hookers than the hipsters, rockers and Amazon.com workers that frequent the downtown branch.

The second trip, our hotel was right across the street from the original, and we went in for mid-morning breakfast - an hour I'd never before visited the place.

Twenty years later and sober, you'd think it would feel different than it did in the '80s, sitting at the counter with my friends Tiny, Zipper and Sluggo, watching the saute pans flame up and clutching a cup of black coffee.

This time my choice of companion is much more wholesome

But we watched the chef, and listened to the soft murmur of voices hidden in the curve of the counter stools beyond us. We ate our toast and hash browns and watched as the bow-tied waitress set the booth tables for another set of diners. Even with a new owner, it still seemed timeless.

Every city needs a late-night hash-house. Seattle used to have more - the loss of Bob Murray's Dog House is still mourned by people of a certain age and certain louche background. Other classic joints are gone without a trace, like Ernie Steeles, the original El Gaucho, and Sorry Charlies.

But as long as the 13 Coins is still open, and still has those padded counter stools, I think we'll be all right.

What are your memories of late-night joints where you could get fed after a night on the town?

Let's have something pretty

A bouquet of dahlias at the Pike Place Market. The florists' stalls at the market are brimming this time of year with seasonal flowers, and the strikingly colorful blooms of dahlias are everywhere.

Dahlias are native to Central and South America. Dahlia plants are unique in the fact that they are octoploid, or have eight sets of chromosomes. Most plants and animals are diploid, having two sets of chromosomes - one from each parent. The Dahlia's polyploid nature means that there are many more genetic combinations possible, arising to thousands of cultivars in a wide variety of colors, sizes, and flower shapes. The petals can be broad and shaggy, narrow and pointed as quills, or curled and tightly packed, as these ball or pompon type blossoms. Dahilas are tuberous perennials, and tubers are easily divided and shipped - meaning once a breeder has created a unique variety, it's easy to produce and sell.

Many of the flowers sold in the Pike Place Market are grown in the low fertile valleys of King and Snohomish Counties by Hmong immigrant farmers. It surprised me to learn this, after visiting Los Angeles' flower market and seeing how so many cut flowers are imported from other countries. I'd like to learn more about Washington's cut flower trade, and how so many refugees from war-torn Laos came to cultivate such beauty.

We're back in Los Angeles now - more stories later.

Pike Place Market at night

Here's a shot of the Public Market at night. We had dinner reservations at a restaurant here, and when we arrived the neon signs were lit up against the evening sky.

Little green balls of death

Click to "embiggen"

I found this sign displayed on brussels sprouts at a produce stall in the Pike Place Market. Not true!

Seattle SL**

Seattle has had public transportation since its early beginnings. The first streetcar - drawn by a team of horses - ran down the center of Second Avenue. In 1887, a cable car climbed over the hills to take people from Downtown to Leschi Park on the lake. In 1889, the Interurban system ran streetcars from Tacoma to Seattle to Everett. In 1891, streetcars ran to Queen Anne, climbing and descending formidable Queen Anne Hill with a counterbalance system. By the turn of the century, streetcars ran everywhere, from downtown to Ballard, out to Madison Park, and down Rainier Avenue to Renton.

But labor unrest, high operating costs and just plain bad management doomed the system - along with the popularity of the automobile. By 1940, the tracks were pulled up and the streetcars were replaced by buses.

Now in the 21st century, Seattle's streetcars are back....in a fashion, anyway. Somehow Seattle stories always have an odd twist.

The pet project of billionaire Paul Allen, the South Lake Union Streetcar connects downtown's public transit hub with the South Lake Union neighborhood. Bio-tech and medical research firms were expanding in that area, bringing business, customers and employees, so a light rail line modeled after Portland's successful systems seemed like a good idea.


It wasn't until the name South Lake Union Trolley had already been used in media stories, public meetings, and neighborhood focus groups that someone noticed it was a rather unfortunate acronym. The authorities re-branded the system the South Lake Union Streetcar. But once it became known, the name SLUT stuck. A local coffee shop started selling "Ride the SLUT" T-shirts.


At a final cost of $56.4 million for a 1.3 mile system, the SLUT is seen by some as a boondoggle. Local politicians now distance themselves from it. Its construction phase resulted in horrendous traffic jams that alienated the neighborhood it was meant to serve. Its ridership hovers at about 10% of its capacity. Operating on busy intersections filled with cars means it creeps along at a speed so slow you can make as good time walking the route as riding.


I took a ride on the SLUT this afternoon. It was easy to board. I paid my fare at the machine, and kept my receipt, although no one ever asked me to show it. Apparently, many riders freeload, since enforcement is rare.

I'm not sure how many cars there are, but they come in two colors, purple and red. I rode down to Westlake and did some shopping and then rode back to the hotel.

As our purple car headed northbound on Westlake, this lady in a scooter was giving us a run for the money for a block or two.

On Yelp's website the SLUT has mixed reviews. Some folks love its convenience, others decry the waste of money. But everybody has a good joke about the name.

View from a window - Two

We're on the 11th floor of a hotel in the Denny Triangle area of Seattle. It's amazing to me how many residential buildings have gone up here, where 15 years ago there were only small manufacturing companies.

Looking down Terry Avenue North to the south shore of Lake Union. In 1984 I worked in one of the buildings on this street, selling electrical parts for a small distribution company. It looks the same from up here as it did then.

Back in the '80s, I sometimes rode my bike to work at Seattle Center, and riding down this hill on Denny Way was pretty exhilarating in the morning! The route home went a different way to avoid the climb!

We're here on another short visit. [The Man I Love]'s days are fully scheduled with meetings. I'm going to explore a little on my own. This time I'm staying in the downtown area, using public transportation. I'll share my adventures with you.

Georgetown drive-by

Most visitors to Seattle never hear about Georgetown. The neighborhood lies in the industrial area south of downtown. If you're visiting, like we were, and you leave your hotel for a quick taxi, limo or rental car ride on I-5 south to Sea-Tac Airport, it's that grimy, unattractive jumble of truck depots and factories on your right beneath the freeway.

Many people who live in Seattle don't know much about Georgetown either. In 18 years living there, I barely set foot in that part of town. I didn't know anyone who lived there. The lifestyle magazines don't mention it and the newspaper real estate section doesn't feature it. Only recently, with a small but dynamic community of residents, artists, and businesses, is it beginning to appear on Seattle's radar screen.

Before we left Seattle for L.A., we decided to take surface streets to Sea-Tac, for a close-hand drive-by.

The facade of the old Brewery

In many ways, Georgetown can be considered the birthplace of King County. The swampy and fertile bottomlands of the Duwamish River, it was settled in 1851 by Luther Collins. It was a fine place to farm, and one of the crops that did well here was hops. In 1883, a brewery was built that eventually was named the Seattle Brewing and Malting Company, and by 1904 it was the largest brewery west of the Rockies.

A Burlington Northern switch locomotive on a spur track at Lucille Street and Airport Way.

Seattle's railroads began in Georgetown, too. The Northern Pacific terminated at Tacoma, so a line had to be built to connect to Seattle.

In 1890, the community was named Georgetown after the son of real estate developer Julius Horton, who platted the town and sold lots. It was also a wild place - there was a horse race track, brothels and more saloons than there were churches.

In 1903, as the city of Seattle expanded and its boundaries grew closer, it threatened the brewing industry, because state law decreed alcohol could not be made in unincorporated areas within one mile of any city.

Georgetown City Hall, built in 1909 just before the city was annexed by Seattle. Timing.

So Georgetown became its own city, incorporating in 1904. The owner of the brewery was elected mayor. It was a true "company town," run to benefit the prime industry. Saloons stayed open 24 hours a day. It got so bad that residents voted in 1910 to become annexed by the city of Seattle, which had started to implement sensible regulations for its own alcohol and prostitution problems.

By the time Washington State went "dry" in 1919, other industrial development had transformed the area. The swampy Duwamish was straightened out and channeled to accommodate shipping. This also provided new drained flatlands that could be used for growing produce or for building factories - or runways for a new airplane factory.

Residents of Georgetown were local brewery and railroad workers, and Japanese and Italian immigrants who grew produce for market. But by the end of World War II, industrial development had made it not such a nice place to have a home. The library, the movie theatre, and even the public school closed down for lack of demand.

By the 1980s, when I was looking for a house to buy in Seattle, Georgetown was boarded up, dangerous, and dead.

Enough history. What's happening in 2010?

Well, in 2000 or so artists and musicians started moving in, looking for cheap studios and places to live. Old factories became alternate music venues. Workingmens' dives became hip bars. The tattoo parlors began to look more upscale, the coffee shops more organic, and the factories became workshops for artisans.

Let's take a tour.

The old brewery, which is really the heart of the neighborhood, is now being developed by a real estate firm as a mixed use development. Artists workspaces, offices, retail and event spaces are planned in the large brick complex that dominates this stretch of Airport Way. One of the tenants is a working brewery, the Georgetown Brewing Company. The Farmers' Market sets up on the site on Saturdays in the summer.

Go to the link for more photos - and don't miss the historical photos.

Near the old city hall are some retail blocks that include an antique store, a musical instrument store, and a bakery. There are several restaurants, including a Sushi restaurant, a pizza place and a fine dining establishment.

Many of the buildings date from Georgetown's early days. Red brick buildings with massive stone arches reflect the popular Richardsonian Romanesque style of the era.

Most of the homes here are clustered in a few quiet blocks. The houses are modest, many dating back to the beginning of the 20th century.

There were once many fine homes here, but over decades of neglect and industrialization many were lost.


Thankfully, this home has been preserved. Just across the street from Oxbow Park, it's known locally as "The Georgetown Castle." Records at the City's Department of Neighborhoods claim it was built in 1902, but the listing hints that it may have predated its first records. Its first owner of record, Peter Gessner, owned the Central Tavern in Pioneer Square, and committed suicide a year after moving into the house. There are stories the house was once a brothel, and that it's haunted. If you want to read about its history, here's a link.

For a peek inside, visit this blogger who toured the house and relates some of the ghost stories.

Now that the area is being gentrified, new modern houses sit beside old preserved homes. There is an annual art and garden tour. The old City Light electric steam plant has been turned into a museum.

If you take Lucille Street to 4th Avenue South, you'll encounter this vacuum shop, where the proprietor has created some memorable art using appliance parts. Click to "embiggen" and see it up close.

Marco Polo Saloon is a neighborhood dive known for its great fried chicken

It's only fitting with its heritage that Georgetown is known for its bars. Names like Calamity Janes, Smarty Pants, and 9lb Hammer hint whether the vibe is punk, biker, desperado, historic or eclectic. Many bars have live music and most offer food.

Slim's Last Chance Chili Shack and Watering Hole has a great neon sign. It's right next door to Pig Iron Barbecue.

We had time for a quick lunch before heading to the airport.

Back to Airport Way and the on-ramp for I-5, we found The Georgetown Liquor Company, in another historic building, right by the railroad tracks.


A dark, divey bar with wooden booths, it features banks of old computers running vintage games like Atari, Pac-Man on arcade machines, and a pinball machine with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. The menu here is surprising - it's all vegetarian. I had a cup of split pea soup seasoned with "vegan ham" and a sandwich with Field Roast meat-substitute, brie, apricot chutney, tomatoes and arugula. [The Man I Love] had a vegan burger. Both were delicious. He enjoyed a local beer on tap, while I had cider. Then it was off to the airport.

And there it is - my quick tour of Georgetown, many years postponed. I hope to come back and explore it again.