Three Hundred Stairs

On Sunday the Seattle Urban Sketcher group met in the lobby of the Seattle Art Museum for its monthly sketch outing. Tina and I decided to join in the fun, and because she had a parking pass at Seattle Center, we drove there with the idea of taking the monorail to downtown.

The parking garage had a flight of stairs to street level.  Fine, no problem.  We took the monorail to Westlake Center, where it was too early for the mall with its escalators to be open, so we took three flights of stairs down to street level.  Down is always harder on my knees than up, but I survived.

We arrived at the museum's upper level, and took another two flights of stairs down to the lower entry level, where we met the other sketchers.  Some went into the galleries to draw, but at $22.95 (senior rate!), I declined, and tried to draw the sculpture in the lobby -- a huge sculptured tree hanging from the ceiling.

I wasn't happy with that sketch, so I looked around the large (and free!) public space of the museum, and spotted a camel statue -- which stood at the top of two flights of stairs.  Argh.

With another hour to kill, I decided to wander down to the Pike Place Market in search of inspiration.  I didn't find anything there to draw (or rather, I did, but there were way too many people milling about, getting in the way).  During my explorations, I went up and down at least four more flights of stairs.

I returned to the museum, where we shared sketches.

Photo credit: fellow sketcher Michele Cooper

Then we did a group photo -- standing on a flight of stairs.  Gah!

Tina and I made our way back to the monorail, where thankfully the escalators were available, and returned to the Seattle Center where the Japanese cherry blossom festival was in full swing.  We wanted to draw the taiko drummers -- but there was a huge crowd in front of the stage.  There was a better view from the balcony -- another flight of STAIRS.  The drummers were just finishing their performance, though, and after only a minute or two, they were done.  So we went back down the stairs and outside to the food court where another flight of stairs greeted us.  We ate lunch and returned to the center in time for the next group of taiko drummers, and luckily found a spot on the main level to do our sketching.

By then we were well and truly pooped.  We made our way back to the parking garage, down that flight of stairs, and headed home.

The next day my legs were a little sore.  I did not go up or down any more stairs other than the five porch steps at home.  I am DONE with stairs!