Day 32: Seattle, WA
Nau mai
Yesterday we played our final show of the tour at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo.
Waking up in the Seattle zoo wasn’t as peaceful as the last time I remembered it happening. On this particular day, the final day of tour, we had to say goodbye to our bus, our fuchsia steed, driven by James, the master reverser, a tall man with a silver goatee and cowboy boots who was eager to make a start on his journey back to Phoenix.
My internal alarm clock woke me at 8:45am on the dot and I forced the fog of sleep out of my body using my deep reserves of intense willpower. We went over the bus thoroughly, checking each drawer and cupboard for anything of personal ownership or financial value. By a quarter past nine we were sitting next to the penguin enclosure surrounded by messy piles of baggage watching James complete one final extremely confident three-point turn with trailer, waving out the window as he headed for the highway.
This porcupine was the greeter at the zoo entrance, a happy specimen who was enjoying the challenge of extracting his treats from inside a toilet roll.
We headed to the backstage area next and situated ourselves, beginning the task of creating order out of the post bus chaos. Plates, cups, moccamaster, boxes of tea, cricket bats, kites – these things all had to be safely stowed before being added to the freight pallet for the trip to Chicago where our next tour would begin.
My final breakfast of the tour was an unceremonious affair, wolfed down in a spare minute at the catering tent. I toasted a plain, brown bagel and slathered on a generous amount of whipped cream cheese. On the side I had a pile of chopped fresh fruit, pineapple, melon, and blueberries, topped with a sprinkle of tajín.
Of course, the best part of playing at the zoo is that you get to look around during the day. We checked in with some of our old friends from the last visit, the favourites being the tapirs who were both making the most of the moderate late summer temperature and enjoying a very active day in their enclosures. (Author’s note: due to zoo animal rotation these are probably different animals from the last time we visited Woodland Park).
There were many other animal highlights of course and I shall provide details of them now.
The curious mountain goat who wandered over to the top of this rocky outcrop to check out what was going on with the bear feeding.
The Marabou Stork, a heavily beaked creature who has the freakish ability to backwardly kneel.
The Snow Leopard, a master of camouflage who certainly would have dispatched us many times in the time it took for us to discover his whereabouts. Trisan has provided this photo and would like for you to enjoy a game of I Spy.
The Pink Headed Fruit Dove, a magnificent bird from the mountain forests of Sumatra, Java, and Bali, whose spectacular pink and green plumage would be sure to deter any sensible predators.
The mighty and deadly Great Argus, barely able to be captured on film so fast is its speed and so terrifying its lethality. These birds grow up to two metres in length - which in this case did not detract from its agility as it bounded through the bushes, hunting for prey on the floor of the enclosure.
The Woodland Park Zoo were generous enough to organise us an animal encounter, and to our great pleasure and surprise it was with the two resident bears, Juniper and Fern. We were led around the back of the enclosure, up a staircase and then out on to a rooftop that had a very simple hand railing around the edges. As we walked out the two bears bounded up to the water’s edge below us. They knew what was coming. The keeper gave us a couple of buckets of fruit, rockmelon, apple, lemon and, orange, which we cast down to the waiting creatures, watching as they carefully picked each piece up with their long claws, separating flesh from skin with their teeth and eagerly awaiting the next mouthful.
Before we were allowed to soundcheck the animals of Woodland Park Zoo had to be warned of what was coming. A special playlist was piped through the PA system about an hour before we were allowed to make any noise. The playlist began quietly of course, soft songs with gentle timbres, slowly building in volume and intensity until they were enjoying the sounds of Wilco and Waxahatchee. Then they heard The Beths play through a few songs, rigorously adhering to the strict decibel limit.
Just after 5pm the gates opened and people began to trickle in, setting themselves up on the large lawn in front of the stage. Picnic blankets were unfolded and lawn chairs were erected as people built themselves into comfortable surroundings for the evening. Seattle put on a premium weather performance for this eager crowd, perfect, blue skies and an aggressively moderate temperature that could favour both the wearers of shorts or pants. For a final time we enjoyed the set of that great Indianapolis band Wishy, and then we watched the set of that great Chicago band Beach Bunny, and then we got to play the sunset slot, seventy minutes up on stage as the tall pines and firs around the zoo became dark silhouettes against a fading sky.
Our evening wound down with a large amount of packing and organising, getting every piece of equipment ready to either fly back home with us or make the journey on a truck to Chicago. Just before we left the zoo we went for one more quick peek at the Savannah exhibit. We received the jumpscare of our lives as we were peering through the dark glass of the hyena enclosure searching for any movement or shapes in the pitch black of the rocky, open area. It was Liz who turned on her phone flashlight and looked at the other window behind us, illuminating a pair of feliform creatures who had silently approached the glass and were curiously peering in at this group of humans visiting at the most inappropriate of hours.
Here are the points scored on the final day of tour:
Here are the scores as they stand at the end of this Asia/North America tour.
