Black Jack the goat spent his time in the wings, learning the tricks of the late, great Jumpy. Where did Jumpy learn? Some say he was highly food-motivated. Some say he trained himself. Some say he was abducted by aliens and came back a changed goat (no one actually says that). Now Black Jack has stepped into Jumpy’s hooves and carries on the proud tradition, which begs the question: was Jumpy murdered so that Black Jack could get all of the fame and goat kibble he desired? No one’s asking that, either. Spotted on Washington 530 in Arlington at Foster’s Produce.
Category Washington
Spotted on the Roadside: The Seattle Great Wheel
The Seattle Great Wheel is an excellent place to get another view of the city and make inappropriate jokes while locking your friends in a fartbox high above the Sound. While you’re there, you can puzzle out their myriad terrifying warning pictograms to determine exactly how many ways your actions in the gondola could cause you to die. If you’re feeling particularly fancy, you can drop $50 apiece to ride in the VIP gondola which has leather bucket seats and a glass floor…and I imagine at least one more pictogram showing someone plunging through said glass floor.
The Mount Vernon Tulip Festival
It took two trips to get back to the tulip festival (I first attended in 2011); the first was on a Sunday and we sat in stop and go traffic for more than six hours, still never got within striking distance of the fields, and I was ready to blow a gasket. May everyone who cut in front of us during the four hours we sat in the exit lane’s toenails fall off, and may they also get an eyelash in their eye that they can’t get out, and that might help them feel a fraction of the annoyance I felt with them for deciding they were too good to wait in line like everyone else. The second attempt, on a Tuesday, was smooth sailing the entire way. If you want to go, check the bloom maps and avoid the weekend if at all possible to save yourself a lot of agony. The visit is worth the effort it takes to get there–the swaths of color splashed across the ground is invigorating to the eye and the creative spirit. It makes me want to rip down all of the brush behind my house and have my own mini tulip fields so I can experience a bit of this glory every day of the season!
