Fremont Photo Stroll

I'm sure I've mentioned before my love for the book Washington Curiosities. My friend Meg-A-Roonie turned me on to it and is therefore the person who was forced to spent a day with me shooting some of the items on the list.

Fremont, as a whole, is a very interesting neighborhood. I  mean any neighborhood who calls themselves "The People's Republic of Fremont" says something about the folks who frequent it.  It's also known as the center of the universe. They even have a directional sign to prove it.

So besides of this wonderful little treat, Fremont has a lot, and I mean a lot to see. Great for people watching - especially for the summer solstice where a huge parade takes place and it starts with a throng of naked bike riders.

Now, back to the list of "curiosities".  The first on our stop was the HUGE statue of Lenin.

Meg-A-Roonie and I were eating grinders in the shadow of Lenin.  I wondered, as we sat there, "Why Fremont? Why Lenin?" It seemed far-fetched, but Fremont is nothing if not far fetched. So I looked it up. Turns out an American who was teaching in Poprad found the sculpture lying face down after it was toppled in the 1989 Revolution.  He recognized that it was significant art from a famous Russian artist and wanted to preserve the statue. He mortgaged his house to acquire the sculpture and eventually it ended up in Fremont.

After a brief conversation with Lenin, we strolled right on down Fremont Avenue.  Along the way we found some rather interesting street lights.

Its hard to tell, but there's a torso in that bulb thingy. The sun was shining so bright that it lit up the inside pretty well.

After that we meandered our way past a gelato place.  We 'had' to go in. Once in, the gelato took hold of us, smacked us around and FORCED us to have some. So we both ordered an Affogato - scoop of gelato and shot of espresso over it.

Once outside we stumbled into a doorway that had a bunch of broken mirrors in different shapes and designs.  It was quite fascinating.  I could have spent a good 30 minutes in there, but we had more important things to see.

We continued on our stroll. Eventually we passed the "Waiting for the Interurban" statues. People usually dress these guys up in all sorts of costumes. This day they seemed a bit "undressed" and I have a hundred photos of them from the 3 day.  I chose to not waste any of my memory on this stop.

Photo courtesy of the Internet.

From there we walked up a GREAT BIG HILL to get to what I think is the most interesting thing in Fremont...the Troll.

My favorite part is the VW bug he's holding on to.  It's a real bug, by the way. The Troll lives under the I5 bridge and is part of the Fremont culture. It, too, gets decorated every now and then.

From the troll we walked back down into Fremont and stopped into a Turkish café that had a bunch of Turkish stuff for sale. The smell of the coffee and spices drew us in. We had to walk through and check out what was what.  We found these fabulous glasses so bright and colorful. Meg-A-Roonie spent her honeymoon in Turkey and said this store brings back some good memories.

Finally we found our way to walk past the Rocket. Yes that's right, Fremont has a Rocket. A real one...or so we're told.

It was a hot and we were tired of walking. I asked Meg-A-Roonie if she wanted to go to Starbucks, naturally she was all in. What she didn't know, at first, was that I meant the Starbucks that was made of recycled shipping containers.  Yes, Seattle not only is home to Starbucks, a Green city and has a Starbucks made of recycled shipping containers.

Best...coffee...ever...

Or it could have been that we were hot and thirsty and the black tea hit the spot perfectly.

Anyhow, we had a great time and as always it was a blast getting caught up with Meg-A-Roonie. 

I checked off several items in the book and now have about a hundred left.  I'd better get going.