Courtesy of Washington State History Museum
The history lab at the Washington State History Museum has three galleries: Time, Place and Tools of the History Trade.

Courtesy of Experience Music Project
The Experience Music Project collection includes more than 80,000 artifacts that helped shape music history, including electric guitars used by artists such as Bob Dylan, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters and Kurt Cobain.

Rainy-day excursions

Try these ideas for indoor fun less than an hour away

BILL COMPTON, FOR THE OLYMPIAN

Will it rain in the Puget Sound region once we're deep into fall? You can count on drizzle and more, but that doesn't mean you and your family have to count yourself out of some great weekend activities within an hour of South Sound.

You can take a train ride and sip wine halfway through your trip, take in a movie in a theater that feels closer to 1961 than 2001, help the kids become history detectives for a day, or perhaps take the family on a musical odyssey through the last 60 years of popular music.

The Spirit of Washington evening dinner train makes a two-and-a-half-hour circle that includes a 45-minute stop at the Columbia Winery just outside Woodinville. Rolling leisurely north from its station in Renton along the eastern shore of Lake Washington, you can admire the elegant dining cars of the past while considering the burgeoning growth in Kirkland, Bellevue, and Woodinville.

A highlight of the ride is the the 110-year-old, 102-foot-high Wilburton Trestle.

From November through April, the dinner train encourages families to get on board by inviting children along for free, at up to two per paid adult.

Children are offered a modified menu. For couples and groups, The Spirit of Washington also offers special murder-mystery parties featuring an interactive theater experience during dinner.

Washington State History Museum

If kids are part of your weekend plans, the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma, next door to the beautifully restored Union Station, is the place to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon.

The main floor features a variety of dioramas with spoken word presentations that make northwest history from Lewis and Clark to 20th-century industry and economic development come alive. Kids can dress up in period costumes near the shipbuilding display.

Save a couple of hours for the new history lab on the museum's fifth floor. If you don't know what ephemera is and how it connects to the making of history, here's the place to find out. The lab invites lingering and pondering.

Opened in June, the lab draws upon high-tech video and computer gadgetry to provide training for young "detectives" out to pursue the mysteries of history. The three galleries (Time, Place and Tools of the History Trade) generate questions to be answered though interactive investigation.

The Tools of the History Trade gallery has a collection of artifacts, books, periodicals, images, maps, electronic media and ephemera. Olympia's 1950s pop singing group The Fleetwoods are part of the Time Connector game that participants can play.

"Kids love the place, but I've seen teenage couples and families get into it just as much," volunteer David Pedee said.

Also worth a stop on the fifth floor is a large and amazingly detailed model railroad sure to intrigue kids and adults alike. Spreading from the Tacoma waterfront to tiny logging towns in the Cascades, the layout creates the region as it was in the 1950s, with railroading as the driver of industry. One hundred railroad hobbyists put in 25,000 man-hours over 41/2 years to create the display, according to Chuck Soule.

The fifth floor becomes a railroaders' heaven between Christmas and New Year's Day, when hobbyists from across the state display their work. The museum also hosts four special family days on Saturdays through the fall. Upcoming days are Transformation Day, Nov. 3, and Toys Day, Dec. 1.

The Grand Cinema

Another good possibility for a rainy weekend in downtown Tacoma is a film at The Grand Cinema, a nonprofit, volunteer organization that runs independent, foreign and art films in a two-screen facility on Fawcett Street.

When the theater closed as a commercial enterprise in 1997, a group of volunteers formed a nonprofit cooperative to show the kinds of films the cineplexes shun. Spokesman Paul Jacobson said that at first the film-viewing public was relatively unaware of the theater's existence, so growth was slow.

"During the last nine months to a year, we've seen public awareness, theater operation and film attendance improving markedly," Jacobson said. "With better attendance has come a better film program as the studios and distributors have come to have more faith in the theater."

The cinema makes use of 175 volunteers to keep showings running smoothly.

The two cozy screening rooms evoke memories of theaters of the 1960s, when no advertisements assaulted the senses and loud previews didn't blow you out of your seat. The popcorn is always fresh and inexpensive, as are all the concession snacks.

The theater is located three blocks above Market Street. Parking is free after 5 p.m.

You can pick up an espresso and a pastry at the Kickstand Cafe & Espresso next door to the theater before or after your film. Two doors down is Mother Records, the perfect place to browse for alternative music on indie labels. The store stays open late on weekend nights.

You could spend a nice day combining the Washington State History Museum in the afternoon with the Grand Cinema in the evening.

Experience Music Project

For Kent resident Todd Bishopp, the best thing about Paul Allen's Experience Music Project at Seattle Center is its ability to offer a multigenerational, hands-on musical experience.

Bishopp, a producer for Great Big Island Records in Seattle, has been to the museum four times and suggests that "you allow for six hours, and that won't allow you to see it all in depth. But you make it to all the exhibit halls and take in the Funk Blast ride."

Funk Blast takes you from James Brown to Funkadelic with sound, video and vibration, helping you experience the development of soul and funk music through a story of two kids who set out in search of the funk.

"My daughter, who prefers Britney Spears and 'N Sync, loved it. I had to take her through it six times," Bishopp said.

Also at EMP, the Northwest Rock Hall of Fame covers regional music from the 1940s to the present.

"It was cool to walk through with my dad and see places like the Spanish Castle and the Evergreen Ballroom, and talk about the era he grew up in," Bishopp said. "He'd been to those places, and of course they're gone now."

For teens and young adults, Bishopp recommends the Sound Lab, where through high-tech, screen-aided interaction you can learn to play a tune and play along with the band.

You can also act as sound engineer, remixing famous tunes in new combinations of sound and tempo. Older teens can go to the jam room and play actual instruments for 20 minutes, though Bishopp says you need to be there early in the day due to the room's popularity.

Exhibit halls invite you to hear spoken-word narratives from musicians and critics, all self-controlled by a device you wear and use as you walk along. The exhibits are an excellent way to learn about musical influences of the past 60 years.

For lunch, consider a hop over to the food circus for the great variety and family-priced food. With a stamp you can get back into EMP for more musical adventuring.

"I enjoyed watching my daughter's eyes light up. Overall, I'd give it an A," Bishopp said.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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