The great white worm of the Palouse. (Yaniria Sanchez-de Leon/University of Idaho) CLICK PHOTO TO ENLARGE

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels on the Seattle Channel.

Ed Lazowska, who holds the Bill and Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. (UW)

Sputnik I. (NASA)

Walt Crowley. (HistoryLink.org)

The Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle.

The Last Exit coffeehouse in Seattle's University District, date unknown. (Seattle Wiki)

The Last Exit coffeehouse in Seattle's University District, date unknown. (Seattle Wiki)

A fish ladder on the dammed Columbia River. (Bonneville Power Administration)

A pygmy goat, now a legal pet in Seattle. (Oklahoma State University)

From top: Walt Crowley in 2006; an undated self-portrait; with John Carlson (left) on KIRO-TV in 1986; and after chemotherapy in 2005. (Roger Hudson, Walt Crowley, Nick Gunderson, Marie McCaffrey)

The now-open Northwest Passage (top), extending from the Bering Strait at upper left, and John Everett Millais' <i>The Northwest Passage</i> (1874). (European Space Agency, Wikipedia)

The Denny's restaurant in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood (top and bottom), with a resembling information booth at the 1962 World's Fair.

Interstate 5 at the Columbia River, linking Portland and Vancouver, Wash. (Oregon Department of Transportation)