Weird Seattle News of Late

If our Light Rail trains can have a conductor cab at each end, why can’t a bicycle have two front sides? Instagrammers noticed something amiss on an ad REI posted this summer: the bike for sale had regular handlebars at the front and a second, uncanny set tucked under the seat. The company blamed a Meta AI tool for the wonky image, and REI failed to launch a new trend of backwards biking. 

Ahead of the last Seattle World Cup contest between Belgium and the US Men’s National Team, the local organizing committee and Seattle Animal Shelter hosted a match prediction from supposedly-psychic German shepherd mix Luna, despite her lack of credentials. Luna declined to prophesize a winner by eating treats from either of the marked bowls, probably because she foresaw the bummer of a 4-1 USA loss and, like any good Seattleite, was too polite to say so. 

The annual T-Rex World Championship Races took place at Emerald Downs in July as dozens of men, women, and children in inflatable costumes waddled down the straightaway usually used for horse racing. Contestants got in free if they brought their own dino suits, and the park’s drink special was “dino green” jello shots. Maybe if they’d run like this in the Cretaceous Period, the dinosaurs would’ve escaped the extinction asteroid.

For the first time since it was built in 2018, the Snoqualmie Pass wildlife bridge over Interstate 90 welcomed an ursine visitor. Cameras caught the black bear galloping across the expanse, and the Washington Department of Transportation noted that it comes after almost 10,000 other animal crossings; elk and moose have already made the commute. 

In 1972, a man named Laszlo Toth walked into St. Peter’s Basilica and attacked Michelangelo’s Pietà with a rock hammer. In 2026, Alexander Taylor Weis allegedly walked into the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum, shattered $240,000 worth of art, and hurled broken glass at a security guard. As they say, every generation gets the art—and art vandalism—it deserves.

Washingtonians who wanted to celebrate the surprising March snow dump by hitting the slopes at Stevens Pass were met by an unlikely obstacle: a vintage limo that got stuck without chains on its tires and blocked an entrance to the resort. The driver posted an apology on Reddit and clarified that “yes it is my personal limousine.”

More in long vehicle news: When a bus driver had a health scare, leaving a bus careening into parked cars in Greenwood, passenger Ernie Makinson took the wheel. According to The Seattle Times, he stopped the bus but injured himself in the process, and somebody stole $350 from his backpack in the aftermath. A GoFundMe for Makinson has raised more than $70,000. 

Marmots are everywhere these days. They’re even on TV, making you feel appropriately guilty for tossing that food wrapper out the window. The Washington State Department of Ecology unveiled a new anti-littering ad campaign starring an adorable marmot puppet.

This is your last chance to ride the Riptide or go over Lumberjack Falls. Wild Waves Theme & Water Park has announced that 2026 will be its final season serving families in Federal Way. This means the Seattle area will be without an outdoor theme park for the first time in decades. We hope the condos and subdivisions that go up in its place have names like Pacific Plunge and Soaring Eagle.

Speaking of eagles, a bystander at Lincoln Park in West Seattle came across an unlikely sight on a recent Sunday: two injured bald eagles laying on the ground, one with the other’s head in its talons. “This was a fight to the death,” Joven Yount told The Seattle Times. And for one of the pair, who had to be euthanized by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, it was indeed.

WA 64,  the latest apple developed by the folks at Washington State University, finally has a name: Sunflare. A hybrid of the Pink Lady and Honeycrisp, the Sunflare won’t hit supermarkets till 2029-ish. A few early testers have tried it out in Pullman, but the rest of us will have to wait. 

A Seattle man suspected of robbing a BECU branch and a Columbia Bank branch on consecutive days was apprehended after the note he passed a teller demanding cash and stating that he was armed was found in a changing room at the Capitol Hill Goodwill branch. An employee called 911, and police used security cameras to track down the suspect (and the cash).