Road Trip 10 - The Pacific Northwest
Page 4 - Seattle
Friday, September 6, 2013
We were the last vehicle allowed on the 9:40 AM ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle.
It was a bit rainy and cloudy and the "Hill Worldwide Moving Services" truck is not us. We are the white van, or course.
Looking back at Bainbridge Island
I was hoping our van wouldn't slide off the back of the ferry
The ferry was huge. This is the lounge area looking across the width from port to starboard, mates.
Downtown Seattle coming into sight.
We found a parking spot not too far from our condo.
Then we found an Irish pub. Duh.
Then we walked toward Pike Place, Seattle's famous fish (and other stuff) market.
We stopped in Fran's sea salt smoked caramel chocolates (or something like that)
Pike Place
King crab, Dungeness crab, oh my
Whole octopus, $12.99!
$5 flowers!
Fruit and veggies
Fresh albacore, $4.99 and king salmon for $9.99? I could become a fish-a-holic.
Everything one needs.
And cocktails too? I want to live here.
Is that Italian?
Pasta
OK, we delivered a hello from Inga at Chukkar Cherries in Prosser, Eastern Washington, to these Chukkar people and they didn't even give us any free cherries.
$10 flowers
peppas!
Lunch time:
Lunch at Etta's
I like these graphics.
Fresh produce from Prosser Farm
Walking around
Looking downhill at the market
Part of our little condo home for the weekend
View up 5th avenue from the condo balcony
View south from the condo. Those are Seattle's stadiums in the distance. They play NFL Football, MLB Baseball and MLS Soccer there. Imagine that, San Diego!
Looking down from the condo balcony at the van parked out front. It cost about $20/day but it was convenient.
Dinner bounty from the market!
Seattle - Saturday
The tallest building in the city
We walked up to downtown (can you do that?) and caught the monorail to the Space Needle
And here it is...
Lorri with trash can. Sometimes my photos are like fine art!
Another work of art.
Getting better...
Up in the Needle now, baby.
I think that's the Olympic Range popping up over the clouds in the distance beyond the Sound.
This would be a cruise ship.
Seattle's answer to the London Eye.
The sky line from the top of the SN.
Finally! A great photo! Because I'm in it!!!
A nice city
The ferry we rode on
The Penn State Club
So we descended from the Needle and I was looking for a sports bar where I could see how Penn State was doing.
As fate would have it, the first place we walked into happened to be the weekly viewing spot for the Penn State Club of Puget Sound!
There were 30 or 40 Penn Staters there rooting on the Nittany Lions. They welcomed us, found us some seats and we watched the fourth quarter with them.
They even had Lion table cloths!
If you're ever in Seattle on a college football Saturday, this is where you want to go to watch Penn State. It's just across the street from the Space Needle.
The art of laundry hanging
Time for lunch.
Another view of the city
Down along the waterfront
The Seattle Eye
Back near Pioneer Square
Our condo was on the top left.
Seattle - Sunday
Brunch at Fonte, then it was off to the Tour of the Seattle Underground
We file out the door to meet our guide
Then, down we went...
It turns out that this area of Seattle is now one story higher than it used to be.
Our guide of the underground explained that the city built walls at about where the curbs were so that the streets could be raised
The area between these walls and the old first floor building fronts is where the "underground" is. make sense?
In some areas you can access what used to be the ground level of the adjacent buildings but is now at basement level.
This used to be a bar/ballroom
And these "windows" would have opened to street level
I'm not so sure about the old bathroom. I think it's raised up so that whatever left it would be able to flow down hill, which is desirable when you're talking about sewage.
The Smith Tower
On the recommendation of our underground guide, we walked over to the Smith Tower and took the old elevator to the top floor.
Other than at the Hotel Del Coronado, it's the only elevator I've been in over the last 30 or 40 years that has to have an elevator operator to run it.
It's fairly ornate.
At one time, it was one of the tallest buildings in the US.
Here is the view from the top
A view of our condo building from Smith Tower, Can you find our van?
Another view
The stadium complex
The SN from the ST.
Zoomed
In the manually operated elevator.
Meanwhile...
These people were playing some pretty good bluegrass for free out in front of the original Starbucks.
This is the line at the original Starbucks
This is the interior
This is the exterior
First stop on the way home
Second stop - fish and chips at McCormick's.
Supposedly McCormick opened this place before he and Schmick joined forces.
Packing up and getting ready to go. Our VRBO in Seattle worked out well.
On to the sea!
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