Seattle

Before chronicling our last two days, I have to acknowledge the situation in Moore, Oklahoma.  We don’t watch much TV on the trip, but Mike gets FOX and CNN updates on his phone.  (when the bombing happened in Boston, my sister texted me to alert us).  Also, we stopped for fuel on Monday and while I was at the counter paying for it, they had a TV on with coverage.  So we knew to turn the TV on when we got set up. Having just gone through Moore last month (remember in my post I mentioned it was the home of Toby Keith?), and with our friends Richard and Kathy in Oklahoma City, it has touched us a little more.  We texted Richard on Monday and didn’t hear back from him until Tuesday and they are OK.  We are thankful for the BIG things. . .

As you can see, I took a picture of our under storage door held shut with duct tape.  It was an easy fix – only took an hour.  It was a very overcast, foggy morning on Monday or the service guy said we would have gotten a great view of Mt. Hood.

Heading north to Seattle, we crossed the Columbia River again, which, if you recall, is the dividing line between Oregon and Washington.  On the bridge, there was a small sign that said, “Entering Washington”.  I thought, “OK, there will be a better sign once we are on the Washington side.”  Wrong.   There was nothing, and we were on a major interstate.

C’mon people!  Where is your imagination?  How about: “Welcome to Washington – Birthplace of Overpriced Coffee!”  or “Welcome to Washington – The Land of Windows (the Microsoft kind)” or “Welcome to Washington – The Last United State on the West Coast before Canada”

The clouds cleared away, the sun came out and from I-5 we got a beautiful view of Mount St. Helens!  That is when I sent an email link to a real-time webcam aimed at the volcano.  I hope you all got to see it.

As we neared Seattle, we rounded a turn and got a perfect look at downtown.  Our campground is about 20 minutes north of the city.  Getting set up was tricky.  The lots are concrete, but sloped a little.  Our first clue that it may be hard to get the RV level was the boards provided at every campsite to put under the tires.  They had no other empty sites we could move to so we used the boards to prevent our back tire from being off the ground and made it work. (For the non-campers, when the jacks go down, the back one had to lift the rear of the RV so high to get it to level with the front, the tire came off the ground.)

There was an Irish pub- O’Finnigin’s less than a mile down the road so we went to get dinner.  It looked a little run down, so we decided in the parking lot that if it was a dive inside we would just get something to drink and leave.  We judged the book by its cover and we shouldn’t have.  The food was great and one of the owners was working behind the bar.  A really nice young man (probably early 30’s) who was so helpful with suggestions on what we should do and see in Seattle.  Getting recommendations from a local is always better than the brochures I pick up at the campground offices.  (Trip Advisor is my go-to app on this trip, also).

We knew the forecast for Tuesday was for rain, and it started in the middle of the night.  We waited until late morning to head downtown and by the time we got there, the rain had stopped.  After paying an outrageous amount to park the Jeep, we walked several blocks to the famous Pike Place Market.  The market spans several blocks, open on the street side.  Our first stop?  The most famous stall in the famous market – Pike Place Fish Market.  Home of the Flying Fish.  I thought they threw fish and people standing around caught them.  Not so.  They have several guys in front of the iced fish and when a crowd gathers (usually guaranteed if kids are in the crowd), a guy behind the fish counter yells, and throws a fish to one of the employees catches it.  But it looks like the fish is coming right at you and he catches it at the last second.  I hope that comes through in the picture.  Some of the fish comes from the area, but the majority was caught in Alaska the night before and flown overnight to the market. 

Walking down the market, the stalls are filled with food, fresh produce, crafts, T-shirts, souvenirs and flowers.  Across the street was the original Starbucks coffee shop.  I was ready for a foo-foo coffee (caramel macchiato to be exact) but the line was out the door.  I should have invoked the Disney World rule (you know there is going to be a line but you just have to get in it), but since Mike doesn’t like Starbucks, I didn’t want to wait in line just for myself.  So I didn’t get to see the inside of the store, or ask what the price of a caramel macchiato was back in 1979 when they opened.

So we didn’t buy fish or coffee, but we did buy donuts at a bakery stall.  We then walked about 5 blocks to catch a monorail that took us to an area called Seattle Center.  The Space Needle is there.  The monorail was built in 1962 to transport people from the grounds of the World’s Fair (now called Seattle Center) to downtown. What the Eiffel Tower is to Paris, the Space Needle is to Seattle.  Both were built as enduring monuments to commerate a World’s Fair.   We paid $19 each (the guy at the Irish Pub warned us it was pricey) to ride an elevator 605 ft. up (in 41 seconds) to the top of the needle.  We should have been able to see Mt. Rainier, but, once again, the overcast skies blocked it out.  But we did get terrific views of downtown Seattle and the Puget Sound.

Dale Chihuly, a glass artist, has his museum next to the Space Needle.  We considered it, but we could see several of the works that were outside and hanging inside and they were all ones I had seen at his exhibit at the Fredrick Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, so we decided not to. 

We ended the day driving to a ferry dock near our campground.  Since so many people in this area live on the islands in the Puget Sound and ferry rides are an everyday part of their lives, we thought we would take a ferry over to one of the closer islands, just for the experience.  We hit it at a very busy time and cars were lined up in 20 rows, at least 10 deep.  So we went into a waterfront eatery, had some seafood chowder and watched the ferry come and go through the windows!  We may try again tomorrow in the morning, as most people should be coming off the island, not going over to it. 

Rain is forecasted for all day tomorrow (welcome to the Pacific Northwest!).  It is raining hard as I type.  But we are hoping for a window of clearing to do more exploring.

Pictures today are:  duct tape door; as we were leaving Portland, I saw these floating houses.  The garage doors open for boats, not cars!;  the Space Needle from our drive into Seattle; a view of Pike Place Market; several pictures of the Fish Market.  I’m standing with one of the fish-catching guys; the original Starbucks store; ferry boats in Puget Sound; catching a fish; under the Space Needle; views from the top;  read the sign, another claim to be “the first”;  entrance to Space Needle; we drove by a Boeing plant, home to those 747’s; the cars lined up for the ferry and after the cars are loaded, people walking onto the ferry.