Thursday, 11 June 2015 - Seattle

What a great night's sleep. Figured that we had been up for close to 24 hours. Another beautiful day in the Northwest greeted us. First on today's agenda was the Emerald City Trolley's Overlook and Lock Tour, The tour provided a some history of Seattle and some insights into the Ballard, Fremont and Queen Anne's neighborhoods. We traveled past the marinas - boats everywhere, including Bill Gate's Daedalus that has a helipad on it's roof. Then it was the houseboat that was used in Sleepless in Seattle.

On to Gas Works Park that has seen an old gas conversion plant turned into a city park. It was basically a toxic waste that was sealed, covered with tarps and seed with grass. I think I would still be worried about the effects of playing there.

Up the very steep hill to see the Troll under the Bridge. He is crushing a VW Beetle with a California license plate. The public art is everywhere. All buildings need to have some art commitment in the Fremont and Ballard areas.

The next stop on the tour were the Chittenden Locks. We were lucky to see a couple of boats go through. Also at the locks was a salmon ladder. We are too early in the season to see any of the salmon come through. Guess the next trip will have to be in July.

 

 

Although I was clueless as to what the show Deadliest Catch was all about, others on the tour were quite excited to see the Northwestern.Will need to watch a few episodes when we get back home. It seemed like Sig Hansen was a household name.

 

Then on to the Queen Anne neighborhood that provided great views and beautiful homes. Looks like a wonderful place to return to.

Back at Seattle Center, we hastened to the Space Needle for lunch. Again, some panoramic views of the city and a wonderful, but very pricey lunch. The experience was well worth it as the revolving restaurant gave us more of a grasp of the extent of Seattle. A crabmeat and shrimp salad for me and an openface crab melt for Earle.

After lunch it was on to the Chihuly Museum and Gardens. Completely wore out the digital camera snapping pictures of the spectacular glass sculpture. This was totally worth the trip to Seattle to see this exhibition. I will post the whole of the pictures on Facebook when I get home. We are lucky to have many of his pieces at the Phipps Conservatory, but this was utterly unbelievable.

 

This filled an entire room

 

 

We pulled ourselves away from Chihuly and walked down to the EMP Museum. This was a museum that was an eclectic collection of all pop culture from SciFi and Horror movies to Fantasy, a history of the guitar, tributes to Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, and finally a video game room. It had started as a museum that was going to be dedicated to Jimi Hendrix, but grew its collection out of necessity since there wasn't enough about Jimi to fill the space. There is also an exhibit in tribute to the Seahawks that houses the Super Bowl Trophy, Seems weird to only look at one when we have six in our possession! We closed the place at 7:00 and then walked down to the International Fountain before making our way back to the hotel. Glad to get off our feet (only 5 miles today, tho) a bit before the day begins tomorrow.

 

International Fountain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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