October 3 and 4 - Seattle

Up
The Trailer
The Trip
Life on the Road
Family Photos
Links
Personal Pages
Contact Us


Next: October 5 to 11 - La Grande

Below is our Amazing Traveling Entomology Exhibit, which we sometimes use as our car.  After 24,000 miles of travel through 44 states and Canadian Provinces, we have carefully collected species from all over North America.  We have not washed it since May, while on Ocracoke, in order to preserve the high quality and diversity of the exhibit.  We have quite a collection embedded in the radiator grill -- perhaps we will donate the van to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History when we return.

One evening, Jordan and I caught up on our pool while Jody visited with her brother.  We played a new game: "Eyes Closed Any-ball".  This way the games lasted quite a while, maximizing our fun-factor-per-dollar.  It was OK to have eyes open while lining up the shot, but you had to hit the ball with closed eyes.  We also took several hot tubs, and played 2 full games of "Hand and Foot", which Monika had taught to the ladies during our stay at the cabin in Polebridge.

The next day, Adam agreed to be our guide for a walk about the historic Pike Street Market area.  We got started around 9:30, and drove to the Seattle Space Needle, which has a station for the only municipal monorail system in the country.  Below is the monorail pulling into the station.  Those are the actual colors; the building in the background is Paul Allen's "Experience Music Project", of which we did not have time to partake.

We walked downhill to the Pike Street Market, which is an institution in Seattle.  Hundreds of vendors selling all sorts of flowers, produce, fish, meats and jewelry set up their wares bright and early each morning.  We walked about, and sampled some of their offerings.

We discovered one produce stand with these beautiful, incredibly huge apples.  We bought the one pictured below, and it fed all four of us.

We next dashed across town to catch the 1:00 PM "Underground Tour".  We made it by the skin of our teeth.  The tour starts above ground, with a quick history of Seattle.  A considerable part of that history was driven by one Thomas Crapper, who invented the flush toilet.  You see, Seattle had been mostly built at the water line, often on 'fill'.  Fill was anything they could throw into the water to make more buildable land.  This was often sawdust, which had to unfortunate tendency to decay, causing potholes so large that they formed deep and dangerous pools.  A child even fell into one such 'pothole', and drowned.  But I digress; the main problem were the flush toilets installed very near the water line.  At high tide, these toilets ran backwards, spewing fountains of sewage.  The patient residents lived with this situation for 8 years, when providence intervened: Seattle burned to the ground.  Rather than assuming that this was a godly indictment of their ways, civic leaders took this as a more positive sign, and wisely took action: they moved the entire district straight upward, abandoning the ground floor of the fledgling city.  This abandoned first floor was the subject of our tour.

Below is one of the offending -- offensive? -- toilets, located about 10 feet below the current city's ground level.

Above ground, I took this shot of one of the historic buildings.  In front on the sidewalk, when the city was elevated, they built in some beautiful colored glass containing manganese...

...which you can see here, from below.  Often, the tour took place along the original sidewalks, now completely underground and largely unused.

The tour took us through some pretty grimy spaces.  This highly processed photo, taken in natural light under the city, gives you some idea of what the passages looked like.

Jody, passing through a retaining wall.  Each intersection was walled off to prevent the underground spread of fire.  The tour operators were able to open passageways through some of these.

 

After the tour and a quick lunch courtesy of Adam, we continued our exploration of the waterfront area.  Adam directed us into a bizarre store that was half tourist T-shirt shop and half old time amusement gallery.  We poked nickels and quarters into the old machines, included "Laughing Jack", on the left.  At right, Jordan poses with a smile mask.

We bought flowers to give to Chris and Jennifer, with whom we were to have dinner that evening.  Jordan bought her own bouquet, as well.

We said our goodbyes to Adam, and then Jody, Jordan and I walked South along the waterfront to the ferry landing, where we just missed the 4:40 ferry.  Oh well...

Chris Mosio and Jennifer Louden are friends from Santa Barbara who up and moved themselves to Bainbridge Island in the Puget Sound this past summer.  Bainbridge is a quiet, wooded island where residents cherish their watery isolation from the mainland.  Only a 30 minute ferry ride from downtown Seattle, it is no wonder the Louden/Mosio family chose to settle there.

Below are Chris and Jennifer.  Jennifer has an acutely sharp instinct for closing her eyes when photos are taken -- this was the only way we could get a shot of her baby-blues. 

The Louden/Mosio family generously made a lovely dinner for us, followed by pie and ice cream.  Below, Lillian, who is Chris and Jennifer's only child, enjoy seconds of ice cream along with Jordan.

A group shot of our little gathering.  We had only this one night visit with them -- far too short.  However, we were aiming to be back in Santa Barbara before Halloween, so this was all the time we had.  It was really, really good to see them again.  We had missed them greatly.  We expect to see them in Santa Barbara next; after all, we traveled last to visit them, right?

October 5 to 11 - La Grande