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Along the Natchez Trace

Friday, September 14, 2012

More of Seattle

It didn't seem to take us long to adjust to the 3 hour time change, but, truth is, I think it takes a lot longer for me when I lose hours than when I gain them.  Guess that doesn't say much about how I really use my time, does it?

Bill & I walked a few blocks to a great breakfast cafe around 7:00 this morning.  Neither of us are coffee drinkers, but we both had a cup of decaf.  When in Seattle, you see coffee shops EVERYWHERE!  You smell the aroma of various blends along every street.  About half the people you see walking are carrying a cup of some kind of coffee.  Not only Starbucks, but more brands of coffee than I've ever heard of.

It's sort of like being in a foreign land and learning all those new species of birds....

I didn't take any breakfast photos, but I will say that the dungeness crab omelet was fantastic!

We headed over to the monorail around 9am.  Wanted to go up in the Space Needle.
This is the fastest way to travel between downtown and the Seattle Center
You can see the Space Needle in the center.
It was built for the 1962 World's Fair.
This year it is celebrating it's 50th year.

The views of the city and of Puget Sound are great!
Visibility was quite good today, but not so good that we
could see Mt Rainier.

My favorite views were not of the far-off places,
But of
The Dale Chihuly Glass Garden
Having seen his glass exhibits a couple of times before with my sister, Cynthia, at the Museum of Art in Columbus, Ohio,
I recognized his work even before I saw the massive
glass sculptures.

And looking down onto another building I saw...
These huge spiders.
(Actually, they look more like Daddy-Longlegs, don't they?)

We walked through much of the Seattle Center grounds...
These Straw Gardens were quite interesting....
I'll have to admit that having seen similar straw "logs" holding back water or stuff along highway road jobs, I kind of got a chuckle out of using them for "art".

There are several museums in this area, and lots of other uses of the grounds....
I wish I'd had Bill stand beside this giant shrimp
(hey... is that an oxymoron?)
just to show you how big it is...
Well, I didn't...  but it is huge.  I think that's a bicycle wheel at the top of one of it's feelers.

While we were taking a break, we saw this tour go by...
Segway tours are a lot of fun.
We've done a couple of these in other places and they are a great way to cover a lot of ground and still see things close up.

There are totem poles around in some of the parks...
I was disappointed to see that this one really wasn't carved.
Not only that, there wasn't any back to it.
Oh well...  that's what I get for being a purist...

Living in a small motorhome doesn't give me a lot of room for "excess baggage"
But my collection of Smashed Pennies doesn't take up much room.  Of course I had to have one of the Space Needle.

We took the monorail back to the downtown area, 
then headed off later to Groundspeak
The Home of Geocaching!

While they don't give tours since it is a working office, the reception area is where the Lily Pad is...
That's a huge box that holds lots and lots of Travelbugs and other tradeables.
These folks are sorting through to see what they want to take and hide somewhere else.
I won't go into geocaching in this blog, but it's an international "treasure hunt" kind of game.
Groundspeak is the headquarters of it all.

Here I am...
Signing the logbook that we, the RVers, have visited here.

We took the bus back to the downtown area, but not before stopping at a wonderful Greek restaurant...
This baklava was like no other I've ever tasted...
Really delicious!

Tomorrow we have to check out of this hotel by 11am.
We'll head over to the hotel at the airport where we'll meet up with the Wholly Genes genealogy group.

That's the software company that Bill uses to record his genealogy records.  
They "sponsor" a week-long cruise each year.
I'll write more about it later, but that's why we're here.

And here you thought we were just in Seattle to sightsee and have fun!

By the way...  the weather is fantastic!

That's All For Today!

10 comments:

  1. Love baklava !!! Great seeing Sesttle as I should have when I went through .., I just may go back and really 'do' Seattle ... I tried to find a parking place and just ended up driving about then on to wherever I went .., can't remember ... I spent two months in Washngton and went to two different ferry oh nevermind. !

    You make me want to go back is the bottom line haaa

    I'm heading to Portland and just may go ahead and take the ferry from Bremerton like I was going to do two different times! SIGH

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  2. Hey, isn't that a Rails of Anahuac tee shirt that Bill is wearing?

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  3. Looks like you are having a great time and seeing lots of things!
    I've always wanted to ride a Segway, it looks like a lot of fun.
    Your smashed penny collection is a good idea. I collect magnets. They don't take up too much room and it's nice to buy a little something to remember the area.
    I'm really enjoying your blog!
    Teri

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  4. I would love to have a cup of hot coffee and some of that baklava. It looked really crunchy and not so syrupy as it often is. I love the giant spiders on the building and it bet it's a big hit with kids.

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  5. You're seeing so many cool things! That Baklava looks sinfully good!

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  6. You all always have so much fun!!
    Can never go wrong with baclava

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  7. Thanks for another great tour of Seattle - one of my favourite cities.

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  8. I love Seattle and you have done a great job capturing the feel of it. I've seen Segway tours in Sevilla, but have never taken one!

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  9. Loving the tour you are giving us! Looks like you are having a wonderful time!

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  10. We saw a Dale Chihuly exhibit in Missouri a few years ago and it was so beautiful. You're always reminding me of things when I read your blog. I think I'll go scan the photos and write a post. Seattle looks like such a fun city!

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