September 1, 2007

We arrived in Seattle on Friday night. We left home in a taxi in the late afternoon and headed for the airport. We had dinner at the airport before our departure. We landed in Seattle at nearly the same time as my parents. We met them in baggage claim, found our hotel bus, and checked in at bedtime.

On Saturday, we awoke to a beautiful sunny day in Seattle. Kris and I grabbed a shuttle back to the airport and then another shuttle from the airport to pick up a car that we rented for the day. We headed downtown where we took a tour of the Seattle underground. It was really a bizarre tour. Seattle raised street levels many decades ago as a solution to drainage problems. The buildings that were already in place had the first one or two stories buried. Initially, the sidewalks were left at the original level until the realities of a 20 foot drop from street level to sidewalk level became obvious. A roof was built over the sidewalks creating odd tunnels with old building fronts underground. The tour took us underground in several locations. It was a fascinating history, but truly bizarre.

After grabbing lunch in a local restaurant, we visited what was the tallest building in the west when it was built. We rode the old elevator with a real live elevator operator to the observation deck. We were provided spectacular views of the city.

Then took an exhausting hike to Pike’s Market, the market place in town made mostly famous by the fish stand that tosses whole salmon as part of their sales. A customer chooses a fish from the display case and the salesperson grabs the fish, tosses it to a packer behind the counter who wraps the fish before tossing it back to the salesperson for delivery to the customer. The tourists seem to love watching whole salmon flying around the market, but very few tourists buy whole salmon. It was pretty crowded so we walked through quickly before returning to our car.

Our next stop was the Indian casino on the road to Mt. Ranier. The big mountain was a spectacular sight on this beautiful day. Since it is much closer to Seattle than Denali is to Anchorage, Ranier seems to stand taller above the city. Still, the difference in air quality was apparent. The haze reduced the spectacle and diminished the potential for capturing the reality of dominating mountain in a photographic.

We gambled for a couple hours at the casino and ate dinner. We dropped my parents off at the hotel, then dropped the rental car off and took the shuttles back to the hotel. We were exhausted from all the walking.