Seattle

What a great city. There is soooo much to see and do, that it would take MUCH more than the one day we had there. We had great guides with us that knew where everything was that made it much easier to get around. And we packed an awful lot into one little day. So here goes....

The Seattle Underground Tour - this started off our morning. Very interesting stuff. First 20 mintues were history and background. Then off to go underground. This is where it started getting REALLY cheesy. While still enjoyable, our guide was Mr. Cheese himself. After so much of it, and getting the jist of the tour and the underground, we left at the first sight of the main street.

Headed to the ORIGINAL STARBUCKS in Pike Place Public Market. I'm no coffee drinker, but this was cool to see. The coffee drinker went to town, and bought a TON of souvineers that can only be purchased at this location. I got to meet a really cool GoldenDoodle named Pepper that reaffirmed that I really do want one of these dogs!

Then it was off to Groundspeak Headquarters for a brief tour. To most of you, that doesn't mean a thing, but to us, it's the HQ for our hobby, and was very cool to see where the hub of it all is. No need to bore you all with the details here...

Off to the Space Needle! We took a monorail ride down directly into the center of the Space Needle stuff. We tried to get seats at the restaurant, but they had just stopped seating for lunch and wouldn't be seating for dinner for a few more hours. We went to the nearby food court to wolf down something to give us some energy to keep going. We got our tickets to go up, and waited about 20 minutes before we got an elevator. The view from the top was spectacular, and just barely clear enough to see Mt. Ranier. It was packed up there, but was still fun to see some pictures in all different directions. Imbedded in the floor, were compass points to let you know which way you were facing. That was a nice touch.

Pike Place Market was the last stop of the day. Unfortunately, we only had about 1 1/2 hours until they closed (you could spend a FULL day here!). I so wish we had something like this at home. But nothing compares. This is the place where there are several fish markets, and they throw the whole fish around. There are flower vendors set up with some of the prettiest bundles of fresh flowers for you just to pick up, purchase and take home. Fresh veggies line tables around every bend. Vendors selling everything you can imagine are there, just waiting to lure you up to their booth. We bought some fresh goat cheese, and some fresh salmon to bring home. If we had known then that we had extra room on the way back, we likely would have bought much more there. But it was a great way to end the day in Seattle.

I know there were a ton of things that we didn't get to see, and know that we didn't even scratch the surface on this fine city. But it was fun!

And no rain! It didn't rain a drop the whole time we were there.....

AMW