Seattle's Pike Place Market

If you love being overstimulated with colors, scents, sights and sounds, Pike Place Market is the place to go. The Market opened in 1907 and is "one of the oldest continually operated public farmers' markets in the United States." (Wikipedia) I also read that it is the oldest still in its original location.






Covering roughly seven acres, it is a riot of color. Or maybe just a riot. On a Friday, it was packed with people. One wonders if there is ever a slow time?

Although there are food stalls and small restaurants scattered throughout the Market, we opted to eat at Lowell's--famous for its clam chowder and the fact that one scene (featuring Tom Hanks and Rob Reiner) from Sleepless in Seattle was filmed there. We happened to park right outside and were starved, which also helped us decide.





Fred has already finished his clam chowder and is busily dispatching a salmon sandwich in the above picture. I had fish tacos (yum!)

One of the most entertaining free things to do at Pike Place Market is to watch the fish tossing at Pike Place Fish. Once a customer selects a fish from the display case, the fishmongers all chant the order in unison as the selection is tossed behind the counter to be wrapped. A dungeness crab is flying, almost dead center, in the picture below (click on the picture to see a larger size).



People also like having their photo taken with Rachel the Pig, one of the icons of Pike Place Market. It was so crowded, we couldn't get close, so I settled for this family getting their turn. Rachel is also a piggy bank, collecting money that is used for the Market's social services program.


We walked around for about an hour, marvelling at the number of different things for sale and trying samples, despite being stuffed from lunch.










Above, from top to bottom: Making cheese at a cheese shop; a window of glasses in an alleyway, and the original Starbucks, opened in 1971, which was so crowded we couldn't get in it. The line went down the street.

We had a great time strolling around, people watching and marvelling at the offerings. Pike Place Market is located along the downtown waterfront, just north of Pioneer Square and just south and west of the Space Needle. (Obligatory Space Needle shot here.)



I highly recommend taking advantage of Seattle's excellent public transportation system if you want to visit the downtown area. You can get off and on within the downtown zone for free. We drove, and while yes, we did get parking at the Market, we were lucky, and driving downtown in general and in the Market in particular is a slow tortuous process.

Next...Victoria, British Columbia

Seattle's Underground Tour

A quirky bit of history in Seattle has given birth to an equally quirky walking tour in downtown Seattle. By east coast standards, Washington is a young state, becoming a US territory in 1872 and a state in November 1889. Just before statehood was official, on June 6 of that year, much of the downtown Seattle business district burned down. (Miraculously, no deaths.) When the city was rebuilt, wooden buildings were banned in the district; new buildings were built in brick. Because Seattle was essentially seven hills surrounded by water, there had been many problems with boggy streets, where horses would get stuck and at least one child drowned. The tidal flow wreaked havoc with the sewer system and with water pressures. In rebuilding, the decision was made to raise the city by as much as 22 feet.

In order to allow businesses to open as soon as possible, buildings were rebuilt with plain brick entrances at the current ground level, with more elaborate facades built to be used once the city streets were raised. In between the buildings, the initial streets were raised to the new levels, with the sidewalks next to the buildings at the old street level. So, to enter the buildings, people had to climb down ladders from the new street level and enter the buildings at the old ground level. Eventually, sidewalks at the new level were built, covering up the old sidewalks and entrances. But all of those old sidewalks and entrances are still there....

Enter Bill Speidel in 1954. Bill Speidel, a Seattle publicist, began trying to save Seattle's Pioneer Square, the original business district, from redevelopment. His promotion of the historic nature of the district and the uniqueness of Seattle's hidden city was directly responsible for Pioneer Square being designated a historic district, which encouraged business owners to save the buildings. More on the history here



Our tour guide, in blue, on the left, was knowledgeable, entertaining and loved bad puns. We took the tour on a bright afternoon, making the descent to the underground even more dramatic.



As shown above, access, for us, was from outside down a stairway. Easier than the old ladders! Some of the sidewalks have skylights in them (below, taken from underground), but fortunately, the parts of the underground city we went through (about 3% of the total underground) were well lighted.



Below, some of the former entrances, now bricked up. Others are still usable, and apparently, in parts of the underground that we didn't tour, the underground level is in active use.



A typical passageway on the underground tour.



There were many piles of junk. After the earthquake of 2001, a lot of debris was dumped in the underground passages.



Wall decor in the tunnels.



Definitely one of the more unique city tours we've been on. It reminded us in some ways of the underground tour of Roman ruins we've been on in a couple of cities. However, those tours didn't cover "seamstresses" who didn't sew and underground flush toilets. You'll have to take the tour to learn more!

Next: Pike Place Market....

-- Posted from my iPad!

Our neighborhood in Seattle...

Fred and I made a conscious decision not to stay downtown. We booked through www.airbnb.com, a service that connects travelers with people letting rooms or condos around the world. We chose a place twenty minutes or so from the downtown area, chiefly because of the view, and crossed our fingers that it would be as good as we hoped. It turned out to be the second best decision about the trip that we made, after deciding to take the trip in the first place.



We're staying in Mt. Baker, one of Seattle's neighborhood communities. The thing that surprised me most about Seattle so far is how hilly it is. Seattle, we learned, was built around seven hills. Mt Baker is one of those hills, overlooking Lake Washington on the east side of Seattle. It's quite a drop down to the lake, more than we want to walk! That's our room, the two windows below the peaked roof in the above picture. There are three other rooms, but guests in only one of them while we are here. Below, from our window, the sun rises in the marine layer across Lake Washington.


It's the kind of neighborhood where people live, commute to work, and walk their dogs and their kids. They stop at the local coffee shop when they walk their dogs and their kids and the staff greets them by name and pulls out a picture book for the kids. And there's a water bowl for the dogs. There are community gardens and little parks.


The bus stop is right behind the house. It's an easy ride to downtown, the bus drivers and the riders are helpful, and Fred is delighted that it's a trolley bus. We even get to see the driver put the trolley pole back on the cable as we get off. The buses are free in the downtown zone from 7am to 6pm. And .75 for seniors other times and zones. Unfortunately, there is talk of cutting services, and the bus route we are using is one of those that might be affected.

Around the corner we have a great view of Seattle, though it takes us a day before we realize we can see the Space Needle from here between the buildings. (At the far right in the picture below, just peeking out over the horizon.)



Fred took a run this morning around the neighborhood; the exertion, in addition to making him tired, apparently made him a little blurry!


-- Posted from my iPad!

First impressions...Seattle

We've been sleeping with the windows wide open (the way we found them). It's cool and slightly humid, and wonderful. The room, which we found through Airbnb.com is great, and our hostess couldn't be more accommodating, picking us up at the light rail station, driving us to a great seafood restaurant the first night. We return there with Rick after we pick him and his hiking partner at White Pass.









Above, the view out our room's window..across Lake Washington to Bellview.



Mt. Ranier, from Rt 12 through the park, on the way to pick up Rick and Bob.



Bob and Rick, looking amazingly well for 11 days and 123 miles on the trail.


Bob declined dinner out, saying he had to get ready for his next 100 mile hiking trip in Jasper, Canada...so the three of us celebrated Fred's birthday!

-- Posted from my iPad!

Connecting in Vegas..

En route to Seattle to escape the heat of home.

We're in the Las Vegas airport (free WiFi) awaiting our connecting flight. No escape from the heat here; it's 100 degrees outside. Good thing we're not outside. :-)

I'm typing this to the lilting music of the slot machines behind us. It's Vegas....

Fred is eating, of course....it's been a five hour flight to here and he's only had a half sandwich, a banana and cookies since the pancakes he had at BWI right before we boarded. We have a view of downtown Vegas while we wait...














Betsy...

-- Posted from my iPad!

Journal Sketch for the Centennial of Naval Aviation

I'm taking an online sketching and watercolor class. The theme is to do "journal" sketching--small vignettes of the world around you. I did one for the Centennial:



I'm always pleased when one of my drawings is actually recognizable as the object it is supposed to be. : )

-- Posted from my iPad!

Centennial of Naval Aviation

On Feb 12th (sorry about the delay), Fred and I visited the Centennial of Naval Aviation Open House at North Island, San Diego, CA.




It was a mob scene. An estimated 70000 people attended. Traffic was stopped dead going over the Coronado Bridge. At least they had a good view of the flyover.




We managed to get in and parked in a relatively short time by heading south of Coronado and then approaching via the Silver Strand instead of trying to cross the bridge. Soon we were parked and visiting the exhibits.




The second largest helicopter in the world, after a Russian copter. The Osprey is supposed to replace this.



We went on board an amphibious assault ship, the Peleliu. The view of San Diego from the ship's deck.




The view of the carrier USS Stennis from the deck of the Peleliu. The Navy top brass were viewing the procedings from the deck of the Stennis.

We had a long warm day of walking and photography. It was fascinating to see all the planes from many different eras of Naval aviation. Many Navy people were there with their families, showing them the planes and ships they work or worked on.

There are more pics from the day on my Picassa album.  Click on it to see the pictures full size and with captions.:


We ended the day at a great "Coffee Shop" in Coronado. I was thinking it was a Starbucks kind of place. But it was more a 50s era restaurant. Think Hot Shoppe (for those who know what that is) meets a diner. It even had a juke box with 45 rpm records (again, for those of you who know what those are) and an old fashioned cash register!
-- Posted from my iPad!

a San Diego Sunrise, Famosa Slough & a German restaurant

This past Friday started very well:




It was supposed to be a gorgeous day, so Fred and I decided to visit a couple of places we'd long wanted to visit but hadn't yet, and one we had.

The first was Famosa Slough. This is one of the birding hotspots in San Diego, and though we'd driven by it many times on the way to Point Loma, we'd never quite figured out how to visit it. Famosa Slough is a 30 acre wetlands owned by the city of San Diego. Note, that's I-8 in the background of the photo. An urban wetlands indeed!


It turns out to be quite easy to get there. There is a trail that goes from one end to the other, more or less, though some of it is along a road, and you have to cross a very busy street to get to the northern part of the Slough. We followed the directions in 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: San Diego

When we go again (and we will), we'll park on the street between the two sections of the Slough; the birding was best in the middle.

Unfortunately, the parking lot was closed due to a special project (but there was plenty of street parking). Fortunately, the project was restoration of parts of the wetland that was silted up and overgrown by non-native plants. The crew was largely comprised of the California Conservation Corps, an organization started in 1976 by then-and-now Governor Jerry Brown as a work program for young people.



We stopped and watched for a bit and chatted with David Kimball, the San Diego Bird Festival guru. He and Jim Peugh, respectively the Vice Chairman and Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Friends of Famosa Slough, were there to check on the work and also get their boots dirty helping out.

The full accounting of the birding that day will be on my birding blog. It proved to be a great place to bird, as advertised, and a very pleasant oasis in the midst of a busy town.




Here's the far northern end of the Slough:


Fred in front of a cactus and bougainvillea patch. There's been enough rain so that things are in bloom.






We had worked up quite an appetite, so we went to our second stop of the day, the Kaiserhof German restaurant, where we enjoyed a hearty German meal (sauerbraten for me and lamb shank for Fred) that more than made up for the calories we had worked off. It was just barely warm enough to eat outside (with the help of a space heater). Good food, good service. The Kaiserhof is closed on Mondays, usually, but will be open on Valentine's Day. When I asked about people proposing at the restaurant, our waiter said "No, Germans aren't very romantic." (Write the Kaiserhof, not me.)

We decided to put off our planned third stop, to the Ocean Beach pier to look for loons, for another day and take a nap instead.

In San Diego and not a minute too soon!

We had a pleasant flight out to San Diego from Baltimore on Southwest Airlines. Our rowmate was a young mother with a 13 month old boy named Adam. He really was quite good. By far not the worst rowmate we've had. (Did I ever tell you about the woman who was concerned that the change to daylight savings time would cause the earth to wobble on its axis?)

I won't say much about the weather we found when we arrived in San Diego, because I know you don't want to hear it. But a picture is worth a thousand words, they say...




Above, waiting for the rental car shuttle. Below, after picking up the car, we went off to lunch at the Prado in Balboa Park.



The Prado has wonderful fish tacos, I wish I'd taken a picture...but here's a picture of the flan we had for dessert.














And, the view from the condo...


-- Posted from my iPad!

Burlington, Vermont

The wedding went well yesterday, even if it was a bit cool for an outdoor wedding...the setting was gorgeous, the receptions was great fun, and we could see the Milky Way (and our breath) as we left the reception that evening. Tonight we are at the Hilton in Burlington and this is our view, taken from the hotel window:




-- Posted from my iPad!

Vermont Teddy Bear factory

Fred insisted that we visit the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory Saturday morning before the wedding, which wasn't until late afternoon. We had quite a nice visit. A few pics from the factory tour... the first one is the very first teddy bear made by the founder. The rest are from the factory and store.













-- Posted from my iPad!

Our New England Vacation, part 1

Fred and I went to Vermont to attend the wedding of our neighbor's daughter. And squeeze in a mini vacation. So far, it's been great. A bit of rain as we crossed Lake Champlain on the ferry, and it got rather cool, but overall, it's been beautiful since we left Virginia on Thursday.

Below, Fred and I on the Lake Champlain ferry on Friday, October 8th. It was cold and damp. A professional photographer took our picture with my little Pentax. : )





-- Posted from my iPad!