Sleeping in Seattle

 It's a funny story as to how we came to spend the first two days of our recent vacation in Seattle, WA. 

This whole tale began last December when Dan and Susan said that they would be visiting their daughter, Alyson, in Seattle, where she was employed as an engineer at Boeing.  They then thought they could use the opportunity to tack on a Disney cruise to Alaska, and would we consider coming with them, and the rest is history, as they say.  The deal was that during our two days in Seattle, Aly would serve as our tour guide.  In the intervening months, Alyson was recruited by and took a job as a software engineer with Uber in....Pittsburgh! So, Aly came home, the Bonks now have their daughter living close to them, but we all lost a tour guide!!

That didn't stop us from having a terrific two day visit to Seattle, a first time visit for both Marilyn and me.  It even included us posing for the cornball picture before a green screen at the Space Needle.  That's the picture that heads this post, and believe it or not, it was freebie.   You get the picture taken, choose a backdrop, scan your ticket and they email it to you.  What a bargain!  We also found Seattle to be a very interesting city.  Very vibrant, very diverse, and very young.  We spent time on Saturday evening in the Capitol Hill area of downtown (bars, restaurants, cultural spots) and the place was just teeming with young people, many of whom, no doubt, employed in the Seattle's burgeoning high tech economy.

As I did with Alaska post, I will spare the prose, and go heavy with photos and some minimal commentary.

 It rains a lot in Seattle, but not the two days that we were there, so we were able to see Mt. Rainier, a magnificent natural wonder that dominates every view in Seattle.  In the foreground of this photo, is the Seahawks' Century Link Field and the Mariners' Safeco Field.

I suppose that no visit to Seattle is complete without a visit to the famous Pubic Market.

It is huge and jam packed with many colorful sights:

 This is also the home of the famed Pike Fish Market where the fishmongers throw the fish to each other.  No one was buying fish when we were there, so for the benefit of the myriad of tourists, the guys are willing to throw your baby for you:

 Just kidding.  They didn't actually throw that kid!

What else did we do in Seattle?  Well......

First, we had to figure out where things were.

Dinner at a Mexican restaurant.  That picture is actually of our reflection in a large mirror opposite from our table.  Very artsy of me to take that, don't you think?

We proudly display our senior citizen discounted tickets on Seattle's monorail.

Great Sunday morning breakfast at they elegantly named establishment.  I mean, how could we NOT eat there?

Then it was on to visit the Space Needle, the signature structure of the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle.

 I was struck by how small the actual overall area of the World's Fair's grounds were.  Some of those Fair structures still stand today, and much of the space is now public space.

 We got a senior discount of our Space Needle tickets, too.  The kids, Dan and Susan, had to pay full boat.

For twelve days in 1962, Elvis Presley was on location at the Seattle Fair filming "It Happened At The World's Fair".  We were indeed on hallowed ground.

 The views from atop the Space Needle are amazing, and they acknowledge how many people have visited the place since 1962:

 And they can be very specific in acknowledging your presence there as well:

We then visited the Chateau St.Michele winery in Kirkland, WA.   We have visited a lot of wineries over the years, and this was easily the most beautiful one.

On Monday morning, it was on to catch the train to Vancouver, BC.

Sitting in a railway station,

Got a ticket for our destination.

 Ridin' the Rails

It was three hour smooth and relaxing ride to Vancouver, BC.  Such a ride was another first for us.  Had never been on a passenger train before, and it was very nice way to travel.  From the Vancouver train station to the Vancouver pier was short cab ride away, and what followed after that was the Alaskan adventure that I detailed in yesterday's post.

Oh, one thing I didn't mention was how we actually got from Point A to Point B to Point C and so on as we toured around Seattle.  That was yet another new experience for the two of us, and it is one that deserves its own separate post, which will be coming in the next day or two, so stay tuned.