Seattle

Hello out there in Blogger land!  We have seen, experienced and conquered Seattle!  All kidding aside, we had an absolutely wonderful time in Seattle and highly recommend it to anyone contemplating going there, just bring lots of money!  We decided to go back to downtown Wednesday to check out the Space Needle. The first thing we had to do was park, which cost us $20.00 for 3 to 10 hours, which we thought would be enough time. The Space Needle was an easy walk from the parking lot and was our first destination. We bought our tickets ($19.00 ea.for seniors)) at a Kiosk outside the main entrance. The elevator to the observation deck was glassed in and provided a cool view on the way up, which it made in 45 seconds! The observation deck is 520 ft above the ground and is completely circular with an indoor and outdoor area. The weather was less than ideal when we were there, but was still  scenic and interesting. There is a restaurant just beneath the observation deck, but we elected to pass on it since hamburgers were reportedly $27 ea. We went to the very large gift shop on the ground floor after coming back down and purchased our customary refrigerator magnet and Tee shirt to commemorate the experience!  Next on our agenda was to ride the Ducks!  Now, for those of you who don't know what the Ducks are, they are war surplus amphibious vehicles designed to operate on land and water. The one we rode was one of 16  that have been purchased and commercialized by a private company to give tours of downtown Seattle as well as the harbor and waterway in Seattle. Our "captain" was an absolute hoot and was very funny and entertaining with his stories and experiences as well as  playing a lot of pop music that was fitting to the stories he was relating to. He changed different goofy hats during the tour that made it all the more entertaining. We highly recommend the Ducks, but be prepared to pay $30 apiece, and no, there are no old farts discounts! After the ducks, we rode the Monorail from Seattle Center down to the famous Pike Place Fish Market. We had to walk about 10 blocks to the market through the middle of town, which was very enlightening, to say the least!  I think the best entertainment a person could find in Seattle, would be to find a nice bench in the middle of town and watch the show go by. Pretty much everything you can imagine (and things you can't) are seen there!  Anyway, we made it to the Market that was very cool with the expected seafood vendors and saw many vendors that sold beautiful cut flowers for very reasonable prices. We witnessed the customary fish throwing, but was unable to capture it with the camera. We walked back to the Monorail terminal and rode back to the parking lot where we called it a day and came back to the RV park. It was a wonderful day trip. Oh, I forgot to mention, the Monorail was only $4 ea, the deal of the day!  On Thursday we decided to ride the ferry across the Puget Sound to visit Bainbridge Island. First let me say the ferries are unlike any I have ridden before and are very large and impressive. I have no idea of their capacity, but they're BIG. After getting off the ferry, we rode around the island and checked out the sights and a few shops before boarding the ferry for the return trip. The Seattle Seahawks were playing Green Bay that same afternoon (5:30) and we saw a lot of folks dressed in their Seahawks jerseys on the ferry headed to the game. Seahawk stadium is very near the ferry terminal, so it was kind of congested. Btw, the ferry tickets were $27 each way!

That brings us to today, which was a travel day to Shady Firs RV Park in Randle, Washington. The traffic getting here was pretty bad, particularly the stretch of Interstate 5 between Seattle and Tacoma. The campground here is nice and shady nestled amongst Fir Trees but could be better if the sites had sewer hookups. We'll have to use our holding tanks and dump when we leave, but for $16.50 night, it's a bargain. They invited us to pick some of their blackberries, which we did, and Pat made us a delicious blackberry cobbler for dinner. We plan to explore Mt Ranier and Mt St Helens from here and plan to leave on Monday headed towards Oregon.

The Space Needle

Ticket purchase area

Lively Indian Band alongside the Space Needle

Indoor observation area

The bottom white truck is ours. The camera was at full zoom.

This building has spiders painted on the roof that look real when looking down on it.

Ferry

Outdoor Observation area. Everything is tightly fenced in

Seattle skyline

It's a long way down!

The Duck place

Taken from Duck while on tour. This is Pike Market area

Hard Rock Cafe. The upside down guitar had some significance, but I can't remember what it was.

A Duck Greeter!

Our Honorable Captain piloting his ship!

Another Duck Greeter with logo on his shirt saying "Sugar Mama Needed"!

Hitting the water

Our Captain has changed hats again!

Incoming Duck!

Seattle skyline from water

Our captain said this is what a million dollars looks like!

Houseboat where Sleepless in Seattle was filmed.

This guy was a hoot.

Al & Pat after the tour.

We survived the tour as well!

Our Honorable Captain!

Boarding the Monorail.

Monorail tracks overhead in Seattle.

Inside the Monorail

The buses here are hinged in the middle with 3 sets of wheels. They are also electic and gas powered via overhead cables connecting to poles on top of the buses.

Fish Market

Pretty flowers

About any kind of fruit you can think of . Check out the peaches sign.

More fish

Band playing in an uptown park with a dancing patron.

War Protestors

Fish Market where they throw the fish and yell something unusual as they throw it.

On the Ferry.

Ferry like the one we rode.

Shot of Mt Ranier from the ferry. Mt. Ranier is about 60 air miles from Seattle.