Seattle - An Amazing Northwest City

AlaskaFest 2005 - Monday, June 6, 2005

So, let the work begin on getting my pictures up and for telling the story of Jason and my trip up to Anchorage, Alaska. As you could see on the map on the initial Alaska page, it's quite a ways to get there. I flew up to meet Jason in Seattle - he had been driving from Los Angeles the past few days, with various other people keeping him company. At the Seattle stage, I just managed to see Ilyne, who had been keeping him company since Monterey, California. Her flight was leaving an hour after mine arrived, and when my flight was late in arriving, I thought for sure I'd miss her. Fortunately she was there, and I got a chance to see her before her leaving and finding out that she was heading to Iraq. Stay safe, Ilyne!!!

Anyways, Jason and I headed out back to the city of Seattle. On the way, it's hard to ignore the fact that Seattle was beautiful, green with scenery, and had lots of water surrounding it. Just the beginning of the realization that Las Vegas is a complete shit hole!!!! Who WANTS to move here, when it's unbelievably fucking hot, unreal expensive homes, absolutely no water left (well, Lake Mead is somewhat there still, but not for much longer....), and LOTS of trashy people who have no idea how to drive. Wait, this website is about my trip! NOT my disgust with Las Vegas. My point was that Seattle is just an awesome city and as I found out throughout the day, full of amazingly nice people as well. I am totally adding this city to my list of acceptable cities to finally settle down in. BTW, that list is up to two cities now: San Antonio and Seattle.

We were staying at an awesome hotel called the Hotel MarQueen. Yeah, that name doesn't inspire confidence, but it's an amazing hotel that is a converted apartment house. Hence, the rooms all have dining rooms, kitchens, a full bathroom, a large bedroom - awesome. Highly recommended hotel if you're ever in the area. Dropped off our stuff and the car, and then headed out to see Seattle in one day. Well, for me it was one day, as Jason and Ilyne had already had a few days to see it, so I was on a mission to see as much as possible. First stop was the Space Needle, which was nearby. The Needle was somewhat underwhelming to see. In pictures I'd seen, it really struck me as a very tall building. It's really not. It is tall, but not that tall. I think the San Antonio Tower of the Americas is taller. But we went up to the top of it anyways, and the view is quite amazing. It's removed from the city so you can get a good view of the city, but honestly, it's fairly nondescript. But getting a birdseye view of anyplace is always an interesting prospect.

Using our CityPass (which lets you in to the 6 top attractions in Seattle), we then made it to the Science Museum which is primarily aimed at children, but what the hell, it was free! There was a cool section (after the fake-o dinosaurs and really kiddy stuff) about science fun and 'risk'. I almost thought the Air Force was behind this exhibit, as they LOVE talking ORM (operational risk management - ugh...). After wrapping up this museum, we rode the way overrated monorail down to the city center, walked over to the waterfront area where the very famous fish market is (the one where the vendors throw fish around and shout a lot). Well, after doing as much as you can do when watching fish get thrown about, we then headed to the waterfront area, where the aquarium and the bay tour is. The bay tour was okay, but honestly, while I said Seattle is a great place to be and/or live, it doesn't have too much distinct about it. It's just overall pretty. But the boat ride was fun, the tour narrator was very good, and I had my first taste of Alaskan beer, which is outstanding by the way. Apparently Trader Joe's sells it, so I'll have to be making a trip there shortly. The Seattle Aquarium is outstanding. It's extremely well designed and you can see a ton of different sealife. Best is their program with sea otters. Those animals are so damn cute and playful. The aquarium has a whole habitat designed for raising sea otters, apparently the only successful one in the world. By all accounts, this aquarium has been the only one that has totally impressed me.

After all that, it was time to find some food, which we did at a great expensive seafood restaurant, but the stuffed salmon with crab and shrimp was to die for. Incredible food. And just when you (or at least me) would think the day was about over, Jason wanted to show me the spot where the best view of Seattle can be found. After a monstrous hike up seriously steep San Francisco-ish hills, we got to Carey Park, which actually does have the best freakin' view of Seattle, as you see the Space Needle with downtown. It's awesome.

So that wraps up the day! The next morning we were heading off to Bellingham, Washington, which is about 80 miles north of Seattle and is the location of the Alaska Maritime Highway system's departure port. The ferry adventure was going to begin that next day.

Seattle photos

I'm tricky - I can lay on a bed of nails

Conquering my fear of heights

Mirror me

On the Seattle Monorail

The fish market

And a view of it from afar

Our Argosy Bay Cruise ship

Seattle skyline from the boat

Lots o' fishies!

Jason the octopus

One of the cute sea otters at the aquarium

A fake waterfall at the aquarium

Jason in front of the aquarium

Me and Pi

The view from Carey Park - truly amazing

We asked a lady to take our picture with the cityscape - do you see it? Neither did we.

Better, but this one was done manually using the timed shutter.

Me and the city

Again

Third time's the charm?

Just a view of Seattle

Reviewing the day's pictures

Shoot me an email if you have any comments!