Täglich Wiederkehrendes Abenteuer

Saturday

Before we begin our Saturday tour of Seattle, I want to list a few observations I made while there.  As we go along, you can see if you get the same impressions I did.

1. DOGS

You will see an awful lot of dogs in Seattle; people walking them.  Apparently, there are regular dogs and then Seattle dogs.  None of the Seattle dogs bark.  The dogs do not try to bite people or each other.  The owners keep their dogs under control at all times and no dog is ever “off leash”.  I did not see dogs on the buses, but many cafes have a dog leashing area in front of the door and provided water bowls.  Will did not say anything, but I’m thinking if he did say something, being the cat lover he is and always had been, it would be something like, “Having dogs in the workplace is not one of my favorite things about working at Amazon.” – Editor’s note: My boss’s dogs are really boney, so they’re not fun to pet.  Other peoples’ dogs are OK.

2. ELDERLY AND CHILDREN

I do not know where the city has these two groups of people locked up but I think it is high time someone investigates!  I saw no nursing homes or playground equipment.  Rarely did I see someone as old as I am and rarely did I see a child under the age of 10.  98% of the people were ages 20-40.  Take note of that in the pictures.  And Seattle does not know the meaning of “handicap accessible”.  Doesn’t MN have laws that all federal or state or city buildings have to be accessible?  Seattle has neither people movers nor escalators.  As you may know, the streets are hills and it’s layered like terrace farming.  So, in order to get up to the next level you either have to go up the inclined sidewalk or climb steps up.  I did get a little help with that though.

I am thinking Seattle has decided it is just a lot cheaper to ban those old people and whining children from the city rather than construct people moving stuff.  Besides, the city is probably run by a bunch of 30 year olds.  Their day will come!

3. BIKES

Half the bikes in the nation must be in Seattle!  They have a big, long bike trail along the canal which many people use.  They also use the streets but not the sidewalks.  Every biker has the proper equipment –lighted bike, lighted helmet, and of course a backpack.  If you happen to be walking on the path, the bikers come up behind you and say, “on your left”.  That means move over to your right because the biker is going to pass you on your left side.  And that leads me to comment that all the folks in Seattle are really nice; lots of “thank yous” and “pleases” can be heard.  They never push and shove to get on/off the bus or in a line somewhere.  The thought did occur to me that “Boy, these people may have MN nice beat.”

But back to the bikes.  Will said if the buses and bikes all broke down at once, the city would be at a standstill; it could not possibly operate if all those people decided to get into cars and drive around.  Now that I think about it, I did not see all that many parking ramps.  EVERYONE just uses the buses or rides their bikes.

OK.  Let’s get on our tennis shoes………….unless you have a nice pair of rain boots which you can wear to step in every puddle you see.  One of our party had to be doing that –walking ½ block out of the way just to step in a puddle.  We were just happy she was not SPLASHING in the puddles.

Saturday morning we headed over to Will/Joni’s for breakfast at 7:30am.  We had been given clear directions (several times) to go to the end of the block, turn right, and walk down the street.  So we walked to the end of the block, turned right, and the street split into a V with two streets going along.  We decided we were lost so we got out the area map Joni had mailed to us before we left.  We managed to stay on track and after about a block, we saw Will coming to meet us.  We got to the apartment where Joni had a big egg and bacon breakfast for us.  Then it was off to the Public Market.

I was very surprised at this!  The fish throwing people are actually only one store or stall in the market.  I thought Pike’s Fish Market was a separate, stand-alone place.  And there were at least two other stalls selling fish.  So we walked in and this is what I saw!

FLOWERS!  Hundreds of bouquets of beautiful flowers! I wanted them all but did not want to have to carry them the rest of the day.  I need to google if WA is the flower state, where they got all those flowers, and why they were there.

The Public Market is like a roof with these vendors under it.

We did see the fish mongers and I saw one throw a fish to a guy behind the counter and he did catch it.

There are several floors of shops below the ground level.  For some reason they have a golden pig on the lower level.  We looked through a few of the unique shops.

After the Public Market, we went just across the street where you could look through the window at people making cheese curds.  I think WA is quite a dairy state too.  We stepped inside, got a container of curds with dill to snack on, and they were delicious.  Next door was the location of the very first Starbuck’s coffee shop.  Here’s a long line of people waiting to get inside so they could say they had been inside the store and maybe purchased a coffee.

(There’s a girl child.)

We started walking toward the Space needle.

As we got to the entrance, we spotted………….

THE DUCKS RIDE!  That was really enjoyable.  The driver was very funny putting on appropriate music for what we were seeing, putting on various hats, and we got to wave at everyone.  Again with the WA nice, many of them waved back.

Just as we departed, there were all kinds of police and stopped traffic due to a big Anti-Monsanto/GMO demonstration coming down the street.  Later I read that Mpls. had the same kind of protest at the Capitol that day.

(Those people getting off are not anyone we know.)

We drove down into Union Lake and along all the great big yachts and houseboats.

This is not a picture from the duck boat, but you can see the Aurora Bridge that goes over (and I mean OVER) Fremont.  The guy drove that old swaying duck boat over that bridge at a breakneck 35mph.  Earlier, I had said to the kids that it is surprising someone did not drive off that bridge every day falling 4,000’ to their death!  They said that does not usually happen, but occasionally people “fall” from the bridge to their death.

It was getting on to 1:30pm by then so we crossed the street into Space Needle Park…………..or whatever it is called –a big open space around the Space Needle.  Lo and Behold!  Look what we accidently happened upon!

Oh……………….maybe we should take a break?  It’s been a busy, busy morning.  We’re tired and hungry.  Yes, let’s take a break and meet back here tomorrow for the Saturday afternoon activities.