Seattle - August 7th

 Time for Catch up.  I am doing them by days, so that the blog isn’t 4 miles long.

August 5th and 6th were travel days.  We stayed at a Harvest Host Brewery, Dru Bru.  Dave enjoyed their Amber beer.

August 7th landed us in Seattle.  We were able to take their train system in.  Such a great way to travel into a city.  

We started out exploring Pikes Place Market — shops, crafters, fish markets, so many different kinds of food and wares.  There are five floors to Pike Place Market and over 300 vendors.  I think we did 2 floors.  We did see the “iconic” fish throwing.  From what we saw they throw it til they catch it, because they threw the fish 3 times to this lady before she caught it.  We learned that the market started in 1907 because people wanted to buy direct to save money.  Everything was getting too expensive due to the middle men process.

We did come across the Gum Wall near one end of the market.  The story of how the gum wall started is in the early 1990s people would wait in line for the theater and you weren’t allowed to have gum in the theater, so they stuck it to the wall.  It obviously exploded from there.  Interesting but gross?

We then walked over to the Space Needle.  This was built for the 1962 Worlds Fair.  We walked around the base area of the Space Needle, but didn’t go up in it.  We couldn’t justify the $96 entry fee.  Facts about Space Needle - 605 feet tall; full rotating top; can withstand 200 MPH and a 9+ earthquake.

We headed back to the waterfront and went on a cruise on part of Elliott Bay and the Puget Sound.  Learned lots of facts on the cruise while taking in the sites.

Fun facts:  

The Edgewater Hotel was built for the Worlds Fair in 1962, BUT was not completed until 2 weeks after the fair ended.  As a gimmick to get people to come there when it did open, they allowed fishing out of the hotel windows.  After 20 years, it was decided that this was impractical because what do you do with the fish in the room and as they were reeling them in, they would bang against other visitors windows.  My question is it took them 20 years to figure out it was impractical?

Seattle has more dogs than children.

The Elliott Bay and Puget Sound water temps are never above 50 degrees because the water comes down from Alaska.  Elliott Bay is 600ft at deepest point, Puget Sound is 920ft at deepest point.

Seattle is the 3rd largest cruise port, which is impressive considering the only cruises that use Seattle go to Alaska and the cruises only depart half the year. 

Most exported product from Seattle to Hawaii - toilet paper.

Largest overall export - grain from midwest plains to East Asia.

The boat tour guide told two stories I would like to share.  

In bad storms a container can fall off a ship (.001% a year).  One such incident was a container of bath toys and rubber duckies.  The ducks showed up in lots of different places.  Scientists used this to test how water flows.  They asked people to report where they found the ducks.  From error comes ingenuity. 

The Lumen Stadium in Seattle (home of the Seahawks) was built like a clam shell.  When crowds “go crazy” the noise will register on the Richter scale.  One infamous play by the Seahawks registered as a 2.1 earthquake.  However, Taylor Swift has the record, as during one of her concerts it registered as a 2.3 magnitude earthquake.  Fun fact for all you Swifty’s out there (Jessica).

We did get a glimpse of Mount Ranier through some haze, unfortunately it wouldn’t show up in a picture.

Our final stop for the day in Seattle was a Mariners Baseball game.  Thanks to Andrew and his app prowess, we got tickets for $10.  It was beautiful weather for a baseball game.  The game was close till the top of the 9th when the Tigers pulled away.  Being a Phillies fan, the stadium and crowd were soooo different, especially since there were many empty sections in the stands.  Added bonus, we got to watch the Phillies score on the stadium board throughout the Mariners game and watched the Phillies go from a 4-0 deficit to a 9-4 win.  Thank you Schwarber for your 3 home runs and 7 RBI’s.

Wow, that was alot for one day.  Til next time…