Space Needle in Seattle

Sunday, 7/12/09 Well the day is here, our big excursion into Seattle for two days. We have done our "practice dry run" so we are hoping with our new found knowledge the trip will go smoothly. We set our clock for 6:00 am (much to Will's chagrin) and head out about 7:30 as our ferry leaves Bremerton at 9:00 am & we have to park the car in the covered garage at Hampton's Inn. Because it's Sunday we have no work traffic so the trip is a breeze. We get into Bremerton, park in the garage & poke our money in the correct space and off we go to "walk on" the ferry. So far so good, the practice run is paying off.

We arrive in Seattle at 10:00 am, unfortunately the weather is pure Seattle, cold & cloudy but we are dressed for it. We grab a taxi cab and head off to our beautiful hotel, The Westin. Now I want to give a great big THANK YOU to daughter Nancy for gifting us this room for the night..thank you daughter. We check in but it's to early to get in our room so we leave our bags (that would be 2 SMALL bags) with the desk & away we go. Because of our "dry run" we head to Gray Line www.graylineofseattle.com stop#2 which is 2 blocks away to buy our hop on hop off tour bus tickets and head for Safeco Field. Compliments of Garrett Olson we will see the afternoon baseball game between the Mariners and the Texas Rangers. Safeco Field is a beautiful, celebrating 10 years in this new park, that has an unbelievable cover that folds up like an accordion when they take the top off. When we got there, the top was up & just before the game we got to see it "fold up" - a pretty amazing sight. In the 8th inning it started to rain so they unfolded it to cover the field. I really think this was Wills highlight of the game.

Our seats were fabulous, in the baseball players section, right behind home plate. Will had his baseball hot dog for lunch and I forgot to ask him to rate it and I had a fabulous grilled salmon sandwich, hold the bread, with cole slaw & clam chowder. Now I know that is a BIG lunch but I did share my chowder with Will. About the 3rd inning we met up with Ken Olson, Garrett's dad & my former boss. He took us down to the bullpen where we got to say hello & thank you to Garrett. Now, what was really amazing about this park, the pitchers bullpen is accessible to the public. You are right there watching the pitchers warm up, you hear the phone ring when the manager wants a new pitcher to be sent in. It was pretty neat, I have never seen this at any other baseball park. Unfortunately, Garrett didn't pitch while we were there, but actually it's a good thing because I get to nervous & can't watch the game. This way I got to enjoy the game and watch the Mariners win. They have a great club this year, especially compared to last year so it has been real exciting following them. We bid our farewells to Donna & Ken & left the park to find our tour bus back to the hotel.

We walked through the parking lot of the Seattle Seahawks stadium (these two stadiums are side by side) on down to Pioneer Square, this is the historic district of Seattle where our stop was to catch the bus. Will wasn't to interested in looking around as this part of Seattle reminded him of the Tower District in Fresno so he was done. Anyway, it was getting late and we were pretty tired so a ride back to the hotel was in order. The neat thing about this bus, is every ride is a tour they are telling you what you are seeing and giving some Seattle history.

Of course our room is ready so we head up to the 46th floor (please note: there are only 47 floors in this hotel.) The view was breath taking as was the room. I immediately plopped down on the "heavenly mattress" & once more decided I could live right there. Of course it's Wills dinner time so we head for a McDonald's around the corner for a #1....."yes Eric your favorite." I passed on dinner as I was still full from lunch. Back to the room for a night on the "heavenly mattress" which it was for me....not so much for Will as he has trouble sleeping in NEW places, which sounds weird for someone who lives in an RV in lots of different cities but that's how it is.

Monday, 7/13/09 After breakfast in the hotel we are off to see the Space Needle www.spaceneedle.com the only real reason Will is in Seattle is to see the Space Needle. We decide to ride the monorail www.seattlecenter.com that was built in 1962 just for the Space Needle and the Worlds Fair. We walk the couple blocks, buy our one way senior ticket for $1.00 & off we go for a ride that takes approximately 5 to 7 minutes. Finally here, we buy our tickets to go up to the observation deck that has an outside deck all around or you can go inside where they have lots of info to read, a coffee shop & table & chairs to just sit & look out. It is a beautiful view, unfortunately not clear enough to see Mt. Rainer or the Cascade Mountains but still amazing anyway. After about an hour or so we head on down. We were glad we got there early when they opened as it wasn't to crowded.

When we got down I wanted to see the Experience Music Project /MAP that is located right next to the Space Needle www.experience@empsfm.org MAP was the idea of co founder of Apple (not Bill Gates) which is dedicated to music of rock n roll, the roots of jazz, soul, gospel, country, blues, hip-hop, punk. Fortunately, they have 3 buildings all under one roof, one dedicated to Science Fiction, The Muppet's & MAP. Will agreed to go in & see the Science Fiction & I would see MAP we would meet & go see the Muppet's together. Well MAP is absolutely amazing, I liked it better than the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. I sure hope you can access the website to get a glimpse of what this is. I wandered around listening to lots of old 50's music, hearing stories by the singers, a room devoted to just guitars with a video playing of different kinds of guitar music. A room devoted to just Jimmy Hendrix, now I was never a fan of his but this room & music was amazing. One thing I need to check out is Jimmy's mothers maiden name was Jeter.....I must find out if she is related to MY Derik Jeter. At the appointed time I met up with Will & he said the Sci Fi was just "so so" - I did my best selling job to convince him to come into the MAP & skip the Muppet's. He agreed & actually enjoyed what he saw, of course I never took him into the Jimmy Hendrix room but we had a great time. I actually could have spent the entire day at MAP & skipped the rest of Seattle.

But we were off on our Gray Line bus down to the wharf for a fish lunch. Actually, the place we ate on our "dry run" day was so good we went back again for more grilled salmon. After lunch we headed back to the bus & continue our tour of the city. Seattle is a beautiful place, with wonderful seafood and lots to see but just to darn cold for us. We both miss the Fresno summer and heat. Some of the places we saw were Pike Place Fish www.pikeplacefish.com at Pikes Market, the Seattle Art Museum but we are running out of time. There is too much to see in just two days. Later in the afternoon we headed back to our hotel as we had a late 4:00 pm check out, got our bags & take a cab back to the ferry as the time was growing short and our ferry leaves for Bremerton at 4:20 pm. We are both dead tired but had a really wonderful two days here in Seattle. Every things has gone just great because of the "dry run" now if we can just make it back to Bremerton & find our car ...the trip will be perfect. Well we do & the car is there so we head back to Hoodsport which is a 60 minute drive. This has been a very long day & we are really tired but a great time was had by all. No dinner for us, we just put on our "jammies" and fall into bed because tomorrow is moving day......

Tuesday, 7/14/09 We discover that while we were gone they had a terrible storm, thunder, lightning & lots of rain in Hoodsport while we were in Seattle. The really bad news we discover they did NOT fix the leak in the living room in the RV. We had more water than before it was "fixed." Not much we can do about it now but dry the place out & find another Fleetwood dealer. I'm thinking I will call Fleetwood Company about this, that's of course when I get somewhere that we have phone service. But today the sun is out, life is good and we are moving to Clallam Bay, WA this will finally be a pretty good drive for Will about 3 hours. So we will see what Clallan Bay has in store for us. Signing off with much love to family and friends while the adventure continues.