Seattle Trip
Feb-Mar 2004

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The waiting area at the Monorail

Shoe-shine person outside Nordstrom's.

The "pig" at Pike Place Market

Vegetables at Pike Place Market

Read the sign.

Totem pole at the waterfront

More waterfront

Space needle and Pink Elephant car wash. Elaine found it to be an odd juxtaposition

The Pink Elephant

Pike Place Market

More waterfront

One of the Puget Sound ferries

"Hammering man" kinetic sculpture at the Seattle Art Museum

Typical Seattle building - narrow at the bottom, wide at the top. What makes it stay up?

Fish market at Pike Place Market (they "throw" the fish around to entertain customers, but I couldn't catch that on my camera)

The Washington State convention center, where Elaine attended sessions of the Public Libraries Association conference

Monorail train car interior

Nordstrom department store sign, from the Monorail. This was the original store, downtown. Nice store, but somewhat disappointing because it's just like all the suburban Nordstroms elsewhere in the country. The legendary service there was - legendary.

Rainier Square from the Monorail

More Monorail interiors

The Monorail tracks, from the Monorail

More Monorail tracks

The Space Needle, from the Monorail

Grainy telephoto picture of the Space Needle - from the ground. Look closely - you will see a troubled person up there who was threatening to jump. He chose to do this when Elaine and I were planning on visiting the observation deck. Instead the attraction was closed so we couldn't go up. He didn't jump. Later somebody on the bus told me that he works near the Space Needle, and had fired a worker that morning. He was afraid the jumper was his former employee, but was relieved to find out it wasn't.

Fish sculpture at Anthony's restaurant at pier 66. It's made of signed baseball-skins from the Seattle Mariners.

Elaine at the top of the stairs at Anthony's

I ordered a Mai Tai at Anthony's and was embarrassed to find out it was served in a pineapple.

Elaine and Diana Vollmayer, who also went to the PLA meeting from BTPL

I went for a guide-book directed walk of the Queen Anne's district just north of the Space Needle. Nice older homes, big hills, and great views. This is downtown Seattle from Kerry Park in Queen Anne's. If it weren't cloudy you'd also see a spectacular view of Mt. Rainier

Little public garden in Queen Anne's

Street in Queen Anne's, overlooks Puget Sound

Freighter in Puget Sound, west of Queen Anne's

Totem pole at a home in Queen Anne's

Numerous streets in hilly Queen Anne's are interrupted by stair cases, as was Galer Street, shown here.

Lake Union, seen from an overlook on the east side of Queen Anne's

Lake Union and other stuff, including (allegedly) the University of Washington

Lots of hillside houses in Queen Anne's had underground garages like this one.

View of downtown from another overlook in Queen Anne's

Flowers blooming in a Queen Anne's park in February

Harp in somebody's house

The Japanese consulate - it's in the Queen Anne's area

Another view of downtown - from the Japanese consulate

Our hotel on the right, and a Holiday Inn Express right next door

A gull in our window at Lowell's restaurant at Pike Place Market

Pioneer Building at Pioneer Square. Cool tours of Seattle's "Underground" (a former first-floor level that was covered over to overcome sewage issues) start from here.

Detail of Pioneer Building

A cast iron "Pergola" in Pioneer square. It was ruined by a truck accident a few years ago and then restored.

Totem pole in Pioneer Square

Chief Seattle statue in Pioneer Square

Cow Chips cookie store in Pioneer Square

The old State Hotel in Pioneer Square

Skylight in "ceiling" of the Underground in Pioneer Square. Above the skylight is the regular sidewalk

Here is a view of the skylight from the sidewalk above

One of the exits from the Underground tour.

Miscellaneous rubble underground

Old wooden Seattle water pipe, discovered during excavation of a nearby freeway and on display in the Underground

We went to Dimitriou's Jazz Alley to see Toots Thielemans play harmonica. He's 81 years old - he walks slowly but he can play the mouth organ sweetly. He's from Belgium

Toots was accompanied by a great pianist, Kenny Werner

Toots was also accompanied by a great Brazilian guitarist, Oscar Castro-Neves.

On our way out to the Seattle Arboretum, we stopped at a mall for lunch. Elaine liked the yellow umbrellas they had available there. Didn't need them on that rare day of sunshine.

We had lunch at Mom's

William at the information center of the Arboretum

Some flowers at the Arboretum

Flowers in the "Winter Garden". Most of the blooming stuff at the Arboretum was here.

More flowers

Camelias

Vegetation

Rhododenrons

Basset Hounds at the Arboretum

Rhododendrons

Not sure what these were.

Incipient forsythia.

We went to Lowell's at Pike Place for breakfast the next morning. Here is a freighter going by outside with the Olympic Range in the background.

Then we were off to the Seattle Aquarium. We saw a cool IMAX feature there about the eruption and aftermath of Mt Saint Helens.

Tidal pool display at the aquarium. You could touch the animals

Elaine touching a sea animal

They had a display of jelly fish circulating through a Lucite loop that you could walk through. Colored lights shone through the Lucite for some unusual effects. I hope the jelly fish didn't mind!

More psychedelic jelly fish

More jelly fish

More tidal sea animals

More tidal pool

I think we found Nemo. The children assured us that the fish and the anemone were friends.

An "eel." There are no true eels in the Pacific NW

A sea dragon from Australia. Related to the sea horse, but pretty wild!

Sea otters - Pacific Northwest natives. Their population had been decimated (because of trade for their luxuriant pelts), but is on the rise again. This Aquarium participates in raising sea otters for re-introduction to the wild. These guys reside in the ocean - they don't venture in to Puget Sound.

River otters. They reside in fresh water and in Puget Sound.

A wolf eel. Not a real eel, they told us, just a big long fish. The docent told us that real eels don't have pectoral fins - you can see that this fish does.

Fan mail from some flounder?

After the Aquarium we took a trolley to the downtown area, then transferred to a bus to our hotel. We had picked up a rental car for the last three days of our trip (from Priceline for $40.00 including taxes!), so we stopped at the hotel, got the car, and drove to Fremont, a funky Seattle neighborhood.

Fremont residents created the Troll in the space under the Aurora Ave bridge. They were concerned the space would get trashed up, so the Troll protects it.

The Troll is holding a real VW there!

The Troll at home under the bridge

Helpful directional sign in Fremont

A rocket salvaged by Fremont business people and successfully installed by resident Werner "Von Hoge"

Statue of V.I. Lenin in Fremont

Residents love to decorate Lenin - note the rubber ducky

After we were done with Fremont, we went to visit the Chittenden locks on the canal that goes from Puget Sound to Lake Union. Here's a boat waiting for the lock to fill up so it can go upstream

Water filling up in the lock

The lock opens up

The locks (there are two of them, side by side) were originally built in 1917. The Army Corps of Engineers built it, and had the foresight to include a salmon ladder, to enable salmon to do their jump-up-the-stream spawning thing. The salmon ladder was rebuilt in the 60's with more jumps and a gentler slope. They have observation windows where you can see the salmon swimming underwater, but that obviously only works when the salmon are running, which they weren't when we were there.

Dam next to the Chittenden locks

Cool sculpture next to the dam.

Flowers in a beautiful garden next to the locks

More flowers

Camelias

More camelias

We went to dinner at 10 Mercer, a restaurant in Queen Anne's. This is their cool chandelier

The next morning (our last full day) we went to pier 52 to board a ferry to Bainbridge Island. This is our ferry coming in to pick us up.

This is Seattle receding in the distance, as we sail to Bainbridge

The other ferry returning to Seattle

The Olympic mountains on the Olympic peninsula were visible over Bainbridge Island as we approached the island (a 30 minute trip)

Houses on the Bainbridge Island shoreline

More Olympic mountains.

Ditto

Ditto

Marina in Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island

Old stone root cellar from 1880, preserved in an upscale condo development near the marina

Some flowers in that condo development

Sea otter sculpture in the Japanese garden at the Bainbridge Public Library

The Japanese garden at the library.

More Japanese garden.

Haiku in the Japanese garden.

Giraffe in the Bainbridge Public Library. I think its neck is made from a hookah, but I'm not sure. It was a place to put donations to the library.

3-D artwork in the children's room of the Bainbridge Public Library. I think they are supposed to be sailing vessels. They look as fragile as leaves.

Library exterior

After touring Bainbridge, we went on to Poulsbo, a little Norwegian settlement on the Olympic peninsula. The bakery shown here is the home of the famous Poulsbo bread, which I have enjoyed occasionally for years. (I've always enjoyed it, but consumed it only occasionally).

Elaine with a little Viking at the Poulsbo marina

View of Poulsbo from the marina

View of the Poulsbo marina from the marina

Garlic shop

We returned to Seattle on the ferry. Here's Elaine with our rental car

Seattle skyline

Guess what? For the first time in our trip, the clouds over Mt Rainier broke (mostly), so we could get some pictures of that looming mountain, from the ferry.

Grainy Seattle from the ferry

More Mt. Rainier

More Mt. Rainier.

A seagull flies near the ferry (getting handouts)

A hanging glass sea animal chandelier by Dale Chihuly at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, where we saw Winton Marsalis perform.

	The waiting area at the Monorail
	Shoe-shine person outside Nordstrom's.
	The "pig" at Pike Place Market
	Vegetables at Pike Place Market
	Read the sign.
	Totem pole at the waterfront
	More waterfront
	Space needle and Pink Elephant car wash. Elaine found it to be an odd juxtaposition
	The Pink Elephant
	Pike Place Market
	More waterfront
	One of the Puget Sound ferries
	"Hammering man" kinetic sculpture at the Seattle Art Museum
	Typical Seattle building - narrow at the bottom, wide at the top. What makes it stay up?
	Fish market at Pike Place Market (they "throw" the fish around to entertain customers, but I couldn't catch that on my camera)
	The Washington State convention center, where Elaine attended sessions of the Public Libraries Association conference
	Monorail train car interior
	Nordstrom department store sign, from the Monorail. This was the original store, downtown. Nice store, but somewhat disappointing because it's just like all the suburban Nordstroms elsewhere in the country. The legendary service there was - legendary.
	Rainier Square from the Monorail
	More Monorail interiors
	The Monorail tracks, from the Monorail
	More Monorail tracks
	The Space Needle, from the Monorail
	Grainy telephoto picture of the Space Needle - from the ground. Look closely - you will see a troubled person up there who was threatening to jump. He chose to do this when Elaine and I were planning on visiting the observation deck. Instead the attraction was closed so we couldn't go up. He didn't jump. Later somebody on the bus told me that he works near the Space Needle, and had fired a worker that morning. He was afraid the jumper was his former employee, but was relieved to find out it wasn't.
	Fish sculpture at Anthony's restaurant at pier 66. It's made of signed baseball-skins from the Seattle Mariners.
	Elaine at the top of the stairs at Anthony's
	I ordered a Mai Tai at Anthony's and was embarrassed to find out it was served in a pineapple.
	Elaine and Diana Vollmayer, who also went to the PLA meeting from BTPL
	I went for a guide-book directed walk of the Queen Anne's district just north of the Space Needle. Nice older homes, big hills, and great views. This is downtown Seattle from Kerry Park in Queen Anne's. If it weren't cloudy you'd also see a spectacular view of Mt. Rainier
	Little public garden in Queen Anne's
	Street in Queen Anne's, overlooks Puget Sound
	Freighter in Puget Sound, west of Queen Anne's
	Totem pole at a home in Queen Anne's
	Numerous streets in hilly Queen Anne's are interrupted by stair cases, as was Galer Street, shown here.
	Lake Union, seen from an overlook on the east side of Queen Anne's
	Lake Union and other stuff, including (allegedly) the University of Washington
	Lots of hillside houses in Queen Anne's had underground garages like this one.
	View of downtown from another overlook in Queen Anne's
	Flowers blooming in a Queen Anne's park in February
	Harp in somebody's house
	The Japanese consulate - it's in the Queen Anne's area
	Another view of downtown - from the Japanese consulate
	Our hotel on the right, and a Holiday Inn Express right next door
	A gull in our window at Lowell's restaurant at Pike Place Market
	Pioneer Building at Pioneer Square. Cool tours of Seattle's "Underground" (a former first-floor level that was covered over to overcome sewage issues) start from here.
	Detail of Pioneer Building
	A cast iron "Pergola" in Pioneer square. It was ruined by a truck accident a few years ago and then restored.
	Totem pole in Pioneer Square
	Chief Seattle statue in Pioneer Square
	Cow Chips cookie store in Pioneer Square
	The old State Hotel in Pioneer Square
	Skylight in "ceiling" of the Underground in Pioneer Square. Above the skylight is the regular sidewalk
	Here is a view of the skylight from the sidewalk above
	One of the exits from the Underground tour.
	Miscellaneous rubble underground
	Old wooden Seattle water pipe, discovered during excavation of a nearby freeway and on display in the Underground
	We went to Dimitriou's Jazz Alley to see Toots Thielemans play harmonica. He's 81 years old - he walks slowly but he can play the mouth organ sweetly. He's from Belgium
	Toots was accompanied by a great pianist, Kenny Werner
	Toots was also accompanied by a great Brazilian guitarist, Oscar Castro-Neves.
	On our way out to the Seattle Arboretum, we stopped at a mall for lunch. Elaine liked the yellow umbrellas they had available there. Didn't need them on that rare day of sunshine.
	We had lunch at Mom's
	William at the information center of the Arboretum
	Some flowers at the Arboretum
	Flowers in the "Winter Garden". Most of the blooming stuff at the Arboretum was here.
	More flowers
	Camelias
	Vegetation
	Rhododenrons
	Basset Hounds at the Arboretum
	Rhododendrons
	Not sure what these were.
	Incipient forsythia.
	We went to Lowell's at Pike Place for breakfast the next morning. Here is a freighter going by outside with the Olympic Range in the background.
	Then we were off to the Seattle Aquarium. We saw a cool IMAX feature there about the eruption and aftermath of Mt Saint Helens.
	Tidal pool display at the aquarium. You could touch the animals
	Elaine touching a sea animal
	They had a display of jelly fish circulating through a Lucite loop that you could walk through. Colored lights shone through the Lucite for some unusual effects. I hope the jelly fish didn't mind!
	More psychedelic jelly fish
	More jelly fish
	More tidal sea animals
	More tidal pool
	I think we found Nemo. The children assured us that the fish and the anemone were friends.
	An "eel." There are no true eels in the Pacific NW
	A sea dragon from Australia. Related to the sea horse, but pretty wild!
	Sea otters - Pacific Northwest natives. Their population had been decimated (because of trade for their luxuriant pelts), but is on the rise again. This Aquarium participates in raising sea otters for re-introduction to the wild. These guys reside in the ocean - they don't venture in to Puget Sound.
	River otters. They reside in fresh water and in Puget Sound.
	A wolf eel. Not a real eel, they told us, just a big long fish. The docent told us that real eels don't have pectoral fins - you can see that this fish does.
	Fan mail from some flounder?
	After the Aquarium we took a trolley to the downtown area, then transferred to a bus to our hotel. We had picked up a rental car for the last three days of our trip (from Priceline for $40.00 including taxes!), so we stopped at the hotel, got the car, and drove to Fremont, a funky Seattle neighborhood.
	Fremont residents created the Troll in the space under the Aurora Ave bridge. They were concerned the space would get trashed up, so the Troll protects it.
	The Troll is holding a real VW there!
	The Troll at home under the bridge
	Helpful directional sign in Fremont
	A rocket salvaged by Fremont business people and successfully installed by resident Werner "Von Hoge"
	Statue of V.I. Lenin in Fremont
	Residents love to decorate Lenin - note the rubber ducky
	After we were done with Fremont, we went to visit the Chittenden locks on the canal that goes from Puget Sound to Lake Union. Here's a boat waiting for the lock to fill up so it can go upstream
	Water filling up in the lock
	The lock opens up
	The locks (there are two of them, side by side) were originally built in 1917. The Army Corps of Engineers built it, and had the foresight to include a salmon ladder, to enable salmon to do their jump-up-the-stream spawning thing. The salmon ladder was rebuilt in the 60's with more jumps and a gentler slope. They have observation windows where you can see the salmon swimming underwater, but that obviously only works when the salmon are running, which they weren't when we were there.
	Dam next to the Chittenden locks
	Cool sculpture next to the dam.
	Flowers in a beautiful garden next to the locks
	More flowers
	Camelias
	More camelias
	We went to dinner at 10 Mercer, a restaurant in Queen Anne's. This is their cool chandelier
	The next morning (our last full day) we went to pier 52 to board a ferry to Bainbridge Island. This is our ferry coming in to pick us up.
	This is Seattle receding in the distance, as we sail to Bainbridge
	The other ferry returning to Seattle
	The Olympic mountains on the Olympic peninsula were visible over Bainbridge Island as we approached the island (a 30 minute trip)
	Houses on the Bainbridge Island shoreline
	More Olympic mountains.
	Ditto
	Ditto
	Marina in Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island
	Old stone root cellar from 1880, preserved in an upscale condo development near the marina
	Some flowers in that condo development
	Sea otter sculpture in the Japanese garden at the Bainbridge Public Library
	The Japanese garden at the library.
	More Japanese garden.
	Haiku in the Japanese garden.
	Giraffe in the Bainbridge Public Library. I think its neck is made from a hookah, but I'm not sure. It was a place to put donations to the library.
	3-D artwork in the children's room of the Bainbridge Public Library. I think they are supposed to be sailing vessels. They look as fragile as leaves.
	Library exterior
	After touring Bainbridge, we went on to Poulsbo, a little Norwegian settlement on the Olympic peninsula. The bakery shown here is the home of the famous Poulsbo bread, which I have enjoyed occasionally for years. (I've always enjoyed it, but consumed it only occasionally).
	Elaine with a little Viking at the Poulsbo marina
	View of Poulsbo from the marina
	View of the Poulsbo marina from the marina
	Garlic shop
	We returned to Seattle on the ferry. Here's Elaine with our rental car
	Seattle skyline
	Guess what? For the first time in our trip, the clouds over Mt Rainier broke (mostly), so we could get some pictures of that looming mountain, from the ferry.
	Grainy Seattle from the ferry
	More Mt. Rainier
	More Mt. Rainier.
	A seagull flies near the ferry (getting handouts)
	A hanging glass sea animal chandelier by Dale Chihuly at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, where we saw Winton Marsalis perform.

Seattle TripFeb-Mar 2004

Seattle Trip
Feb-Mar 2004