Seattle 09-15-07
Sometimes I hate travel. Specifically, I hate the feeling of being herded while running a fever. It seems that every time that I’ve flown lately I’ve been sick. I’m sure my fellow travelers weren’t too happy, but there was not much I could do. The flight to Seattle itself was uneventful, which was good. In fact, this was one of the smoothest in terms of being on time and being comfortable. There was a brief hiccup (and a bit of price gouging) while getting our rental car, but soon we were back in charge of our own transportation.
Our plans for this trip were to spend a couple of days in Seattle before heading up to the island. Every time we’ve been here we have cruised right through the city without stopping to see the sites, so we wanted to correct that this time. However, there was a Seahawks home game, a Huskies home game, and several other events that seemed to be taking up every hotel room. We abbreviated the plans so that we would spend the afternoon in the city, then head north.
Our first stop was the Pike Market area. Every tourist show I’ve seen shows the vendors throwing fish across aisle. We never found that area. However, we did trudge up Pike’s Hill to the Market, which was full of very unusual, eclectic shops. Most of these I would classify as "alternative" – the types you would most likely find near large universities with an active counter culture. While these were interesting, it wasn’t really what we were after.
Down at the waterfront we stood next to the Seattle Aquarium and watch the ferries and tour boats arriving and departing. We wandered next to the piers, when had shops and restaurants catering to the large tour ship crowds. It looked like there was some interesting places to eat, but we wouldn’t be in the area around dinner time.
We decided to change the view and head to the landmark everyone knows – the Space Needle. As with Pike’s Market, parking was expensive, but we did find a place close. Our time was limited, so we skipped the various museums in the area and headed straight to the Needle itself.
We stood in line and purchased our tickets (rather expensive), then stood in another longer line to get onto one of two elevators. The views, however, turned out to be worth the wait and putting up with crying children in the lifts. We took a slow turn around the needle, with me snapping pictures at every vantage point. I took more shots that was absolutely necessary because the potential was great for some tilt-shift photography.
By this time I was hitting rock bottom. The crowds and already long day were starting to get to me. From the Needle we looked northward toward the islands, and decided that it was time to be heading in the at direction. I let Laura drive while I rested. When we did get to Samish Island, I collapsed. We had been up since 4:00 AM Eastern, which was 1:00 AM local. I was medicated and in bed by 6:00 PM.