Day 15 - 9/19 - Crossing the Sound to Seattle

Today was a touring day instead of a traveling day. On our list was a small bus tour of Seattle and a trip to the History of Flight Museum which is located near the main Boeing facility.

We were out early for a 30-minute drive to Bremerton, Washington. Once there, we board the car-passenger ferry an hour cruise to Seattle. The Sun Outdoors Gig Harbor personnel recommended we get in and out of Seattle this way in order to avoid the traffic and congestion of I-5. Of course, crossing Puget Sound and Elliott Bay this way is the most direct route.

While the ferry was nearly at capacity for vehicles, the large

passenger lounge and galley had gobs of room. Byron estimated

that it could accommodate 1100 people plus vehicles on two decks.

It was still overcast when we approached Seattle from the west.

For sure, it was obvious where the Space Needle was located

and that it was no longer the tallest building. Much has been

built since the Seattle World's Fair of 1962. 

After reaching Seattle, our first stop was the obligatory tourist destination of the Seattle Space Needle. Since I am not a fan of high places, a trip to the top was a quick “up you go, walk around the top, and down you go!” The elevator travels at a vertical speed of 10 mph so the trip up and down didn’t take long.

Wish you were here! This is our self-portrait from the top of the Needle.

When the Needle was built, there was little around the immediate

are so a monorail was built to transport visitors from the more

historic are of Seattle to the World’s Fair. There were no

stops along the way then and remains so today.

With souvenirs in hand, we headed to the meeting point for our tour of Seattle with a group of about 12 other folks. We feel that taking a guided tour is the best way to see new cities and gather information. Some of our stops are listed below.

• Pioneer Square, established in 1852 when Seattle was in it’s infancy.
• Waterfall Garden, which sits on the site of the of the hotel where two young men started a message and package delivery service in 1907; later it became United Parcel Service (UPS).
• The Fremont Troll, a sculpture built in hopes of keeping drug dealers from transacting business under the bridge, which worked. So many people were coming to photograph the troll at all hours of the day and night. The drug dealers moved on to other locations to avoid being photographed.
• The final stop was to view Seattle from Kerry Park.

Pioneer Square, the first commercial area of Seattle.

The marker at Waterfall Garden Park, which denotes the place

where the messenger service was begun.

The Seattle Troll under the bridge where drug dealers once met.

Our stop at Kerry Park provided the opportunity to get a glimpse

of Seattle from the residential area. In theory, this was the

view Frazier (the TV sitcom) had when looking out his apartment.

(Note that the sky was much clearer in the middle of the afternoon).

Upon completion of the tour, we drove to the History of Flight Museum which is located on the site where The Boeing Company. It should be noted that a great variety of planes are on display from equally broad number of manufacturers. Although Martha does not like to fly, she finds aviation museums to be quite interesting. Byron, on the other hand, has always enjoyed flight. Of particular interest to him was the B-52 Stratofortress displayed near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This memorial exists to honor the memory of those who served in the air war.

A Locheed Super Constellation. You know it is “Super” because

five windows forward of the wing. The regular size only

had three. Eisenhower flew in a Constellation when he was the President.

This unit is displayed at the entrance to History of Flight Museum.

To this untrained eye, this Fokker looks almost like the Ford Trimotor.

Both were developed in the mid-1920s.

There are military, commercial, and private planes on display

both inside and outside the museum. The yellow plane

hanging from the ceiling is a Stinson Detroiter that

was produced in the early 1930s. 

The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress has been in use by the US Air Force

since 1952. As an airframe, it has been in active duty longer than

any other since and are still being used today. The Vietnam memorial

is located behind Byron. Flags of the service branches are to the right.

We were quite hungry by the time we completed our visit to the museum. We headed back to the downtown area in search of food and parking. We were not prepared for sticker shock for parking or fish and chips. After we ate we had time to stroll through The Market which we had seen earlier in the day on our bus tour.

Seattle is home to several coffee companies, not the least of which

is Starbuck’s. The is the first location where they began. Look

at the line of people. The original logo is used at this location

and printed on all the cups. The logo was updated several years ago.

Seattle is an interesting city. It is has more steep hills than San Francisco. The median age of inhabitants is somewhere around 32; due to the many employees of all the tech companies here. We were even shown the first building where Google started. As our driver said: “You can Google it.”