Seattle: Day One

Fun.  That's what I'd call our trip.  Each day when we called home to talk with Nate and Abbie before bed, Nate would say, "What?!  You guys are having SO MUCH FUN!"  And he was right, we had a lot of fun.

On Saturday morning, we woke up early--The great thing about being two hours behind is that you can sleep until 10AM and still get up by 8AM!  So we headed down to Pike Place Market and wandered around there for a while.  Unfortunately, our photos from that morning seem to have disappeared, so I'm just going to skip to the afternoon.  I'm hoping to find them soon...

So we grabbed some lunch downtown, then headed to Pioneer Square.  We purchased tickets to the Underground Tour, a tour of the Seattle Underground.  (Really explained that, didn't I?)  Seattle was built on soggy tideflats whose streets would flood with rain and mud, deep enough to swallow children.  After a massive fire in 1889 that destroyed about 29 blocks of downtown Seattle, the people decided to raise the city up from the level on which its original streets lay.  So the city built retaining walls, eight feet or higher, on either side of the old streets, filled in the space between the walls, and paved over the fill to effectively raise the streets, making them one story higher than the old sidewalks the still ran alongside them.  We toured the Underground!

Chief Seattle

Is there anything like a Rocky Mtn. Chocolate Factory Caramel Apple?

This would have been the exterior of the hotel.

There was tons of old stuff--Each part of the Underground is owned by the building above it.  Some have preserved the spaces, some call the tour company to donate their findings.

These skylights were built in when they built the city up a level.  They were clear when they were installed, but turned purple over the years.  So now you can tell the original ones when you're walking on the Seattle sidewalks because they're purple.

The Seattle sewage system was a total joke.  They ran it above ground, built from wood, down from the houses in the hills, out to the ocean.  You can imagine what happened when the tide came in.  Yup.  Eventually the paper started printing the tides times so that people could "plan" their days.  Yikes.

Dinner Saturday night was at a restaurant that came highly recommended by some people in Alan's department.  We drove out to Ray's Boathouse expecting a very long wait, and despite watching the people who entered in front of us receive a beeper, we were seated immediately and with a view of the sunset to boot!  The food wasn't amazing, which led us to believe that we're not really "rich food" people, a fact that we later recanted on the last night of our trip.  (You'll have to wait a while to find out about that!)  Alan had steak with crab and mashed potatoes.  I ate a chicken breast with pesto and Asparagus.  And while the food wasn't fantastic, the view was amazing.  We watched the sunset and walked on the pier for a while afterwards.  

After dinner, we happened to drive by Chittenden Locks and decided to stop.  This was one of our better choices.  Let me tell you about the purpose of the Locks:

• To maintain the water level of the fresh water Lake Washington and Lake Union at 20 to 22 feet above sea level.
• To prevent the mixing of sea water from Puget Sound with the fresh water of the lakes (saltwater intrusion).
• To move boats from the water level of the lakes to the water level of Puget Sound, and vice versa.

The Locks were really amazing.  We were able to watch five boats, I think, move through the Locks.  I was shocked by how fast the water level changed--They were able to drain and fill it so quickly.  What a fantastic invention.

Perhaps the most exciting part of our day, however, came last!  We went to a movie, spontaneously, without arranging a babysitter, at 10:00 at night!  We saw Iron Man 2, and while the movie wasn't stellar, it was so much fun to go.  

Tomorrow... FORKS!