Space Needle

Posted on July 15, 2013July 15, 2013 by Dusty Roads

I perused the Seattle Guide books while I was in my room each night and was amazed at the number of things to do in the area. But in my humble opinion the number 1 thing to do is visit the Space Needle and not just to see it. You need to experience it. Take the elevator up the side and explore the 360 degree observation deck.

So here I was boarding the mono rail to check out the Space Needle. You can see it from all over Seattle. It looks like a big space ship landing on the high rises.

The mono rail is pretty neat too. It was built for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair to shuttle fair goers from the downtown to the fair grounds. After the fair ended the mono rail lived on.

It takes less than 5 minutes to go from one station to the other! It took me 3 times that just to walk to the station from the hotel!

It’s in great shape. Clean and well maintained. If only our Boston subway cars looked as good. Today, the trains carry approximately two million passengers every year. The Monorail has become an important fixture in Seattle for locals, who use the trains during major festivals and sporting events. Seattle Center Monorail is one of the few fully self-sufficient public rail transit system in the nation yet a one way ticket is only $2.25. Someone is doing something right. Maybe we should ship the MBTA execs out for training.

The mono rail runs on an elevated track right down 5th avenue past my hotel. I spent some time sitting on a cement wall watching it go overhead.

Ticket in hand I grabbed a seat for the short ride. It wasn’t crowded and in a blink of an eye we were pulling into Seattle Center right at the base of the Space Needle.

No mistaking me for anything but what I was, an awestruck tourist. As I stepped off the Mono rail platform I know my mouth was hanging open while I reached for my camera. The Space Needle is amazing up close. You can get a stiff neck looking up to the top.

As I got my bearings I saw an unmistakable sight. A Chihuly Glass sculpture. I recognized it from the exhibit I’d seen at the MFA in Boston.

Since it was early I headed toward the sculpture first. It was sitting behind locked gates and there was a big glass building behind it with another familiar glass exhibit.

I followed the path around only to find out the Chihuly Garden was closed for the day. The Sign on the door said they would be open until 8pm the next day. I knew right then that I would be back.

But now it was time to turn my attention to the Space Needle.

The View from the 14th Floor

Posted on July 14, 2013July 14, 2013 by Dusty Roads

Nobody told me Seattle was so “hilly”. I mean the J. P. Beaumont books talked about hills in some places but from what I could see Seattle is all hills! Right from the bay on up. From my hotel to work it was only 5 blocks but 4 of them were uphill! If I lived here full time I’d never have a weight problem.

When I arrived at the office I was directed to the 14th floor where they had a continental breakfast spread out over a huge counter. Hmmm what did I say about weight? If breakfast was any indication of how they planned to feed us then I need to walk many more blocks uphill!

But the view! Oh My! I would never get anything done if I had that view to distract me. It was beautiful.

The morning was a series of get acquainted exercises then we took a break so they could set up lunch. It was as tremendous as breakfast. Never ending food. The folks who work in this office said it isn’t just because they had us there, they do this kind of thing all the time.

The afternoon was more speeches and introductions to the corporate culture. It’s a very young company. I think I was the oldest person in the room. There were one or two other “mature” people but I still had them beat by at least a decade. I know that there is a little thing called age discrimination but it’s really tough to prove so I feel very honored to have made it past that age barrier. With all the young blood you can imagine what the energy was like.

We wrapped up the first day at about 4 pm. I walked back to my hotel and retrieved my camera. I was going to get some sight-seeing in and the thing I most wanted to see was the Space Needle.

I walked about 4 blocks to Downtown Seattle where I picked up the Mono Rail. The Mono rail runs from Downtown Seattle to the Seattle Center and The Space Needle and back again and that’s it. No other stops.

Seattle

Posted on July 13, 2013July 13, 2013 by Dusty Roads

This time I’m traveling to Seattle on Southwest. It’s been awhile since I’ve flown Southwest so I was surprised by their open seating policy. It worked out ok and it was a pretty uneventful flight. The only issue was the plane change in Baltimore. When they transferred the luggage it was pouring rain. I guess Southwest doesn’t believe in covering luggage with a tarp. The luggage was so wet that water was running out of bags on the baggage carousel.

I took a cab to my hotel and when I unpacked all of my clothes were soaked and had to be hung up to dry. I was not a happy camper but maybe the downpour had surprised them. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Now about my digs for the week.

My new employer is putting me up until Friday when it will be time to head back home. My accommodations are in the Hotel 5 which is located in the Belltown section of Seattle.

I feel like I’ve been dropped into one of J.A. Jance’s novels. She writes a series of novels about J.P. Beaumont, a Seattle Homicide Detective. She often describes places in Seattle which until now were just fiction.

But back to my Hotel, I walked in with my luggage still dripping water to see plastic draped through the lobby. Apparently they had a construction project going and they ran late. The poor night desk clerk looked quite harried. Another “guest” and I use the term loosely was reading him the riot act. I’m not sure about what but nothing the clerk offered him was good enough. I really felt bad for the clerk..not the guy yelling.

As soon as the clerk could break away from Mr. Irate, he checked me in and in spite of having just been reamed out like that, he was pleasant and professional to me.

The hotel was filled with bright colors, nothing calm or subdued here. At first I felt like I was getting a wake up call at 10 pm with all the bright colors but slowly they began to grow on me. The floors in the room were hardwood which surprised me since most hotels have industrial carpet. I have to admit I liked the way the hardwood looked.

There was free WIFI in the rooms, always a big plus in my opinion.

I unpacked and hung my soggy clothing in the shower to drip dry…I’m serious, it was that bad! Then went back down to find a restaurant. It was quiet in the lobby now so the clerk sent me one block down to the Palace Kitchen

where I had a lovely if expensive dinner with a ceramic chicken.

Tomorrow I’d find the home office and meet the staff.

Alaska Wrap Up

Posted on July 9, 2013July 9, 2013 by Dusty Roads

I thought I’d finish my series on Alaska with a few stats for you to mull over. It’s no wonder they call Alaska “The Great Land”.

Alaska is home to 17 of the 20 tallest mountains in the US. The top ten starting with Mt McKinley are:

Mount McKinley 20,320 ft. Alaska Range
Mount Logan 19,541 ft. Saint Elias Range
Mount ST. Elias 18,008 ft. Saint Elias Range
Mount Foraker 17,400 ft. Alaska Range
Mount Lucania 17,257 ft. Saint Elias Range
King Peak 16,972 ft. Saint Elias Range
Mount Bona 16,550 ft. Saint Elias Range
Mount Steel 16,470 ft. Saint Elias Range
Mount Blackburn 16,390 ft. Wrangell Mountains
Mount Sanford 16,237 ft. Wrangell Mountains

Alaska has an area of 571,951 miles and is the largest state in the U.S, more than twice the size of Texas, its closest rival.

With a population only 686,293 this translates to an average of 1.2 people per square mile. the rest od the US has an average of 76 people per square mile.

Alaska has over 70 potentially active volcanos!

The Alaskan coast line is 6,600 miles long. Include the islands and it balloons to 34,000 miles! There are 3000 rivers and more than 3 MILLION lakes!

Over 50% of the world’s Glaciers call Alaska home.

30% od Alaska lies within the Arctic Circle.

There’s so many more fun facts, like the Alaska Bachelor’s Club but if I tell you everything what will that leave you to discover on your own trip?

Newark International Airport at 5am. Almost home.

Day at the Zoo

Posted on July 7, 2013July 7, 2013 by Dusty Roads

It’s the last day in Alaska and I’m so glad we are spending it at the Zoo. I love zoos. I even went to the zoo in Hawaii.

So we arrived via the Zoo shuttle right to the entrance. When it’s time to leave the shuttle will pick us up right in the parking lot. There’s even a little bench to sit on while we wait.

We bought our tickets and picked up our maps and followed a family of rambunctious little ones onto the paths. The paths cross crossed and meandered so we picked the “must see” animals and figured we’d go there first. Grizzlies were on that list but they were also on the far side of the zoo.

There was a little deer in an exhibit that was just full of mischief. A Maintenance worker was repairing the enclosure and she just followed him everywhere trying to chew on his pants. When he finally shooed her away she took off to pick on a poor , abused looking turkey that shared her enclosure.

The tiger was sleeping and wasn’t going to move for anyone.

The wolves were pretty riled up. They paced along the fence line. A family with very young children were watching. The wolves seemed to be fixed on the kids. Did they think they were prey? A snack? The kids started making howling sounds and the pack joined in.

Once the family moved on the pack dispersed back into the trees in their habitat.

We saw a snowy owl, one of the birds that winters in MA and that I am still trying to get a photo of in the wild.

There was a beautiful bald eagle. They are so majestic that it always makes me feel bad when I see them in captivity. On the other hand many of the captive eagles were injured and couldn’t be rehabilitated enough to survive in the wild. I guess being captive is better than the alternative.

We passed the black bear, a moose hiding in the shadows, and a pretty little red fox snoozing in the sun.

We got a close up look at the caribou.

We crossed a bridge over a pond and watched the swan whose very presence owned the pond. I’m not a “birder” but I think it was a Trumpeter Swan. We have “Mute” Swans around home and it wasn’t that. The bill was black while the Mute Swans have yellow bills and a black eye ridge.

Silly me spotted a squirrel and the picture I got of him is one of my favorites.

There was a good exhibit of the Dall Sheep so we finally got to see this elusive animal up close.

Finally we spotted the grizzly bear enclosure. They weren’t cooperating any more than the wild ones. One was sprawled in the brook in the shade down in a corner of the enclosure. No good angle for a picture. The other one was in a hollow taking a nap. His big foot and an ear about all that could be seen.

By now we’d spent more than an hour so we needed to hustle back to catch the shuttle. We passed the otters and stopped for a minute at the Polar Bears.