Tag Archives: mono rail

Lets Hear it for Seattle…one more time

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It was the last day of “Boot Camp” (the company’s term for this week of training.) We covered things like benefits, expense accounts and had our pictures taken for the company web site. We also had our “Graduation Celebration”.

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I carried my camera to work this time. I wanted one last chance to document this little corner of Seattle.

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I wanted to see the “Great Wheel”, a gigantic Ferris wheel  on the Waterfront and visit the Public Market aka Pike Place Market known for it’s “flying fish” but didn’t get there.

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All this walking had brought on a good case of blisters again and it was a different pair of shoes this time. No idea why I am suddenly plagued with blisters. The best I could manage was a hobble to the drug store for first aid supplies. But the building that housed the drug store was eye catching with decorative trim around the top.

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If I’d had more time here’s some of the things I would have liked to do.

  • Great Wheel
  • Pike’s Place Market
  • Mt. Rainier Gondola
  • Boeing Tour
  • point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium
  • Whale Watch
  • Seattle Aquarium
  • Woodland Park Zoo
  • Northwest Trek Wildlife Park

Maybe I need to add Seattle to my list of places to my vacation bucket list.

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A view of the Space Needle from under the mono rail track.

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Seattle from my hotel room window.

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And one final view of the Space Needle

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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The View from the 14th Floor

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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.

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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.

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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.

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