I (Jonathan) traveled to Seattle last week with some coworkers for AACRAO’s national registrar conference. Trying to fit as much sightseeing as possible between sessions, I got to see a good bit of the city and nearby Olympic National Park. The overcast sky dripped almost constantly for a few days and my umbrella bit the dust while I was there, but we had a great time. After riding the light rail from the airport, we took the Westlake Station exit out of the downtown tunnel into Nordstrom and their sky bridge to Pacific Place where we ate at Johnny Rockets before crossing the street to our hotel. Next day, we started the conference but took a few minutes to walk down the hill to the waterfront and public market.
At Pike Place Fish Market where they throw fish to entertain the crowds, Betsy stood behind the counter to catch her dinner (well, maybe not her dinner)!
Jan and Diana checked out the fish while Betsy cleaned the fish smell off her poncho.
We met a fish market employee who had traveled to Zimbabwe where Evans grew up and could speak with him in the Shona language.
Visited the original Starbucks.
Central Library was an interesting place.
Yellow escalators provide a great ride to the 10th floor.
Instead of the Space Needle, I got a good view from floor 73 of Columbia Center.
View of Elliot Bay and Puget Sound. In the bottom left is the ferry I later rode across the sound to Bainbridge Island on the way to Olympic National Park.
The Space Needle towers over Seattle Center.
The Smith Building was the tallest building outside of New York when it was built. It looks small from the Columbia Center, but seemed pretty tall from the ground while I was on Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures while touring the original ground level of Seattle before they elevated the streets a hundred years ago and left intact underground sidewalks and storefronts.
Floating Bridges cross Lake Washington with the Cascades beyond.
Mount Rainier peeped out of the clouds for a few minutes.
Interstates and sports fields stretch out below Seattle skies.
On Pier 62, during my three mile walk along the waterfront.
Our group ate dinner at the Pink Door restaurant; no sign, just a pink door off Post Alley.
Evans, me, Jan, Diana, Michael, Dee and Leo enjoyed some great Italian food. Notice the swing above our heads. A trapeze artist performs from time to time throughout the night.
Spinach lasagna!
This creepy creature is painted over the Pink Door’s bathroom stall.
In the shadow of the Space Needle, the Experience Music Project beckoned after a monorail ride from downtown to Seattle Center.
Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park was near the waterfront.
Our group ate dinner at Thai Ginger: Jan, Leo, Dee, Michael, Betsy, me, Diana and Evans.
On our last full day, Evans and I rented a car and traveled to Olympic National Park. Olympic had so much to see and we had so little time. At the visitor center in Port Angeles, we learned the best places to visit from a contagiously enthusiastic park ranger named Michael. First stop: a hike from Crescent Lake’s stunning beauty to a torrent of water cascading 90 feet at Marymere Falls.
After another long car ride and crossing the Sol Duc River five times, we arrived at our next stop: the Hoh Rain Forest.
Evans at the visitor center pay phone covered in moss.
This temperate rain forest gets 12 feet of rain per year!
The Twilight series is set in nearby Forks. Some scenes from the movie look a lot like this:
Moss and ferns grow everywhere, displaying shades of green that seemed surreal.
We stopped to see the Big Sitka Spruce along the Upper Hoh Road.
It’s over 12 feet wide and 270 feet tall.
The Hoh River was beautiful!
We made it to Rialto Beach just before sunset. Giant driftwood logs covered the beach area.
James Island and Little James Island are a few of the sea stacks.
Some sea stacks(small cliff-sided islands) were several miles offshore.
Gray clouds caught the last few minutes of sun that day.
We walked along this jetty separating the ocean from the Quillayute River. Looking back toward the beach, the Pacific is on the left, the Quillayute is on the right.
We walked about 3/4 of a mile along the jetty to Little James Island, accessible from a narrow spit of sand on the left side of this picture. We arrived as the last sliver of sun slipped below the horizon.
We hurried across to stand at the base of the sea stack’s cliff walls while the tide came in, threatening to erase the narrow spit of land between island and jetty.
As dusk settled in, we picked our way back along the jetty to the beach. Ocean spray blew at our back as we returned across the black pebble beach from wading in the Pacific surf.
We ate at Sully’s Burgers in Forks, where Twilight fans display their heroes.
Apparently the state troopers also enjoy Sully’s, maybe for a Bella Burger or Twilight Punch while on break from pulling over unsuspecting speeders.
Forks only has 3,175 residents, but those locals sure have added a layer of Twilight to their businesses to cash in on the movies being set there. Since Julie’s such a fan, I picked up something for her at the Dazzled by Twilight store while we were in town. I still can’t believe I went in there. We couldn’t stay long in Forks because we had to drive several hours to catch the ferry back to Seattle. We made it to the Bainbridge Island terminal just in time for the 11:30 ferry. The next morning we started back to Gainesville.
Seattle was a blast. I ate a lot, from breakfast sandwiches at the Sound View Café and Palomino’s chop chop salad to Top Pot’s doughnuts and La Creperie Voila. I walked a lot, up and down the steep grade of Seattle’s streets and along the shores of Elliot Bay, Lake Washington and the Pacific Ocean. I saw some beautiful places, but it was great to come home and see the family. Now if I could just get my body back on East Coast Time…
