Kerry Park, Locks and Gardens

We headed out of downtown Seattle and went up Queen Anne's Hill to Kerry Park. This is a scenic overlook of downtown. It's a good place to see the Space Needle.

Off to the west in Puget Sound and we saw two ferry boats leave the docks at the same time.

We went on up the road and stopped at Marshall Park to look off the Betty Bowen Viewpoint. Saw a cruise ship in port.

Across the road is the Parsons Memorial Garden. We checked out the flowers along the walk.

Using Google maps, I had made directions to the next place but we decided to let our GPS lead us there. OMG! It lead us down some narrow windy streets. Good thing we turned before we came to the parked UPS truck!

This road isn't bricked, it's stoned! Yes, it's on a grade too.

We made our way down to a street with this huge retaining wall.

But the GPS got us to our destination.

It's pay parking so we had to figure out how to run the machine to get a parking fee receipt. We finally got it on the third try.

The locks are a Corps of Engineers site. We went through the visitor center and read about what the COE does and how the locks were built.

There are two locks... one for large ships and one for smaller boats. This is the large one and we didn't see any ships come through while we were there. Notice the mossy sides!

When the lock was closed, you could pass over it to the next lock and then over to the fish ladder.

Mostly we saw personnel going in and out of this building alongside the lock.

Here comes a boat for the small lock. Notice the railroad bridge in the background. We couldn't figure out what the thing on the right was.

Here's a closer view of when it was raised to allow a boat to pass under.

There was a spillway too.

Oh back to the locks. The lock crew tells the boats which side they need to tie down to and how far in to go so they can get as many boats as possible into the lock.

There were four boats in this lowering. Notice where the boats are tied.

Now notice that the tie post lowers with the water. I haven't been around locks before and hadn't thought about how the moorings need to raise and lower with the water.

A couple float planes flew over.

Lots of sea gulls so every lamp post has wire spikes to keep them from landing. Even this fire hose enclosure had them.

The gardens are around the locks.

We didn't get a photo of the roses.

Don't know the name of this tree but it's unusual.

Seattle Underground Tour

Bill Speidel's Underground Tour was our next stop. It is in the Historic Pioneer Square area and has a lot of Victorian buildings. Notice the Pioneer building arch.

Bill Spiedel helped save the historic buildings when they were about to be razed to make room for more modern buildings. Right behind the fire truck is the "sinking ship" parking garage. An historic hotel stood on this spot before it was razed and, with that, people started to get concerned about the other historic buildings in the area.

Another photo that shows the "sinking ship" parking garage. That might be Smith T0wer behind it.

This covered walkway is called the Pergola and was constructed for the 1909 World Fair.

The top of the parking garage and maybe Columbia Center. No one was pointing out the buildings and telling us the names so I'm guessing.

The Pioneer Building as seen over the parking garage. It's called the Sinking Ship parking garage because of its shape.

Seattle had a fire in 1889 that destroyed 25 square blocks of the town. Now, at that time, Seattle was build on tide flats and, even though they used flush toilets, there wasn't an adequate sewer system. After the fire the city council wanted to move dirt from the upper hills to fill in the lower area and improve the sewer system but it was going to take 10 years and the merchants weren't willing to wait quite that long.

Many people gathered in this old bar for the tour we took. The guides spent about 45 minutes giving us a short history of Seattle and the tour. The merchants rebuilt before the land was raised but the city then raised the streets and the lower floors of all the buildings became basements. That's why there's an underground.

Isn't this old bar beautiful?

Once underground, we looked up through skylights that were placed in the sidewalks..

Basement of a bank where there was a vault. Noticed the arched brick ceiling. These supported the sidewalks.

This room was once a general store.

Seattlites loved their crappers.

To the right you can see the front of a building.

One of the grates stored in the underground.

After the tour we ended up in the museum where we read about Seattle's history.

Seattle Trip

Time for a trip to Seattle to see some of the sights but on the way we stopped at Downtown Harley-Davidson to meet a Women on Wheels® member. This dealership looks pretty new.

Right next to it is this dealership that sold a lot of brands. I'm sure it's the same owners and Harley forced them to build a different building. They do that.

Some of the helmet stickers the WOW gal had on her helmet.

Although it was 11:45 a.m, the roads were parking lots in places.

WOW, I didn't know Seattle was built on hills and the trip down this road was interesting to say the least. I was glad we weren't on our bikes. We were told it's only an 18% grade but that must be overall and not on the street between the intersections.

After finding a parking garage for the car, we took a walk to Pike Place Market. There were several shops that were selling fish.

Then we wandered down Pike Place and I noticed the beautiful flowers on the tops of the buildings. Very nice.

Another seafood store.

During the walk back to Pioneer Square, we saw a break in the buildings where we could look out over Puget Sound.

Although we did some more sight seeing, I'm leaving those photos for other posts. Here's what we saw when we left town. I finally got a good photo of one of the electric buses. Most of the streets have the electric lines over them so I suppose most of the buses are electric.

This one was one of those "accordian" buses. You know, the ones that bend in the middle.

We started south on I-5 but then headed off on Hwy 502 where we saw this interesting intersection.

Doesn't it look like one span of the bridge just ends over the water?

This is why we took Hwy 502. We wanted to go over the longest floating bridge in the World!

Before we got to the floating section, we had to go up and over the bridge where boats can cross under. Interesting how it curves.

Saw this "art" along the road.

And these condos on the water.

Ok, down to the floating section we go. ... Really didn't notice any difference but at least we can say we were on it.

Then we headed south on I-405 and went over this snaggled intersection with I-90. The I-90 floating bridge into Seattle is being repaired so it was down to two lanes.

We had lots of fabulous views of Mt. Rainier but it really doesn't photograph well....at least by me.