The Waterfront (Seattle part 4)

This is a continuation of my Seattle series. See my previous posts: Kubota Garden (Seattle part 1), Magnolia (Seattle part 2) and Space Needle (Seattle part 3). I know I am taking a long time to get this completed. After all, we took the trip in March. But you know, I am really enjoying taking the time to do this right. Going back over the pictures and remembering the fun little details of the trip has been like taking another vacation.

On Monday of the trip, my husband was off to his seminar. (All about use cases if that means anything to you.) My mom and I had the rental car and the whole day ahead to do whatever we wanted. I haven't felt that sort of freedom in a very long time! The only time restriction we had was that we needed to pick up my husband at 4:30p. The day before at the Space Needle we had picked up City Passes.

We had looked into such options before the trip and had decided that it would be a great way to help motivate us to find things to do and to cut the cost dramatically. In fact, it ended up taking us places we wouldn't have considered otherwise, which in the end made for a better trip.

So, Monday we decided to stick around the waterfront. We got there around 9:15a and quickly learned nothing opens until 10a. How frustrating it was until in our wandering we found a little gift shop with a pirate theme. We had fun sifting through everything pirate.


We then walked down to the Seattle Aquarium (it was part of the citypass). The Aquarium is under construction right now and it ended up being a quick hour walk through. With the construction, it seems to be a pretty minimal place. I would have loved to see more about the giant octopus.
All in all, I don't recommend the Aquarium if your group does not include any children. My mom and I agreed that for the two of us perhaps the best part of it was this cool otter bench that was sitting near the restrooms.


After the Aquarium, we drove up the hill and finally found a parking space near Pike's Place Market. This is a must visit for all visitors to Seattle. Walking past all of the flower stalls was amazing. Daffodils everywhere! Not just at the market. Daffodils lined almost every building we entered on the trip. March is a wonderful time to visit Seattle.



Ok, back to Pike's Place Market. We had such fun wandering around the shops. The fish throwers are a lot of fun. We didn't get any good pictures of the fish flying, but I got this one of one of the nice young men. He picked up the fish and smiled just so we could take pictures. Isn't that nice?

We ended up having teriyaki chicken for lunch. We figured it wouldn't be right if we didn't enjoy it at least once while there. Almost every other corner of the city has some sort of Teriyaki place. It was great!


This was the view looking out from one of the doors at the market. You can get a bit of the feel of how high up the hill it is. Amazing city, Seattle is. You can go from water level up hundreds of feet in a matter of a half mile. I gained a whole new respect for my mom, learning to drive on the hills.

We didn't have nearly enough time in the market, we had to hurry off for the 1:30p departure of our cruise!



We went on an hour long harbor cruise through Argosy Cruises. This was also part of the citypass. The boat we rode on is named the Spirit of Seattle. We sat on the top deck and had the most amazing views of the waterfront. We also were treated with a well done tour of much of the history of the buildings of Seattle. It was really well done. If you have the chance to take one of the cruises offered through Arogsy, I am sure you will enjoy yourself.

Here are some of the pictures we took. (It was really quite cold and windy as we were moving, but the sun was shining and I had my gloves on. So, it was almost perfect!)

This is a look at the water side of the Seattle Aquarium. It really is on one of the Piers. My mom remembers as a kid, them having whales and dolphins out in pens in the water. That would have been fun to see.

This is looking at one of the Ferries. We passed by a couple of them as we made our circle of the harbor.


This is looking at the Magnolia Bridge. At least that is what my mom called it. It leads right up to what was Grandma's house. They now have another way to get up to Magnolia. Not as much traffic goes across the bridge anymore. At least that was our observation driving there.


Just one of the places private boats are docked. This is off of Magnolia. Many people actually park the boats in Lake Union, to avoid the barnacles. I found all that really interesting. I will talk more about it when I post about visiting the Locks. I am such a desert girl. Anything ocean related is so fascinating!

This picture is from when we reached our furthest point out as we went back across the harbor. The Seattle skyline is so pretty.

This is a continuation of the picture above. Couldn't get it all in one photo.

These are some of the cranes used to load and unload containers from the ships. Container shipping really was quite revolutionary. Also, Tom Cruise uses one of these cranes in the movie War of the Worlds. So you might recognize them from that.

This I believe is one of Todd Shipyards dry docks. Todd Shipyards is one of the longest surviving shipbuilders in the country. During WWII they were one of the biggest suppliers of battleships to the Pacific. Since, however, the needs for ship building have diminished they have become a company that mainly does Ship Maintenance. This is a Coast Guard Cutter in the dry dock. They do work with private companies as well. Very interesting isn't it?

This is the shot coming back into Pier 56 where Argosy sails out of.

Watch for my next installment to see our adventure that night. Ferries (Seattle part 5)