The Space Needle

Okay, we are definitely on vacation.  We slept in this morning until nearly 8 a.m..  And by the time we had our coffee and got dressed Judy’s cousin was beginning to worry.  She is used to getting up with her husband who works at the big airplane plant in Seattle about six in the morning, making him breakfast and getting her days started kinda early.  This week unfortunately he has had to fly out of town while we are there so we only got to visit with him the first night we were there.  

 

We have a casual breakfast and start our day in a relaxed pace.  Only one goal today and that is to go into Seattle and see the Space Needle.  My wife takes her medication so she’ll be able to try to do it.

How can you visit Seattle for the first time without going to the Space Needle? Simple answer is - you can't. Even for me and my wife, who are both afraid of heights. But you just gotta do it.

It isn't cheap, and the weather can make a difference up there. The day we went there were clouds, so we couldn't even see Mt. Rainier, which is 14,410 ft tall.

It was exhilarating to be that high up, but I'm sure glad there were rails, and no possible way to fall.  My wife’s medications had kicked in by the time we got into Seattle and she seemed fine going up.  That was the hard part for me.  Whizzing past the cross-members of steel made my stomach do flips and even though it only takes about 45 seconds to go from the bottom to the top, around 600 feet, it was hard on me not to lose my breakfast.  I settled down again as we exited the elevator.

The view from up there is really amazing, even with so many clouds in the sky. 

So we walked the inside area, read the data, then the outside deck and got as many pictures as we could.  We probably spent at least an hour and a half just taking in the views. 

From the Space Needle we headed over to the waterfront and south about a mile to another of Seattle’s famous landmarks. It didn’t take very long, but because my wife had taken the medications to calm her down she spent the time napping.  We giggled when we arrived and woke her up.  Just five minutes and she felt relaxed and better.

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop has been in Seattle for about a hundred years.

From Seattle we headed back to Renton to see how the glass work we had seen blown the previous day had turned out.  The process of blowing some pieces is that it needs to be cooled slowly between firings and we wanted to see the second and final firings to see how the finished item would look.  We were glad we did.  The results are so worthwhile.  See just a few of the attached photos to get a clue.

Tonight, we stopped on the way home to have dinner at a wonderful Asian restaurant.  I wish I could remember the name and address because I would give it a very good rating.