Our Stay in Seattle

Sculpted screen on the waterfront...
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Seattle was beautiful and strange all at the same time.

Weather.  Seattle in August is Camelot.  The days are sunny, but never hot enough to break a sweat.  The nights are cool, perfect sleeping weather, and nobody really needs an air-conditioner.

Transportation and Parking.  Driving is like driving in any city.  Avoid if you can.  If you must, downtown parking is expensive compared to other cities.  The city mirrors its hoardes of homeless, with its hand out, and if you need to pay for parking more than once in a day, you will be annoyed.  Public transportation is good, though I found the zone fare system on the buses a bit bizarre.  Bus-rides in the downtown core are free.  Heading towards the downtown, you pay getting on the bus.  Heading away from the downtown, you pay getting off. The bus is a really good buy if you use it between rush hours to visit downtown locations. If you go to the Space Needle area, visit in the morning or early afternoon if you are driving, or take the bus. The parking lots suddenly have $20 fees for evening sporting events if you go after 4 PM!

Seattle skyline from Elliott Bay.
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Touring: Get the City Pass if you are going to be there for a few days, Mrs. T thought this was the best deal and bought one for herself and another for our son. The Pass (also available in other cities) included the Aquarium, Flight Museum, Odyssey Tour of Elliott Bay, Pacific Science Museum, and the Woodland Park Zoo. Two of these activities (if you include the harbor tour) would make the Pass worthwhile. They also visited Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe, Pike Place Market, the Space Needle and the 1962 World's Fair site (rode the amusement park rides and visited the Children's Museum and wanted to run in the collander-shaped fountain), as well as the Burke Museum at the University of Washington (to see fossils and Northwest culture).

The space needle is the lasting symbol from the 1962 World's Fair.
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Art: Seattle has a percentage for the arts in all the building projects, so art is not only available, it is ever-present. It takes all shapes, mediums and forms, from sculptures on skyscraper plazas, to fences and screens on the waterfront, to brass dance step patterns on Broadway sidewalks! Even the bus shelters have interesting frosted glass. And, speaking of glass, Seattle is within striking distance of Takoma (home of Dale Chihuly) and the famous Pilchuk School and its glass masters who have created whole other expressions in glass art. Our son, who loves to work with Sculpey (a polymer clay), was delighted to see examples of this medium in various places the week we were in Seattle, used in jewelry, sculpture as well as craft.

Caffeine: The normal weather in Seattle is cloudy and gray, with some rain. To keep awake, the locals have taken to drinking -- mostly caffeine. Home to Starbucks (there must be at least 55 of these in the city proper!) Coffee, the original store is still perking down near Pike Place Market.