Seattle’s Space Needle

This trip is a continuation of a San Francisco/Seattle/Vancouver trip which started in San Francisco. For photos of San Francisco, go to My Albums, United States, California, San Francisco, Feb. 21–13, 2005.

This is my third trip to Seattle. My previous trips were before this website so photos I took on those trips are long gone. I loved it all three times: a great city to visit.

Keith and I arrived in Seattle in late afternoon. We drove from SeaTax directly to Elliot’s Oyster House, our favorite seafood restaurant in Seattle. We stayed at a Hampton Inn near the Space Needle. I took this photo of the Space Needle at night.

The Space Needle

The next day.  Keith had another breakfast meeting this morning, so after I had breakfast at our hotel, I walked over to take photos at the Seattle Center, where the Space Needle is located. The Space Needle is 605 feet tall and was built for the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle.

The Space Needle

This photo shows one of the cars that will take you up to the observation deck.

Totem Pole at the Seattle Center

Totem Pole and the Space Needle––the old and the new.

Experience Music Project

The Experience Music Project is located at the Seattle Center. This project celebrates popular music. Its building is sometimes referred to as the ugliest building in the world.

Experience Music Project

More of the building.

Experience Music Project

Another view of the building. Those are monorail tracks in the photo and the monorail will take you from the Seattle Center to to the city center. It was on its winter schedule when I was there and wouldn’t start operation until 11 a.m.

Sculpture

One of the sculptures at the Seattle Center.

Sculpture

Close–up of the sculpture.

Another sculpture

View of the red–colored sculpture through another sculpture.

View from Sky City

I walked back to our hotel and met up with Keith. We were to go up together to the observation deck of the Space Needle. I chickened out of going up it when I was in Seattle with Eddie, but for some reason this time I wasn’t getting the willies when I was watching the cars go up it. It really is not a scary ride at all. I put a movie clip on this site of the car taking us up 520 feet to the observation deck. Go to Movies, United States, Seattle. I also put a slide show on this site of views of Seattle from the observation deck. Go to Slide Shows, United States, Washington, “Seattle: Views from the Space Needle.” After viewing Seattle from up above, we walked down 20 steps to eat at Sky City, the restaurant on top of the Space Needle. This photo is a view from the restaurant. You can see the Seattle sports stadiums on the back right, Smith Tower (with a triangular top), and the Bank of America building (the tallest building). Usually, at this time of the year, Seattle is rainy and you aren’t going to see much sun, but this year, we in Southern California are getting their rain, so Seattle was a great place to visit to soak up some borrowed California sun.

View from Sky City

Lunch was pricey at this restaurant. I had a $22 hamburger, but it was worth it for the views and the ambience. The restaurant revolves, taking 1 hour for a full revolution. We both greatly enjoyed eating here. In the photo, you can see West Seattle and a Washington State Ferry

Another View from Sky City

Here you can see Lake Union, Mt. Rainer (on the left), and Mt. Olympus on the right.

Fremont

From the Seattle Center, we drove to Fremont, a Seattle neighborhood on Lake Union. We had difficulty finding Fremont even with the GPS unit as we didn’t have a specific address to put into the system, but Keith finally found it. I was here with Eddie on a Grayline bus tour when it was raining very heavily. I wanted to take new photos of some of the interesting things in Fremont––a very funky place. These statues are called Waiting for the Interurban. They are waiting for the old electric trolley. Fremonters often dress up the statues.

Waiting for the Interurban

Close–up of the statues.

Rocket

Fremont has its own rocket.

Lenin Statue

Fremont also has its own statue of Lenin placed interestingly in front of a taco restaurant. The story is that a Fremonter was visiting Russia and heard that this statue of Lenin was going to be destroyed. He decided to rescue it and bring it back to the People’s Republic of Fremont and there it is!

Fremont Troll

This troll resides under the Aurora Bridge and is clutching a Volkswagen. The troll is a public statue, which I guess means that the people of Fremont paid for it. From Fremont, we drove to Vancouver, which is usually about a two–hour drive, but which took us longer as we got into rush hour traffic. My Vancouver photos appear under Albums, Canada, Feb. 24–26.