Seattle Sights

Well, maybe I won't put on the pounds so quickly when I've spent the last two days doing so much walking. When we looked at where the sights were, we decided to forego a car and just walk and use public transportation.

We looked online and found a couple walking tours. Both started at the Space Needle, but we unfortunately couldn't get reservations for lunch or dinner at the SkyCity restaurant. Busy place!

Day one we caught the monorail back to downtown, then walked over to the central library. We didn't get to join one of the architectural tours of this phenomenal building, but we did explore it on our own. It's got 11 floors, one of them completely given over to Internet terminals and another one painted completely red. And there's a gift shop with all kinds of bookish items, like a purse that Cara bought made from the front and back covers of an old Hardy Boys book.

From the library we walked over to Pioneer Square, where we joined a tour of Seattle's underground. This was an awesome exploration of the original streets of the area -- eight to thrty-five feet below ground!  We both thought the 90-minute tour was a bit rushed, because we passed a number of markers with historical accounts that we couldn't read. I'd go again, though, because it was so cool!

Day two took us down to the waterfront, then over to the Pike Place Market. I could have skipped the market, although the trip down Pike Place itself was interesting. We saw the first Starbucks (I thought there were a lot of Starbucks in SoCal -- here, there's really one on every corner) with the original corporate logo, and we got authentic "yeeros" at Mr. D's.

The highlight of the day, though, was the ferry ride to Bainbridge Island and the tour of the island we took. We decided we'd like to live on the island and even found a beautiful 1910 brick Colonial (a historic landmark) that's for sale. Oh, if only...