Trip to Seattle, a/k/a being a tourist in my old backyard

I've lived in several places over the years, and each time I have a similar experience: While we live in a place, we travel to other places in the region or beyond, taking lots of interesting trips. We see a few things in our home area, but we never approach our home city as tourists. We don't study what's there and choose interesting things. Instead, we hit the obvious sites and a few other things sort of randomly. Then we decide to move, and we realize how much we haven't seen and done. By that time, though, we're busy with packing and planning our move. You would think we'd learn, but you would be wrong. We've lived in Portland for 12 years, and there's still a ton of stuff we haven't seen or done.

So why am I writing about this now? Are we planning to move? Nope. I've spent the last three days in Seattle, where I went to graduate school and therefore lived for the better part of two years. I've spent most of my time at a conference, so my exploring has been limited, but I did get out and about a few times. We took the Duck tour, seeing part of the city from a WWII amphibious vehicle. I used to watch them when I lived in Seattle, but I could never afford to do the tour in my student days. Then last night we went to Discovery Park, which is on a beautiful peninsula overlooking Puget Sound. We watched the sun set over the Olympic Mountains, and Jerry played on a small sandy beach, throwing driftwood in the water and covering himself with sand from head to foot (oh, to be 10 again...). I kept thinking how neat it would have been to go there while I was a student. It would have been a great place to relax and get away from the busyness of the University District -- and it's free, which would have fit my starving student budget perfectly. Yet I missed it, along with lots of other Seattle attractions. Ah, well... better late than never, I suppose.

Here are a few pics of our Seattle adventures:

Obligatory picture of the Space Needle:

I believe it's the law that all visitors to Seattle must take at least one picture of the Space Needle.

If you take your husband to Seattle Center, he will want to throw darts at balloons. If he throws darts at balloons, he'll win a prize. If he wins a prize, he'll pick out some hideous bunny ears and wear them for the rest of the evening. Just call him the Playmate of the Month... from hell.


Ride the Ducks!


The bunny ears have been replaced by a duck bill. This is not an improvement.


This is Seattle, so Everyday Music needs to have a statue of native son Jimi Hendrix out front:

I suppose if Kurt Cobain had been a native, there would be a statue of him out there too.

West Point Lighthouse, Discovery Park:


And a slightly fuzzy night shot of the dreaded Space Needle. I really need to get a tripod!


I spent today driving to Sisters and Bend with Laurel. Pics coming soon.