Leah July 14: Space Needle

Today was Seattle Day! We spent 1 to 7:30 in Seattle. First we went to the farmer’s market. Then the aquarium. Finally we went to the space needle.

At the farmers market it was chaos. It was noisy and it smelled like fish. I didn’t like it. I made it through the torture though.

We went to the aquarium after that. The aquarium was pretty cool. We got to touch sea stars, sea anemones, and sea urchins. We explored around until the octopus talk. The lady introduced us to Kraken the octopus. They showed us how they feed Kraken. Then she told us that there was a female that he loved. Octopi die after they mate so the people separated them. One night Kraken undid all the bolts that separated the 2 octopi and they mated. They took the female and freed her. They are trying to get a permit to free Kraken so that he can live his last few weeks free. After the talk we finished building 1. Building 2 started with harbor seals. Then there were sea otters. Next we saw some other kind of seal. Last but not least we saw the river otters. They were so cute!


When we finished every thing in the aquarium we dropped mom off to get her pills. We drove around while she got them.

When we picked her up we drove to the space needle. It was 620ft. tall! We could see a lot of cool things from the top. There were cool things to play around with. We were up there a long time. We came down after a ½ hour.

When we got back to the R.V. mom and dad relaxed. Matt and I played golf. We got ice cream after a while. When we got back we went to bed.

Renee July 14: Taking in the Big City

After battling some harrowing traffic all leaving town yesterday, we calculated that there should be only about 30 or so vehicles left in the city of Seattle so doing our tourist thing today, on a Saturday should be a breeze. Well, aren’t we naïve hicks from the backwoods?! With 30 different maps copied off the internet thus vowing never to be lost again, we navigated our way back into the city of Seattle.

Craig and I are now are in full understanding of just why there are so many attempts by the city of Seattle to provide alternate forms of public transportation into and around a city cut up by Puget Sound and hills and other man-made obstructions like road construction. Traffic is unbelievable. Gridlock in downtown Seattle on a Saturday afternoon is a sight to behold. Can’t imagine what it is like during the work week!

After re-ordering our agenda for the day at least 3 times, based on what streets and lanes we could or couldn’t access on our way into the city center, we finally snagged a parking spot directly in front of the Seattle Aquarium. For only an arm and a leg for a two-hour period, we left the Jeep and headed up the stairs to Pike’s Open Air Market, passing street vendors along the way.


The children were more than a little dismayed regarding the sheer number of people we were encountering on the way up and the number seemed to be multiplying as we neared the marketplace. By the time we actually reached the center of Pike’s market, the fear in the air surrounding them was palpable and their eyes were the size of grapefruits.
Talk about a little culture shock! All the people, the overwhelming aroma of raw fresh fish, and the plethora of goods displayed of all shapes and varieties caused them cower behind Mom and Dad and to ask when we were leaving this “stinky place”. When they learned we were going to have lunch here they thought we had lost our minds and they refused to eat. But much to their dismay we strolled along the fish markets, flower booths, fruit stands, antique shops, used book stores, sushi counters, and bakeries. Craig and I decided to demonstrate our bravery by stopping at a fruit vendor and sampling litchies. They were an interesting fruit about the size and outer color of a kiwi fruit but very bumpy, and that must be peeled to get to the edible part. Inside, the fruit had a white appearance like raw fish, the texture and juiciness of a peeled grape, but has a pit like an olive. Yeah, this piques your interest, doesn’t it? If not yet, than maybe its nickname: the Smiling Wife. Yeah. It was not one of my favorite tastes but the vendor laughed and assured us it was a taste that you had to grow to like. I’m not so sure…


But we put on a brave face for the kids and continued on to find more edible fare. The kids have now tried crab, halibut, ling cod, and have not died; they are even able to admit to us it all isn’t that bad. When you add to that list, all the different berries and cherries that grow like weeds in this area of the country: strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, marionberries, blueberries, red cherries, and Rainier Cherries; they are learning to just accept and move on, in the process even liking a few, though they may never admit it to anyone else!

So after having our fill of the crowded open market, we ventured back down to the waterfront, checked on our parking time deadline and then headed into the aquarium. We enjoyed the tidepool displays where you could touch things like sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and anemones. The kids liked feeding seaweed to the sea urchins. We then gathered round the Beneath the Sea display tank for the Octopus feeding. We all enjoyed the octopus stories, especially how determined Kraken was to get to his female by removing all the bolts to the plexiglass division that separated them. The experts are right about the octopus being the most intellectually high-developed invertebrate in the sea. What we also learned was that the octopus at rest or in a relaxed state is a drab gray-brown color, but when they get excited or nervous or angry they change color to red in literally a blink of an eye. This was demonstrated when the feeding commenced and the long, tentacle-laden arm reached out to sample the fare of the day. We also enjoyed the fur seals and sea otters in the outdoor exhibit before leaving.

We had been hearing the kids all day asking when we would be going to the Space Needle. We consulted the map and aimed our jeep down more clogged roads to find the highlight of the kids’ experience in Seattle. We bought our tickets, and positioned ourselves in line for the 520-ft ride to the top of Seattle. The views were stupendous. Out on the skywalk, Matt of course, picked out all the pro-sports venues in the city: basketball, football, baseball, too bad they don’t have a hockey team.


Inside, Leah and I discovered SkyQ. SkyQ is a new interactive link that operates cameras up top and can scan based on a joystick. The other kiosks were touch-operated so when you touched a particular point on the screen info notes came up to explain the sites you were viewing. We spent a good deal of time just gazing at the skyline. We also overlooked the very harbor and houseboats that were the setting for the movie, Sleepless in Seattle.


When we had finally seen enough, we returned to the jeep and made a much easier journey back to the Fairgrounds. It had been a long day!

Matt July 14: Back to Seattle

We drove back to Seattle today. We went to Pike’s open air market. The market was full of fresh foods. There was the smell of cherries, fish, crab, bakery, and pigions. Soon we ate lunch.

After lunch we went to the Seattle Auarium. First we touched the animals in the tanks. We touched seastars, anmiones, and sea cucumbers.

Then we walked through a ring of jelly fish. After we walked through the jelly fish, there was a talk about the Octopus named Kracken. They talked about the octopus fighting a wolf eel and about it getting separated from his mate. The Kracken and the wolf eel fought for a den for a home. The Kracken gave up because the eel had bitten some of one of the Kracken’s tentecals. The other story about his mate and him is funny and sad.

Octopus live until the have their eggs, then they die. To keep that from happening they seprated the two octopus with a piece of plexiglass. One night after the aquarium closed, the Kracken unscrewed the bolts that held up the glass and in the morning they found 16 legs together. The next day they freed the female to die and to lay her eggs in the wild.
Next we went to the second building of the aquarium. There we saw sea otters and seals. One of the sea otters was born in 1989 and it is still alive.

Then we drove to the space needle. We bought our tickets and rode up the elevator. We went to the very top 520 feet above the ground. We went out to the deck. We could see Safeco Field where the Mariners play, the Quest field where the Seattle Seahawks play, and Key Arena where the Seattle Supersonics play. Ther was even a football field game going on. We think it was semi pro. After we got to the ground we drove back to the motorhome.