Freezing in the GPNW

All politics are local. All local politics (and politicians) are idiots. I know that everyone thinks that their local politicos are the worst, but no, I think Seattle wins. The Seattle City Council has approved a contract to allow the State of Washington to bore a 54 foot wide tunnel under the water front to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The estimated cost is $4.2 billion. This will be the largest tunnel boring project in the history of the world on the entire planet. Approval has been given despite the fact that there are no bids from contractors and no environmental impact statements. This is particularly important since the city of Seattle will be responsible for any cost over runs occurring during the replacement of a state highway. Consider the Big Dig in Boston, originally estimated at $2.8B, which eventually came in at $14.6B. No tunnel project in the history of forever has ever come in on time or on budget. Cost considerations aside, the tunnel will reduce current carrying capacity by 50%. The other cars will spill over onto surface streets and the already full I5. It simply boggles the mind. I am so happy that we sold the West Seattle house when we did.

Speaking of the West Seattle house, we drove by it today to see how it looks. There's another remodel going on. The previous owner bumped out the second story to enlarge the bedroom, now it appears that the roof is being raised over what used to be a big closet.




This is the other side of the house, where more roof raising is going on. This is in the area of what we used to call the "Lear Jet bathroom" because it was necessary to lean to the right (like the Captain often had to do on the early Lears) when sitting on the toilet, due to the sloping roof. The front yard still looks like crap, compared to when we owned it. I can't believe people spend that much for a house and let the yard go.


Then it was on to the Jack Block park down by the waterfront. It was a cold gloomy day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better, gotta get those bottoms back on the bicycle seats.

In the middle of the photo is a ferry in dry dock.

After touring the water front we went up to the Metropolitan Market to get something for dinner. We splurged on Dungeness crab meat and cooked shrimp. Making a salad is about all I'm up for doing tonight. I need a personal chef.

So, all in all, a very low key day. We got the freezer defrosted so that was good. The ice cube trays had started taking forever to freeze so it was time. I miss the dishwasher and the frost free freezer. Why can't RVs have frost free freezers? I think that is an idea whose time is here.