Tourists in Seattle

Yesterday Jim and Gayle took the ferry from Bainbridge Island to spend the day with us.  It's been awhile since we saw them in the flesh, and it was really good to see them.  We walked around and looked at stuff.  This is an old building in Pioneer Square.  If I were a better tour guide would remember the name of the building, but I'm not!
It's the old part of Seattle, first founded in 1852; full of Romanesque Revival architecture. 

This is the historic pergola.  It's been knocked down twice by lost truck drivers failing to make the corner.  They always put it back up, which is good.

The fuschias look good.  I'm surprised they'll tolerate this much direct sun, but clearly they are happy where they are.

The absolute cuteness of Pioneer Square is currently being marred by an enormous road project.  They are replacing water mains and all of the streets are ripped up.  I feel bad for the merchants.  The area has been recovering from a bad economy and a fair amount of street crime.  Now, it's really difficult to drive through.

Then it was down the waterfront towards the sculpture garden.  This is a BNSF double track main.  It has its own tunnel under Seattle further south from here.  Look in the back and you can see the "It's in the PI" sign.  That was one of our two local newspapers.  They discontinued the paper edition and went completely digital.  Print journalism is a tough environment.

My favorite sculpture, Calder's Eagle.  Many of the pieces just do not speak to me.

After leaving the art, we hoofed it through Belltown and noticed this. A tiki bar!

It's the oldest Tiki bar in Belltown.  Belltown is not very big.  It's a small subset of the city with a lot of bars and restaurants.

After the Pike Place Market, which I have photographed many times, we kept walking.  This is a Bartels drugstore.  They will fill your growlers.  How often do you see that in a drugstore?  You can also get them filled at the ferry dock, which was really surprising.  The ferry dock doesn't sell food anymore, but you can get your growler on.

Still walking.  This is the Seattle library.  It's such an odd building.

It was a fun day and we really enjoyed the company.