Monday, July 22, 2019

Another Day in Seattle

Yesterday we could not face doing the three mile walk one more time.  We need a new walk, I think.  The advantage to the three mile route we have is that it's relatively safe, there are few crosswalks in which to be killed by the crazy Issaquah drivers who really believe red lights are merely a suggestion, and certainly not for them.  So we went in to Seattle to look at the destruction of the viaduct.

On I90 we saw this car.  Look at how good the paint looks.  It's a 1958 Impala, the first Impala.  Since it's an old car, I used the 1960's filter on Picasa. He painted, "shake rattle and roll" on the back.  I just love this car.


The Seattle skyline is changing.  I took this coming down 6th Avenue.  Notice the arrows pointing at what we think are new buildings.  It's so hard to remember, every time they tear something down, we can never remember what was there.  Also of note is the fact that we're in a bus only lane.  It's effective only M-F, and that must make driving through here difficult during the week.


We visited Dog in the Park once again.  We really need to exercise a little dietary discipline.  They had a new guy cooking today, too much oil was used for cooking the cabbage and onions.  Hopefully he's not going to be a permanent fixture.  We sat next to the kids' playground, they really love this place.  It's funny to watch them running in circles shrieking.  There are many languages being spoken, but the shriek is always the same.


There was a protest of the new proposed extradition of Hong Kong citizens to mainland China.  They were not attracting much attention.



We went down to the market to go look at the remnants of the viaduct.  Look at all the dang people!


Post Alley was full of people.


Apparently they were there for chowder.  This sign was on the sidewalk just outside of the alley.  There were the usual incredibly long lines at the Starbucks and Piroshky Piroshky.  They've gotten smarter and have taken to handing out menus with pictures to the people standing in line.  That should speed up the ordering process.


That's the Norwegian Bliss, the source of all of those people.  Look to the right, you can see the supports that the viaduct used to rest on.


This is looking the other way.  You can better see the missing parts of the viaduct.


 The mountain was out, that would be Mt. Rainier.  It's usually too cloudy to see it.


Another view of the boat.  To the right is the viaduct destroying machine.


This is down by the ferry dock.  The horizontal thing is a pedestrian overpass from the ferry docks to Marion.  We're not sure if they can get the viaduct down without taking the overpass down, as well.  Losing the overpass would be bad for the commuters.


Seattle continues to encourage bicycling and public transit.  The white thing on the right is a physical barrier to keep cars away from the bikes.  Some of these stretches of barriers cost $13M a mile.  There are at least three bike share companies in Seattle, and they are almost all electric assist.  Given the hills we have from glaciation, the assist is what will make the program work.  The nine months of rain may be a problem, however.


It was a good walk.  Jim's back wasn't terrible, my feet cooperated and we enjoyed being vertical.

7 comments:

  1. $13million a mile for a hump of concrete? that's absurd. when we bought the country house but before we moved completely we would go into the city house and the neighborhood would look different it was being gentrified so quickly. If we were gone over a week, a house would be gone and a new one started up and we'd be scratching our heads...what used to be there. it's totally unrecognizable now.

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  2. Interesting. Since we did our one day bike tour of Seattle back in 2014, looks like quite a bit has changed, like the viaduct. We were lucky not to ride there on a cruise ship day, though. I guess I never even thought of cruise ships docking there! We have cruise ships visiting our next-door city of Progreso, and we always try to go there on off days. There are enough people without adding the overfed tourists to the mix. And we hate being taken for cruise shippers by the locals. If you're not Mexican, they assume you're a cruise-shipper if you're in the city on the day a ship is docked. Uh, no. Glad you had a nice walk and that your bodies are holding up!

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  3. Gosh ... so much has changed since I was there. Cruise ship days are always bad!! I was wondering about riding bikes in all that rain. Seems to me people won't want to do that, so that $13m was a waste!! Are they replacing the viaduct with anything or just making traffic more terrible??

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  4. so many people...it's an asphalt and concrete jungle...tho I do enjoy Whidbey Island being close by. the southern part seemed so rural.
    mark

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  5. An interesting walk! I can't stand cruise ships -- nothing destroys a quaint or unusual destination quite like cruise ships. But I suppose they must be good for some businesses. I went to the Pike Place market many years ago (1996) and I remember it being busy even then.

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  6. Beautiful photos.
    www.rsrue.blogspot.com

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