Underwhelming tourist trap. I said it. Don't start arguing with me if you live there or have lived there. I only got to see a day of it. I will concede the fact that there is possibly more to the city than the Space Needle, the Monorail, and Pikes Place Market. Yeah it's cool, there's Mt. Rainier in the distance and it's gorgeous. Although according to our elevator guide you can only see it a third of the year. Yay to us for being there one of those days. Pike's Place Market -- really there's only so many times I can hear big burly men yell "One crab" and throw a crab across the counter to the guy who's going to wrap it up for the customer. The rest of it is full of seedy shops that you need a dedicated guide to help navigate. The only semi-cool part was seeing the first Starbucks, but even that was nothing special.
The Space Needle was probably the highlight of the day, if only because it offered a very nice view of the city. Once we read the history about the construction of the tower and subsequent renovations we appreciated it a bit more. The elevator rides up and down in a decent sized elevator into which tourists are packed like sardines, not such a highlight. Particularly because I am sure they are on the outside of the needle in order to offer a cool view of the city as you ascend and descend, but if you are 5' 1/2" [the half inch is crucial] and shoved to the back of the capsule you see NOTHING except the sky above you as you desperately try to maneuver a view between the taller people in front of you. The gift shop made it better as we managed to score a few momentos to highlight our visit.
Really I've told the end before the beginning. We started our day with a tour of the University of Washington campus. Mark really wanted to see the stadium, so off we went. Truthfully the campus is very pretty. It was a little difficult to maneuver, but only because we didn't know our way around. We had a general sense of where we started and where the stadium was and so began walking. For a sweltering summer day campus was hoppin'. There were summer camps and summer school in session not to mention the few tourists like us walking around.
After seeing the stadium we decided to take a more direct route to the car, namely because I had made the mistake of wearing my flip-flops and now had painful blisters developing. Thank goodness for my pain though, because had we not taken the route we did, we would not have come across the reasons behind the school's nickname -- "The Fountain and the Mountain." Mark remarked that if he were a California football player being recruited to play at UW, this view might help convince him that it would be ok to leave home. The fountain is huge in an even bigger courtyard with gorgeous architecture surrounding it. It was really pretty. Maybe Vandy will play something here someday and we can come visit again.
Our original plan for this afternoon/early evening was to head out towards Olympic National Park to camp and ultimately see Forks, Port Angeles, and La Push [I love the Twilight saga, but I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with it. I've only read Twilight and New Moon once each and Eclipse and Breaking Dawn twice each]. However, looking at our remaining itinerary and the amount of time it would take to get out there and backtrack through Seattle before starting the drive to Glacier, we decided the best choice would be to skip it and head straight to Glacier so we could maximize our time there and in Yellowstone. As it stood I was worried we would only be able to spend about a day in each park and this way we can now spend two or more in each. We'll just wait until the Twilight frenzy dies down and that area of the country is a little more peaceful.
So tonight we have made it all the way to Spokane which is a good halfway point to Glacier. From the looks of the drive in, it's not too spectacular a town. We're not going to explore too much tomorrow before really getting going.
Something that Mark and I have noticed as we're driving around up here in the Northwest is that the sun sets remarkably late. It is 9:30 as I write this and it's still bright outside. Good thing the hotel room has blackout shades. Tomorrow we drive to Glacier and hope we find a spot to spend the night. This is the part of the trip I've been really excited about, so I hope it's as beautiful as I think it will be.
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