Monday, October 13th - Continued
Because of the number of pictures between the first part of Monday and the second, I figured I would divide the pages up to speed up the time it took to download each page...
At this point we got back in the car and drove over to the Space Needle. Having been in the Empire state building and to its observation deck, I sort of had an idea of what was in store. The views top and bottom and toward the horizon were amazing. The folks at the Space needle claim a 520 degree field of view (360 to the sides and 160 up and down). Believe me, they weren't kidding. In 1962 the Space Needle was built for the 1962 World's Fair, and at the time was the tallest building west of the Mississippi river. It is built to withstand a category 5 hurricane and 9.0 earthquake. The Space Needle was jolted in 1965 by a 6.8, which shook it enough to slosh water out of the toilets on the observation deck. There is a restaurant called Sky City that rotates 360 degrees every 47 minutes.
The view from the observation deck: Left, looking toward the Northeast (hotel Deca is visible as is the University, Right, looking toward the east
Left looking toward the Southeast (and the downtown Seattle area), Right looking toward the South (port of Seattle in the far right)
Left looking to the Northwest, Right zoomed in a bit looking north (Queen Anne Hill)
Left below, zooming out a bit toward the Northeast, Hotel Deca is the shorter or the 2 close buildings in the top right corner. Gasworks Park can be seen at the top section of Lake Union toward the middle of the picture. The bridge is the I-5 express and regular lanes.
Right below, a grain ship is being loaded on the NW side. The Seattle Municipal Marina can be seen in the distance. The neighborhood of Ballard is just above the bridge in the top of the photo.
The Washington 99 underpasses in the distance to the NW.
After taking in the sights at the top of the west coast, we took the monorail downtown. We strolled around 5th avenue and up and down Pike
place. We got back on the monorail and headed back to the Space Needle and our car.
I think the monorail would be great if they actually used it for a greater
distance and did more than connect the Space Needle to the downtown shopping
areas.
At this point we went back to the hotel to relax a bit before going to grab some
dinner.
Dinner: Rusty
Pelican
we went to the Rusty Pelican. Ana ordered a salad, myself
the harbor burger. Both were terrific. Of course we could not left well enough alone - I had
the chocolate chip pie and Ana had the white chocolate bread pudding. Their decaf coffee was fantastic the real
cream they served with it didn't hurt either!
At this point we called it a night again around 9pm (midnight EST)