20th May 2012 – Seattle

After breakfast and cleaning up, we headed off to Seattle for the day. Lucy the Sat Nav failed us on the Interstate 5, so we ended up heading through the docks area. There were a lot of road works and road closures, but we eventually found ourselves on 1^st Avenue going right through the town centre. It wasn’t all bad, we saw a Rocky Mountains Chocolate Factory outlet and made a note to come back to it.

We parked up near the Seattle Space Needle – it was built in 1962 for the World Fair and was used as Dr Evil’s Lair in the second Austin Powers movie. It was a bit disappointing though - $40 to get in and not as exciting as the Black Mountain Tower in Canberra. In the gift shop we bought some caramel fudge with sea salt. Really good – who thought of salting fudge?

 

After that, we caught the monorail downtown, and walked to the famous Pike Place Markets. Ros was keen to see the Pike Place Fish Company – as there is an employee engagement training program about their philosophy. When we got there, we tasted different smoked salmons, and Ros asked if she could see them throwing fish. The Fish Co is famous for their customer service and entertaining antics, which includes throwing fish over the counter to be caught and weighed. The staff member serving us, Jaison, invited Ros to catch a fish, so she went behind the counter and was prepared. Jaison told her the fish would be about 5 pounds and very slippery, so to hang on tight to it. After much pep talking “here, we bring our best – we don’t try, we do”! Ros was ready. The salmon was launched from the front of the shop, and amazingly Ros caught it and hung on. Steve captured the moment on video, and the event will be the subject of one of Ros’ business blogs soon… J

We stopped at a local pub for a counter meal for lunch – great seafood, then on to the chocolate factory for some of their incredible caramel apples. Yum!

We wandered to Pioneer Square, the old part of Seattle and booked onto an underground tour. We didn’t really know what to expect, and after a quick history lesson, we walked down the street where the guide unlocked a door and led us down stairs to Seattle’s Underground…

Seattle was built on mud flats and until the fire in the late 1800’s, it was prone to flooding and ground subsidence. After the fire, the decision was made to rebuild the streets with lots of fill to raise them up. The City of Seattle only took responsibility for the actual streets, so each city street (all 33 blocks) was carefully surrounded by a retaining wall and backfilled to bring the street level up. The level increase ranged from 10 to 35 feet. This left the buildings and sidewalks much lower than the streets. The building owners rebuilt their shops, but nobody would take responsibility for the sidewalks, so for 5 years there existed a ridiculous situation where you parked your wagon on the street and climbed down a ladder to the sidewalk, then climbed back up with your shopping.

After 17 deaths from people falling off the road down a sidewalk, and many complaints from people getting pooped on from horses standing above, the sidewalks were eventually roofed over at street level, leaving tunnels underground everywhere. The shops knocked doors in at the second story level to provide access and everyone was happy again. The underground remained as a covered tunnel system allowing people to move around the city in bad weather. Eventually the tunnels became rat infested and after an outbreak of plague, they were sealed off until 1964. An enterprising fellow then applied to have them selectively reopened and used for the Underground Tours. The tour was fascinating. All the shop fronts and hotel lobbies are still there, and the guide told us all the facts and stories about the areas. One of the local censuses found 2205 single ladies with the occupation listed as seamstress in a 3 block area of Occidental Street… The City Council sent their best men to investigate, and after an exhaustive three weeks, they reported back that they were unable to locate any sewing machines in the area. In a rare move for the times, instead of shutting them down the City taxed the houses of ill repute and reportedly made 80% of the City Council income from them!

Following the tour, we walked back to the RV, and found we had an answer to our question: “If you park over more than one spot, do you have to buy multiple tickets”. The answer is yes, and we copped a $40 fine for only displaying one ticket. On way back, the I5 had 8 lanes in each direction – the most we have seen.

For dinner we ate the salmon we bought at the Fish Market – it was just lovely.