BELLEVUE/SEATTLE

We stayed in a suburb of Seattle that reminded Patrick and I so much of the Chevy Chase/downtown Bethesda area. There was a main street with low older strip shopping centers towered by high rise office buildings and giant hotel chains. We stayed in a Hyatt Regency that was one of the tallest buildings in the area. And like Chevy Chase and Bethesda, there was all kinds of high end shopping along with charming mom and pop type establishments. In the end, the 8th floor of the Hyatt provided a terrific view of the Bellvue fireworks as well as about 6 other displays further away in Seattle and beyond. Fiona couldn't beleive it.

The drive to Seattle from Bellevue was similar to making the drive to Washington, DC from Chevy Chase or Bethesda. Pat once again got behind the wheel the day after a long drive to Bellvue and we were amazed that we could find a surface parking lot just a few blocks from the famous Pike Place market. The conversion van with the loading shelf can be quite a problem for city parking. Even in a lot (as Pat so well described in his NOLA and San Antonio posts). We ended up using the same lot both days. And despite the three day weekend with the Fourth of July holiday, this parking lot was always easy to find and had plenty of spaces.

We only spent a total of about 10 hours maximum roaming around Seattle between both days. So my observations are limited to the areas we visited. There are many other areas of Seattle and I don;t mean to make a blanket statement about Seattle. But my main obsevation was an incredible number of homeless, or what appeared to be homeless or destitute people. And there seemed to be a higher number of younger people roaming around that looked like runaways. Perhaps they were just normal Seattle teenagers maxing out on the Grunge Era look that Seattle rock artists started in the 1990's and we are just overreacting to this. But all in all, we noticed the highest number of homeless people than any other city we visited. I found this stange since it is supposed to be so rainy most of the year and you wonder where these poor souls go to sleep on all those damp nights. You find it makes more sense in a drier destination like San Antonio or even New Orleans which is very humid but not as rainy and cold as Seattle. The other thing that seemed stange about this high number of homeless people was that I noticed the highest number of building cranes than any other city we visited, meaning they were building and there must be development going on which means that the economy was picking up. Because if you look around DC area compared to a year or two ago, you just don't see as many projects going up.

So I have rambled on about the homeless situation and should describe the other things we saw and experienced as well. Pike Place Market is amazing! Like Bourbon Street, I was distracted with keeping an eye on the kids and our bags at all times. I have fears of one of them, particularly one of the girls (call me sexists but you always worry about girls a little bit more) getting lost in the crowd and the odds of locating them is not so great. I have two digital SLR cameras in my back pack, along with my purse with debit card, credit cards etc..

So I am constantly guarding against that being pickpocketed. Although I would probably notice the weight of something lifted out since the damn bag weighs a ton! I have used hotel towels to cushion one camera in the back pack while I have the other on my neck.

So back to Pike Place.....so colorful and what an amazing display of various fresh food, flowers and anything else that can be sold! And it is like going through a maze. There are different levels and then the main street still has cars going through even though there are almost as many pedestrians as Bourbon Street. At least it seems that way! I am sure it is not quite that bad! So with my distractions with the kids we did not linger too long at the fish markets where they supposedly throw the fish to people or something like that. Again, there are times where the kids are just not understanding why we are at these places...like the Ferry Building. I think one of the most beautiful things coming out of the market were the bouquets of fresh flowers. So I guess it is safe to say that the people walking around with lovely bouquets were locals since it makes no sense if you are in a hotel and going home or, in our case, to our next destination.

We found a great little local dive at Pike Place called Emmit Watson Oyster House somewhere in the labyrinth of Pike Place. We squeezed into a table for four as we were too tired of hunting for a decent looking place. It was a great meal and the waiter was a character. He was quite attentive in bringing us more drinks and food, but seemed to forget to remove used items. So here the 6 of us are squeezed into a space meant for 4 and our waiter leaves the appetizer dishes and the dinner dishes along with the empty beverages (but he brought us numerous rounds of new drinks!).

Upon said waiter's recommendation, we took the monorail from the Westlake Shopping Center (Assuming this is of the Westlake shopping center fame of our area) to the Seattle Space Needle. Patrick could do a post on the inefficiencies of that system of transportation. But like the trolleys in SF, it was fun to ride. The wierdest part is entering a tunnel that is part of the new museum comples designed by Frank Gheary that is super wild architecture. I can only post pictures for those of you who have not seen photos of this building (I did not know anything about this until about 4 days ago when I was doing the pre trip research as we drove from San Francisco to Eugene!). We arrive at the Seattle Center and low and behold the line for the Space Needle is what appears to be a mile long! So maybe not a mile, but too long to schlepp four kids in 85 degree heat. And you are basically paying for the elevator ride up to the viewing center and then you come down. So we figured our time was better spent on other pursuits. Fiona eyed the bumper cars, ferris wheel and other kiddy rides. The three older kids wanted to go to the Music Experience so Patrick offered to take care of the kiddy rides and I went to the rock music experience place. All the kids wanted to do was go directly to the hands on experience center....where you could try out different instruments, mixing sounds machines, jam sessions and finally, the recording session which we waited about 45 minutes to participate in. But the kids had so much fun, that is well worth the wait. I do not think we will be getting Grammy for this jam session. and if anyone would like to hear the ten minute breath taking music session I am happy to share. Once we learned that they had to figure out their own music on the instruments provided, I explained that Tierney should be allowed to have the first part singing whatever song she wanted without the boys participation (if you heard the boys you would agree...it was an ADD symphony). Then everyone could do whatever they wanted. Neil asked me to video tape this using some Mr Bean video techniques (refer to Mr Bean's vacation and you will knowwhat I am talking about). I think it will give this the full ADD experience. WE bought two copies of this creative process. We wished we had known about the other option just next door where they could do kind of an air band thing and get a DVD of their performance. We watched a group of three 20 somethings preview their performance and it was hilarious. But the line for that looked much longer and we had to rescue Patrick from the kiddy ride park!

Fiona had made friends with two different girls and Patrick actually was sitting on a bench with the mom of one of them as both girls had passes to all the rides. The girls were like whirling dervishes running from ride to ride. Fiona later told me that her one pal threw up but got on another ride!

We were ready to head back to the burbs by this point. We had a Ruths Chris Steak House one block from our hotel and Patrick had noticed the night before. The lure of steaks cooked at 1000 plus degrees in butter was to much and that was where we ate out dinner. YUM!

WE repeated going into town the next day. We were amazed that it was less crowded on 4th of July than the day before (the Friday holiday for most people). We wandered around Pike Place and found a great restaurant called Cutters Bayfront that had something for everyone. Seafood, Sushi, pasta, steak....everyone in our multi preference family got what they wanted.

The three older kids went to see a move while we relaxed and I blogged for the first time in over a week. Then the next wonderful Forrest Gump moment of our trip was that we had a perfect view of the fireworks from our window on the 8th floor. The hotel staff kept telling us we should walk to the parking structure above Ruth's Chris's because the building in front of the Hyatt might block our view. I guess I did not mention what floor we were and where our room was situated. Like all Hyatts it was a mammoth structure and I can't blame any staff for disclaiming a free and clear view from any random room.

We arrived in Missoula just a few hours ago. There is a great restaurant we found along the way in Idaho, but I have to get to bed so we can make our first trip to Yellowstone tomorrow on our way to our cabin near Cody Wyoming. Did you know that Yellowstone has 2.3 million acres in its park? And the crazy Caulfields will try to see as much as they can in two days! One other strange fact I learned (so may to share) is that there are pelicans somewhere in the park....I will verify this fact because it just seems way too wrong!