Seattle # 2

The gum wall is pretty interesting - the fruity smell of all that gum
was kinda funky though!

It was a SUNNY DAY in Seattle today!  Today we caught a bus, to catch another bus, to take us into Downtown.  Our agenda:  Eat some fabulous seafood, find the gum wall, do something new, eat ice cream, shop a bit, and go back to Everett.

The girls have fallen in love with fish and chips this summer.

Luke was overjoyed to get a big bowl of steamed clams for lunch.
That bowl was overflowing when he started.

We also wanted to do something that we had never tried before, so we ended up on the Seattle Underground Tour.  The guides are funny, and they tell about the challenges faced by early pioneer settlers in the area.  When we told the kids we were going underground, this was Gabi's reaction.  None of them were sure what to expect.

I had a hard time believing that the buildings were
standing on these foundations.  

One of the glass "skylights" for the underground sidewalks
they were closed in the early 1900s.  We banged on it from below
to freak out the people walking on it on street level.  Hysterical.

The tour was a lot of fun, and very amusing.  I appreciated how they talked about adult topics in ways that my kids couldn't decode - my children think that there was a large population of seamstresses in Seattle and that the loggers in the area spent a lot of money in Pioneer Square having clothes repaired.  Sounds good to me.

Hello mossy walls. I will never look at a city
the same way again.

Michael bought me a lovely bunch of flowers at Pike Place Market just before we left to go home. That market is so eclectic - we watched the fish being tossed of course, bought ice cream and flowers, went to a rummage sale and bought riding helmets and pink baseball gloves, and we could have stayed there all day just gawking at things!

We then headed back to the bus hub and caught the bus out of town.  It is one of the longest bus rides we've ever done on vacation - took about 2 hours to get home.  Excellent people watching on a bus - and a good opportunity for five year old little girls to take a nap.

Tomorrow we sadly turn away from Hwy 101 and start heading South and East - but we look forward to seeing family again in just a couple days!