A view from the top

Last week I got to finally get out of the Seattle airport and actually get to the tourist spots that I've always wanted to. We had a meeting in Bellevue and needed to arrive the night before, so I decided to take advantage of the 8 hours I had in my PTO and take the day to see the sights of Seattle. I've been through the airport many of times, but this was the first time I've seen it from the ground.
I rented a car and turned down the GPS thinking I have it on my phone and plenty of maps (bad idea). First, I got lost just in the rental car parking lot, as they just generally point you up a floor and then when I got on the right floor of the garage, I didn't find the Avis section. Then once in the car I followed another rental car and somehow missed the exit sign from the garage and ended up in the section where they wash the rental cars and had to pull a U-turn while several other lost rentals followed me around. Once out of the parking garage it got much easier.

Famous Pike Place Market

I made it downtown quickly, luckily it was a drizzly Tuesday afternoon, so not a lot of traffic. I guess I didn't realize Seattle was a bit hilly, luckily I had an automatic and made my way down to the Pike Place Market. I found parking pretty easy for only $4 an hour. Now I've only seen Pike's Place on TV and you know when you see something or a celebrity in reality and you think Oh really that's it, well that was my thought. First I thought it was like Pier 39 and right on the water, it's not. It's actually elevated as Seattle is a bit more hilly than I thought. Another similarity to San Francisco is that the market is filled with lots of over priced vendors hawking their goods, from of course fish to olive oil and candles. Unfortunately as it was the middle of the week there wasn't much activity going on and they weren't throwing fish around so I only ended up staying for a half hour, before heading over to the Space Needle.

Famous Pike Place Fish
(where they usually are throwing the fish, but not today)

I found my way to the Needle as luckily it's an easy landmark. Again it wasn't crowded at all and I was the only one in the elevator to the top. I'm sure if it wasn't overcast and drizzly the view would have been a lot better, but again I only there about half hour. I did go out into the rain to get better pictures than all those standing inside the glass and taking family photos from the inside. I'm just glad it wasn't really windy as I don't think I would like to be up that high with strong winds. And not to sound like I didn't enjoy the view or anything, but I think the one in Vegas might have a better view, at least at night. But it was worth seeing and would do it again on a sunnier day.

Space Needle (like you really needed that caption)
View of Downtown Seattle
View of Bellevue across the water

View from the bottom

The Music Experience at the Needle Park

Monorail to the Space Needle

After that I decided to drive to a little park I read about online that gives great views of the downtown and Space Needle. So I found what I thought was an easy route to Kerry Park, but no this is where that GPS would have come in handy as I spent 40 minutes driving in the wrong direction, down dead end streets and probably causing many people to curse my driving as I would stop in the middle of a green light to try to find out where the hell I was. And then again when I finally did find the park, a little disappointed with the view as the overcast skies covered up the pretty snow covered mountains in the back and made everything look gray. But I was happy I actually found it as I would have wondered what I missed out if I didn't.

Views from Kerry Park

Luckily from the park it was easy to find my way into Bellevue as I knew now what streets to avoid. The next day all my sight seeing paid off as I knew all the trivia questions that were given at the meeting. I also got a compliment from the locals for being able to find Kerry Park.
I definitely think I could enjoy Seattle more if I had a navigator and it wasn't so dreary (but than again it is Seattle). Maybe I'll try going back during summer and see it all in it's splendor and maybe even buy a cup of Starbucks from the first one off Pike Place (that was on the quiz).