Tourist First: Washington State: Satified in Seattle

Monday, September 19, 2022

Washington State: Satified in Seattle

At the Public Market.

Seattle wos not a totally new place for Jane or me. I spent a full summer here in the late 1970s when car trouble stranded me during a lengthy hiatus traveling all over the country. Jane was here in the late 1980s for a bike trip in the San Juan Islands, and a co-worker's father who lived here showed her the sights, including the lock that connects Lake Union with Puget Sound.

We saw that lock on this trip, in late August 2022, when our friends Tom and Nancy took us on a boat excursion through the lock. We also saw one place I remember from my time in Seattle: the Pike Place Market.

This visit was the start of a planned West Coast tour. We flew from our home in San Diego to Seattle, explored the city for a few days with our friend Ray (a former Tilghman Island, Maryland, neighbor now based in Shelton at the southern end of Puget Sound) and our friends Tom and Nancy, whom I've known since the early 1980s when we were neighbors in Otterbein, a neighborhood by the Inner Harbor in Baltimore.

Our trip got derailed a few days after we left Seattle when I tested positive for covid. But our time in Seattle was just what we had hoped it would be: an interesting city, good seafood and good friends.

Here are some photos:

The Seattle train station.

On our walk with our friend Ray we
came upon Taylor Shellfish on Melrose Avenue,
just off Pike Street where is crosses Interstate 5 in
the trendy Capitol Hill neighborhood.

In the foreground are geoducks (GOO-ee-dux), giant clams. At lunch here with Ray, we
had oysters, mussels and clams. When Jane and I walked back for dinner, we had
geoduck sashimi (thin slices different parts of the clam) and dungeness crab. Having
lived on Chesapeake Bay, I thought I had had the best crab in the world, but the huge
dungeness was a revelation.

The monorail at one end of its route, downtown at
a shopping complex. It is well above streed level.

A map above a window inside the monorail.

The Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) is
adjacent to the Space Needle. We didn't
visit it, but our Seattle friends like it.

The Space Needle appears to rise out of a torent of glass
by Dale Chihuly, the celebrated glass artist whose works
are in a permanent outdoor and indoor exhibition at the foot of
the Space Needle.

One of the amazing glass confections in the Chihuly Gallery
below the Space Needle.

This fantastical glass garden filled a large room in the gallery. Below,
glass shoots spround amid real foliage in the Chihuly Garden.

The observation deck atop the Space Needle.

A toothed gear keeps the glass-floored portion of the
Space Needle slowly rotating. Stepping onto the glass
floor is pretty disorienting.

The Seattle waterfront as seen from a tour boat headed toward Lake Union.

A set of locks connect freshwater Lake Union
with Puget Sound.

Once in Lake Union, the boat went by the floating house where Tom Hanks'
character lived in the movie "Sleepless in Seattle."

A shopping aisle in Seattle's Public Market.

Our friend Tom made a point of walking us by the "gum wall"
in a covered alley at the public market. Several hundred
square feet of wall space is covered by years of chewing gum
wads generously donated by the public. Think of the
DNA testing possibilities! Not to mention the yuck factor.

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Argentine Patagonia

They are called what they look like: Mexican hats. They occur naturally in the highlands above the town of El Calafate. The water in the distance is glacier-fed Lago Argentino. An hour's drive east of El Calafate, near the headwaters of the lake, visitors can hike on the Perito Moreno glacier and take a boat ride among icebergs that have fallen off the several glaciers in the Parque Nacional des Glaciares. El Calafate is basically a summer (Nov. to Feb.) tourist town, and there are a number of hotels at all price points. We stayed at Esplendor El Calafate, a very stylish hotel with a full restaurant and bar. The South American picker-upper drink mate is available at breakfast. The hotel is an uphill walk from the commercial area, but that's not much of a drawback. Click on the photo to visit the Esplendor online.

Dominica

Probably the greenest island in the Caribbean, in terms of color and ecological awareness, is Dominica, just north of Martinique. It was named by Columbus, who sailed past it on a Sunday. The island nation is one of the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, but it is rich in friendly people and natural attractions, including a boiling lake, hot and cold waterfalls, a parrot jungle and hill after hill of dense green jungle. There is also a cable-car ride through the jungle canopy (http://www.natureisland.com/AerialTram.html). I wrote about Dominica years ago, and much of that article is still relevant: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/26/travel/winter-in-the-sun-an-island-where-less-is-more.html?scp=2&sq= Unfortunately, one of the hotels I mentioned, Petit Coulibri, has since closed. Fortunately, there's still a wonderful eco-resort called Papillote Wilderness Retreat http://www.papillote.dm/), four acres of lush gardens, hot-spring-heated soaking pools and modest cottage rooms.

Palm Springs

Palm Springs, Calif., is a great destination for nature lovers -- Mount San Jacinto State Park is a wonderful gondola ride (shown above -- click on it to visit its website) away, and Joshua Tree National Park is a short drive away. It's also a great destination for naturists; there are several major clothing optional resorts in the area -- and for fans of Mid-Century Modern architecture. For a dose of mid-century style, stay at the Orbit In (http://www.orbitin.com/), which does ask that you keep your clothes on.

Pompeii

If you're driving from Naples to the Amalfi Coast, and it's hard to imagine anyone who wouldn't want to visit the Amalfi Coast, you should plan to spend a night in the modern city of Pompei, adjacent to the ancient city of Pompeii. Above are the murals depicting an unknown ritual in what's called the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii. If you can, devote most of a full day to exploring the site. Afterward, you'll want a good hotel. Click on the image for info about Hotel Amleto, a small and friendly hotel in the heart of the new town and an easy walk from the ruins.

St. Vincent

This is one of the "rooms" at Petit Byahaut, an isolated (access by boat only) eco-resort on St. Vincent, the largest island in the country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Bequia, mentioned above in this column, is one of the Grenadines. The photo above is of the living deck and doesn't show a relatively enclosed area that had a real bed. Did you notice I said "had"? That's because the place has closed. To read about the property in its heyday, click on the image for a New York Times article I wrote. The article has a link to a slide show with more images of the resort.