Exploring Seattle

Alan and I have been doing a bit of exploring this week and have been downtown and also to Pioneer Square and the amazing Smith Tower, the first skyscraper not in New York, built in 1914. You get a pretty good view from up there, but it's been cloudy, so Mt Rainier is still not visible, although we did see it briefly one morning last week. Since last weekend, we have hardly even seen the Olympic Mountains. We haven't been up the famous Space Needle as we are waiting for a clearer day. Today we went on 'the Duck', a 1942 army duck which does a land and water tour of Seattle. Zoeluma had been looking forward to it and we all ended up having a lot of fun in an American sort of way - ie lots of 'woo-hoos' and shouts and waving to strangers, and singing loudly to songs like 'Hit the road Jack' and 'All shook up' but it was all fun. We did learn a lot about Seattle and its history and its famous residents like Bill Gates, Ben Boeing, Starbucks owners and many movie producers and directors. After a hotdog from a street stand for lunch, Alan and I went to the Dale Chihuly Glass Garden, a new art installation by this famous glass artist. It was just fantastic and we were so impressed. Yesterday we went to the Seattle Art Museum and saw among other things, an excellent exhibition of Australain Aboriginal Art. We are off the Canada on Wednesday.