Tag Archives: seattle

View from the 24th Floor

I had a meeting in downtown Seattle that was on the 24^th floor of an office block. As a result of traffic being better than expected, I got there a little early so I had a little extra time which was spent waiting in the lobby for the meeting to start. Their lobby had a large window view of the south end of the city looking towards the stadiums. It would have been churlish to not get my phone out and to grab a quick picture and doubly churlish not to share it with you!

Flying Fish – You Knew It Had to Happen

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How long was it going to be before a post about being in Seattle included fish flying through the air at Pike Place Market? You knew it had to come at some point so here we go. The weekend we were there, the place was pretty packed. Tons of people were there so getting into a good spot was not particularly easy. Moreover, you don’t know when they are going to start throwing something. It depends on when someone orders something.

It is actually pretty dark inside the market so getting a good shot is trickier than I expected. The fish fly fast so you want a higher shutter speed. The ISO gets ramped up and you have to try and track the flight while in amongst the crowd with limited ability to move. Hardly the best situation but, if you want a shot, it is what you need to do. Of course, the bigger problem is that, just when you give up and wander away, they start calling out another order and you have to try and get back into a good spot quickly. That is the toughest challenge!

The Sun is Out – Time to Jump in the Fountain

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It doesn’t matter whether a sunny day is a hot day or not. Get a bunch of kids somewhere near a fountain and they will be running through it in a heartbeat. When the air temperature is not that high, I guess the water temperature is probably not going to be much different. That doesn’t matter though. I think when you are a kid, you don’t care about stuff like that so much. Instead, you run through the water and have fun!

FedEx Sneak in But the Background is Good

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While on the hunt for a different aircraft, I was getting some shots of the aircraft coming in to SeaTac from the south. I was pleased to see a FedEx jet showing up on FlightRadar24 but it seemed to be rather close to another plane. It turns out they were scheduling them in on roughly parallel approaches and the FedEx was going to the center runway – not near me. I was a bit annoyed and the view of the center was a bit obscured from where I was. Haze was also going to be a problem – plus the odd power line. However, there was one upside. Mount Rainier is in that direction so, while the shot wasn’t what I wanted, it wasn’t a total loss.

The Navy Had Good Architects

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At the bottom end of Lake Union is the Museum of History and Industry. It is located in a building that used to be a Navy facility. I think the Navy had a building spree in a short time as a lot of their building have a similar architectural style. The buildings on Treasure Island in San Francisco that I covered previously here seem to have some similar styles.

The museum looks to have some interesting exhibits but, we were there on a sunny day and enjoying the outside. I shall return to check things out on a more rainy day. Do they have those here?

Ferry After Sundown

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Growing up on an island must bring a special affinity for ferries because, whenever I see them, it brings a spark of interest as to what people are going to or from. I lived on the seafront for a portion of my teenage years and the ferries would pass our window each day as they headed to the mainland. Ferry travel at night was often a thing because it would be either the beginning or end of a longer journey. Something about the lights on a ferry at night seems very welcoming to me.

We had a terrace overlooking Puget Sound that we were able to hang out on in the evenings and the regular ferry traffic across the sound caught my attention. It is dark out on the water but the lights from the passenger decks and the lighting on the open car deck beneath shine out across the water. Seeing it from a slightly elevated position on the shore helps as well. Seeing this just makes me feel good. I guess decades away from living on an island hasn’t changed some things deep inside.

An Aging Monorail Keeps on Going

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Cast your mind back to 1962 (if you are old enough to do so). What were your preferred modes of transport then? Do you still drive the same car? Probably not. That was the year the Seattle Monorail opened to serve the World’s Fair. It is still going strong. The original cars are still in use although they have had some upgrades over the years and are planned to have some more. The styling is certainly of their time but they continue to prove to be a popular tourist attraction – the fifth most popular attraction in Washington apparently. There are two trains which operate at peak times, the red and the blue train. The journey is not a long one and it isn’t too cheap but it is part of a visit to Seattle to check it out. Plus, it was going where I wanted to go!

Icelandic Veteran With a Smoky Engine

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Icelandair has made a good business of operating Boeing 757s on routes from Iceland to the US with Seattle being a regular destination for years. There was a time when the 757 was a cutting-edge jet but these days they are getting up in years. Similarly, the RB211-535E4 was once considered very advanced. Now, it is dated. It turns out that one of the engines on this flight is in a little better shape than the other. As they cycled the power on the approach, the starboard engine was noticeably smokier. Not a big deal but I guess it has been on the wing a little longer than its partner.

Fremont Bridge

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Bascule bridges were a popular thing for me when we lived in Chicago. The Chicago River was crossed by many of them and I liked watching them being opened when the sailboats were entering or leaving the lake. Fremont also has a bascule bridge and it is really nicely looked after. It is well painted and seems to have a few decorative elements. We also got lucky with it opening as we were walking along the trail that runs underneath it. I wonder how good it looks at night. I guess I will have to come back and find out!

A Troll Lives Under the Bridge

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How many childhood stories included a troll? I never even got to think what a troll really was. They just seemed to live under bridges and take pleasure in making life miserable for anyone coming across the bridge. When you think about how mean spirited they were, it isn’t difficult to see how the name has been co-opted for modern usage. Fremont on the north side of Seattle has its own troll. It probably has many of the modern version but this one is old school.

Situated under a bridge that takes the road down to the city center, the troll is rather large. He has been sculpted out of the earth under the bridge and, I assume, some other building material. He is a pretty grim looking fellow. This doesn’t stop attracting a lot of people that come to check him out. If you want to get some sense of the scale of him, he has a VW Bug under one hand. That appears to be a genuine Beetle so you can see he is a pretty big chap. I didn’t notice anyone having any trouble getting across the bridge so he either isn’t good at his job or else the propaganda about trolls was fake news!