We've been in Seattle in Washington State in the Pacific North-West for exactly a week visiting family members there, and this location is really attractive scenically for reasons that will become apparent in this and subsequent posts. However, the weather is not the best part of the experience, often being cloudy, wet and cool! That's to be expected however as the latitude is quite high (47 degrees north) and about the same as Zurich and Budapest in Europe and, of course, it's on the western edge of a continental land-mass like the UK.
This blog-post takes a bird's eye view of the city from atop the Space Needle whose construction was completed in 1962, over 50 years ago. The circular viewing platform is 600 feet (roughly 200 m) high and offers great views, especially on a brilliantly sunny day when we were there. The managers keep an eye open for special visitors (not us though) and we saw that those included one Elvis Presley and no less than 17 of his impersonators.
Have a look at what we saw:
The inner harbour area .. we actually saw a plane land on this stretch of water.
Puget sound and the coastal ranges still snow-capped in places
Lake Washington in the distance ... Emily lives beyond the eastern edge and the range beyond that also still has snow on the summits.
The Science Museum, with its odd-shaped sculptured and multi-coloured buildings below.
Ella taking in the view.
Looking N-E towards the volcanic Mt Baker - c. 3300 m high.
Me admiring the view.
Puget Sound
Looking S_E across the city centre towards Mt Rainier ( a colossal 4,400 m high and covered in permanent snow and ice)
The container port area.
Looking S-E.
Looking north towards the zoo we visited yesterday.
HQ of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - bottom half of the picture.
Visitor tally ... creeping up in real time.
I've discovered that Seattle, a region whose popultation is c. 3.6 million and rising quite fast, is HQ to a large array of top US and global companies, including Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Costco, and Starbucks. So it's a vibrant place ... but also very liberal by US standards.
This blog-post takes a bird's eye view of the city from atop the Space Needle whose construction was completed in 1962, over 50 years ago. The circular viewing platform is 600 feet (roughly 200 m) high and offers great views, especially on a brilliantly sunny day when we were there. The managers keep an eye open for special visitors (not us though) and we saw that those included one Elvis Presley and no less than 17 of his impersonators.
Have a look at what we saw:
The inner harbour area .. we actually saw a plane land on this stretch of water.
Puget sound and the coastal ranges still snow-capped in places
The Science Museum, with its odd-shaped sculptured and multi-coloured buildings below.
Ella taking in the view.
Looking N-E towards the volcanic Mt Baker - c. 3300 m high.
Me admiring the view.
Puget Sound
Looking S_E across the city centre towards Mt Rainier ( a colossal 4,400 m high and covered in permanent snow and ice)
The container port area.
HQ of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - bottom half of the picture.
I've discovered that Seattle, a region whose popultation is c. 3.6 million and rising quite fast, is HQ to a large array of top US and global companies, including Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Costco, and Starbucks. So it's a vibrant place ... but also very liberal by US standards.
No comments:
Post a Comment