Space Needle - July 20 (Day 31)

We started the day by driving to Seattle's public market. We first stopped at what we thought was the first Starbucks. We all got drinks and souvenirs. As we were waiting for our drinks, we heard a worker say that the original Starbucks was around the corner. It really wasn't surprising that we were at the wrong one, because there are over 300 Starbucks in Seattle area. The worker said that in some areas there are 3 in the same block, and in some buildings, there is a Starbucks on each floor and that they're all busy! 

Then we stopped at Pike's Place Fish Market.

It truly was fun watching the workers throw the fish at each other. I tried to get a picture of them throwing the fish, but I wasn't fast enough!

We walked through the market place, and enjoyed looking at all of the things for sale. Brooke got this turtle flute that is really neat, but listening to it later in the van made me wonder why we approved of this purchase! (Jerry..."We"? There was no "we" in approving the flute. Beverly was still on a caffein buzz from Starbucks and had a momentary lapse of judgement)

Then we drove to the Seattle Space Needle. The views were beautiful. We 

could see mountains of every side except the bay side. Businesses at the base of the needle advertised to the people looking down. For example, the Duck touring business had a big inflatab

le duck looking up at the people in the needle! We could see Mt. Rainer from the top of the needle. It was amazing. You looked at the skyscrapers, the mountains, the sky above the mountains, and about an inch above that was the top of Mt. Rainer peaking through the clouds. Since we were at sea level and Mt. Rainer is 14,500 feet, it looked enormous. It was a great sight.

It's been interesting see the volcanic mountains in the area. In Portland, we could see Mt. Hope. We drove to Mt. Saint Helen's. Driving to Seattle we could see Mt. Rainer, and on the top of the Needle we could also see Mt. Baker in the northern part of Washington state. These incredible volcanic mountains extend in a horseshoe shape around the Pacific rim, and it's called the Ring of Fire.

We traveled on, and at around 2:00 p.m., one month to the day we left, we started to drive east!! We are all happy to be heading home. We've seen great things, have almost 2 weeks of more sightseeing before get home, but that we're heading east is a good thought for all of us.

We traveled 349 miles today.