Seattle - July 15, 2010 Part II: Underground Tour

While in Pioneer Square, we went on the famous Bill Speidel's Underground Tour. Seattle had a rough start in the mid and late 1800's, to say the least. For many reasons that are too extensive to go into without a complete dissertation of Seattle history, part of the city ended up below the new curbs that were built after the many tidal floods and a fire. What now remains of that area is full of rubble and abandoned bits of old Seattle. It was a very informative and interesting tour and I highly recommend it to anyone who visits. I learned more about the Seattle sewer system than I ever needed to know. Our tour guide, Shane, was absolutely hysterical and entertaining.

Part III will be Seattle Center.

Seattle - July 15, 2010 Part I: Oot and Aboot

Sorry if I haven't visited everyone's blogs in the last couple of days, but one of my oldest and dearest friends from high school was in town! He has to be in Portland next week for a conference and came up to Seattle so that we could hang out and explore the city.

I've been here for 11 years and had only been to Seattle a handful of times: Seattle Art Museum once, 1 Mariners game, twice to leave my car overnight to take the ferry to Canada, once to pick up and drop off Michelle at her hotel when she was in town briefly, and once to register with a temp agency. I'd been meaning to go up there and do the touristy stuff, but just never got motivated to do it, and it's only 37 miles away. I'm eternally grateful to Joe for not only coming out here to visit me, but for also letting me drag him around doing kitschy touristy stuff.

I got up there early on Thursday morning and we hit Pike Place Market and the surrounding area first:

Part II will be devoted to The Underground Tour!!!