“Living the Dream” – Day 11 of our 1/2 world trip aka Year 2, Day 154, Wednesday, September 28, 2022. First thing this morning we went to Walgreens for our covid test. We are covid negative and can board the ship in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on Friday. We will need one more covid test in Hawaii in order to continue our cruise to Australia. This is so nerve racking. There are super aggressive drivers here in the Seattle area. Today was a dreary cool and rainy day. We are told this weather is normal for the Seattle area. I am so thankful for yesterday. We just had the perfect weather for exploring Mt Ranier. We headed to our Underground tour which was near Pioneer Square. There were lots of homeless people sleeping under umbrellas in the corners or in tents. We found a really nice coffee shop and had coffee while waiting for our tour. Our tour group was small but the people were from many places including Austria, Germany, Singapore, and the great state of New Jersey. In 1899 fire destroyed the city of Seattle. Some of the rooms we went into had windows which before the fire would have faced the street. Skidrow was actually a logging term in Seattle in the beginning. It was where the logs were slid down off the.mountain top into the water to load on ships. Mostly men were in the area so there was lots of drinking, drugs, prostitution, etc. When you walk down the sidewalks here there is purple glass squares in the sidewalk. These are the skylights over the underground passage ways. The underground was used extensively during prohibition for speakeasies. During that time the Seattle police assisted the speakeasies. Our uber drivers had told us not to go to Pioneer square because it was dangerous. Our underground tour today was in Pioneer Square. In the area we saw a lot of homeless people, the area smelled like urine, and we saw human poop on the sidewalk. I would not recommend this tour. We then headed to the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks. These locks are a complex of locks at the west end of Salmon Bay in Seattle, Washington’s Lake Washington Ship Canal, between the neighborhoods of Ballard to the north and Magnolia to the south. They are the busiest locking system in the nation. Chittenden Locks were completed in 1917 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They connect the waters of Lake Washington, Lake Union, and Salmon Bay to the tidal waters of Puget Sound, the canal and locks allow recreational and commercial vessels to travel to the docks and warehouses of Seattle’s busy fresh water harbor. We had a personalized tour. The guide was very informative. All the plants in the gardens were grown from seed. The ships traveling through these locks are eighty percent pleasure and twenty percent commercial. It is currently free to travel through the locks except for commercial carrying cargo. Once in the lock, the water level drops as much as 26 feet to bring the boats even with Puget Sound. The fresh water is exchanged with salt water. Ten to fifteen minutes after the process began, the boats are on their way. Located here is also a salmon ladder. It is a series of 21 stepped pools called weirs. They help salmon migrate upstream from Puget Sound so that they can spawn (lay eggs) in early fall, and for the young fish to return to the Sound. It is the very end of the salmon season, but there were salmon still heading up the stairs. The salmon with one top fin are hatched in a hatchery and the ones with two fins are wild. We saw Harbour seals playing in the locks. They looked very happy. The fisherman kill any California Sea Lions that get in the locks. The trolley system is pretty elaborate here in Seattle. They run electric trolley zero emission buses. One other observation about the area is that people are thinner here. I think it is from walking the hills and steps.
Today’s product recommendations are traveling essentials. 1) Luggage hand cart – we love this cart for easy rolling for easy cruise carry-on bags. Even when you can’t go to your room right away this is so easy to walk around the ship with. Here’s the link https://amzn.to/3s37EOw
2) This large toiletry bag is the best. Steve has the black and I have the pink. We both absolutely love them. Here’s the link https://amzn.to/3v1p6ok and picture
