Seattle Center in September

I pulled into the parking lot of the hotel around 1:30 or 2:00 pm on Saturday, I can’t remember exactly what time it was. Seeing Shannon walk out of the door hotel made everything real. Traveling so much this summer the beginning of this trip felt like every other trip, not like the start of a wonderful vacation and with Shan living in Orlando we only see each other about once a year. Finally seeing her in person made the realization that our vacation was actually beginning. After a quick trip to Wendy’s, dropping off my luggage in our room for the night, and a changing into cool clothes – it was around 80 degrees out we jumped in the rental car to head into downtown Seattle.

I was pleasantly surprised how well I remembered the city and how to get around. This was Shannon’s first time in Seattle and she was excited to see the city. As we approached she took this picture from the car.
The first “landmark” we saw was Safeco Field.
We then traveled down Alaska way and Shan saw Puget Sound for the first time. We decided to start our sightseeing at the Space Needle. Parking around that area was quite expensive and hard to find. A few blocks away we found some on street parking, but you had to back in on an angle. Normally I would not think too much of this, but being in a rental car, that I had only driven for a few hours, I was a little nervous. But I did really well. We are the little black car in the middle
We walked a few blocks to the space needle, which is surrounded by the Seattle Center which has sculptures, gardens, museums, and kid’s area. Here is the space needle as we approached it.
This is one of the sculptures – it is not a Calder – but it looks like one.
Shan and I both had our pictures taken by it. While we were there a little girl was using one of the tubes as a slide, I tried to take a picture, but she was bored at the point and went to play with something else. Evidently grass is not very nice in Florida, so Shannon as excited to walk on some real grass.
These are some of the pretty flowers
I found this mural and I liked it.
Shannon wanted to go play in the kid’s area, but she was too tall.
This is a lightning bolt sculpture – I liked this too.