Seattle PiggybackTrip

Seattle Center and the Space Needle 

Trip Report:  April 15, 2006

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The Trip

Sometimes, when works mandates travel, you have to go. In this case, I elected to augment a manditory business trip with some pleasure. On this trip, I asked Kathleen to join me on my business travel to Seattle. From NYC, Seattle is about 6 hours. Six hours in the tightest confinment this side of solitary at Alcatraz which is, of course, a coach class airline seat. Cramped confines, nasty food and a one hour departure delay notwithstanding, the trip was uneventful except for some shucking and jiving on landing due to heavy cross winds. Unlike my last trip where my seatmate barfed repeatedly into the barf bag, this trip was less "interesting". Although the weather was frightfully windy with heavy rains, we elected to go to the Space Needle. The light was poor due to the heavy clouds, but we did see the sights as we intended. And we got a few extras, as the photos below show.

Some nice flowers at the SeaFirst bank building.

Driveway at the Space Needle. The fountain was quite nice as were the gardens.

Some nice red flowers in the garden area. Note the rain drops on the petals. It rained the entire visit to the needle.

A closeup of one of the flowers in the garden. I think this is a daffodil.

An interesting shaped monument to peace. Ironically, the artist is from the middle east. Go figure.

Art of a different nature.

I spotted this duck on duty walking back from the garden area. This is a converted WWII amphibious landing craft used for tours.

The Space Needle is big, very big.

The Needle's elevator making the run to the top.

View of downtown Seattle through the overcast.

View of Seattle harborside.

Harbor view looking to the northwest. The white trellis structure is at the Pacific Science Museum. Note ship in harbor.

Lake Union with the Cascades in the distance.

View of the monorail station at the base of the needle through the railing to prevent jumpers.

The marquee at the Science Center stated that there would be "performing pigs" and my curiosity got the better of me so we went to check it out. Having raised pigs myself, I had expectations of large animals, but they had some kind of minature pig. They did perform, however, and I was somewhat impressed. Here, this little fellow is beeping some horns.

To show that the pigs were capable of doing more than simple actions, here the pig negotiates a ladder on a pivot. They may be smart, but I'll bet they taste good too.

Epilog

It was an interesting day at Seattle Center and the Space Needle, even if it was raining hard all day. Where else on the planet could you see performing pigs?

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