The tour might not be very appropriate for kids considering that 90% of the history of the place revolved around the practice of prostitution and the tour guide mentions the details of the trade at the drop of a hat. But, considering the average American kid’s upbringing, this may be a subject in their 1st or 2nd grade and shouldn’t be bothering them.

The tour costs 15 USD, a bit high in my opinion, but i wouldn’t complain as i found the information shared by our tour guide worth the money. Yeah, i could have got the same info off the internet, but the presentation by our guide was gr8. He kept us entertained throughout the 1 hour tour.

The area underground was maintained in a state of ruin such that it intrigues a visitor, but also easily navigable. It seems that the fire department regularly conducts audits of this area (and more out of reach of the tour). Well, it should considering that the whole “underground” area was aandoned after a major fire as all the buildings were made of wood. You can see even the wall-paper or whatever they used at that time on the wall in the photo below.

Some more photos from the tour:

More information about the history of the Seattle underground can be found here.

]]> http://www.sightsinseattle.com/bill-speidels-underground-tour-of-seattle/feed/ 3 http://www.sightsinseattle.com/collecting-usa-state-quarter-coins/ http://www.sightsinseattle.com/collecting-usa-state-quarter-coins/#comments Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:46:11 +0000 Rajaram S http://www.sightsinseattle.com/?p=63 I have always collected coins or currency notes. When Cyprus joined the Euro, i started collecting the euro coins from different countries. When i came to US 3 weeks back, i started collecting the different state quarters. I now have quarters from 40 out of the 50 states of the United States. I put the information into a google docs spredsheet so that i can track them in a better way. So, if you have any of the quarters that don’t have an entry “y” against them (and you live in Cyprus ), then let me know.

The document can be accessed here. To save you some trouble, these are the states of which i don’t have the quarters: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Iowa, maine, Mississippi, Rhode island, South Carolina, texas and vermont.

Forced to write harbor cruise instead of harbour cruise because of the US of A standards! The Seattle harbor is just across the road from my office. We decided to try the harbor cruise last weekend. The weather was not so good. It had been raining incessantly from the morning, but the brochure of argosy cruises say that “come rain or shine, our cruises are always on time”.

So, off we went to Argosy cruises on Pier 55. The one hour harbor cruise costs 18 USD per person. There are other cruises too. Locks cruise –> 1.5 hrs, Lake Washington cruise –> 2.5 hrs. We thought we would be the only stupid people to go for a cruise in this rain, but we wrong, as we were accompanied by 200 other fools!

The view of the Seattle downtown area was great, but we were looking through walls of water pouring down. I was taking a big risk by attempting to take photos with my new 18-200 700 USD lens! While i was doing so, a guy who was also taking photos came up to me and said “Mine is waterproof”. I replied, “Mine is not!”.

As luck would have it, the rain cleared up a few minutes after the cruise left the docks. The sun shone through a gap in the clouds and it lit up the Seattle skyline. What was until now a very wet cruise turned out to be a enjoyable one after the rain cleared. You can see the Seattle aquarium in the photo below.

We also some sea lions basking in the afternoon sun. It seems that these sea lions come up to the shore on some of the remote beaches on the islands close to seattle.

A sea-plane also flew overhead. There are seaplane tours of seattle. This is on the plans for this weekend. I hope that the weather is fine then.

Some more photos from the cruise. Enjoy…

The Deception pass bridge connects Whidbey island to Fidalgo Island which form the gateway to the San Juan islands. This bridge falls on the western part of I-20, also known as the north cascade scenic highway. We had planned to visit the North Cascades National Park and while researching , found out that I-20 runs on the south end of the park and is also referred to as the scenic highway. So, when we traced I-20 to the west of the park, it went over many islands. Zooming in on the route in Google Earth, deception pass bridge emerged out of nowehere and looked awesome. So, we took a deroute to fit in this place also into our itinerary. We were glad we did so

As is the trend this time of the year, fall colours were at their best all along the route. We were admiring the scenery on a narrow stretch of the road, when we noticed that many cars had been parked on the side (not allowed on that strectch) and there were people looking at something. After crossing a line of trees, the spectacle came to our view. In one particlar place, there were thousands of ducks (or swans or geese, i am not an ornithologist). None of us had ever seen such a congregation of birds before. So, we also illegally parked our car and went over to take some photos.

After many twists and turns on the road, we reached the deception pass state park and pulled over to a viewpoint for our first look at the bridge.

We crossed over the bridge and parked on the viewpoint on the other side. There was a map with LOT of trails crosscrossing either sides of the bridge. You are allowed to walk on the bridge, which was very surprising, as compared to the high-cost security measures taken on Golden gate bridge in San francisco to prevent suicides. maybe, people wanting to commit suicide prefer to do so at famous locations! The water was way down below and all of us experienced a bit of vertigo for the initial few steps.

There are numerous small islands in this area. It somehow resembled the archipelago of thailand or malaysia when seen from the top of the bridge.

We went to the other side of the bridge and got down to the side to take some pictures encompassing the entire structure. But, it was very difficult even with a relatively wide-angled lens.

We went on one of the smaller trails which lead down to the beach by the side of the bridge. From there, the bridge looked imposing and awesome! If you visit this place, make sure to allot time for walking on few of these trails. Each of them would give you a different view based on the position of the sun.

We entered the destination as “City center, Port Townsend” and the distance shown was just short of 60 miles, not much of a drive. So, off we went on I-5 north. The route shown by the GPS was pretty straightforward – I5 N, Edmonds, Kingston, Port Gamble, Port Ludlow and then Port Townsend. But, the GPS forgot one important thing in its summary.

When we were nearing Edmonds, dutifully following the GPS and enjoying the fall cours, at one point , the GPS voice casually said:

Go Ahead 140 yards and take the ferry!

Ferry??? We thought that we had come out on a drive. But, it was too late, we had committed ourselves to Port Townsend and we were not going to return without seeing port Townsend. Luckily, there was only a 10 minute wait for the next ferry and off we went, on our first ferry trip in Seattle.

We thought that the drive-on ferry would be a basic service across the islands. But, we were wrong. It was as good as a regular cruise boat with ample seating space, viewing decks and even few restaurants. The trip from edmonds to kingston was a short 30-minute one. But, the views were great. The wind was almost as on the open seas.

The drive from Kingston towards Port townsend was even more pictureqsue, crossing many islands and bridges, including Hood Canal Bridge, the longest saltwater floating bridge in the world. Finally, after many twists and turns, we reached Port Townsend and entered Fort Worden State Park. We wanted to reach an old lighthouse inside this park called Point Wilson Lighthouse.

Port Wilson lighthouse is more than 100 years old and presented a great sight in the light of the setting sun. We took some photographs, felt the pacific ocean and were on our way back after a good afternoon’s drive!

We weren’t aware of such a landmark existing on this route. So, a casual drive resulted in another landmark being visited!

An ideal getaway, Snoqualmie falls is just a 30-35 minute drive from Seattle. No wonder, the place is crowded on weekends and a parking place can be so difficult to find. The fall is 268f feet high and  pretty wide even though much of the water from the river upstream is diverted to the power plants. The drive to Snoqualmie is short and sweet with the fall colours omnipresent on the route. But, Snoqualmie can get pretty cold and if you are planning to walk down to the falls, better be prepared with warm clothing!

The moment you enter the first viewing platform, the waterfalls look impressive. You don’t get to see the entire river downstream from this platform. For that, you have to go a bit further where you see the “official” viewing platform easily identified by the scores of people packed into a small space!

If you have the energy and the interest, you can walk down to the bottom of the falls (almost) through a short trail. The distance is not that much, but the trail is pretty steep at places and can easily sap out your energy on the way up. The trail goes through thick forests and the greenery is awesome.

There were people kayaking on the river downstream and from time to time they approached the base of the falls. From more than 20 metres away, the spray from the falls was damn cold. I can’t imagine that these guys were trying go almost under the falls.

Once you go down to the bottom of the trail, you reach a dead-end at the viewpoint. Of course, you can jump over the boardwalk and go closer to the falls. I have heard that you could jump over, but there was no one outside the board walk when we reached there. So, i was discussing with Lokesh about this. A girl standing next to us overheard us talking and told us that it was okay to go ahead. So, off we went and immediately, scores of others followed! Looks like everyone was waiting for that someone to be the first!

Once you get down and manage to clabmer over the slippery rocks, you not only get to see the waterfall, but also to feel its force!

If someone ever said that the rocks are slippery and they won’t come down to the bottom of the falls, show them the picture below. Two little girls, i guess not more than 3-4 years old had a free rein at the falls and they were epxloring every nook and corner, of course under the watchful eye of their parents. That was pretty courageous of their parents!

• Enter the Mount Rainier National Park from the Nisqually Entrance.
• Drive to the Kautz Creek Bridge.
• Drive to Longmire, walk the trail of the shadows and visit the Longmire museum.
• Go on the Carter Falls trail.
• Stop at Christine Falls.
• Drive through the Ricksecker Point Loop Road.
• Go on the short trail to Narada Falls.
• Visit the Paradise Visitor Center and go for any of the dozens of the trails. We went for the Myrtle Falls trail.
• Stop at the reflection lakes. (A must-visit!)
• Stop at the Box Canyon.

It was late evening by the time we finished all the above spots. But, if you have the time and interest, go for the “Grove of the patriarchs” trail and then return to Seattle either through Ashford and take the mountainous route through the White River side (East of the Park).