Seattle, Segue to Part 2 of Our First Retirement Adventure ~ September 18, 2016

Sailing into Seattle early Sunday morning, one last photo from our stateroom.  


We arrived at 8 a.m., and those of us who elected to carry our own luggage off the ship were expected to be off the ship between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m.  We had our breakfast and bid farewell to our floating hotel.  We had a goodly part of the day in Seattle before catching our train, The Empire Builder, at Union Station.  So, we caught a cab to the Holiday Inn that we had stayed at the night before we sailed and asked them if we could store our bags with them while we did some exploring of the city.  They graciously agreed (probably due to our platinum status IHG standing), and off we went.

You can't visit Seattle without seeing the Space Needle.  We elected not to go up as the line was long, the admission fee pricey, and we just didn't feel like doing it.


Right next to the Space Needle is the Chihuly Garden.  His work has always fascinated me, and interestingly enough, there was a Chihuly on board our ship (see photo below) in the common area relatively close to our stateroom.

Dale Chihuly, whose work is quite famous - one of his pieces is in the Bushnell - was born in Tacoma and studied interior design at the University of Washington.  Then he went to the University of Wisconsin (the first glass program in the country) and then at Rhode Island School of Design.  He created RISD's glass program and taught there for 10 years.  He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and went to work at the Venini glass factory in Venice.  That was where he observed the team approach to blowing glass, which is a key part of the way he works today.  So, it was delightful to spend some time in the gift shop of this beautiful place.

We had just enough time to go to the IMAX theater at the Pacific Science Center (passing these fellas on our way in).  We saw a really wonderful 3-D show called A Beautiful Planet.  The promotional information called it "a breathtaking portrait of Earth from space, providing a unique perspective and increased understanding of our planet and galaxy . . . the movie features stunning footage of our magnificent blue planet -- and the effect humanity has had on it over time -0 captured by the astronauts aboard the International Space Station."  Having spent a whole day viewing glaciers, and then seeing visual evidence of the retreat of the glaciers in this movie definitely gave one pause at the visual proof of global climate change.  To get an idea of what we saw, you can view the trailer:

After this, it was back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and grab a taxi to Union Station where we boarded the train that would take us from Seattle to Chicago!

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