Markets, Museums, and Monuments on Memorial Weekend.

There are many beautiful Rhododendrons in and around Seattle

You can’t beat a bit of alliteration. I was glad to get to Seattle and find I still had the late spring bank holiday off work. In a change to our original plans we stayed at home instead of heading East. The long weekend started with an enormous waffle breakfast at a local diner. I should have taken a picture, oh well; I’ll have to go back!






 Laurie and John have 3 lovely furry children,
 an English bull dog (Beulah),
a dachshund (Rex),
and a Himalayan Cat (Bella).




We went to Pike’s place market and had a quick wander around but the place was packed so I didn’t do much buying or photo taking. I have now realised I get off the bus on the other side of the street from the market so I can go in at quieter times for a photo or two hundred. I did have a very yummy honey and lavender ice cream... yum! (you can tell it was already shaping up as a good food day! [Although I haven’t had a bad food day since I’ve been here, Laurie is a fab cook]).










Later on Saturday I did the ‘Underground tour’ highly recommended for anyone visiting the city. A fun and slightly sardonic look at Seattle’s early history.

Some of those wooden pilings sit under this
brick wall. Notice the floor 3ft below? This
doesn't have any supports underneath!

To give you a brief outline of the story ...  Seattle began when the early non-native settlers arrived in 1851, which means the Clifton suspension bridge (built 1831 to 1864) is older than Seattle.  It started as a wooden town built on sawdust foundations on a mud flat with all the incumbent plumbing issues you can imagine would arise from living below or at the high tide mark. An unfortunate fire provided the town a chance to start again.

This is a piece of Seattle's original plumbing solution.
A single wooden pipe running from hill to sea.
What's going to happen at high tide?

One of the entrances to the underground, with other people on
another tour waiting to go in...

The council demanded building in stone on wooden piers sunk into the mud, and raising the level of the town. Those who owned the land obviously wanted to be able to start their businesses back off ASAP so refused to wait till the street level had been raised. The compromise was that they were to build doors at the ground and first floor of the building. Three-thousand five-hundred wooden pillars were sunk in for foundations. The council built 10ft + wall around all the buildings at the edge of the sidewalk. They then filled in between the walls to create raised streets, unfortunately they didn’t have enough money for the sidewalks so they spent 14 years raising these up, in the meantime people had to go up and down the ‘curbs’ on ladders while they paved the top of the tunnels. The point is these old sidewalks still exist around some of the buildings so you can go on a guided tour of the ‘underground’. Highly recommended!

Saturday finished with Chinese in the international district (yum yum yum!)

The pergola at pioneer square 



On the ridge you can see commercial forest that is being cut for timber

Sunday was road trip day. We travelled to Mt. St. Helen’s (about 150 miles away). It was awesome, eerie, and ‘brisk’ (if you are English) - aka freezing.

The main river valley that the mudslides drained through, the streams have now started eroded their courses through the top ash layer.



Dead tree stumps on the ridges

The observation platform

St Helen’s erupted in May 1980 and killed 47 people including some of the scientists studying her. The blast zone is still clearly visible 33 years later, although life is beginning to take over again. Before the eruption the surrounding area was >200 year old trees and the surrounding area is still very beautiful. Some of the outer slopes have been developed now for commercial forests but closer in is designated national monument and there are a number of observatories for visitors. The closest visitors Centre is Johnston Ridge at 5.5 miles from St. Helens and the surrounding ridge are still sparse and covered with dead tree stumps. My happy thought was that they reminded me of grave stones. The route up only opened on the 11^th of May and there was still high snow drifts around the highest observation station. St. Helen’s began misbehaving earlier in 1980 with small earthquakes every few minutes so they knew she was up to something. The eruption started with a massive landslide that sent a tidal wave down the surrounding valleys. There was then a lateral eruption through the side of the mountain spraying massive boulders across the landscape and flattened 200 square miles of forest. The ash plume was 7 miles high. Not to mention the wave of lava, melt ice, and mud that later cascaded down the valleys. From a scientific point of view the eruption cleared up a number of volcanic conundrums and they are still learning about how life returns to such devastated areas. As you can tell from the photos I had a nice trip!


Before and after the mountain blew

My new red raincoat and St. Helen's

Laurie, John and I in the 'brisk' breeze



 Monday was a quiet stay at home day. I did meet the lady I may live with when I come back and I also did some work – sigh. Wednesday I gave a talk at work and today was my first practical lab day. I actually got to hold a pipette!