Seattle is in a Quagmire

    Y'all know I'm a country gal, so why am I in Seattle?

     Because in a few days, I will be boarding a boat at one of these docks.

       I took the photos above on the 73rd floor of the Columbia Center downtown Seattle, known as the Skyview Observatory. See the giant Ferris wheel known as the "Great Wheel" in photo above, mid-center? It's 175 feet tall, and each of the gondolas can seat eight people.

     The view is many islands in the Puget Sound Region. On a clear day, you can see the Olympic Mountains and the glaciers to the west. Mount Rainier (sixty miles away, photo below) is barely visible to the southeast.

     See the Interstate and all those buildings (above photo)? I'll not mince words. One day in downtown Seattle and I was feeling . . . like Seattle has no soul. Montreal has soul, French cities have soul, Kansas City has soul and Tucson has soul, but I just wasn't feeling the soul in downtown Seattle. I was bombarded instead by a lot of parking signs. After doing some research, I found out that parking and traffic is "a challenge" (click here for news article).

     It's also a hilly city which means it's not bicycle-friendly. I didn't see any bicycle lanes downtown. Photo below was taken on top of a hill looking down at a cargo container ship going north through Elliot Bay.

Seattle is a major port for loading and unloading cargo container ships.

     Everywhere there is a hubbub of construction activity and tall cranes lowering and raising materials.

     More and more new skyscrapers are being built.

Very modern buildings . . .

The public library (below) is very modern too.

That "far-away" hazy-looking mini-city to the east of Seattle (photo below) is Bellevue which is another rapid-growing city.

To the east of Seattle, there's also a hazy-looking view of the Cascades Mountain Range.

     Later I decided to explore my ennui about this busy crowded city and read Wikipedia's info about Seattle. This city definitely has more than just parking and traffic challenges; it's described as having the USA's sixth-worse rush hour traffic. It's also bursting at the seams with new population growth. And over 45,000 households are spending more than half their income on housing (click here for Wikipedia's Seattle info).

The infamous "Pike Place Market" located along the shoreline downtown is worthy of a look and see.

It's an exciting maze of individual shops and stores and producers.

For Chef Jim and Chef Renauld and other foodies out there who need chowder ideas, click here.

It's wonderful to smell fresh baked goods and chocolates!

     And it's exciting to watch the delivery of fresh fish (below photo). This is Jack's Fish Spot; click here for their menu. Is there a discernible $6 difference between Hammersley Inlet oysters and Kumamoto Oysters? 

Great looking produce too.

And the duck and quail eggs add a touch of class to the Pike Place Market.

As I walked downtown, I found myself in a Chinatown of sorts (click here for very interesting history of this neighborhood).

I saw a green spot in this jungle of glass and concrete.

This is the Danny Woo Garden which is built on a hill.

     It's a terraced community garden which serves approximately 70 low-income Asians averaging 76 years old (click here for more info).

China Daily is cheaper than the Seattle Times.

This info about "The Ring of Fire" was interesting (click here for more info). 

     When I left Seattle for the day, I returned via cheap ORCA public transportation ($2 round trip) to La Lair in Des Moines, Washington (at a great BoondockersWelcome spot). I tossed and turned all night wondering why I didn't like Seattle and how I'd write a post about it. And the best explanation for my feelings has already been written by Daniel DeMay in this article (click here). It's a very good article about the problems of Seattle's exponential growth which is causing difficulties in not only traffic and housing but culture too because of the changing population trends. And thank you Chef Renauld for challenging me to explore my unsettled thoughts. As Socrates has said, the unexamined life is not worth living.

PS: I'm hoping that Seattle finds its soul in another few years. The Seattle Times published this article January 2018 (click here for article).