Alaska Cruise - Seattle

We are finally getting pictures of our cruise to Alaska on the blogspot. We have always wanted to take a trip to Alaska--just never made time to do it. We actually had an opportunity to be stationed at Elmendorf AFB Alaska when we left the Azores in 1976. However, the assignment to Torrejon AFB, Spain near Madrid was available and after discussing the pros and cons decided to take the assignment to Madrid Spain.

Unfortunately getting from Dayton to almost anywhere requires a layover. We departed Dayton International Airport early morning September 3 and flew to Minneapolis Minnesota for a stop. After a couple of hours on the ground, we flew to Seattle, Washington. We had a pleasant flight without too much turbulence. The weather was clear and we had a great view out the plane windows.

Once we arrived in Seattle, we took the hotel shuttle to our hotel. We decided to go on a tour of Seattle, but did not want to take a tour bus. We got there a little too late for the good tours. The clerk told us the city bus stopped outside the hotel and would take us to fisherman's wharf area. She also said that it was an express bus and would not take us too long to get there.

We caught the city bus and headed into Seattle. It was a sunny day and although the scenery wasn't too great on the bus route, it was a pleasant ride. We did a walking tour of the wharf area and downtown Seattle. We went by the original Starbucks, but, did not try to get in. We were told that the line is always long and there is a lengthy wait to get coffee. Starbucks is not our favorite coffee so we really didn't care.

We took a walk to the space needle and went to the top. You can get a 360 degree look at Seattle from the platform and it is well worth the trip. From there we went to Pike’s Fish Market. We saw a show on the travel channel of Pike’s Market where they were throwing the fish to each other as they were selling the fish. Unfortunately, no one was buying anything so we did not get to see this. The show made the market seem much larger than what it actually is.

We also went to the outside market. The flowers were beautiful and were a sight to see. It is also a vegetable market, flea market stuff and a few restaurants. We did not eat at any of the restaurants on the wharf. Instead we went to a small restaurant called Sonya, which served locally brewed beer, hamburgers, and fries. The beer and the burgers were great--we may have been so hungry from walking around that anything would have tasted great.

I had done this as one big blogspot, but, was having trouble posting so I decided to do it in sections like I did the Sedona trip. More to come.