Category: Seattle

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Sunday/ at the Pride parade 🌈

Here are a few pictures of Seattle’s 49th annual Seattle Pride Parade along 4th Avenue in downtown.
That’s Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell in the middle of the first picture.

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Happy Pride Weekend 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

If you’re going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you’re going to San Francisco
You’re gonna meet some gentle people there
– From the song “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” written by John Phillips of The Mamas & The Papas, and sung by Scott McKenzie. It was written and released in June 1967 to promote the Monterey Pop Festival.

Happy Friday and Happy Pride Weekend.
There were some gentle people in Volunteer Park tonight, attending the Seattle Trans Pride 2023 festivities there.

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Thursday/ elementary art 🦏

Check out the cute glass art on the cement chair in the little garden at Stevens Elementary School.
I see a lion up at the top, and a rhinoceros on the left, of course.
Would that be a lanky-legged hippopotamus on the right?

Stevens* Elementary School in Seattle’s North Capitol Hill opened in fall 1906 for students from north Capitol Hill and Interlaken, which included Montlake.
The rectangular, two-story frame building with clapboard siding and gable roof reflects the Colonial Revival style.
*Named after Isaac Ingalls Stevens, an American military officer and politician who served as governor of the Territory of Washington from 1853 to 1857.
(Washington State joined the Union on Nov. 11, 1889).
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Wednesday/ hello summer 🌞

We are blessed with goldilocks weather here in Seattle at the start of summer— mild and sunny, with a high of 72 °F (22 °C) today.
Sunrise was at 5.11 am and sunset at 9.10 pm, so we had just a touch under 16 hours of sunlight.

The amigos in action this morning at the Mt. Baker Park tennis (and pickle ball) courts. Everyone is up at the kitchen line (the kitchen is the non-volley zone at the net) and showing good form. 🤗
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Saturday 🌧

It’s a cool and rainy weekend here in the Emerald City (64°F / 18°C)— a good day to go for a Starbucks coffee, or for a beer.

Check out the neon signs inside the Marco Polo bar in Seattle’s SoDo* district.
*South of downtown
[Photo credit to Steve for taking the picture 😁]
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Happy Friday ☔️

There was a slight drizzle on and off today outside, which was very welcome.
Very little rain fell in May.

Peach-leaved bellflowers (Genus Campanula, Latin for ‘little bell’) here on Capitol Hill in Seattle.
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Wednesday/ sweaty 😅

It was warm here in the city today (85 °F/ 30 °C).
Most of the Pacific Northwest has— so far— been spared the smoke from Canada that is plaguing New York City and the Northeast.

The amigos were out on the pickle ball courts at Mount Baker park this morning while it was still OK to play.
We picked the pickle ball court that has a nice patch of shade on the one side of the net.
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Sunday/ at Madison Park beach 🛶

I made it down to Madison Park beach this afternoon.
A smattering of heliophiles were sunning themselves on the lawn.
There was plenty of sunlight today, but only mild temperatures (70 °F/ 21 °C).

Madison Park beach on Lake Washington today. That’s the State Route 520 floating bridge (officially the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, and shorthand ‘520 Bridge’) and Medina in the background.
The water’s edge consists mostly of pebbles here, but there is a sandy portion on the south by a tall apartment building.
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Friday/ happy Pride month 🌈

Happy Friday.
June is Pride month. Pride Month began after the Stonewall riots, a series of gay liberation protests in 1969, and has spread outside of the United States since that time.

Herb & Bitter Public House’s pavement sign on 15th Avenue on Capitol Hill. It is a Spanish-influenced bar & eatery serving up snacks & main courses and cocktails and beer.
P.S. I walked around looking for a nice Pride flag to photograph tonight, but couldn’t really find one. So the Pride flag color lines in the lettering on this sign will have to do for now. The letters are missing a line of indigo— but maybe the artist simply had no indigo crayon, right?
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Tuesday/ on the ferry ⛴

Here are a few photos that I took while I was on the 11.05 am Kingston-to-Edmonds ferry today.

Shortly after departure, with the Kingston Ferry Terminal on Kitsap Peninsula in the distance.
Sailboat with dinghy in tow, getting towed. Those are Kitsap Peninsula homes in the background.
Here comes the Commander, a passenger-only Kitsap Fast Ferry from Seattle’s Pier 50.
The Commander was built in 2021, and has a cruising speed of 35 knots (top speed 37 knots).
Marine Vessel Spokane is a Jumbo-class ferry servicing the Edmonds-Kingston route. She was built in 1972.
The tug boat is the Ocean Ranger, built in 1990 and sailing under the flag of the USA.
Look for the spec in the sky— possibly a Kenmore Air seaplane.
I am on the Marine Vessel Puyallup, in service since 1999 and a Jumbo Mark-II-class ferry. This ferry and her two sisters MV Tacoma and MV Wenatchee are the largest in the Washington State fleet of ferries.
Mr. Seagull is not perturbed by the ferry’s arrival at Edmonds terminal.
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Sunday/ at the Waterfront 🛳

I walked around the Seattle Waterfront this afternoon.
It is still somewhat of a work in progress.
The new Colman Dock ferry terminal is nearing completion, but several walkways and connections to the Waterfront are still under construction.

The passenger building at the new Seattle Ferry Terminal is a vast improvement over the old one: it fully faces the waters of Puget Sound, with large windows looking onto Elliott Bay and also back at the city.
The passenger walkway at Marion Street across Alaskan Way, connecting the downtown surface streets with the Seattle Ferry Terminal.
Looking back (south) towards the Seattle Ferry Terminal.
Miners Landing is still there, as are all the other touristy t-shirt and souvenir shops, restaurants and food joints.
I made it to the Pike Place Market complex, on the Old Stove Brewing patio and looking south. The construction is for the Overlook Walk: an elevated public park and connection between the Waterfront to Seattle’s urban core.
The summer cruise season is in full swing by now.
This is the Norwegian Encore, getting ready for its 5 pm departure to Juneau, Alaska.
Now making my way back to Capitol Hill.
‘Don’t mind me, please, driver’ I thought as I snapped this picture of a forest green Rivian R1T electric truck.
Crossing Third Avenue in downtown. The 1928 Belltown Self Storage building is now closed, and plans are afoot to build a new 8-story combination hotel and apartment structure behind the terracotta facade.
Just a little bit further north on Third Ave is First Light Seattle, a luxury condominium tower that is going up. Construction is by real estate developer Westbank Corp from Vancouver, BC.
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Friday/ have a beer 🍺

Happy Friday.
It’s Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer here in the US.
It’s also the end of Seattle Beer Week, and The Seattle Times reports that Seattle is a city full of beer snobs.
Cheers!

Some 56% of Seattle beer drinkers do not drink any of the major top ten brands (top ten among Seattle beer drinkers) regularly. So they steer clear of Coors Light, Bud Light, Corona Extra and all that jazz.
Bring on the likes of Georgetown’s Bodhizafa American IPA and Space Dust IPA by Elysian Brewing Company. Life is too short for big-box diluted beer.
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Thursday/ astronaut white 👨🏻‍🚀

The galaxy gold of 13 months is gone at the top of the Space Needle— the dome now has a new coat of astronaut white.

My telephoto shot at 7 tonight (Canon EOS 7D, 135 mm lens) standing at Harrison St overlooking Interstate 5.
I will go back some time and take a few nicer, close-up pictures.
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Sunday/ gray skies ☁️

It was cool here in Seattle today, with gray skies (high 63°F / 17 °C).
In the late afternoon, I walked down to the REI outdoor store, and on the way back, there was a little bit of drizzle.

There is not a lot of color in this picture! The top of the Space Needle’s ‘Galaxy Gold’ is a bright spot. Those two towers obscuring the Needle are the new Onni South Lake Union apartments. On the left of the picture is a 45-story tower of the 1200 Stewart Street apartments, still a work in progress— construction seems to have paused or stalled, actually.
Here’s color: camping mattresses on sale at the REI store.
REI stands for Recreational Equipment, Inc. The company was founded in Seattle in 1938 by Lloyd and Mary Anderson.
Checking out the giant see-through floor compass on the first floor.
Suunto is a Finnish company that manufactures and markets sports watches, dive computers, compasses and precision instruments.
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Tuesday/ flying artwork ✈️

‘This might have been the white and blue Alaska Air plane that I saw overhead in the sky today’, I thought as I saw this picture in the Seattle Times.

This Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-800 is named Xáat Kwáani— an Alaska Native language that calls out the ancestral importance of salmon.
The artwork style is a Northwest Coast formline art that dates back thousands of years.
The artist is Crystal Kaakeeyáa Rose Demientieff Worl from Juneau, Alaska.
[Photo by Ingrid Barrentine / Alaska Airlines, published in the Seattle Times]
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Monday/ scenes from Hood Canal 🦅

Here are scenes from my visit to Hood Canal on Kitsap Peninsula with friends. We drove out there on Sunday via Gig Harbor and the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge, and took the Kingston-Edmonds ferry back on Monday morning.

Photos: Tacoma-Narrows Bridge; Hood Canal kayakers; meadow buttercups; Sunday’s sunset over the very north-end of Hood Canal; the Olympic Mountains on the Olympic Peninsula, seen across a low tide level in Hood Canal; brown squirrel; bald eagle taking flight; on the Marine Vessel (ferry) Puyallup after leaving the Kingston ferry terminal; spotting the Kitsap Fast Ferry— with downtown Seattle towers and antennas in the distance, and against the backdrop of Mount Rainier capped with a lenticular cloud.

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Thursday/ hello, little face 😘

I found this pansy flower in the Thomas Street Gardens today.
In South Africa they are called gesiggies in Afrikaans (‘little faces’).

The garden pansy (genus Viola) is a type of large-flowered hybrid plant cultivated as a garden flower. It is a hybrid derived of several species in the section Melanium of the genus Viola, particularly V. tricolor, a wildflower of Europe and western Asia known as heartsease.
[Source: Wikipedia]
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Wednesday/ cheers! 🍻

Three of the amigos had beers at the Elysian Capitol Hill Brewery.
On the way there, on 14th Avenue, I saw this vintage poster in a shop window.

Vintage Seattle Travel Poster by Porchlight Design Company, available for $18 at porchlightdesignco.com.
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Friday/ rain ☔

Happy Friday, the first one in May.
It was a very wet day for May, but maybe Mother Nature is just getting us caught up with the rain.
Sea-Tac Airport had recorded slightly less than 12 in. of rain in the first four months of 2023, which is about 5 inches below average.

It’s May, so the rhododendron bushes are blooming. This is the prettiest one that I found tonight.