Happy Friday.
Happy Summer Solstice (here in the northern hemisphere).
The arrival of summer weather has been delayed by a few days here in Seattle, with cool and rainy weather expected this weekend.
The high today was only 62°F (17°C).
The amigos had better luck this morning, finding an open court for pickleball at the Mount Baker Pickleball and Tennis Courts. On the near side it’s a tennis court, officially, with no pickleball nets. We brought our own net, and it is set up and ready for play. Over on the far side there is a pickleball lesson is in progress. I am marveling at the number of plastic baskets that the coach had brought to the court. As far as I can tell there are 57.
The Seattle metro area is coming out of the summer’s first heat wave.
A record high for June 8 was recorded at the airport on Sunday (90°F / 32°C).
It was still hot today, with a high of 87°F (31°C).
The amigos went out to the Mt Baker tennis courts for pickleball at 9.30 am before it got too toasty.
Four amigos met at the Seattle waterfront this morning.
We rode our e-bikes along the bike trail to Elliott Bay marina where we met up with a fifth amigo for lunch.
I took the G-line bus along Madison Street to the waterfront. There goes my bus, actually, but it does not matter. It’s only 6 minutes between buses, so there is no need to even look at the schedule, or worry that you might miss your bus and wait a long time for the next one.It’s a short walk from the 1st Avenue bus stop to Colman Dock, also called Pier 52, the primary ferry terminal in Seattle. That’s the Kaleetan ferry, just leaving for Bainbridge Island. The Kaleetan went into service in early 1968 serving the Seattle-Bainbridge Island route. Over the years it has been upgraded and it has also served the Seattle-Bremerton route and the Anacortes-San Juan Islands route.
Our rendezvous point for starting the bike ride was Molly Moon Ice Cream up ahead. I’m stopping for a moment to admire Buster Simpson’s public artwork called “Anthropomorphic Dolos*”. Dolosse* is a South African invention, first deployed in 1964 on the breakwater of East London, a South African port city. * A dolos (plural: dolosse) is a wave-dissipating concrete block used in great numbers as a form of coastal management. It is a type of tetrapod. Weighing up to 8 tonnes (8.8 short tons), dolosse are used to build revetments for protection against the erosive force of waves from a body of water. [From Wikipedia]We pedaled northbound along the Waterfront bike path and the North bike connection. [Sources: Seattle Department of Transportation, Elliott Bay Connections, Seattle Office of the Waterfront and Civic Projects. Esri, Google, Chris Kaeser / The Seattle Times]
Look! No Alaskan Way Viaduct in sight. We’re on our way, on the bike path along Alaskan Way (originally Railroad Avenue, until 1936), and the major north-south street that runs along the Elliott Bay waterfront. I don’t have my own e-bike, so I picked up a Lime bike for rent that was on the sidewalk near Molly Moon Ice Cream. ($1 to unlock plus 43 cents per minute).Irises in the flower beds that line the promenade on the waterfront.This is further up north along Alaskan Way, just past Pier 66 on the left. The construction work (of the overwalk and the aquarium extension) along Alaskan Way has been completed, but not all the paving work for the intersections and bike lanes.A brief stop by Myrtle Edwards park with its 1.25-mile winding bike and pedestrian paths along Elliott Bay, offering beautiful views of the Olympics Mountains. There’s a Carnaval cruise ship in the distance at the Pier 91 cruise terminal. It was scheduled to depart at 3.30 pm for its ‘Alaska Inside Passage Glacier’ round trip.We reached our destination: Maggie Bluffs restaurant with its outdoor patio with views of Elliot Bay Marina.
I like Gabriel Campanario’s artwork, published in today’s Seattle Times.
There is a lot of activity— and all kinds of people— on the Overlook Walk that links downtown Seattle, the Pike Place Market, and the newly revitalized Waterfront Park.
Happy Friday.
It’s the start of Memorial Day weekend here in the US, the unofficial start of summer.
The weather here in Seattle will be pleasant (72°F /22°C on Saturday), and the ferries plying Puget Sound will be packed.
The Space Needle’s new all-glass, double-deck outdoor elevator is seen on the move Thursday before opening to the public Friday. This first replacement elevator is on the north side of the Needle and will open to passengers on two floors at once. [Picture by Ken Lambert / The Seattle Times, caption from Seattle Times]
I tagged along for a test drive in a new Tesla Model Y today.
The cabin inside feels familiar to the old model Y’s, but it has a number of upgrades, of course. The inside is quieter, for starters, with double pane glass all around now. The console has been upgraded, with a second smaller screen for those in the back seats. (The same media— radio station, game, movie— plays on both the front and back screens, but the vents and air conditioning for the back can be adjusted separately on the second screen). Check out the lavender LED accent stripe that runs around the dashboard and windows. It can be set to any color, or to white, or turned off altogether). The materials used for the dashboard and inside are mostly not top-notch, but seems good enough. Everything fancy costs extra money, right?All right. Now we’re heading north on I-5, with the Full Self-Driving (FSD) (Supervised) engaged (the blue line on the console). The FSD is getting better and better and performed well at intersections. Things can still get complicated when trying to get the car to pick a parking space in a parking lot, or when a vague destination is given to the car, such as just to go to a large shopping mall. The drive mode stalk on the right of the steering wheel was taken out, and the console is now used to engage Park or Drive or Reverse. (The turn signal stalk is still there, on the left of the steering wheel.)Yes, you are very cute, Grease Monkey 🙊 .. but we are just going to wave back at you and drive on by. Our car does not use gas and oil – Yay!
I had lunch at the Washington Athletic Club in downtown today, and took these pictures.
The U.S. Bank Center building between 5th and 6th Avenue is 44 stories tall and opened in 1989. I had worked inside it on occasion— once upon a time, and years ago now. The American Eagle clothing store that used to be in the domed structure on the corner is long gone.There are still lots and lots of empty storefronts downtown. This used to be the Nike store in downtown Seattle (formerly NikeTown), on 6th Ave and Pike St. It closed down permanently in January 2023.A line of lavender taxi cabs at the entrance to the Sheraton Hotel. (So yes, they are still in business and have not been completely supplanted by Uber drivers).Here is where I had my lunch, on the second floor. It is open to Washington Athletic Club members only, and I was invited by a member of the club 🤗.Done with lunch and now I am snapping a few more pictures on the way to the Seattle Library. The Skinner building was built in 1926 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I love the detail on the frames above the entrance.A close-up view of Park Place building on 6th Avenue. It is a 21-story office tower built in the 1970s and fully renovated by international architect and tenant Gensler in 2012. Is this an example of brutalist architecture*? I wondered. *Brutalist architecture is a style known for its use of raw concrete, bold geometric forms, and functional design, often characterized by a rough, unadorned aesthetic.The Crowne Plaza Seattle-Downtown on 6th Ave is a 34-story hotel that was built in 1980 and renovated in 2019. That’s the Park Place building from the previous picture, in the reflection.Looks like Seattle International Film Festival 2025 is about to start. That first frame on the film negative below is from the 2023 romance/drama movie Past Lives. (I have seen it and I liked it a lot).Arrived at the Seattle Public Library‘s entrance on 5th Avenue, and I’m taking the obligatory shot (obligatory for me) of the diamond pattern of the outside frame.Done in the library and waiting for the G-line bus. In the reflection is the 1928 building of what is today the nine-story Executive Hotel Pacific.And here comes the G-line bus on Spring Street, to take me back up to Capitol Hill.
It felt like summer today.
The high was near the record for this day on the calendar:
78°F (26°C) today, and the record is 81°F (27°C) recorded on May 6, 1957.
There will be cooler weather again for the rest of the week.
Three of us went down to Cal Anderson Park at noon, to protest in support of workers’ rights, and those of immigrants. (A panoply of other protestations were depicted on the posters that people had made). We joined the march to downtown that started at 2 pm.
The crowd that marched was not huge— reportedly somewhat over 1,000 people— and the protesters spanned two to three blocks as they walked.
We stepped out of the march by the Seattle Convention Center to look at the crowd and the rest of the protest signs. The marchers went further on down Pike Street, and turned on First Avenue to reach the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building.
I walked around downtown’s Third Avenue this afternoon, and took a few pictures of the new First Light 48-story condominium complex at the edge of Belltown neighborhood. I had no access to go inside, but just look up “First Light Seattle” for glamorous pictures of the pool deck, and views of Puget Sound and the Space Needle.
It has 459 units that range from studios ($650k and up) to 3-bed, 3-bath penthouses ($3m and up).
This is Virginia Street, with 3rd Avenue at the traffic light. The First Light condo tower has 48 stories. That cantilevered structure at the top is a deck with a swimming pool and a hot tub.Third Avenue is on the route for several buses; also the C-Line Rapid Ride. Great for the condo residents and their visitors to have bus stops right there, but one has to wonder how many will actually use it. There is an 8-level parking garage with 373 parking spaces below the tower!Looking up, standing on 3rd Avenue. The City of Seattle has made great strides at keeping the downtown streets tidy and clean. There actually were cleaners out and about today with their three-wheel bikes fitted with large baskets with brooms and cleaning supplies.The base floors of the building have these strands of cables fitted with disks of glass. The First Light website says designer John Hogan’s “veil” of strung glass disks by the office floors diffuse the bland looks outside (parking garages and brick walls), and at the same time increases the privacy inside.So yes: in the immediate vicinity of the First Light building (looking south down 3rd Avenue), the old parking garages and brick buildings do not offer a whole lot to look at.
Happy Friday, and Happy Easter.
We had sunny weather all week here in the city, and today the temperatures touched 70°F (21°C).
It will be cooler with a little bit of rain over the weekend.
A few sun-seekers are soaking up the late afternoon sunlight, while relaxing on the lawn at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill. It is 6 o’clock, and sunset is still two hours away.
It was time for a jaunt to U-district on the light rail today.
The books are from Magus second-hand bookstore and the other pictures are all from around University Way NE.
We had showers this morning here in Rain City, and a steady rain was sifting down all afternoon and into the evening.
When I ventured out with my umbrella, it felt a little colder than the 57°F (14°C) shown on my weather app.
The storm arrived on cue at 7 pm with some lightning and thunder, and with heavy winds and rain, but no hail.
Power outages for now seem to be limited to one or two areas, and some flight delays at Sea-Tac airport were reported.
It is 9.15 pm as I write this, and I think the worst of the storm activity is over.
Storm clouds pass through the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle just before 7 p.m., ahead of an expected storm Wednesday, March 26, 2025. [Photo by Bettina Hansen / The Seattle Times]
It was a lovely day, just the way the weather prognosticators said it would be, with a high of 71°F (22°C).
I put on my shorts and walked down to the QFC grocery store on Broadway with my lily-white winter legs exposed to the bright sunlight.
There is a thunderstorm brewing off the coast, though, with some dire warnings in the forecast for Wednesday (see below).
(Lucky for us that we still have a National Weather Service— or is it about to be shut down with all the other government agencies?)
Enduring sightings of the sun, since spring had started here in Seattle, are still hard to come by, but we had 57°F (14 °C) today. The high might bump up to 67°F (19°C) tomorrow.
Late afternoon, I walked all the way down to the edge of South Lake Union, and back up to Capitol Hill.
Construction on the 45-story apartment towers at 1200 Stewart Street is still crawling to completion. It looks as if the glass windows and doors have been installed all the way to the top now, but the balconies on those upper floors still need rails and who know what goes on, on the inside.After I have crossed Interstate 5 on the Denny Way overpass, I always turn around to look for the Space Needle. There it is, hiding behind the Onni South Lake Union apartment towers (completed May 2022) at 1120 Denny Way.
Here are a few (very ordinary) pictures of Westlake station in downtown Seattle.
I was waiting for the northbound train bound for Capitol Hill.
The southbound train bound for the airport and Angle Lake arrived first.
Then just a few minutes later, another single southbound train car arrived.
It stopped, but it seemed that passengers were not allowed to board.
Then as that car departed, my northbound train was just arriving.
