Sitting On Top Of The World

Another Sunday and a day to sleep late. After a relaxing morning we drove to the downtown area for our lunch date at the Space Needle. Thank goodness for the GPS which gets us everywhere we need to go and we arrived and got the car parked. Next door to the Space Needle is a new museum conceived and funded by Paul Allen, who is the partner of Bill Gates and also a billionaire. It is two museums under one roof, one is science fiction and the other a tribute to Jimi Hendrix and other musicians. The building is designed by Frank Gehry and it looks similar to his Disney Symphony Hall in LA, but not nearly as impressive. One side is blue and the other metallic silver.

We started in the science fiction section where Jeff was excited to meet Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still, one of his favorite old movies, but soon had to leave for lunch. We got our hands stamped to return later and went next door to the Space Needle. We got our elevator passes and headed up to the restaurant - 500 feet in the air - and great views of the city and Puget Sound. The meal and service were much better than we expected. We enjoyed our lunch and spent over an hour admiring the scenery from our table. Later we went up a flight to the observation deck and looked out some more.

Next we took the monorail which goes only a few blocks to the downtown area and walked from there to the Pike Place Market. We looked around some more and explored some surrounding streets. I got an iced chai tea at the original Starbucks location. Back on the monorail and to the car. A stop at a supermarket and we were home.

It was a beautiful night to sit outside and Jeff grilled some sausages for his dinner. Later we finished up some odd and ends from the trek and watched The Usual Suspects and Animal House.