Gary-Summer: Seattle Train Trip

Monday, November 7, 2016

Seattle Train Trip - 2016

Seattle Train Trip - 2016
From October 29, 2016 through Nov 5, 2016

Starting: San Jose, CA
Major Stopping Point: Seattle, WA
Ending: San Jose, CA
The Trip : Thoughts : Trail Log : References : Abbrevations

The Trip:

My brother David came to Mountain View to take care of our Mom. This left us a week or so to do a trip. After discussion, Sherri and I decided to do a train trip to Seattle. Instead of driving or flying up there, we decided to take the train. Mostly a good choice

Once we got to Seattle, we walked everyplace, except on two occasions. The first is on the first day, when we took the Monorail from downtown to the Space Needle, by our hotel. It was good for the novelty. The second was when we were leaving,w e took Uber to the train station.

We were surprised that some of our favorite things in Seattle were not what it is known for. We enjoyed the Columbia Center for its view; the Waterfall Garden just to be in a busy city with a sense of refreshment, the Seattle Central Library just because it was books, Washington Park Arboretum because of the openness of it, and then Chihuly Gardens for its elegant glass, and finally the EMP for its vastness of culture.

Thoughts:

Coach or Sleeper? - We went coach, which was probably ok for a day, but if we were going for more than overnight or needed to be fresh the next day, we should consider going with a sleeper.

It was great walking around central Seattle. But it did limit what we were able to do. On the other handle, we got to get a taste of the flavor of Seattle which you cannot do, flying past in a vehicle. On our next trip to Seattle, we will look a bi-modal means of travel.

Sometimes popular places have a problem living up to their billing. I think that is what happened with the Space Needle and Pike Market. While they were enjoyable, it was the unexpected places which we will cherish the memory of.

Trail Log:

Our journal is given by each day. Most mileages came from our GPS.

Date	Title	Miles Walked	Elevation Gained	Time Out	Major Places
Oct 29, 2016	Training to Seattle
Oct 30, 2016	Walking Central Seattle	10.39	1,150'	9:26	Columbia Center Waterfall Gardens Seattle Central Library Pike Market Center for Wooden Boats
Oct 31, 2016	Pioneer Square Park	5.99		7:25	Underground Tours Pioneer Square Park Klondike Gold Rush Metzler Map Piroshky Piroshky
Nov 1, 2016	Washington Park Arboretum	12.16		8:30	Ascona Chocolat Suisse Washington Park Arboretum Interlaken Park Buca di Beppo
Nov 2, 2016	Space Needle	5.23	549'	9:04	Space Needle Chihuly Glass Garden Elliot Bay Book Store REI
Nov 3, 2016	EMP Museum	6.03	478'	4:49	EMP Museum Olympic Sculpture Park Seattle Art Museum
Nov 4, 2016	Train to San Jose

Our total walking was 39.8 miles, Our "average day was 7.96 miles. Of course behind that average our days ranged from 5.25 to 12 miles. But the real thing is over the five days in Seattle, we were out and about 39.25 hours or 7:50. This really was good.

References:
For those of you who might be interested in hiking this hike, here are some references which you can consult:

GPS My City - Several walking tours of many cities around the world. We used this extensively to figure out route and what to see.
Tree Walk Seattle from Rublinetsky - identified many if not all trees in Seattle. While not a must have app, it did make the walking more enjoyable having the tree information at ones fingers. You can also get much of the same information from the City of Seattle
Seattle Lonely Planet
Trip Advisor