Day 53 Seattle August 3, 2001

! went into Seattle today. You have to take the ferry across. After
checqueing the schedule it was determined that ! could go @ 8 am or 9:35. If
! missed that one it would be 3 pm before the next one went over. Since !
wanted to ride the Jackal ! skipped the van ride to the dock. ! left right
after it did and went to town (Vashon). Of course going to town was the wrong
way to go. Not too far out of the way thankfully. The only info ! got was
"it's pretty far" Now ! was running late. ! had to time trial an unknown
distance in about 20 minutes. Off ! went. It was 5 miles and ! was really
moving fast. ! wasn't sure ! was on the right track since there were no signs
along the way. Then down a steep hill. ! got to the dock just in time and
onto the ferry. ! got to talk to another 'cross racer & his girl friend who
were a minute later than ! was. 20 minutes later we were in Seattle. First
thing to do was the Underground tour. After 20 minutes of colorful history
that by itself was worth the admission we split up into groups to go out and
tour the first floors of several buildings downtown. The whole thing took 2
hours and was very humorous. It seems the first mayor was a democrat. He
introduced Seattle (then Duwamps) to corruption. He had the streets paved.
Just from his house to his office. He hired a relative to be the county
secretary. She lived in Ohio and didn't do anything except deposit her
paychecque. When he got his tax bill from the city he would sue and as the
mayor he would settle the case for large sums of money. W/ the city on the
brink of bankruptcy he set up a lottery to raise funds. Can you guess who
won? That's right. They reelected him a few times after that. Basically, the
guy who settled the area saw a huge hill covered w/ big trees right above the
bay. Chop the trees, roll them down to the ships and send them to San
Francisco. Bring back a shipload of money. He surveyed for the city on the
mud flats on the shore. Alas, he did his survey @ low tide. They built the
town anyway. There were sewage problems. In 1890 most of the town burned. The
city wanted to use water to sluice the dirt from the hill down to the flats
to raise the ground level. Estimated time for it to dry out and be usable was
10 years. During the wrangling brick buildings started going up fast. The
city decided to raise the street level above sea level and put in sewer
lines. They did this by building walls around all the buildings 8'-32' high
depending on how far up the hill they were. Once the walls were built the
started filling in between them. Mostly w/ dirt (they moved more dirt than
was moved for the Panama Canal), but also trash, dead animals, ship ballast
etc. Then they installed ladders @ each corner so you could cross the street.
After a few years that was a hassle so they put girders between the buildings
and the street walls and installed sidewalks @ street level complete w/
skylights on the corners. Now street level was on the second floor. The first
floors developed a very colorful history. There were several uses through the
years. "Seamstresses", theatres, speakeasies and rats. The city profited
greatly from the Yukon gold rush. After Prohibition was proven to be a
failure the underground fell into disuse. Mostly just old junk that the
building owners didn't want to pay someone to haul away. Then tourists. The
whole city is pretty cool. ! had a mocha before the tour. Then ! went down
the docks across the street and toured the USS John C. Stennis. That's an
aircraft carrier. There are 4 Navy boats in town for Sea Fair this weekend.
The Blue Angels will be performing on Saturday. They were practicing today.
We could hear them underground. ! got to see them fly by once. The line to
the boat was over an hour long. We went in on the hangar level then took the
airplane elevator to the flight deck. They had lots of planes and helicopters
on deck. The Admirals boat was parked in the hangar. That was cool. Then off
to REI before heading back to the ferry. ! saw a few couriers riding around.
About half were on phixies. This town has some steep hills. Back on the
island ! left the ferry lot and looked up a giant hill. ! rode it, but MY
quads burned a terrible burn and MY biceps are sore just from that climb. !
think !'ll take the van and the bus around town tomorrow. 23 miles.