Wednesday, September 7, 2011

All We Do is Work

In celebration of the Labor Day holiday weekend Matthew was scheduled to work everyday!

Matthew started working for a bike shop not too long ago. Most of the time neither of us minds him going into work because 1) he is only working part time, 2) even though it doesn't pay that great it still brings in a little extra money, 3) Matthew is now not completely bored out of his mind and 4) most of the time he works when I work, but this weekend it was a little bothersome to find out that he had to work at least part of the day for every day of the 3-day holiday weekend. We were hoping to go camping or on a long hike, but our plans were foiled.

However, during the time that we did have together we still wanted to do something and when Jack and Steph showed some interest in hanging out with us we decided that we needed to do something adventurous, so we decided to go on the Underground Tour of Seattle.


Did you know that what today is known as Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle completely burned to the ground way back when? What's more, no one died in the fire. And even more impressive, that fire actually made it so that Seattle is now on a more firm foundation. Needless to say the tour was very interesting.


Most of underground Seattle is a bunch of "basements." When rebuilding Seattle the people purposely built the buildings with the intent that the 1st floor would be underground and the 2nd floor would eventually be the main entrance. The 1st floor would become a basement because of the retaining wall that would be built around the city blocks. It was quite fascinating and I don't think I could adequately explain how all this was done, so this is my plug for the Underground Tour; anyone visiting Seattle should take the tour!

Above left: old elevator pieces being stored in one of the "basements" Above right: a piece of the old sewer system in Seattle

Above left: An entrance way to one of the buildings from the old first floor, now basement Above right: An entrance way to one of the buildings from the old 2nd floor, now main entrance

Above: Random cool shots of structures in the underground of Seattle

Above: The two pictures above show window-like structures from two different views. The one on the left is from underground and the one on the right is the same window on the sidewalk. They built these window-like structures so that those shopping while the retaining wall/sidewalk construction was in process wouldn't be completely left in the dark.

After the tour we took Jack and Steph to see the gum wall at Pike Place Market. It was just as gross as it was the first time we went. This time we remembered to bring gum, but I couldn't get myself to contribute to the museum.

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